Chapter 296
“A safety mechanism?”
“Yeah. There’s plenty of evidence that Prezen joined hands with me - Phantom Thief Zodiac - to carry out intentional sabotage against the Meredith Family. From audio recordings to videos. Prezen himself was even quite cooperative in creating this safety mechanism.”
If he doesn’t keep his promise, all I have to do is spread it; then, family head or not, Prezen will become a public enemy and a target for elimination, a man who was blinded by greed, joined hands with a criminal, and put countless people in danger. I thought this was a sufficient safety mechanism.”
Hmm. She isn’t wrong.
If he were in his right mind, he wouldn’t break the promise while risking such massive danger, a risk that would screw him over definitively.
But there was a problem. Could we really guarantee that Prezen Meredith was in his right mind?
“So, do you think that safety mechanism is working well?”
“I didn’t doubt for a second that it would work well… but it’s not working out. Now, I’m not so sure.”
Ms. Kali shook her head from side to side.
It was easy to guess why she had lost her trust in Prezen Meredith.
I remembered her shouting with a pale face when she realized the Chrome Monster was approaching.
“Damn it, already! Beggar! This is completely different from what we talked about…”
“The Chrome Monster and the high-ranking ninja, they weren’t originally supposed to arrive this quickly, right?”
“Yeah. It was part of the promise we made. Prezen, who can adjust the structure of Mirror Castle with the command authority, was supposed to buy us time by twisting the path those monsters were taking.”
It was one of two things. Either an unexpected variable occurred and Prezen couldn’t stop the monsters, or he had no intention of stopping them in the first place.
“Given the circumstances, it seems like the latter.”
“That’s what I don’t understand. I can understand him drawing the monsters in to try and kill me. I hold his weakness, so he’d want to get rid of me.”
But I’m not an idiot, and I already set it up so that if my vitals disappear, the evidence will automatically be uploaded and spread. I even kindly warned him about it… so why? And even if the monsters kill me, wouldn’t that just result in drawing them to the innermost part faster than planned? Then he’d be the only one taking a loss.”
deny
It did seem like Prezen had betrayed Ms. Kali. But why? Why would he bring a loss upon himself?
A thought suddenly popped into my head.
“It might not be a loss.”
“What?”
To someone whose entire life is money, even the loss of a very small asset can feel painful.
But someone who feels no value in money wouldn’t feel regret even if they lost tens of millions of city dollars.
Or even if they did feel value, their way of thinking itself might be different, allowing them to brush it off lightly as a bold investment.
What is a loss to someone is simultaneously not a loss to someone else.
If he betrayed her, he could lose the family head position, the Meredith Family’s assets, and even his own life.
But Prezen Meredith might not have considered that a loss in the first place.
If he was putting everything he had, including his family and his own life, on the table as stakes without holding anything back, just what kind of gamble was he trying to pull off?
The conclusion was clear.
There was no time.
“I don’t know what kind of crazy stunt Prezen Meredith is trying to pull. Maybe it’s all just a groundless fear, and a bunch of misunderstandings piled up. But it’s certain that we need to get Alexandra out of the innermost part of Mirror Castle as quickly as possible. You agree, right?”
“Yeah. Haa… I was planning to move the young lady to the safest place, achieve my goal, and then safely help her escape, but how on earth did it end up like this.”
I could understand her feeling wronged. How could Ms. Kali have known the innermost part of Mirror Castle would become this dangerous?
But understanding and empathy were two different things. I suppressed the urge to tell her she should have trusted someone trustworthy and spoke.
“We’ll have to join forces. From now on, nothing else matters, so let’s just focus on rescuing Alexandra and safely escaping Mirror Castle together. Let’s put aside all the issues about phantom thieves and betrayals.”
At my words, spoken while looking straight into her eyes, Ms. Kali nodded before pausing.
“Wait, then what about the core technology…”
The look of greed filled that orange Mechanical Eye. This Yangban still hasn’t come to her senses.
I sighed and raised my hand.
I had actually been wanting to try this at least once.
SMACK - !
My palm slapped Ms. Kali’s cheek enthusiastically.
“Ack! Hey! What are you doing?”
I confidently faced Ms. Kali, who was glaring up at me sharply with wide, startled eyes.
My hand hurt as if I had punched a wall. No matter if she had artificial skin, I had slapped a Machine-Lifeform barehanded, so it was inevitable.
Ms. Kali was probably only surprised, and it wouldn’t have hurt her in the slightest.
There was no way the Walking Weapon Kali Haywood would be hurt even a little by a weak slap from an exhausted me.
But whether it hurt or not wasn’t important.
What was important was that I had perfectly cast Schneider’s Secret Technique of face-slapping, that its excellent efficacy had cleared my chest and made me feel refreshed, and that the stained desires in Ms. Kali’s heart had subsided.
I grabbed the flustered Ms. Kali by the collar, shook her, and shouted.
“Snap out of it! Who do you think we’re suffering because of right now, and you think this is the time to be greedy for something dangerous that’s out of your league? Does this situation look relaxed enough for you to get distracted by thievery and have everything you want? At the very least, you should clean up the mess you made yourself!”
At my scolding, Ms. Kali’s face flushed red. When I saw that she still knew shame, it seemed her inner humanity hadn’t been completely consumed by Phantom Thief Zodiac.
“Choose one of the two: Thievery or Young Lady Alexandra. You can’t have both. Do you understand?”
Ms. Kali rolled her eyes at my fierce demeanor.
Her gritted teeth made it seem like she was having a conflict with the Phantom Thief Zodiac inside her, but in the end, the escort Kali Haywood won the fight.
She still seemed to have a bit of lingering regret, but she had made up her mind.
“Alright, alright. Rescuing Young Lady Alexandra is the top priority. You’re right.”
“I’ll trust those words.”
There was no other way but to trust her anyway.
I couldn’t do it alone.
Having used up all my strength facing the Chrome Monster, I desperately needed Ms. Kali’s help to rescue Alexandra.
When I cut the cables binding Ms. Kali, she stood up and glared at me slightly, but eventually took the lead without saying much.
She also knew that my slap was justified.
“You use that. It’s not mine anyway; it’s stolen goods. You shoot well.”
When I tried to return the high-tech rifle Ms. Kali had lent me, she waved her hand in refusal.
I wasn’t confident I could again display that godlike shooting from when the microchip was activated… but for now, I decided not to decline what was given.
Slinging the heavy rifle over my back, I followed Ms. Kali out of the Lounge.
How long had we walked down the seemingly endless mirror corridor?
“Are you sure we’ll reach the innermost part if we go this way?”
“At least according to the information Prezen gave me.”
“…Doesn’t that mean it’s not certain?”
“…”
But fortunately, it seemed Prezen Meredith hadn’t played any tricks with the information.
He didn’t actively block us from going to the innermost part by mobilizing traps or dolls either.
The innermost part was right ahead.
How did I know?
“Visitors will clearly be able to tell that entry into a restricted area is not permitted.”
I remembered the warning the doll had given when we first arrived at Mirror Castle.
I had wondered what it meant back then, but seeing this “Forbidden Zone” right in front of my eyes, I understood.
Swaaaa -
A grid of red light rays covered the entire front.
The distorted, crafted mirror patterns on the walls reflected us in hundreds of fragmented pieces, bouncing the light-amplifying lasers in multiple directions at once.
The strands of light bars embroidered in the air stretched out endlessly. It was a place that anyone could see they shouldn’t go, a place they couldn’t go.
This was a very kind “no entry” sign that even an idiot could understand.
‘I see why he didn’t block us. Aquarium.’
Squeezing my body through the lasers like in a movie was out of the question. Even a tiny fly would have its wings burned off and die if it flew through those gaps.
“…Is there no way?”
I placed my hopes on the legendary Phantom Thief Zodiac, but this Kali Zodiac was truly useless as an ally.
All she did was cling to the ceiling and poke at the densely connected grid of light rays with a wire, nearly getting it burned to a crisp.
When I looked at her pathetically, she flared up.
“What? You do something too! Don’t just stand there watching!”
Of course, I was making my own attempts as well.
I couldn’t use the microchip, but I thought that if I coaxed the artificial intelligence, the System Assistant, well enough, it might be possible to turn off the lasers.
‘…It’s not working.’
But it didn’t work. The System Assistant just kept repeating in my head that it was impossible, without any further explanation.
It seemed to be because of the Prototype AI.
Even an Artificial Intelligence that was a Net Demon was useless as long as an Artificial Intelligence of the same level was blocking it tightly.
It was when we were wasting time bickering with Ms. Kali, having been blocked by an impenetrable obstacle for quite a while.
BEEEEEP -
A sharp buzzer noise rang out from somewhere.
At the same time, the laser bulkhead vanished as if washed away.
Step.
I heard footsteps approaching this way.