At that mont, Delano was, as always, playing the role of an ordinary tavern owner.
Standing behind the bar, he mixed drinks. There were only two custors in the tavern, a man and a woman, and they did not appear to be together.
"How impressive. Using bartending techniques to pass information... I spent a full hour sitting here before I finally managed to make sense of part of it."
The woman's sudden remark made Delano go rigid with shock.
He suppressed the tremor in his hand and turned to look at her with a puzzled expression.
"Miss, were you asking for another refill just now? Sorry, I didn't quite catch that..."
The woman rely sneered.
"There really isn't a single flaw in you. But your companion? That's another story. Far too amateurish."
Delano kept pretending not to understand.
But the man beside her had already risen to his feet, fully on guard.
He drew a dagger from behind his back and held it in a reverse grip.
His center of gravity had dropped. At any mont, he might burst forward with trendous force.
The woman raised a hand and lightly stroked her cheek, her tone tinged with mockery.
"Because you've already had four drinks, yet you still didn't co over to hit on . A beautiful woman like , drinking alone in a shabby little tavern in the middle of nowhere—what kind of man wouldn't be tempted?"
The man was stunned for a mont by her excessive confidence.
But looking at her beautiful makeup and face, he found himself reluctantly accepting the logic.
To keep a low profile, he had deliberately avoided causing any trouble.
And that had actually beco his flaw.
The man shook his head.
Licking his lips, he grinned wickedly.
"You're clearly a smart woman. So why did you decide to stick your nose into this anyway?"
He ran his tongue over the gleaming blade.
"You should understand, shouldn't you? There's no way I can let you leave alive now."
Seeing this, Delano suddenly had a very bad feeling.
He reached into a hidden compartnt behind the liquor cabinet and yanked a chanism hard.
At once, iron shutters slamd down over every entrance and exit of the tavern.
"Idiot, that woman is definitely a problem! Kill her imdiately!"
The woman gave a cold laugh at Delano's reaction.
Then, the man who had just been threatening her suddenly felt his vision blur.
A mont later, his whole body went limp and collapsed to the floor.
Thud.
The man fell without any strength left in him.
Even Delano felt his body suddenly go weak.
He collapsed behind the counter, his face full of shock.
W-what happened?
This feeling... poison?
But when?
He had mixed the alcohol himself. No one knew better than he did what had gone into it.
And besides, he hadn't even drunk any.
Seeing that both enemies had fallen, the woman leisurely picked up her wineglass and drained it in one go. Her expression didn't change in the slightest, as though she had just swallowed a cup of water.
Holding the glass, she walked over to the fallen man, lowered her head, and gently blew a breath toward him.
A faint orchid-like fragrance drifted into his nose.
In the next instant, the man's face changed drastically, as though he were suffering unbearable agony. His whole face turned bluish-purple.
Yet despite that pain, he lacked even the strength to raise a hand. In just a few breaths, blood poured from his seven orifices, and he died where he lay.
On the other side, Delano, sprawled behind the counter, finally realized why he had collapsed.
"Poison...!"
"Correct."
The woman vaulted over the counter in a single motion and landed in front of Delano.
"D-damn you... who are you? Why are you targeting us...?"
The woman flicked the fingernail of her left hand.
With a tallic snap, her nail shot outward like a switchblade, extending several inches longer.
It was razor-sharp, gleaming with a chilling light.
"Who do you think? Other than the Empire, who else is the most likely to want you dead?"
Delano's eyes bulged.
He understood now.
This was betrayal.
Each mber chosen to operate in the Capital had a completely legitimate public identity. Their background, conduct, even their relationships were all airtight.
And on top of that, they had never carried out any major actions.
There was no way the Empire could have discovered them.
So the problem could only have co from the rear.
"Why?!" Delano knew he was dood tonight, but he wanted to understand before he died.
The woman didn't bother hiding anything.
"You people are idiots. Did you really think those mountain bandits and thieves could overthrow the Empire?"
"Thanks to all the intelligence you worked so hard to gather, we made a fortune. And once you've got money like that, who would still want to keep doing work where your head could roll at any mont?"
"Money?"
Delano was startled, yet at the sa ti, the answer felt unsurprising.
The surprising part was that soone within the Revolutionary Army would actually plan to exploit the efforts of their comrades to satisfy personal greed.
And yet, another part of him thought:
If it's for money... then maybe that isn't strange at all.
As soone born and raised in the Capital, Delano knew very well the gap between the upper class and ordinary commoners.
With enough money, even noble connections could be bought.
The collusion between officials and rchants was an everyday sight in the Capital.
Indeed, with enough money, one could live above others even in the Capital.
But if that money ca from stabbing one's own trusted comrades in the back—
that was contemptible beyond words.
"Heh. Farewell, fool."
Poison dripped from the woman's nail.
She let the venom run down her fingertip, then precisely guided it into the man's mouth.
Just like the earlier victim, Delano's expression twisted in agony, and in less than twenty seconds he died a grueso death inside his own tavern.
Roughly five hundred ters away, Noah held Creator-Destroyer in his hands and watched the entire scene of Delano's death through the scope.
After confirming that Delano was truly dead, Noah did not lower the rifle.
Instead, he silently aid at the only survivor left inside the tavern—
the woman.
As he frad her body within the crosshairs, a flicker of excitent appeared in Noah's eyes.
A Teigu user.
He hadn't expected to run into one here.
And an elite of the Revolutionary Army, no less.
The woman was beautiful.
Unfortunately, the only thing Noah was interested in right now was the object hanging from her chest, sothing shaped like a necklace.
[Teigu — "Myriad Crimson Spiders: Death Venom Bloom"]
A Teigu Can infuse any gas or liquid the user cos into contact with with poison, including the user's own bodily fluids or even gas exhaled after inhalation Contains 256 different toxins Grants the user immunity to non-compound poisons, while greatly increasing poison resistance and poison immunity
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