“Do you hear that?” Delores suddenly asked, signaling for Man Hunter to stop talking. Her ears perked up as she tried to focus on the faint noise she had just caught.

“Hear what?” Man Hunter asked, narrowing her eyes.

“That noise—” Delores started, but before she could finish, Man Hunter cut in with urgency, “It’s coming from the elevator shaft. Hurry!” Experience tales at NovelBin.Côm

Without hesitation, the two of them rushed toward the shaft, heading downward in pursuit of the sound. That’s when they noticed it—a mud blockade, and above it, a massive man clad in green, spandex-like armor, prying open the elevator doors and stepping onto the floor.

Just as they were about to follow him, another figure emerged from the shadows. Delores’ eyes widened. Without thinking, she accelerated toward him, calling out, “Ace!”

Before he could vanish again, she caught him. He struggled against her grip, but she held firm.

“Let go of me, Delores,” he growled.

Instead, she tightened her hold, channeling curse energy to lock him down—no curse tools, no abilities, no escape. Ignoring the chaos erupting below, she made a split-second decision and turned back, heading toward the quieter 47th floor.

On the way up, she deliberately pulled Ace deeper into her embrace, hoping to distract him with her twin prides. But instead of the flustered reaction she expected, Ace shot her a look of utter disgust—which he quickly masked with an annoyed, not-in-the-mood expression.

The realization hit Delores like a punch to the gut, ’Wait… am I the pervert here?!’

Her mental state took a nosedive, ’How the hell did I end up being the weird one in this scenario?!’

She scowled, shifting the blame onto Ace, ’If not for his twisted ways, I never would’ve resorted to something like this!’

Behind them, Man Hunter followed in silence, fully aware that physically restraining Ace herself would technically be a violation. But Delores? As long as he didn’t plan on filing a lawsuit against her, there was nothing stopping her.

“We’re heading home,” Delores declared as she stepped out through the shattered glass wall on the 47th floor.

“No!” Ace immediately protested. When Delores didn’t respond, he tried again, his tone shifting to something almost pleading, “At least take me to the roof of the adjacent building. I promise I won’t try to go down—I’ll just stick to sniping the cult spies.”

Delores let out a frustrated sigh, “What did I tell you, Ace? This place is about to be crawling with Curselings. Trust me, I know firsthand how this cult operates.” She didn’t slow her pace, heading straight out of the C.I.B. headquarters, ignoring both Ace’s protests and Man Hunter, who was quietly trailing behind.

Ace’s voice turned sharp, his frustration boiling over, “Delores, I’m serious. Take me to that rooftop or leave me the hell alone.”

His stern tone caused Delores to pause.

Meanwhile, Man Hunter watched them disappear into the night sky, feeling utterly helpless. She could practically see her promotion waving goodbye to her.

As an Ocean-tier curse master, she had no way to perform flight-type curse arts, nor did she have any flight-capable curse tools on her. If she’d known she’d need one, she would have borrowed something from the bureau’s treasury.

“Fine,” Delores finally relented, sighing. “But at the first sign of Curselings, I’m taking you out of here.”

As they landed on the terrace of the adjacent building, Man Hunter’s eyes lit up. Without hesitation, she launched herself through the shattered glass wall from headquarters’ 47th floor, propelling herself toward the same rooftop. Midair, she twisted her body, then seamlessly transitioned into scaling the building’s exterior with sheer agility, finally pulling herself up to the top.

Rejoining Ace and Delores, Man Hunter found Delores scanning the night sky, eyes sharp with vigilance, while Ace peered through the scope of his rifle, observing the chaos below. However, despite the gruesome scene unfolding in front of C.I.B. headquarters, he showed no intention of firing his rifle to snipe the cultists.

Ace would have loved to pick off the cultists one by one from up here. But there was a problem—Dame Wasp wasn’t with him right now. That’s because he wasn’t the real Ace.

He was Emi Nakamura, his toy summon disguised as him, meant to keep Delores and Man Hunter occupied while the real Ace completed his mission.

Man Hunter sighed, already growing restless. “So, what exactly are we doing here?”

She was getting real tired of watching these two just stand there and do nothing while the agents were fighting for their lives. Seeing them like this she wondered if it was worth it for C.I.B. agents to risk their life to govern peace and balance for these ungrateful pieces of shits.

Sure, this was part of her job, but she could think of a hundred better places to be than babysitting some jackass who was watching her comrades die through the scope of his rifle—without lifting a damn finger to help them.

Had she known the true destructive power of Ace’s railgun, she would have thanked him for holding his fire. There were too many friendlies below who could easily become casualties in the aftermath of a single mischief bullet’s destruction. Unless the target was capable of absorbing all the power of the bullet firing, it would come with a huge risk.

“I don’t know about you,” Delores said, still keeping her gaze on Ace, “but I’m babysitting him.”

Delores made a point to remind Man Hunter that she wasn’t with them but here to surveil them. So, they could never be ’We.’

“Ah, so this is what it feels like to be used and tossed aside,” Man Hunter mocked, reminding Delores of their short-lived alliance to track Ace down.

Delores smirked, “About time you got a taste of your own medicine. You deserve every bit of it.”

“Ouch,” Man Hunter clutched her chest in mock offense, accepting her defeat and remembering why she was up here when her comrades were down there, fighting. So, she decided to take her job up here seriously. Also, she knew Delores had a point. After all, her line of work wasn’t exactly known for its loyalty.

Meanwhile, Ace (EN) peered through the scope of the rail rifle, keeping a close watch on her master. But the moment he left the ground floor and descended into the basement levels, she lost track of him.

She frowned as the curse suppressors embedded in the basement walls were packed far more densely, completely blocking the scope’s vision. As time passed with no sign of him resurfacing, her frustration grew.

Then, out of nowhere—

“Ace, we need to leave! Now!” Delores suddenly exclaimed, panic lacing her voice.

Startled, Ace (EN) turned to look at her, only to find Delores staring up at the sky, eyes wide with urgency. Following her gaze, both Man Hunter and Ace (EN) turned their attention to the dark expanse above and their stomachs dropped.

It was raining Curselings. Hundreds of grotesque, twisted figures plummeted toward the city, though it would still take a couple minutes for them to reach the ground.

Ace (EN) felt a surge of fear, but not for herself. Her master was still underground. And worse—she hadn’t received any updates from him or her sisters in a while.

Just as she was about to check in, a Status Screen suddenly popped up in her field of vision,

[— Status Screen —

Ace: Emi, ditch those fools. It’s about damn time we went home.]

A wave of relief washed over her and also she deduced why she hadn’t seen him leave the C.I.B. building. He must have used the emergency exit, slipping away through the network of back alleys where CCTV cameras were either absent or malfunctioning.

Still, she didn’t execute his order immediately. Instead, she quickly updated him on the situation using the Status Screen.

[— Status Screen —

Emi: Master, look up at the sky. Delores was right. This place is about to turn into a Curseling playground.

Ace: What’s your point?

Emi: We could snipe them from outside the area before they even hit the ground. We could always use more rare and unique curse cores.

Ace: And who’s going to retrieve the cores?

Emi: I’m sure you can persuade Delores to be our porter. If things go south, she can always whisk us away.

Ace: Now that’s a plan I can get behind.]

“Fine. Let’s get out of here,” Ace (EN) finally agreed, stowing the rail rifle away into a storage talisman.

Delores blinked, momentarily thrown off. That was… easy. She had fully expected him to argue, maybe try to convince her to collect curse cores while he sniped from a safe distance. But instead, he just—went along with it?

Her suspicion flared. But before she could dwell on it, Ace (EN) suddenly vanished into thin air, his voice ringing in the wind, “Come find me, I will be waiting for you.”

Delores’s eyes widened.

“CURSE YOU, ACE LANDER!” she roared at the top of her lungs, fists clenched in frustration, ’Damn it!’ He’d pulled a fast one on her again.

This time, she was so sure he couldn’t escape from her. She had kept her eyes locked on his hands, making sure he didn’t pull out that dirty rag-shaped curse tool to slip into the shadows. And he never even took it out, yet he vanished.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep