The Situation Has Changed
"Let me give you the rough rundown. Of what I saw, that is."
Breck said that, then slowly began his tale.
After finishing his call with me, Breck sighed and looked up at the sky.
"Hah. Yeah, life never goes according to plan."
Especially in massive operations like this, unexpected interference derailing things was something Breck had experienced all too often.
After roughly ruffling his hair, Breck turned to look at the maid standing behind him.
The maid that bastard Abel had sent over temporarily.
'Her name was Mist, right?'
"Mr. Breck, may I offer an opinion?"
"Huh? What's up?"
At Breck's question, Mist calmly voiced her thoughts in her usual even tone.
"I've grasped the current situation from what I've overheard."
She said that while lightly tapping the communicator in her ear, then continued.
"The Saintess is handling the heretics, and you decided Mr. Abel would act on his own judgment."
"That's right."
Breck nodded casually and shifted his gaze to inspect the corpse dealer's building he'd selected.
A roughly four-story structure built on blood money.
And the guys guarding it heavily caught his eye.
Every one of them had rough mana signatures—they looked like recent Awakened who hadn't been at it long.
Mana that unrefined? Freshly awakened punks?
Obviously, ability users forcibly awakened by this drug Miraz.
"You got a way to punch through that?"
"Yes."
Mist nodded lightly at Breck's gaze.
"Hah... Fine. Miss Maid, you're so confident, I'll play along."
"..."
"But on one condition. If your 'plan' involves sacrificing our family members, I'll shut it down flat. Got it?"
"Yes."
At Mist's firm affirmation, Breck immediately moved to rally the family members subtly surrounding the building.
'Hm? Hold on.'
Just as he reached for his communicator, Breck's eyes began to waver.
'Why didn't I notice this maid approaching?'
There was definitely a good distance between him and Mist.
Did she close the gap in that brief moment he was thinking about her?
No, before that—why had he been chatting so casually with her?
Sure, she was Abel's acquaintance, but he'd missed her approach entirely, failed to sense her presence, and just kept talking.
And he hadn't felt even a hint of unease through the whole thing.
'What the...?'
"Is something wrong?"
Breck froze without realizing it.
Then Mist's voice rang in his ear once more.
He turned, and there she was—one step behind him, staring calmly with a perfectly composed face.
Maintaining a distance where she could kill him anytime if she were an assassin.
"Haa... Yeah. Now I get why that bastard Abel handed her the job."
Abel was a monster, and this woman he'd gone all-in on to scout was no ordinary pick either.
Breck let out a sigh and gathered the family members encircling the area.
Soon, with the organization members assembled around Mist, she began outlining the operation.
As her words flowed, their expressions shifted moment by moment.
Disbelief, confusion, doubt. And glances at Breck asking if they were really doing this.
"...Whatever. Let's try it."
"Mr. Breck!?"
...
Mist's plan was dead simple. One line, really.
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!!!"
While the Nostra family drew eyes at the front gate, Mist would infiltrate through the back door.
"Get up quick! Work if you want Miraz, you idiots!"
"Use your abilities!"
"Gah! What the hell?! Sniper rifle! The attackers have a sniper!!!"
And the plan kicked off with smashing success.
Slash!
"You're keeping up nicely."
"..."
Breck stared at Mist, who casually addressed him after decapitating the back-door guards in one stroke.
If it'd been speed beyond what eyes could track, he'd have gotten it.
Outliers who defied common sense existed everywhere, and he wasn't green enough to freak out over that anymore.
Glance.
Breck checked the two guards at the back door.
Corpses with serene expressions, as if they hadn't registered their own deaths.
Insanely fast speed? No.
Special ability? That wasn't it either.
Mist had simply approached the two doormen calmly and ended them with minimal motion.
Breck had watched the whole sequence, yet it made zero sense.
'Why? Why didn't those guys feel any alarm at a maid walking right up to them?'
He'd seen countless abilities in his life.
Handling information was his trade, and he took pride in his own eyes.
Yet what he'd just witnessed refused to process in his head.
Creeeak.
Ignoring Breck's confusion, Mist casually opened the back door with a normal creak and stepped inside, footsteps echoing.
Report
33 ability users, 12 combatants, 10 criminals present.
Total of 65 personnel annihilated in: 2 minutes 13 seconds
Special Notes
All bodies slain by Abel's maid Mist had extremely serene expressions, as if unaware of their own deaths.
"That's everything I saw that maid do."
Breck said that, still frowning like he couldn't make sense of it.
"Here's the rough report I jotted down—read it if you're bored."
"Ah, sure."
The fairly thick report Breck handed over.
Skimming it, the scrawl looked hastily scribbled, densely recording what Mist had done inside that building.
Almost all of it: Mist spotted, but no sense of alarm before death.
"Hmm... Mist."
"Yes."
"Mind if I ask about your ability?"
I said that while shaking the report Breck had given me.
Mist, having heard our whole conversation, nodded with her usual expressionless face.
"Yes. No problem."
With her go-ahead, we wrapped that part up.
"So what happened with the others?"
The last I'd heard, Ariel was entering the hotel taken over by necromancy, and Byak-Young had gone into some noble salon.
At my question, Breck slowly explained the current state.
Ariel's side was mostly wrapped up.
The holy knights and Ariel had rescued everyone detained inside the hotel— all alive.
"Huh? Detained people?"
"Yeah. From what the Saintess said, they were hostages to keep them locked in there."
And the noble salon where Byak-Young entered? Even more ridiculous.
"Automata?"
"Haa... Yeah."
That place wasn't some criminal hideout—it was packed with automata for the nobles' secret pleasures.
That was the source of the mana detected at the salon.
"..."
What the hell...
That wasn't a salon—that needed a whole different word.
A term popped into my head unbidden, and I found myself staring at Breck.
Meeting my gaze, Breck let out a deep sigh too.
"Haa... Anyway, the Saintess's side is mostly cleaned up and in cleanup mode."
"So everything's done?"
Ariel's group was delayed treating the injured,
and Byak-Young's turned out completely unrelated from the start.
"Yeah. Tell me a good time to head back—I'll book the airship then."
Breck nodded at my words, and with that, the whole Miraz drug incident was fully over.
...
Back at the temporary house after everything wrapped, I pulled out some decent snacks and the booze I'd grabbed on the way, setting them on the table.
"So..."
I hadn't paid much attention to Mist's ability before.
I didn't see her as an enemy, and though she occasionally gave me chills, she wasn't outright hostile.
I'd accepted her contract planning to bail from the duke's family after a year anyway—no point stressing over her powers.
"Shall we chat?"
But things had changed.
Now there was this mystery organization gunning for me.
'Feels like a total black curtain no matter how I slice it...'
A shadowy group with suspiciously deep pockets and top-tier intel?
Had to tie into the romance-fantasy black curtain or the academy one somehow.
'That guy I fought...'
A mage and alchemist. Tricky enough already, but I'd picked up more mid-fight.
That mage—Heros, was it?
Anyway, the bastard was an irregular: a mage and Awakened with an ability.
'Screams mid-boss.'
Way too loaded for settings.
Shoving mage, alchemist, and ability onto a mere villain? Proof he wasn't cannon fodder dropping early.
'Already tangled up.'
Stopping this drug mess had linked me with Ariel and this unknown black curtain.
No more deluding myself like some dense novel protag: "Nah, they won't come after me."
That trash was long gone.
Linked now, they'd stick like leeches no matter how hard I dodged.
Not some original-work plot armor or fate bullshit.
'Disrupted their ops—they won't let that slide.'
My past life made it half-predictable.
An outfit sheltering lunatics, brewing drugs, dabbling in necromancy.
Me wrecking their plans? They'd come for my head for sure.
So I had to move first.
Waiting to get jumped wasn't my style.
"Mist."
First step: scout my allies' abilities ahead of time.
"..."
At my call, Mist took the glass I offered and stared quietly.
"You've changed a bit."
"Huh?"
She said that, then carefully poured the booze I'd bought before coming home and handed it over, continuing.
"I figured, based on your personality, you'd just let the report slide."
"..."
"Without asking directly like this."
At Mist's words, I gave a wry smile and leaned back in my chair.
Yeah, I knew it wasn't like me.
As she said, curiosity drove the commission to Breck in the first place.
If things weren't like this, I'd probably have taken his report and called it done.
"Circumstances shifted a little..."
Yeah, they'd changed. In a real headache way.
"...I see."
Mist listened quietly, then slowly nodded.
No probing questions, no suspicion. Just acceptance.
"Understood."
"Surprising. Thought you'd hit me with questions or riddles."
From her view, doubts were natural.
So I'd planned to spill about the mystery org from my chat with Heros.
Didn't expect zero pushback.
"It'd be a lie to say I have no questions."
But.
"Obeying my master—isn't that natural?"
"..."
She'd said it occasionally.
That she saw me as her master.
Like that last line when I ordered her to help Nostra.
Affirming it'd just spell headaches, so I'd ignored it consistently.
Obvious she held a key spot in the Nebla duke's family.
'Haa...'
"Yeah..."
Sigh-worthy, but this damn world wouldn't leave me be—what could I do?
"!!"
Maybe shocked I'd affirm her "master" bit. Mist's eyes widened briefly.
"Then, as your master, I'll ask again. What’s your ability?"
And in that instant, Mist vanished from the seat across me.
"My ability."
Her voice came from right behind my chair.
"Is very simple. Not even an ability, really."
A voice utterly unlike her usual flat tone—damp, soaked in something thick.
"I have the power to control my presence."
Her moist breath mixed with the air tickled my skin.
"Reduce it endlessly to zero. Or amplify it to 100."
Her voice dripped with dense emotion, making me wonder what face she wore.
"This isn't an ability. It's my innate talent."
With that, Mist returned to her seat.
Sitting there, back to her usual blank face, staring at me.
"Hah... You startled me."
I said that, rubbing my still-damp nape from her breath.
Giving me her back in a blink.
I'd felt firsthand how insane her presence control was.
"Does my ability please you?"
Please me?
"Ah, it really does."
Dead serious.
I genuinely loved her power.
"It's exactly what I need to become family head."