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As soon as the clock signaled the end of work, Alice dashed outside like a bullet.

She headed straight for the western maze, where the ghost had last appeared.

It was only yesterday that such a thing had happened, yet here she was, tirelessly pursuing it all day. For Yuria, the party involved, it was an undeniably obsessive pursuit.

But in truth, Alice hadn’t planned on going this far.

Originally, Raven, having been tasked by Victor, was supposed to conduct investigations directly related to the ghost.

Alice had merely taken on a minor role, gathering rumors or bits of information from the back alleys.

After all, Alice was nothing more than an empty can when it came to skills other than fighting, so it would have been wise for her to stealthily stay out of the way.

Though she wasn’t particularly clever, she certainly wasn’t foolish either.

However, that was merely the case until yesterday.

To think that she would let it slip away at such an agonizingly close distance!

Alice was so furious that she forgot about the diet she’d recently started due to her worries about her belly, eating another half bowl of rice than usual.

“I don’t think he’s a bad guy, but… I’ve already taken a hit, I can’t just let it go.”

Of course, she was half convinced that the ghost wasn’t evil.

After all, what kind of villain would engage in such intense battles with vampires while bleeding profusely?

Yet, knowing that the ghost wasn’t bad and still missing it right in front of her was an entirely separate issue.

Now that she had been properly riled up, Alice couldn’t bear the thought of not giving that ghost a good scolding.

“Wait for me, ghost! I’m going to rip that white cloth off you myself!”

Alice had quite a competitive spirit.

No, to be precise, Alice was very bothersome as long as she wasn’t distracted by something cute.

She would struggle a bit more when feeling cornered until she could break down any walls in her way.

Of course, she may appear quite clumsy in front of a certain silver-haired girl, but that was merely a part of her stress relief.

When she was serious, even Raven found herself at a loss against her stubbornness.

Unfortunately for the ghost, it had drawn the attention of a thoroughly annoying person.

“Let’s see if I can delve a bit deeper this time. I’m particularly concerned about the black market that put out a bounty on the ghost.”

Thus, unlike her usual self, Alice boldly ventured into the depths of the western maze.

Someone as good-looking as her would often get caught up in trouble in the underground world.

Usually, she avoided drawing attention by walking around confidently.

“Hey, look over there! It’s the pink-haired swordswoman.”

“Is that really… the monster who endlessly slaughtered zombies yesterday?”

“Cough, it’s better not to provoke her. I’m not particularly scared, though.”

It seemed that Alice’s appearance during the Blood Night incident had made quite an impression.

The ruffians of the underworld couldn’t easily approach her, and thanks to that, she made her way without any hindrance.

“Excuse me. May I ask you something?”

“Y-yes…! W-what is it…?”

“Do you know anything about the ghost? Even trivial details are fine.”

And she started talking to anyone noticeable, eagerly collecting info on the ghost.

Mainly about when it appeared, common traits of its victims, and any exploits during the Blood Night incident, and so on.

Of course, most of the tales she gathered were either things she already knew or not particularly helpful.

The ghost had always been adept at covering its tracks.

Even if it lived in the underground, after yesterday’s incident, those who had seen the ghost with their own eyes were few and far between.

“If I listen to all this gossip, I might as well believe it’s a real ghost. Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I might’ve thought they were exaggerating.”

So far, no one even knew what the ghost looked like beyond that cloth, nor did they recognize its voice. Merely appearing could cause someone to faint, and there was a chance of losing all their belongings in the process.

Just how thorough was that method, so meticulous that it deepened her worry.

“Sir, do you perhaps know anything about the ghost?”

“Hmm? Young lady, are you a bounty hunter?”

“Um… roughly similar.”

“Tch, give up on the ghost. Soon, the black market will abandon the bounty.”

“They’re canceling the bounty?”

Alice’s eyes widened at the news she received from the old beastman.

She thought the black market might give up on the ghost sooner or later, but she never imagined it would be right after the incident.

Regardless, given that the beastmen were a power to be reckoned with, casually retracting a bounty would tarnish their own reputation.

But listening to the old man’s continuation, there indeed seemed to be a solid reason behind that choice.

“It’s already difficult enough giving consolation money to all the bounty hunters who are furious about the disappearing zombie corpses, and it turns out that the vampire that ghost nearly caught was of noble rank? With such prowess, there’s no way the black market could handle it. If the ghost had a volatile nature, the western maze would have been a bloodbath by now.”

“Well, that’s… certainly true.”

Alice nodded in agreement to the old man’s words, recalling what happened yesterday.

By the time she arrived, Drakel had been too seriously injured to even regenerate his severed limbs.

As for noble vampires, even at their weakest, they would need someone of at least double the number fixer’s strength to confront them.

That meant the ghost must have possessed at least Victor’s level of ability.

It was no wonder the black market had been so startled and panicked.

“And the maze’s public opinion has turned in favor of the ghost. Many witnessed the ghost defeating zombies and vampires right before their eyes.”

“The ghost… you say?”

“Yeah. It’s quite chilling to consider just why the ghost holds such animosity towards zombies.”

The old man described what he had seen with his own eyes to Alice.

Behind the ghost, which darted forth like a white gust of wind, lay a heap of neck-snapped zombies.

And there were vampires impaled against walls and ghouls whose heads were rolling on the floor.

Truly, one could say that the ghost had ground down the most zombies and vampires during that incident.

‘…But why did the ghost go so far?’

As the old man spoke, Alice suddenly felt a sense of discomfort.

Thinking back, she realized it was strange that there was no apparent reason for the ghost to fight so fiercely against vampires.

Did it simply hate vampires that much?

But then again, it had actually been the ghost that revealed the existence of vampires in the first place. It had merely subdued them lightly back then.

For a being so keen on hiding its identity, this incident was almost excessive.

Hadn’t it almost been caught, risking its identity being exposed?

‘Indeed, could it be that the ghost is a superhuman born from horrific human experimentation, just as Victor said?’

As Alice continued her thoughts, she suddenly recalled the ghost’s final gesture when it had greeted her.

A small, battered hand that looked inconceivable for someone with such remarkable abilities.

If it truly was as small and child-like as Victor had described, then how could it possibly fight Drakel so fiercely?

Perhaps, the ghost understood the profound pain of suffering and desperately hoped that no one else would have to endure it.

Although she couldn’t be certain, Alice quietly bit her lip at the vague understandings of the ghost’s thoughts.

‘A kind child… I will definitely find you.’

Alice made a small vow with a different sentiment than earlier.

That the most persistent and bothersome person in the world would absolutely track down the ghost.

And if the ghost was indeed capable of knowing pain while embracing others without hesitation,

She would surely become a being that shared warmth with that child.

For, there were no flowers in this world that weren’t worthy of blooming.

“…?”

Of course, this would be bewildering for Yuria, who was currently tumbling around in Greg’s warm shop.

From her perspective, she had only vented her annoyance because the vampire had provoked her first.

The pain and hardships didn’t matter; they were merely tales from another world.

Misunderstandings continued to accumulate.

*

At the same time, at Crawley’s problem-solving office.

While casually sipping whiskey, enjoying the view of Night Haven through the window, Raven contemplated.

‘Yuria… could it really be the ghost?’

If he were right beside her, he wouldn’t have been able to hide his emotional turbulence due to his sharp deduction!

The reason he had such thoughts was simple.

No matter how he looked at it, everything fit together too well.

In fact, Raven had already grasped even more details about the ghost than Alice had investigated.

Witnesses commonly reported that the ghost was about 130cm tall, a very small figure.

From those who had received help, he confirmed that the ghost was indeed a human, close to being a child.

The timing when the ghost went missing coincided perfectly with when Yuria began working at Greg’s shop.

And importantly, Yuria was an unidentified person whose identity and face were unknown.

Honestly, with this level of circumstantial evidence, it would be strange not to connect the ghost and Yuria.

‘But… there’s an alibi.’

However, all of this was merely conjecture.

There were still many unresolved questions remaining.

If the ghost truly had something to do with superpowers, why had it only revealed itself now, long after the Nexus Project had ended?

How could someone who had undergone an experiment with a survival rate of less than a single digit percent still be physically and mentally healthy?

And most crucially, how could the ghost that had supposedly been drenched in Drakel’s blood appear completely fine the next day?

As long as fortune and coincidence existed in this world,

He couldn’t definitively say that Yuria was the ghost until he caught the ghost in the act and peeled back that cloth.

In truth, it wasn’t something he needed to decide urgently.

Regardless, Yuria was destined to work at his office for about a month. There was plenty of time and opportunity left.

What was important to Raven was not that the ghost was Yuria.

It was whether Yuria had genuinely been born as a superhuman due to the Nexus Project.

And whether she possessed information that could lead to his sister.

Setting everything else aside, these two facts were crucial.

‘There’s no need to rashly poke a hornet’s nest. I’ll wait patiently and look for opportunities.’

Of course, Raven had an instinctive certainty that the ghost was indeed Yuria.

If it weren’t true, he wouldn’t have allowed himself to return alone to the dangerously chaotic Night Haven.

No matter how he was someone who didn’t lend a hand to those who didn’t need help, he wasn’t the type to act cold when someone asked him for protection.

“Hmm? An email…?”

Wondering how long he had been sipping whiskey while taking in the night scenery, a single email arrived at his computer.

The content of the email was an invitation for a party hosted by Nemesis, a company specializing in body modification, inviting him as a fixer.

And the advisory was that up to two companions could accompany him, and all expenses would be covered by Nemesis.

Raven’s savvy sense picked up on a suspicious odor wafting through his nostrils.

This was a death trap luring in prey with the sweet scent.

He had a hunch that something dirty was being concealed in there.

‘Dangerous scent, eh? Sounds tempting.’

Raven grinned.

The most amusing thing in the world was to torment those who commit misdeeds to their heart’s content.

It seemed that the time had finally come for him to engage in his hobbies once more.

*

Somewhere in Night Haven.

In a narrow, dark space filled with the noise of a fan and faint beeping that humans couldn’t perceive,

Among countless computers and monitors scattered about chaotically,

A man buried among keyboards, as if trapped, muttered absently while staring at a flickering screen.

“…Found it.”

His occupation was a code runner.

A hacker who operated in the cyberspace of the new generation of the Internet.

As if he had been waiting for this moment, the man stood up and walked to the window.

What greeted him beyond the glass was a skyline poking into the neon-lit night sky, dotted with towering skyscrapers.

Looking up at the heights that were higher than the clouds, he solemnly opened his mouth.

“Rayne, I’ll be there soon.”

In the dim glow of the monitor, the word “Nemesis” blinked incessantly.