A Regressor's Bucket List

Chapter 187 : Aberdeen (4)

Ludwig Allegro was a person with a rather conservative personality.

He was the type to move cautiously, only able to say, ‘Now I’m starting to get a grasp of things,’ after all information had been organized in his mind.

Even if he appeared endlessly lighthearted on the surface, inwardly, all his actions were the result of completed calculations of gains and losses.

Therefore, when this man said, ‘I have a bad feeling,’ it meant he had already identified the target and the group.

In other words.

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■ Age: 19

■ Occupation: Future Magitek Engineer

■ Description: A future Magitek technology developer for Aberdeen-Delta City. Qualification pending.

■ Special Notes: Currently being pursued by an unknown organization.

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Here, ‘currently being pursued by an unknown organization’ meant they already knew who the organization targeting Emily was and had identified the target.

Since they had initially provided information based on a disguised identity, and Ludwig’s side didn’t seem to intend to give proper information, I couldn’t tell if it was the Demon King’s Army or something else.

However, I could be sure that some unknown entity that had infiltrated Aberdeen was targeting Emily.

What the UMC was trying to hide from me was Emily’s true identity, her importance, and other things probably weren’t as significant.

After all, the more lies there were, the easier they were to expose.

The question that arose then was, if they knew this, ‘Why were they trying to hand Emily over to us?’

The UMC was an agency that, from its very inception, focused on managing unknown entities.

After becoming an independent agency, it gained a broader scope and greater freedom, but its foundation still didn’t stray far from the realm of ‘management.’

Therefore, separate from those under probation externally, it had distinct management zones for subjects requiring direct isolation, and these zones already contained numerous labeled UMC managed subjects.

In other words, if the UMC felt threatened by Emily’s existence and determined that isolation and protection were necessary, they could take her to their subordinate management zones.

They would have accumulated a lot of know-how, and with so many isolated subjects, their defenses would undoubtedly be better than my Guild House, even more thorough than most nations.

The intention behind deliberately leaving that place and handing her over to me, who was relatively vulnerable to danger, was not understandable.

After calmly clearing my complex thoughts and considering it, something suddenly crossed my mind.

‘…If they needed a filter.’

Of course, in my previous life, I had experienced all sorts of hardships through the entire War against Demons, but I had never directly worked for the UMC.

Therefore, while I didn’t know the exact isolation procedures, taking a subject directly to a management zone when they were already being pursued was certainly not the best option from the UMC’s perspective.

No matter how much effort they put into the process, there was bound to be a possibility of external exposure when directly transferring a subject to a management zone.

If the pursuit of a newly isolated subject continued, and they were taken to an existing management zone, and that existing UMC management zone happened to be exposed, it would lead to an even greater danger.

Whether the group pursuing Emily was the Demon King’s Army, a resentful group within the Order Territory, or even a ‘Demonic Species’ of the Demon King’s Army, the UMC had no choice but to be wary of their pursuit.

Of course, Emily was important, but if one were to compare their importance, the complete destruction of the UMC’s management zone, where subjects were isolated due to existing dangers, would be far more critical and pose a greater risk.

However, having just learned of the threat, they couldn’t simply leave Emily as she was.

It was possible that an operation to identify and eliminate them was already underway, but separate from that, the mere exposure of Emily’s existence meant that the immediate danger had increased to an incomparable degree.

Therefore, if I considered that they intended to use our Guild House as a kind of filter, the missing pieces of the puzzle that didn’t quite fit now fell into place.

Until the UMC could perfectly identify and eliminate the group pursuing her.

Or, if complete elimination was difficult, to block the secondary threat until enough information was gathered to safely transfer her to a UMC management zone.

Furthermore.

If my thoughts were correct, the advantages the UMC could gain by entrusting Emily to us weren’t limited to just that.

‘…Probably a conclusion that even considered surveillance of the Guild House.’

In the current situation, the UMC couldn’t help but find our very existence troublesome.

There had been a direct exposure of the UMC as an agency, and they were probably paying close attention to me even before that, but after I spoke of resurrecting the Beastkin Faction, that level of attention would have increased even further.

They would have felt the need for some level of continuous surveillance or managerial observation.

However, from their perspective, continuous observation would have been impossible.

While any Order Territory on the continent would be under their watch, we were located on private land outside the Order Territory.

Methods like sending observation agents, as they usually did, would naturally be restricted.

Therefore, despite feeling the need for management, they wouldn’t have been able to use any particular method for gathering information.

It probably wasn’t enough to make him frantic, but from Ludwig Allegro’s perspective, he must have been somewhat vexed.

Not only was management impossible with their existing methods, but he had even received information that some Hero candidate (?) would revive the Beastkin Faction.

They would need to at least roughly see how that was progressing, but that would have been impossible.

He probably said he wasn’t interested in such things, but given that he actually lured Valencia, there would have been curiosity about how that was possible.

However.

If they had the pretext of protecting Emily from external threats, all of this would be resolved.

Since we hadn’t properly established ourselves yet, the UMC could easily enter the private land under the guise of providing support, and in the process of management, they could eliminate the threat of existing management zones being exposed externally.

Well, there was the drawback that Emily’s existence would be exposed to me, and her own risk level would increase somewhat.

After all, it was impossible to have everything.

Perhaps, as Ludwig Allegro had chosen, the best option for me was to hide her importance with a disguised identity and increase her defenses through UMC personnel.

Indeed, I didn’t think there could have been a better countermeasure than this.

Ludwig himself probably came in person because there were no other alternatives, and he needed to handle this using his authority.

Of course.

From my perspective, there was no reason to refuse.

I had already planned to contact Emily and acquire artifacts when I first came here, so this was nothing short of a windfall.

Of course, if I had been completely fooled by Ludwig Allegro’s disguised identity, thinking of Emily as merely the next Magitek Engineer and truly just ‘taking her in,’ then I would have been playing right into Ludwig’s hands.

Unfortunately, his intentions and plans were clearly visible to me.

Beyond merely seeing through it, my mind was already racing, figuring out how to utilize this situation.

From his perspective, the way he casually brought it up might have seemed quite effective.

But the entire thing had gone awry from the moment his disguised identity didn’t work.

‘…If I play this right.’

Of course, in the immediate environment of the Guild House, there wasn’t much she could do.

The field of Magitek was quite exclusive even among emerging fields, and research or manufacturing processes were only possible with devices specifically developed for Magitek.

To be blunt, it was like building a single structure in a barren wasteland.

Magitek couldn’t possibly flourish in a place that hadn’t even been properly recognized as a Guild.

But that was only for now.

If the UMC entrusted Emily to us for a prolonged period, we could establish a very basic environment through Jerry’s finances.

It would cost a bit, but it wasn’t my money anyway, and Emily might be able to do something even at a very basic level.

My specialty was fighting, so I was ignorant of fields like Magitek, but I remembered a few things she had told me in my previous life.

If they could create a good synergy, it might lead to significant results in the future.

Well, the most important thing was still her will, so thinking this and that without even meeting her yet could just be a futile fantasy.

Probably.

For her, the mere provision of a research environment would be a joy.

* * *

Was my unexpectedly ready acceptance somewhat unsettling?

Or was he letting out a sigh of relief that his plan had succeeded?

Despite their wills aligning, Ludwig Allegro, who didn’t answer immediately, took two more drags from his cigarette, exhaled, then shook his head and muttered.

“Tsk… I really should have extracted more, shouldn’t I have?”

I couldn’t tell if he was being genuine or if his masterful act was simply continuing.

What’s done is done.

He never went back on a choice he had made.

Ludwig Allegro was the kind of person who could consider opportunity costs even in a single word.

He probably made calculations at a more detailed level than I could imagine.

Shrug—

“So, if I go back, will you send her over?”

“If that were the case, why would I bother calling you all the way here? I would have just sent her and told you to take her in.”

“……”

“Wait.”

Saying that, he took off his white gloves and snapped his fingers.

Snap—

Was that the signal?

The people moving around the train station vanished in an instant.

“…Were they all agents?”

Pfft—

“Then, as a secret agency directly under the Order Headquarters, do you think we’d be talking in such an open space without any countermeasures?”

“……”

Tsk—

“It seems we were taken too lightly.”

“……”

“I really should go back and give that Tan guy another good thrashing…”

The empty train station.

Soon after.

A tall woman, appearing to be one of the UMC’s agents, arrived before us, bringing a girl with a familiar appearance.

With short, brown bobbed hair.

Green eyes, almost like a symbol.

Intellectual glasses perched slightly low on her small nose.

A white lab coat that seemed unintentionally oversized.

“…I’m bored to death.”

It was Emily.