novelraw Chapter 466: The Hawk’s Nest
Chapter 466: The Hawk’s Nest
The car tore down the road at a terrifying speed, the asphalt reduced to rags.
As if he had the entire geography of Harlem carved into his head, William Walker never stopped once. The moment he confirmed a blocked path, he flicked the wheel and cleanly altered the route. He avoided shards of glass that could’ve shredded the tires with absurd precision, and he slipped forward like a loach without hitting the people frozen in panic.
Even Kairos probably couldn’t have cut through this wrecked street as fast as William.
Thanks to the problem-solver’s skill, we reached the end of the controlled zone in no time. As William Walker had instructed, Lin and I slid down to the floor behind the back seats and pulled a black vinyl sheet over ourselves—big enough to cover three corpses.
“Thank you for your hard work.”
If Lin or I had been sitting in the driver’s seat, they definitely would’ve told us to lift the plastic.
The soldiers might’ve opened the back door themselves and climbed in.
“Yessir. You’re residents here, right?”
But they didn’t make a single demand of William Walker.
Whether it was because of his reputation or because he skillfully slipped bills into their hands, I couldn’t tell.
Either way, we exited the controlled zone peacefully and quickly.
Vroooom!
While forming a human sandwich with Lin, I flailed my limbs and crawled into the passenger seat. After grabbing my sword as well, I buckled the seatbelt again and seized the handle.
One hour left.
The GPS said it would take 1 hour and 10 minutes to reach the target district.
Ten minutes.
Could we cut that down?
VROOOOOM!
As if it could smell my anxiety, the car accelerated even more.
I sat in the passenger seat with my senses sharpened, but without finding anything specific to do.
Center Core streaked past in lines.
The timing was perfect. If it hadn’t been William, we’d have been under even tighter pressure.
No matter what, I have to get inside the Core.
If necessary, I’d steal a vehicle or even commandeer a nearby Creature as a mount...
“How’d you run into the old spider?”
William suddenly spoke.
The thread of my thoughts snapped, and I whipped my head toward him.
Was he going to stop pretending he didn’t know me now?
Without taking his eyes off the windshield, he layered on the question.
“Did that granny come find you first?”
“Yes.”
Then I asked something I’d been curious about.
“Why were you at her house?”
He’d probably gone to check on the old spider’s safety.
Still, I wanted to be sure—that was why I asked. William’s lips curved upward.
“Guess I acted pretty clean, huh?”
That answer made no sense.
Acted?
Jaeyeon?
My muscles tensed, fingers clamping around the sword hilt.
Screeech!
At that exact moment, the car drifted.
Displaying insane lane-cutting skill, William spoke.
“There were materials at the old spider’s house I wanted to verify.”
...Hm?
Ah, so that’s what he meant by acting well?
I understood his words a beat late.
So he hadn’t gone there and then realized she wasn’t home—he’d known she wasn’t home and visited on purpose.
Materials...
What materials...?
“The Supreme Commander gave me some side work.”
My back straightened.
Now I fully understood what William was getting at.
“He said you seem to like having people come to your house, invited me over, and then dumped an armful of documents on me.”
“Ah.”
I remembered Yehyeon sitting at the dining table buried in paperwork.
I also recalled what he’d hurriedly said to me after hearing about the Lyle family.
The location of the Core where Kyle’s spy was.
A sweet smell.
Cocoa and chocolate...
“How was it?”
I forgot I was supposed to be playing the part of a deserter meeting him for the first time.
Loosening my grip on the sword hilt, I asked,
“Did you find anything?”
No matter how I searched my memory, I couldn’t recall anything about a young girl.
Had I completely forgotten? Or, back then, had she been like the office clock or the bookshelf in a library—so natural and unremarkable she never entered my awareness?
Or was she lying?
But it had been the old spider who brought up the Elder first...
“A chocolate ice cream menu.”
Hooonk!
William cut across lanes again, and the car behind us blasted an enraged horn.
I reached out to turn on ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ the hazard lights, but I couldn’t take my eyes off his profile.
What the hell is that supposed to mean.
“What about the menu?”
“Choco sundae.”
William said it again.
Flicking the wheel.
“With marble cake on top.”
Ice cream.
A fragment of memory dropped.
Two scoops of ice cream and a pound cake laced with marble patterns. Sometimes topped with nuts or jelly. Or instead of marble cake, pastry with caramel-coated nuts tossed in.
I even remembered the names. The one with marble cake was Marble Chocolate Sundae.
The one with pastry was The Chocolate Pastry.
They were sold at the café on the first floor of that vast yet suffocating space we’d been allowed back then. That was where I first drank something called coffee. An Americano with ice cubes floating in it.
At first I’d thought, what kind of medicine do humans drink?
But I was quickly captivated and started visiting the café often.
I hardly ever ate sundaes. There had been similar things in the Empire, and I didn’t want to risk spilling it on an expensive suit.
They looked flashy, too—holding one felt undignified.
For roughly similar reasons, Kyle rarely ate them either.
Instead of things like that, we were busy drinking high-end liquor and wine, eating dishes with caviar and truffles.
So...
“Man, sorry sometimes it feels like I’m the only one comfortable.”
Back when we hadn’t split yet.
The Swordmaster we’d treated as a hidden card, someone we didn’t like presenting too openly before humans at the time.
Rei, from a prestigious noble family—someone we tried to make seem like he had the least say and lowest status among the three of us—bought sundaes the most often.
He’d said the taste was incredible and even bought them frequently for people around him.
“There’s a kid too.”
His words rolled into my mind.
“She’s crazy smart. Says she’s not lonely. She’s used to being treated like this, but she’s not some ordinary student...”
Hooonk!
Screeech!
“Whoa. That time we almost hit.”
“If we crash, I’ll deduct it from the fee, so don’t worry.”
William answered Lin’s muttering bluntly.
“Fifty minutes left.”
I let their exchange pass through one ear.
For a moment, I even forgot about the remaining time.
Rei.
That name was all I could think of.
In the end, everything circled back to Rei.
Rei Renyr, who had crumbled into ash.
The knight who’d stood beside Kyle and aimed his sword at me with tears in his eyes.
The knight who’d turned to ash when pierced by my blade.
The old spider must’ve told a small lie.
It wasn’t me who’d handed her chocolate.
It was Rei Renyr.
Twenty minutes until Core formation.
Lin was regretting everything.
I should’ve just stayed in Harlem!
The closer they got to the target district, the stronger that thought grew. His crisis-detection radar was blaring louder and louder.
The place they were heading toward was probably close to certain death.
From the moment he realized that, Lin didn’t even half-listen to the conversation in the front seats.
Instead, trembling, he focused on the roaring thunder coming from the direction they were racing toward.
...Should I jump out?
He considered it briefly.
The problem-solver called Walker was driving too fast for him to put that thought into action.
How the hell did it end up like this?
Clutching his gun tight, curling his body inward, Lin tried to pinpoint where things had gone wrong.
Getting into the problem-solver’s car. Getting caught with drugs. Asking for casual-speech time, getting approval, enjoying it. Not running away from the residence...
Getting caught by Rose.
Yeah, that was the biggest issue.
He never should’ve gotten caught by that crazy woman whose eyes were glued to the Captain.
Up until then, he’d been living a fairly peaceful and satisfying life. Ever since he’d sensed the Captain’s presence, he’d drastically reduced the scale of his delinquency. He’d figured that at this level, Hildebert wouldn’t personally come and knock some sense into him.
It wasn’t like he’d forgotten the times Hildebert had knocked him down before.
Anyway, he’d kept his head low. He thought that would be enough—and for a while, it had been relatively peaceful.
Then one day he’d come home and found a pair of red eyes blinking in the dark...
.......
And now, after all this time, he’d come looking for him to work?
In the first place, it had been shocking enough that Hildebert had returned alive.
A few years ago, Hildebert Taleb’s presence had suddenly been felt again on Earth.
Clear. Familiar.
Like the others of his kin, Lin had sensed it.
And he’d felt two extremely violent emotions.
He’s really alive!
Yeah, that idiotically strong bastard couldn’t have died!
And.
We’re fucked.
Both were sincere. Lin had felt two overwhelmingly powerful emotions at the same time. While he’d been joyfully pressing a gun to a rival’s temple, he’d been so stunned he’d rushed back to his safehouse without even savoring the taste of revenge he’d long awaited.
And for a week, he’d trembled in that safehouse and refused to come out.
Why did you only come back now?
He’d thought that for a whole week.
Honestly, he’d been living well enough. When Hildebert’s presence had abruptly cut off, he’d cried for an entire day without realizing it—but still, Lin had lived well. Sometimes he’d miss that white hair sticking out in all directions. Miss his gentle yet firm commands.
But he’d gotten used to a world without him.
And before, had he used to vomit up his insides like that too?
He couldn’t really remember. In any case, it wasn’t a good sign. With Kyle starting to move now, Hildebert needed to be intact if Lin wanted his own head to remain attached.
That was assuming Hildebert even survived the battlefield in front of them.
“Ten minutes left.”
“Gah!”
Now the ordinary passenger cars were gone, replaced by a long, open road.
Lost in thought, Lin shrieked when he saw the incoming drones.
“Careful! Careful!!”
BOOOOM!
Shells rained down.
“Now that I think about it.”
Two minutes before Core completion.
Yoow stared ahead and spoke.
“That human didn’t keep his promise to me.”
It was a brief lull.
The bullets that had been pouring down shifted elsewhere.
The people on the rooftop could catch their breath, but none of them relaxed.
X District in full battle...
A battlefield overflowing with modern weapons.
Where the hell is Hildebert?
There’s one minute left—why isn’t he here!
“Fuck!”
Yoow spat a vivid curse.
“If he’s late, I’m gonna curse him even after I die!”
“Isn’t he already inside?”
Beep.
[30]
The timer they’d set sounded.
Yoow spewed curses in Imperial tongue, and Igor—who hadn’t yet become a Swordmaster due to a grain too little delicacy—looked down below the rooftop.
Rose clasped her hands and cast her gaze into the distance.
[20]
“Could’ve at least kept comms properly. Hah.”
[10]
“Did he get attacked right before entering?”
“He should’ve accounted for that before leaving!”
[5]
Time shrank.
The three of them stood frozen, and the artificial voice rang out clear.
The strategist’s previously furrowed brow slowly smoothed as the time drew near.
[4]
[3]
[2]
“Whatever.”
With one second left, Yoow gave up.
“He probably wanted to come too.”
[1]
“If a Swordmaster’s about to be born, maybe we can cling to that and survive—”
There was a sword strike.
A pure white attack that swept through the inside of the Core.
From the rooftop, it was even clearer. The sight resembled multiple wings unfolding in sequence.
They spread while swallowing the Humvees and forces on the ground.
The reason Hildebert had been given the title of the Empire’s Sacred Wings.
White traces of the sword embroidered across the floor of the forming Core.
“Haha!”
Igor burst into laughter.
Their hair whipped in the wind created by the strike. Rose screamed in excitement, and Yoow let out a curse of relief.
Cheers from their kin echoed up from the lower floors.
Lingering gusts following the fading blade.
[Core formation complete.]
Hildebert had arrived at the Hawk’s Nest.