novelraw Chapter 223 – Insider
Chapter 223 – Insider
With Bea at the front, the group moved from her office to the guest room to meet with Galene. The guest room was more lavish and actually used for negotiations at times. The couches were much wider, with space for large parties to sit. The group could finally sit without having to squeeze together.
“Wow… I didn’t expect so many people to come…” Galene said.
She, Abby, and Lythea were already in the room when they arrived. So many people entering the room like that was enough to make them nervous.
Galene waited for everyone to settle down before asking her next question. “Hmm? Where’s Iroha?”
“It’s a long story…” Katja said. “A lot has happened, and right now she’s been-”
“Busy. She’s busy.” Carol cut her off, then whispered in her ear. “Why are you so ready to spill everything to some girls you never met? No need to go into detail with them, got it?”
“Why? Are they not your friends?”
“I don’t trust them. Not entirely anyway. Especially that girl on the right…” Carol’s hostility guided Katja’s focus to Lythea, who was doing her best to make herself seem small.
They were trying to be sneaky, but Lythea was particularly sensitive to that kind of gaze. “Eeeek! Did I do something wrong?! It’s because I’m ugly, isn’t it? Just pretend I’m not here. Someone like me is not worthy of being acknowledged anyway…”
Katja and Narumi had no idea why the girl reacted the way she did. They felt bad for her.
“Come on… They can’t pretend you’re not here. They’re here to hear what you have to say.” Galene tried to comfort the girl, but it didn’t do much.
“And what exactly is that? The… princess… told us you had information for us. What’s this about?” Carol asked.
“It’s about what happened in the tournament. With the dragon. We found a few things that Iroha might want to know about. I meant to tell her directly, but it seems she’s not here.”
Dragon? What? Katja and Narumi weren’t following, so Hecate explained by whispering in their ears.
“Don’t worry about it. You can tell us, and we’ll carry the message.” Carol continued the conversation.
Ayumu? You mean the girl from the mall? She’s the one that hurt you? I won’t forgive her… Those were Narumi’s and Katja’s reactions to the story, respectively. Forget about that for now, we can talk about it later. Hecate patted their heads.
“I understand. Iroha seems to trust you, so I’ll leave it to you. I’ll let Lythea explain our findings then.” Galene said.
“Me?! D- do I have to?!” Galene nodded, and Lythea resigned herself. “I- I- don’t want to bother anyone, so I’ll be quick… Th- there’s a group that has been targeting Galene for a while now, and I- I think some of you have gotten caught up in their plans before. There’s this individual named Thivadi, don’t know if you’ve met him before or not, Iroha has… B- but he’s the leader of that group… He’s a demon who’s living in a neighboring country disguised as a noble, and he has the power to create and control undead. The dragon that came to Ebrilyon the other day was his doing…”
“Thivadi…” Carol muttered to herself. She was familiar with him… Iroha mentioned him before.
“Wasn’t the dragon why Hecate got hurt?” Narumi asked. “He’s our enemy, isn’t he?” Avenging the harm caused to Hecate was about the only way she could stomach violent thoughts.
“Sounds like it… We’ll make him pay…” Katja said.
“Calm down, you two… I’m fine. No need to get mad now. Don’t we have something more important to worry about?” Iroha… Hecate’s question got their brains working normally again.
“Uhmm… Th- Thivadi is also our enemy… My master’s enemy. So… if you were interested, I was thinking w- we could maybe work together…? I- I can’t really k- kill him on my own as things stand…”
“For sure.” Carol immediately said. “If he’s behind all that, he’s our enemy too. But you’ll have to wait. We have something else we need to take care of first.”
“W- wait?” Lythea asked. “Ho- how long am I supposed to wait… M- my master wo- would prefer that we deal with h-”
“Just wait, okay?” Eeek! Lythea got scared after Carol raised her voice. “And don’t you dare go after him without us. We have to make him pay with our own hands…”
Lythea squirmed. How unreasonable… She wanted to say something, but the small girl was pretty scary. She looked like she was ready to bite her. Lythea couldn’t handle that type. “I- I understand… I’ll let my master know…”
…
The girls from the House then returned to their world. It was getting late.
Hecate and Carol felt like they understood Iroha a little better after that conversation. There were a lot of times when Iroha didn’t explain enough. Let’s do this, our goal is that… not very clear but always to keep their enemies in check. To keep everyone safe. Now it was up to them to manage these threats.
They needed to get her back before someone dangerous targeted them again. To discuss their plans as a group, the girls sat on the couches of the dorm in a circle.
“Let’s try to organize our thoughts a bit first.” Katja leaned forward with the others huddling in. “If we want to save Iroha, first, we have to find where they’ve taken her. Then we’ll need to come up with an infiltration and escape plan. We won’t be able to do anything unless we know the layout of where she is, so…”
“We’ll need to find someone on the inside.” Carol said.
Hecate nodded. “We’ll also need a hideout. If we rescue Iroha without getting caught, the first place they’re going to look for her is here at the House. We need a place completely unrelated to any of us.”
“Shinji could probably help with that…” Narumi said.
“He definitely could, but…” Katja hesitated, and they all agreed.
“We can’t ask him to fight the PSF with us… He’s already done plenty for us…” Hecate put it into words.
“And the worst part is that he’s not going to hesitate to put his neck on the line for us… If he so much as hears that we’re planning on saving Iroha, he’s going to want to help.” Carol said.
“What about our hideout?” Narumi asked.
“Hmm… We’ll just have to be honest.” Katja was the one who knew Shinji the longest. It was possible to get help without putting him at risk. “We’ll tell him honestly what we need, and that we want him to be safe. If he can find us a hideout, we’ll thank him for all he’s done and say goodbye. We’ll solve our own problems on our own.”
“If you think you can do that, fine by me.” Carol said. “As long as we don’t drag him down because of our selfish decisions…”
“But none of that matter unless we can figure out the rest. How are we going to find someone in the PSF willing to work with us?” They could wait to ask Shinji until they had the rest sorted. Narumi pointed that out.
“That’s true… We need someone on the inside, don’t we? Tsk… How are we gonna find someone like that? Isn’t everyone there against us?”
“Sorry…” Katja hung her head. “If it wasn’t for me being a Kurokawa, you might have found someone.”
“There’s no use lamenting what we can’t change.” Hecate said. “Right now, we need to think. Who could possibly help us? Or rather, if there is someone willing to turn traitor, how can we contact them?”
“That line of thinking is good!” Narumi said. “We don’t even need an agent! Just information is fine! We should focus on that instead!”
“Even then, doesn’t make out job any easier…” Carol shrugged. “Just focusing on the information is not gonna make it fall on our laps out of nowhere…”
*Knock knock*
As if on cue, someone knocked on the door to the dorm. Wait… The dorm? All of the girls snapped their heads to the door.
“Shinji?” Carol tossed out, looking at the others.
“That’s impossible…” Katja said. “After what happened with Iroha, he’s gonna be busy for a few days straight. There’s no way he’s already back… And he would have contacted us in advance the moment there were any developments, but we haven’t heard anything.”
“Who is it, then?” Narumi asked.
Whoever it was, they weren’t going away just because no one replied. The girls stood up from the couch and crept toward the door. They stacked themselves on either side of the door like they were part of the military. Which they were, actually.
“Ready?” Carol whispered with a hand on the handle.
“Ngh…” Katja nodded.
*Wooosh!*
The door flung open, and they all peeked out at the same time.
They were greeted with the face of a girl wearing a suit. Long white hair that exuded an ethereal beauty. And a pair of stylish sunglasses that covered her eyes. The black suit accented her slender figure, and the black pants adorned her long, thin legs all the way to her heels.
“Hi there! Took you long enough.” But the cheery tone of her voice completely clashed with the seriousness of the suit. The girl even pulled her glasses down in a seductive yet playful way.
“Mi- Miyuki…?” They gasped.
“Why are you-?” Here? Was what Narumi was going to ask, but they had more pressing issues.
“How did you find out about this place? How did you get through the front gate? You’re not allowed on these premises.” Katja lowered her stance defensively and the others instinctively followed her lead.
“Fufufu…” Miyuki calmly took off her glasses and hung them from her breast pocket. “Come on girls. We went to the beach together, didn’t we? Aren’t we friends? Why are you looking at me like that?” Resting a hand on her hip, Miyuki shot them a ‘what am I going to do with you?’ smile. “I’m here to help.”
“He- help?!” Carol glared. Who invited her over? It certainly wasn’t her, it probably wasn’t Katja, and the other two didn’t join them when they went to school. “Don’t mess with us. What are you talking about?”
“Ehhh? Isn’t it obvious? I’m here to help rescue Iroha.”