One was a middle-aged man with wrinkles near the edges of his brown eyes. The other, a short-haired tall athletic-looking beauty. The atmosphere between them started off light and warm due to the woman's teasing of the older person. Yet not even a minute pa.s.sed and her smiles and hypnotic laughter seemingly vanished, carried off and replaced by the cold air circulating within the place.

"... Where is that man now?"

The man was ma.s.saging his forehead as he leaned his back to the chair. "I sent the coordinates to you by it. Just check. Now that I think about it, I can't inquire anything about that merc. Fortunately, the other man is not masked. I know his companion, the one I commanded to cut off their tongues, is a mercenary from C Empire..."

The woman in front of him immediately turned serious, also closing her eyes to do what he said.

"C Empire huh. Just a few minutes away..."

He sneered. "Easy for you to say. But if I were you, check out first that crippled man before charging towards another battlefield."

The woman stood up, meaningfully looking at him. "You accidentally stirred up trouble so you want me to clean that up too, right?"

Even though the middle-aged man's intention was laid bare, he didn't flinch under scrutiny but instead stared back with an intense coldness and restrained fury. "I saw that woman peeking here from the outside, so I know that you actually went out to deal with the troubles yourself. However, you left out Alessa's location purposely for me. That's considered cleaning up for you, right? You know I should be getting my hard-earned sleep instead of stirring up that unwanted trouble because of you."

'So in short, why don't you fix up my trouble too?' His eyes told her.

She looked away indifferently, "For a very minor matter like that, you sure are bearing a grudge. It's bad for health!"

"So you can stop jesting, aside from the many unpleasantries this morning, must I remind you of what I went through at Country Y just, so I can investigate about Leo Jones there?"

Since the place was owned by the woman and had its security heightened up to the maximum through her system's a.s.sistance, the middle-aged man didn't put much reservation in spouting such highly cla.s.sified information in there.

Anyway, even without factoring the mysterious array he didn't really understand how had been set up, the two of them were sitting inside the cafe, but actually, the woman generously used up a 50k item to isolate the s.p.a.ce two and a half meters of radius from her.

It was the downgraded version of what Clarissa used before against Leo, with no whatsoever restricting properties towards those with abilities to Teleport or Body Swap.

It was good for making sure no sound or anything leaks out from inside though. In fact, no one from the outside would notice what was happening there.

An illusion was cast in place so all the other people would see was a seemingly father and daughter pair taking their daily dose of caffeine early in that morning.

The short-haired woman stifled a laugh as she looked at her 'father'. It was such a puzzle on how her beautiful face made the man's eyes turned sharper and colder.

Deep inside though, the man was regretting that he brought up the two words Country Y. It seemed to have reminded the woman of something amusing to be laughing like that.

"My dearest talent, I didn't know you're so popular overseas as well. How's the feeling of being stalked heavily by your fans there? Is their love so heavy too? I heard one of them almost murdered the guards of the hotel you checked in there just so they can meet you?! Such a fantastic story! It's making my eyes open to how devoted fans can be when it comes to their idol."

"It is no joking material, Sofony." Impatiently replied by the middle-aged man.

"Oh. Well, my mistake. I forgot a few people got injured because one of the fanatics was a young girl wielding an ax as she charged towards anyone who stood against her. The other two are no lesser though. Even now I'm wondering if Country Y is such a lax place that kids can actually have access with real guns."

He angrily threatened. "If you don't stop, I'll harden my heart to freakin' make that man commit suicide! FYI, Miss, I have planted a seed in his brain!"

Sofony almost laughed again but stopped herself since she knew had indeed gone overboard.

"Fine. Stop giving me freezing glares. I'm actually glad that you made it back in one piece and is quite in agony that on the day you returned you experienced death threats and has been poisoned to the point you almost force yourself upon a woman in love with you." In the end, she still giggled.

After placing a small black round device on the tabletop, she turned around and waved a hand, saying before she disappeared along with the 'confined s.p.a.ce'.

"No worries, I appreciate your efforts, so I'll do my best about your request. But don't count on me too much. If that mercenary is someone without any relation to the one I'm searching for, I can't help much then. I'm also useless if it's someone higher than me."

The man was left frowning. When his eyes went down to the item she placed in front of him, one of his brows went up.

"Should I be glad that she still has a conscience to pay up favor with something like this?"

The chandelier hanging above shone hazy rays onto the black surface of the small object. Its clear sheen gave off an eye-piercing glow. The man in the extreme disguise, Chris, stood up and picked it up. Inside his head, 98 began to ramble again with its explanation.

In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of a lithe figure chasing after the woman who just got out of Friendlies.

He absentmindedly muttered to himself.

'I'm bad and selfish for wis.h.i.+ng this. But I hope that mercenary will have even the littlest of connection with that middle-aged host she is looking for.'

A second later, he bemusedly thought,

'Well, it seems at least we've become wonderful friends now, always thinking of using each other for the best of our interests.'