The Girl Who Looted Tomorrow

Even without Euphemia saying it, Freya had already moved again.

She closed her eyes and raised her right hand.

A soft white energy gathered at her fingertip.

This was the Rank Four ability Freya had gained, the one called [Life Energy Manipulation].

Since it was tied to the word life, many people might assume the energy should be green.

In truth, it was white, or perhaps colorless.

Following Freya’s will, the life energy burst forth as a beam.

In the blink of an eye, it crossed nearly a hundred feet.

This was Freya’s strongest attack method at the moment.

She opened with her ultimate move right away.

Buzz!

With that roaring sound, the ground of the street was carved into a trench at least three feet wide.

Broken stones and clods of dirt scattered everywhere.

From every angle, this attack was far more powerful than the red-haired man’s gunshot just now.

And this was only the result of Freya firing instantly without charging it.

If she had charged it first, it could have been even stronger.

But no matter how powerful an attack was, it meant nothing if it missed.

Just like before, the moment Freya raised her hand and prepared to attack, the red-haired man moved as if he had seen it coming.

He dodged in advance, stepping into a safe position.

Then he raised his gun, aimed, and began gathering spirituality.

Freya had already entered Mind Sense again.

From her [god’s-eye view], the red-haired man originally appeared as an ordinary black-haired worker.

But the moment he used spirituality, it was like someone had opened a sealed durian.

The presence inside leaked straight out.

It was a sharp, nauseating smell of iron and blood.

Just smelling it made Freya frown.

She finally understood why, during the previous simulation, she had been driven away from the Earth Church when she entered using War Freya’s save file.

Aside from that piercing scent, Freya also sensed his level directly.

“This man is Rank Four.”

“Rank Four War Path.”

Bang!

Another gunshot rang out.

This shot was different from the last.

The bullet carried a red tint.

The moment it struck the shield in front of Euphemia, it exploded like a shell.

Boom!

A massive shock wave spread to both sides.

The ground was instantly blasted into a half-circle crater with a radius of more than six feet.

The reason it was only a half-circle was that the barrier in front of Euphemia had still blocked the entire attack completely.

It had not shaken in the slightest.

At that moment, Euphemia finally found what she had been searching for in her shoulder bag.

It was a blue gemstone about the size of a thumb.

“Hold on to me!”

As she shouted, she poured spirituality into the gemstone.

The next second, the two of them vanished from where they stood without warning.

The red-haired man still held his gun raised.

He stared at the empty street before him, his expression gradually turning grave.

As for Freya, she felt as if she had been stuffed into a washing machine.

After a dizzying whirl, she opened her eyes again and found herself lying on the floor of Euphemia’s rented apartment.

Euphemia slowly climbed up beside her.

She also looked dazed and unsteady.

Only after a while did she finally say, “Good thing I moved the forced teleportation destination to this apartment a few days ago.”

“Otherwise, we would have been in real danger.”

Before that, her forced teleportation destination had been her own house.

In other words, right next door to General Jerome.

If they had teleported there, how could that be called escaping?

They would have been delivering themselves straight to his doorstep.

After a pause, Euphemia added, “Rank Four War Path.”

“Besides [General], the other two Rank Four specializations are [Warrior] and [Hunter].”

“That man is most likely a [Hunter].”

Freya said, “So General Jerome isn’t acting alone.”

“He actually has help.”

Thinking about it carefully, that was not strange.

A general who had served in the military for many years would naturally have subordinates who were absolutely loyal to him.

No matter what the general did, even if it meant treason, those subordinates would follow him.

As for that red-haired man, given his Rank Four strength, Freya guessed he was most likely one of General Jerome’s adjutants.

And the current situation was, without question, as bad as it could get.

There was more than one enemy.

And they had been discovered.

Freya said, “Let’s go.”

“We need to head to Special Affairs right now.”

Originally, she had planned to play it safe.

She wanted to wait for the Mobile Unit to arrive, wait until Special Affairs and the Earth Church were prepared, and perhaps even wait until she completed her ritual and advanced to Rank Five.

Only then would everyone act together and kill General Jerome.

But now, the entire plan had been thrown into chaos.

Freya and Euphemia left immediately.

On the way, Freya could not help thinking.

In the previous simulation, hadn’t the Mobile Unit killed General Jerome once?

Then why had this adjutant not appeared during that operation?

Was it possible that he had appeared, but no one had told her?

Just as the Mobile Unit had deliberately hidden General Jerome’s identity, perhaps they had also suppressed this matter.

After all, this was a general from their own country.

If something like this had happened, of course they would want to keep it quiet.

But the operation back then had not involved only the Mobile Unit.

Several Special Affairs teams had gone as well.

In theory, if that adjutant had truly appeared, there was no way not even a whisper of it would have leaked out.

And the pursuit that day had lasted for an entire day.

The adjutant could not possibly have been unaware of it.

Could Freya understand it this way?

In the previous simulation, this adjutant had deliberately chosen not to appear.

While thinking, Freya and Euphemia arrived at the nearest police station.

The moment they entered, Euphemia spoke decisively.

“I am a registered practitioner.”

“I need to report an extremely serious supernatural incident.”

“Ah… huh?”

The guard on duty at the entrance froze for a moment.

His gaze swept over Euphemia and Freya.

Especially after pausing on Freya for a moment, he abruptly snapped back to his senses.

“Please wait.”

As he spoke, he quickly went upstairs.

Soon, with the sound of approaching footsteps, five official practitioners came down.

This was not the police station near Freya’s home, so the team that came down was naturally not Captain Nolan’s team.

It was another team Freya had never seen before.

The captain of this team was a stern-looking woman wearing glasses.

She frowned slightly and looked at Freya and Euphemia.

“Someone from the Earth Church, and the little girl from the Holmes family?”

Euphemia stepped forward.

She took out her grandfather’s letter and the occult array she had just copied.

Then she explained, “Here is what happened.”

Euphemia’s explanation was brief and easy to understand.

But beneath those simple words lay an almost absurd amount of information.

Among the five official practitioners, someone could not help exclaiming.

“What? Obsidian’s mastermind is Rank Five?”

“And he’s a general of the Kingdom of Tarapaca?”

“An occult array that can burn all of Auxerre City in an instant? Are you serious?”

“Holy hell. No way.”

As for the female captain in glasses, she frowned the entire time as she read the two pieces of evidence Euphemia handed over.

She had to admit that the case Euphemia described was far too outrageous.

Far too absurd.

If not for the two decisive pieces of evidence, she would never have believed it.

Before this, the endless Demon Path practitioners appearing everywhere and causing trouble had indeed left Special Affairs overwhelmed.

But at the end of the day, the Obsidian case had merely been troublesome.

It was like an uncaptured serial killer.

Dangerous?

Certainly.

But that was all.

Now, however, the situation was completely different.

Under Euphemia’s account, that serial killer had transformed into a super terrorist holding a nuclear device.

A case involving a few murders had suddenly become an attempt to blow up an entire city.

The female captain in glasses turned to one of her team members.

“Use the wireless immediately.”

“In my name, request support from the Mobile Unit.”

“This cannot wait.”

Then she looked at the others.

“You, go to the other Special Affairs stations at once.”

“Gather every team here.”

After issuing her orders, the female captain in glasses looked back at Freya and Euphemia.

Her expression was grave.

“So after gathering this intelligence, you two were leaving when you were accidentally discovered by a Rank Four War Path practitioner, suspected to be that general’s adjutant?”

Freya lowered her head and looked at her forearm.

That was where the adjutant had first cut her with his curved blade.

Of course, she had already healed herself.

The wound had long since closed.

She nodded.

“Yes.”

The female captain in glasses could not help sighing.

She truly did not know how to evaluate the situation.

These two girls had uncovered such a massive secret on their own.

That was undoubtedly a great achievement.

But at the last moment, they had also been discovered.

No one knew what the general would do now that his plan had been exposed.

That made the entire situation tense in an instant.

It gave the captain the feeling that the same people who had made the breakthrough had also created the crisis.

Leaving everything else aside, before the Mobile Unit arrived, Auxerre’s current supernatural forces could not possibly stop a Rank Five War Path practitioner and a Rank Four War Path practitioner if the general went berserk.

Euphemia said, “Look on the bright side.”

“If that general isn’t stupid, he should know the Mobile Unit will arrive soon.”

“Right now is his last chance to escape.”

“Maybe he’ll just run.”

Having a terrorist like that hiding somewhere in the country sounded terrifying.

But at least Auxerre City would be safe, wouldn’t it?

Freya, however, said with complete certainty, “Impossible.”

“That man will never run.”