Chapter 161 - EVO
***Tirnanog, Thich Fortress City***
***Zacharias***
“I didn't believe anyone would be incompetent enough to fail this little operation quite as badly as you did. All you had to do was to watch the subject. Right here, at the seat of our power,” I commented and shook my head while I watched the tech crew set up their equipment. Their time was valuable, so I almost hadn't allowed their deployment. “Now, I would have understood if you had lost her in that confusing airship battle or during a mission…” I let my voice trail off, seeing no need for detailed explanations.
But, for one, there was this nagging feeling called “precognition” in the back of my neck, so I had to know. Plus, the rate of strange reports of missing personnel had shot up in the past few days. In itself, it could be explained away with a dangerous critter which made its way into the city. However, given our current situation, I needed certainty.
The nervous priestess of our “One True Faith” rubbed her clammy hands together. She stood next to me and looked quite concerned at my casual comment. “Please, grand leader, nobody could have known that our enemies have access to small-scale wormhole technology!”
She babbled. “We noted their arrival the moment they entered the subject's accommodations. The only reason we didn't take immediate action was that we wanted to track them back to their base of operations to achieve maximum efficiency! I promise we had our eyes on their movements the entire time! Two people of unknown origin entered the apartment. Only one of them left and came here where he disappeared. As did the two subjects at the apartment and the other person. There is no other explanation for their disappearance unless there are impossibly well-hidden secret pathways at the apartment and here! We had everything under observation.”
I raised an eyebrow and surveyed the 'public toilet'. “And what a fine base it is indeed. Truly a hideout we would expect our enemies to use. If you hadn't come up with an ingenious explanation for your failure, I might have decided to execute you on the spot. This can still happen if it turns out that I drew away the techs without reason. Their work is quite important, as you should know.”
Her only reply was a frightened choke, so I turned my attention to the body on the floor – some nobody who got his head smashed in… on the washbasin of all things. “If it weren’t for the body, I would have assumed your team is just trying to hide a colossal fuck-up. Luckily for you, it looks like this random passers-by was in the wrong place at the wrong time and saw something he shouldn’t have. Do we already know who he was?”
The priestess nodded eagerly while fumbling with a report she had gotten from one of her underlings. “He was a clerk, working at a nearby warehouse. There is no mentionable contribution to the clan. Unpartnered, and without enough combat power to be a soldier.”