Mochi quickly gestured for me to follow him, leading me away from the exposed, mist-shrouded perimeter and into a small, heavily fortified guardhouse tucked just inside the town walls. The room was sparse, lit only by a single, flickering oil lantern that cast long, dancing shadows across a weathered tactical map pinned to a wooden table. The cynical elf gatekeeper followed us in, locking the heavy iron bolt on the door behind us to ensure absolute privacy.
Finally away from prying eyes, Mochi let out a long sigh and unclasped his heavy iron helm, exposing his golden hair and alert feline ears.
"Bounty Hunter, you came all the way to this lawless border because of the Laulif Flower bounty. Well... consider my blade at your disposal. I will assist you on this raid." Mochi began, his voice dropping into that familiar, intensely focused tone of a seasoned knight.
I stood in complete, evaluating silence behind the Leech's Hollow Mask, my single green eye darting from Mochi to the sweating elf gatekeeper standing by the door.
Sensing my silent calculation, Mochi offered a reassuring, professional nod.
"Don't worry about him. This elf is just an ordinary local gatekeeper who hates the Syndicate as much as we do. I've been using his shift rotation as a cover. My assignment here as a gatekeeper is entirely a disguise; the Luminous Knight Order sent me into Balka undercover to investigate the logistics of the Bloom Syndicate from the inside."
He leaned over the table, his feline ears twitching as he tapped a heavy finger against the borders of the Milky Way Continent on the map.
"I've spent weeks trying to figure out why the Capital Bureau and the Luminous Knight Association only possessed Laulif's basic family records instead of his active syndicate routing sheets, the answer is deceptively simple, Hunter. Laulif is brilliant at exploiting international law. The Holy Bureau's tracking arrays and data registries only have jurisdictional sovereignty within the Andromeda Continent. The moment you step across the border into the Milky Way Continent, or any other territory outside Andromeda's central network, your active records, black-market transactions, and strongholds are completely safe from automated detection. He handles all his human cargo processing on the Milky Way side of the river, leaving the Andromeda Bureau entirely blind." Mochi explained, his golden eyes locking onto the dark slit of my mask.
He reached down to his belt, pulling out a detailed blueprint of the riverside warehouses.
"But he didn't count on us setting up a forward observation post right here at the gateway. If we strike the holding cells tonight under the cover of this river mist, we can cut off his escape routes before his sirens can sound the alarm."
Mochi leaned heavily over the tactical map, his pale finger tracing a thick, dark line running directly beneath the riverside merchant district.
"Here, the primary escape route isn't a hidden dock or a cloaked barge. It's an old, reinforced subterranean sewage system that empties directly past the town's western perimeter walls into the rushing currents of the continental divide river. Without a doubt, this is exactly where Laulif Flower will try to run the moment the sirens sound, and more importantly, it is the exact pipeline they are using to transport the human cargo into the black-market vessels."
I stepped closer to the table, the tattered crimson fabric of my trench coat brushing against the wood as my single green eye locked onto the blueprint.
"We divide and conquer," Mochi continued, looking up from the map to lock his golden eyes onto the dark slit of my Leech's Hollow Mask. He offered a deeply respectful, solemn nod… the exact look of a knight trusting his commander with a high-stakes deployment.
"I will take a squad of hidden vanguard allies and hold the escape routes at the sewage exit. We will seal the pipeline from the outside so not a single syndicate rat escapes."
He straightened his posture, slipping his heavy iron helm back over his golden hair.
"And since you are the legendary bounty hunter who single-handedly dismantled three S-rank bounties... you will handle the primary infiltration. The syndicate's forward base of operations is located directly inside the central hub of that sewage system. That is where they are holding the victims, and that is where they handle the live auctions to wealthy buyers from the outer continents. If you break through the main vault doors from above, you can catch them right in the middle of their transactions."
A cold, predatory thrill rippled through my veins. The puzzle was complete. The 12kg of weaponized tear gas in my spatial inventory ring, paired with my hidden Death Chant firearm, were the perfect tactical tools to flush out a subterranean slave auction.
I reached into my leather purse, ensuring the Registry of the Condemned was secure, and gave Mochi a single, ironclad nod of my heavy hood to seal our tactical pact. The Crimson Phantom was heading underground, and Laulif Flower's empire of flesh was about to be burned to the ground.
The calculations clicked together in my mind with cold, mechanical precision. A direct frontal assault through the main vault doors would turn into a protracted, messy hallway war… a meat grinder that would give Laulif too much time to destroy evidence or execute hostages. I needed to flush them out instantly, aggressively, and without giving the Syndicate guards a chance to form defensive lines.
I reached into the spatial inventory ring resting on my pale right hand, mentally assessing the dense, pressurized canisters of weaponized tear gas I had stockpiled during my time at House 132. It was a brutal chemical agent, capable of rapidly filling enclosed spaces, burning through the respiratory tracks of anyone caught in its path, and inducing blinding, suffocating panic within seconds. If I could locate the primary intake of their subterranean ventilation system and dump the gas directly into the airflow, the entire underground auction house would turn into a toxic tomb.
Laulif Flower, desperate to save his own skin, would be forced to abandon his merchandise and flee blindly down the designated sewage escape route… straight into Mochi's waiting blade. The Luminous Knight would intercept him in the dark, severing the head of the serpent while I cleared the upper levels.
But there was a dark, jagged thorn in this tactical equation.
The weaponized gas didn't discriminate between a heavily armed Syndicate slaver and a terrified, malnourished human captive locked inside a holding cell. Flooding the vents meant the innocent slaves trapped below would choke, their lungs searing in the dark alongside their captors. Some… perhaps many… would not survive the suffocating fog before the ventilation could be cleared.
I paused, my fingers tightening against the strap of my leather purse. The phantom ache of my severed left arm and my gouged right eye throbbed beneath my tattered crimson trench coat, a stark reminder of what it cost to fight this war.
A necessary sacrifice.
If I hesitated now to save a few dozen lives today, the Bloom Syndicate's cross-continental flesh trade would continue to expand into the Milky Way Continent unchecked, dragging thousands more into a lifetime of horrific, unrecorded slavery. To permanently rewrite the future of the province, I had to be willing to let the blood dry on my hands tonight.
Without a single trace of hesitation dancing in my remaining green eye, I pulled out my notepad and sharply scribbled a tactical directive in heavy charcoal:
"LOCATION OF THE VENTILATION SYSTEM FOR THE SEWERS."
Mochi leaned over the table, his golden feline ears pinning back as he read the jagged script. He didn't ask questions; he recognized the ruthless efficiency of a high-tier executioner.
"The main intake grates are cleverly hidden, the Syndicate rigged their air-lines to draw directly from the hollow foundations near the town's primary water supply station to mask the subterranean noise. It's heavily restricted, but my elf friend here knows the patrol routes. He will lead you directly to the access shafts."
The cynical elf gatekeeper nodded grimly, adjusting his leather scout armor and checking the tension on his shortsword.
I flipped the page on my notepad, pressing the charcoal pencil down hard enough to snap the tip as I wrote my final, absolute command for the knight:
"BRING ME THE HEAD OF LAULIF FLOWER."
Mochi looked at the parchment, then looked up into the dark, unyielding slit of my Leech's Hollow Mask. A fierce, unwavering look of absolute devotion settled over his features… the expression of a loyal subordinate accepting a vital decree from a commander he would follow to the gates of hell itself. He slammed his right fist against his chest armor in a formal knightly salute, his feline ears twitching with lethal intent.
"Consider it done, Bounty Hunter, the rat will not see the morning sun."