Rust - Chapter 489



Only Krnovel

RUST -489

Toledo, a city near south Detroit.

Somewhere underground, reports were being made of the operation targeting Vladimir Kalin’s Holy Kingdom.

“What happened to the honey trap?”

“It has been confirmed that the Ark Tower kitchen, where Vladimir Kalin and the command staff reside, has been successfully infiltrated.”

“You definitely erased the traces, right?”

“It was easy because the head chef and Roana Blanc knew each other. They invited me directly, so there was no reason for any other traces to be made.”

It wasn’t just about throwing in a pretty girl or a handsome guy to do the infiltration. If there was one person doing the infiltration work, there would be about 7 or 8 people supporting them.

“That’s fortunate.”

“Once Roana Blanc is settled in, I plan to move into Vladiak Tower as part of her Newtuber Management Team. I plan to integrate into it by uploading Kingdom Kitchen content and Royal Cuisine content.”

So far, everything has been going smoothly.

Once you’ve successfully made it to the support team, you start creating public opinion internally.

If you spread light gossip like, “Who seems to like whom?” or “Who went into whose room?” rather than public opinion, the atmosphere will change little by little in your favor.

What would happen if rumors of an affair between Roana Blanc and Vladimir Kalin spread in such a situation? In reality, it didn’t matter whether the honey trap succeeded or failed.

There are five people classified as key figures in the kingdom so far.

Excluding Vladimir Kalin, there are five of them: Kim Yang, Nurse, Hood, Erica, and PD.

There were four women among them.

Do women hold back on love stories?

No way.

It is not clear what kind of feelings they had for Vladimir Kalin, but if there was any emotional exchange…

‘There’s going to be chaos in some way.’

‘Even if there is no emotional exchange, it is unavoidable.’

If I could create an atmosphere and create emotional exchange, it would be like using a beauty trap. That’s why I prepared new equipment.

“Roana Blanc was successful, but what about the military?”

“There is no news.”

“I guess it failed. If it had succeeded, the military would have been too busy bragging.”

“That’s true.”

“By the way, will it work?”

“Are you talking about new equipment?”

“The lab has produced some promising results, but we’ll have to wait and see.”

“It’s more the new repeaters that are the problem. The ones installed in villages on the Canadian side were causing problems, and they’re happening here too.”

This is what happened because I didn’t know that the Wolf Unit and the Sacred Crow Unit were working together to find the small repeater.

“Do you keep getting errors?”

“It’s okay if there’s an error. It just disappears as soon as it’s installed, so we’re using the existing line for communication.”

While disappearing completely was one thing, the bigger problem was that information was delivered late, from a few hours to a day at the most, or even several days in the worst case.

Even if it were just a few hours, it would be time for an incident to break out and a decision to be made, but after a day or a few days, it would literally be just beating the drum.

The importance of information and communications was clearly demonstrated during the Russo-Ukrainian war, and even though new repeaters were installed in collaboration with the military, they were quickly disappearing.

Just in case, I sent an agent nearby, but that agent disappeared along with me, so it was frustrating.

“Could it be a monster rat?”

“It’s not a rat.”

The kingdom strangely had no rat problem.

“It’s fortunate that the rats haven’t chewed through the wires. Thanks to that, wired communication is possible in some sections.”

“···Is the damage that little?”

“Yes. Since this winter, there have been almost none.”

“Please extract the damage-related data separately. It seems necessary to compare and analyze it with other regions.”

“I will do that.”

[Urgent report. The honey trap has failed. Roana Blanc is currently in solitary confinement.]

“How the hell did you get caught like this?”

[There are no other strings in the Vladiak Tower, and I don’t know why. This is information that the head chef has relayed to the Roana Blanc’s Newtuber team.]

“Whew- I guess I’ll go back. Agents who were on standby for Honey-Trap support, evacuate immediately. If it’s difficult to hide in Detroit, retreat to Turley Island.”

“As we retreat… I want you to activate that device. If we’re lucky, there’ll be an opening.”

[You mean that device? Okay.]

It was a piece of equipment I had intended to use when Honey Trap was somewhat on track, but it was better to use it now rather than saving it and letting it go to waste.

The branch manager, who had sorted out the situation, said a word to the headquarters agent who was watching blankly.

“As you can see, the results seem to be wrong.”

“As expected. It’s like this again.”

The branch manager’s mood became uncomfortable at the headquarters agent’s words.

“As expected? This again? Are you saying this knowing that the hastily pushed operation has a low chance of success?”

The head office agent explained that it was not true in response to the angry voice of the branch manager.

“Ah- That’s not what I meant. Strangely enough, getting involved with Vladimir Kalin doesn’t lead to good results.”

“Is there anything else I don’t know about?”

The headquarters agent shrugged his shoulders as if it was not a sign he could explain.

“Then why don’t we just do it like we always did?”

Why not just do what the Virginia Company and the military did to remove the noise? Both Turley and the branch manager knew about Vladimir Kalin’s fighting ability.

‘Are you kidding?’

The branch manager took the silence of the headquarters agent as a joke. No matter how strong they were, if the new human special forces and the special forces of the ability users were to focus on marking them, it didn’t seem impossible.

The head office agent was silent even after reading the branch manager’s thoughts. Was there no one who was after Vladimir Kalin, as the branch manager thought? Everything from the psychic mercenaries to the special forces hostage crisis had failed.

“We tried several times, but the results were not good. The AI ​​just left it until other variables came into play.”

After it was revealed that Vladimir Kalin was the one who single-handedly captured three Aegis ships, as well as disturbing the Wilmington underground research facility that was ready to self-destruct, the Virginia Company AI recommended that they take a wait-and-see approach.

“Huh- Then what do you plan to do at headquarters?”

“That’s why you did the honey trap.”

But that just went away too.

“······.”

“······.”

There was a brief silence between the branch manager and the headquarters agent.

“What if we detonated an EMP at high altitude and launched a massive missile strike?”

“Let’s catch one Vladimir Kalin? If we fail, the worst assassin will be born. Why risk it?”

“Now that we know about the honey trap, he will attack our Confederate forces. We must deal with Vladimir Kalin by any means necessary, even if it means taking some casualties.”

The first place to be attacked by Vladimir Kalin was the neighboring Toledo. That may be why the branch manager kept insisting on the attack.

“The headquarters and the military have decided not to do anything other than honey traps.”

The Confederacy’s main enemy was not the monarchy, but the Empire.

Recent information suggests that the Empire and the Holy Kingdom were not in an active military alliance.

Moreover, there was even information that there was an outrageous story going around that if the empire succeeded in conquering the entire American continent, the Holy Kingdom would also be annexed into the empire without a second thought.

The Confederacy decided that it was okay to weaken the power of the kingdom, but to avoid directly attacking the kingdom or causing the kingdom and the empire to become entangled.

But this honey trap wasn’t just any honey trap.

“We’ve mobilized a variety of new equipment, so let’s just watch for now. Didn’t the branch manager just activate the new equipment and tell us to retreat?”

“······.”

In order for the Honey Trap to be successful, you had to avoid being caught by the psychometry in Vladiak Tower. That’s why the equipment given was a trinket that had protection against mental abilities.

“The equipment had other functions.”

“As you know, it’s a security matter.”

Even if he was the branch manager, I couldn’t know the details.

If you keep revealing confidential information to the branch, how can that be confidential or secure?

The branch manager nodded.

I thought about the new equipment I received when I was given command of Operation Honey-Trap. Wasn’t it just a device to create a gap?

Well, brainwashing and drugs would have been enough to prepare for psychic abilities, but it was strange that they had to use accessories.

“Then won’t you end up having a full-scale fight with Vladimir Kalin?”

“Vladimir Kalindo will not wage war against the Confederacy. If he does, they will target us and the military···.”

The eyes of the headquarters agent asking, ‘Would that make sense?’

Even if Vladimir Kalin were to pursue it in anger, only one laboratory or branch connected to it would be blown away.

Why did they run it as a guerrilla organization and hand over the command of the honey trap operation to the Turley branch because they were bored? So if Vladimir Kalin runs wild, the Turley branch will go down in flames.

“······.”

“······.”

The head office agent gave the branch manager, who had his mouth shut, a look as if to say, “Why are you doing this when you know everything?”

“Let’s wait and see. I’m looking forward to it. Will Vladimir Kalin be able to avoid it this time too?”

“······.”

“Don’t worry. If something happens to kill me, I’ll die here too. Haha-”

“······.”

The headquarters agent’s eyes sparkled.

======

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“How is it? How do you feel?”

The floor gave off a faint scent.

Even though it was weak, it was a killing intent that was difficult for people to handle because it was spread at close range. This was especially true for small-bodied individuals.

Kaaaaaaah-

Seconds after the spraying, the crow that had been sitting on the nurse’s shoulder collapsed. However, the three women remained unfazed, with question marks floating above their heads.

‘Was living a psychic ability? I don’t think so.’

It was difficult to view living simply as a mental ability.

If it was a mental ability, it would have been easy for telepathic Juliana or psychometric Erica to survive, but it wasn’t. Above all, it would not have been easy to catch a bastard who was causing trouble with illusionary abilities.

The problem was not the cause, but the effect. The cause is unknown, but the result is that all three women wearing jewelry are not collapsing.

‘Should I try a little harder?’

How about making life a little stronger?

Kkau-

Rustle-

As Maru lowered his head slightly at the rustling sound, he saw the crow lying on the table, its body trembling and stiffening.

Tsk-

Maru, who had let go of his worries, said.

“Is something strange?”

Miss Kim, who had been blankly staring for a moment, cleared her throat as if to hide her embarrassment.

“Uh- um- big. Big.”

“Eh-eh-eh-”

The nurse, who had been repeating the nonexistent ‘ah’ three times in a row, began to glance at the floor.

“······.”

For some reason, Hood had his head down. It seemed as if he was avoiding Maru’s gaze. All three of their faces were slightly flushed, and Maru’s eyes narrowed.

If it was just one person, I wouldn’t mind, but if it was three people at the same time?

Now that I think about it, something was strange a little while ago too.

Ever since Roana Blanc and Arilyn Newman were here, Kim Yang’s behavior has been strange. And so has Hood.

Both of them wanted to dispose of Roana and Erilyn. There was a reason and logic to it, but the problem is that it was Kim Yang who did it.

‘Miss Kim, who loves delicious food, wants to get rid of a skilled chef? Why not put a leash on him and treat him like a dog?’

The same goes for Hood. It was strange that Hood, who was busy hacking, coding, and then eating sweet, fancy desserts when he got tired, readily agreed with Kim Yang’s opinion.

Above all, the actions of the magnificent nurse are the same.

You don’t embrace Arilin Newman and Roana Blanc with that grandeur. Even Arilin Newman was one-armed. You agree to deal with her in silence, even though she’s a person with a disability?

When I think about it this way, all three of them are strange.

‘Erika is fine, and PD is a bit like that because of his relatives, so he is in the normal category.’

Maru, who was staring blankly at the three women, spoke to the crow.

“There’s a crow. The crow is out.”

Kaaaak- (Thank you.)

The crow staggered to its feet and flew out the window.

“Thank you for your hard work, Erica. PD, please talk to Arilyn Newman.”

At the sound of both of them being told to leave, Erika and the PD headed out of the conference room.

“Take off your jewelry.”

The three women shivered at the cold voice on the floor.

“Right now.”

It was just as Maru had expected.

That means that you have equipment to counter mental abilities.

This meant that there might be equipment that could emit psychic abilities.

Considering that people with psychic abilities have a certain degree of resistance to psychic abilities.

It is possible that mental defense equipment could be equipment that emits mental abilities.

And if it’s an accessory for a beauty queen, it would be something related to that.

Maru personally breathed life into the three women who had taken off their equipment.

“Gal!” (Yell- scold)

“to?-”

“uh?-”

“Black-!”

The basket that was trying to take up space in the minds of the three women disappeared.