Chapter 372: Belldets Montphera
Ashe quickened his pace, but soon remembered something and stepped back to approach Iger again. He lowered his voice. "By the way, don't blame Lys either. It's not her fault."
Iger raised an eyebrow. Before he could retort, Ashe walked past him and scooped Lys up into his arms.
Lys looked at Iger in confusion, then up at Ashe. "Daddy, are you going to... use me as a meat shield?"
As she spoke, she raised her little fists.
Ashe said, "No, we aren't playing that game right now. Come on, use your stare attack on Aunt Perskin!"
Lys widened her adorable eyes and stared intensely at Iger. It's not very effective...
Iger stared coldly back at Lys. It's super effective!
Lys immediately shrank down, burying her face into Ashe's chest. Ashe, still full of expectation, turned to Iger. "So? How was it?"
"You mean how effective your provocation was? Very."
"Eh?! Don't you feel your heart melting? Every time Lys acts up and looks at me like that, I can barely bring myself to reach for my belt..."
"Don't assume everyone's heart is made of ice cream like yours."
"Wait, Lys has plenty of other talents, too. Let me get her to perform another—"
"That's enough."
Iger reached out and took Lys from him, placing her on his back. The little girl instantly stiffened, and her limbs went completely limp. She didn't dare misbehave at all.
"I'll carry her," Iger said.
Ashe finally let out a sigh of relief and waved. "Alright then, Lys, be good. Don't cause trouble for Aunt Perskin!"
"D-Daddy..." Lys's voice trembled as she tried to call for help, but a single glare from Iger made her fall instantly silent. She lay flat on his back, shivering. It was hard to tell if it was because of her fae bloodline or the shampoo she used, but she smelled surprisingly nice.
After walking for a while longer, the Funeral Agency squad finally spotted the staircase leading upward. Pankey asked, "Miss, should we set up camp, or..."
"Find a short-term rental under a different identity as soon as possible," Annan said. "We're all too exhausted. We need proper rest."
Suddenly, a voice echoed from above the passage.
"My place is quite spacious. Why not come over and rest there?"
With a sharp click, a hidden door slid open in the stairwell. Several Firearm Class specialists clad in gray tactical armor blocked the upper exit, aiming submachine guns straight at the group.
Annan and the others instinctively backed away, but another squad surged into the passage from behind. More than ten cold steel barrels locked onto their flesh and blood.
In an instant, the relaxed atmosphere where they had been snacking and singing just moments prior was shattered completely. They were caught in a desperate ambush with absolutely no room to maneuver, encircled from both front and back.
Ashe glanced at the ambushers. Beyond their sleek armor and firearms, their most distinctive feature was their transparent respirator masks. Inside each mask, two tubes ran from the nostrils to a compressed tank on the back filled with a swirling blue mist. At first glance, they looked exactly like vibrant blue beards.
True to their appearance, they were the Bluebeards, the Gospel Kingdom's Deep Abyss Suppression Unit.
As one of the two major armed organizations of the kingdom, Ashe was well-acquainted with the origins of both the Bluebeards and the Red Hats. The Bluebeards derived their name from a past era when the Abyss was teeming with mind-altering monsters. Within those narrow, dark depths, extermination specialists had to constantly inhale the Cooling Blue Fluid to suppress excess emotion and stabilize their mental state. The most effective way to administer it was through nasal tubes, and over time, they came to be called Bluebeards.
In modern times, the Bluebeards could easily clear the first layer of the Abyss, but mind-affecting monsters still appeared frequently. A single moment of carelessness could still lead to total mental collapse, so the Bluebeards' traditional equipment remained in use as a legacy of their past.
However, for Ashe and the others, what mattered most about the ambushers wasn't their intimidating appearance, nor their combat strength. It was the fact that the Bluebeards were a private armed force.
Tap. Tap.
Clear footsteps echoed from above. What came into sight was a blue-haired girl slowly walking down the stairs. Her long locks fell all the way to her waist. She wore a black shawl draped over a white-and-gold sleeveless gown, matching white-and-gold long boots, and sleek black gauntlets. She carried an air of effortless elegance and nobility, yet retained a trace of pure, striking charm. To anyone watching, she looked like an angel who had come to the Abyss on a charity mission.
What stood out most, however, were her eyes. Her left eye was wide open, housing a violet-blue pupil so mesmerizing it was impossible to look away. Her right eye, however, was shut tight, with the eyelid bearing an eerie black mark shaped like an open eye. It was so unsettling that it forced people to instinctively look twice.
"Annan, it's been a long time."
Annan let out a long, heavy breath. "I figured it'd be you, Evelyn."
Ashe and the others finally relaxed. Ah, so it's just a friend of yours. We panicked over nothing.
"It's so late," Evelyn noted, her voice airy. "Why are you all visiting my place at this time?"
Annan didn't bother hiding the truth. "I came through the Abyss passage on purpose. My original plan was to ask for your help."
Your original plan?
Ashe and the others immediately sensed a shift in the wind. The blue-haired girl gave a slow nod. "I figured as much. Annan, you really came to the right person this time. Capture them!"
Before any of them could react, the Bluebeards swarmed forward, pinning their arms and restraining the group. Ashe and the others chose not to resist. The terrain was terrible, and unlike the Red Hats, the Bluebeards were privately funded by corporations. They didn't give a damn about how the Gospel evaluated them, which meant they truly would fire without a second thought.
More importantly, the team had only just barely survived a brutal, life-and-death battle.
Ashe's abdomen was already a mangled mess, and one of his arms was completely ruined. Annan, Pankey, and Iger had entirely exhausted their mana. The only one still capable of a fight was Harvey, which was exactly why the majority of the gun barrels and the heaviest tactical weapons were locked onto him and his coffin. Physical attacks couldn't touch Harvey in his Mist Spirit form, but Firearm Class sorcerers were hardly limited to conventional bullets.
With that, they obediently accepted the bindings. A disaster like this seemed to happen every ten days or so. They had long since gotten well accustomed to this flavor of development. Right now, Ashe only wished his life had a "skip" button so he could fast-forward through the plot.
He cast a resentful glare at Annan, only to find her looking right back at him with the exact same expression.
"Miss, didn't you say you had a plan before we jumped into action?" Ashe grumbled, shaking the heavy restraint seals locked around his wrists. "Was this part of your grand plan, too?"
Annan replied gloomily, "No plan survives contact with reality."
Ashe looked up. "Reality?"
The blue-haired girl suddenly crouched down in front of him. Looking thoroughly unamused, she said, "You're not even that tall yourself. What are you acting so proud for?"
Ashe blinked. "I'm not acting proud."
She ignored him, drifting over to Harvey to study him for a long, quiet moment. "Your skin is so dark. Why are you so dark? Do you enjoy dissecting corpses outdoors?"
"When I didn't have the money to buy corpses back in the day, I used to work construction," Harvey replied deadpan. "I mixed cement for cash."
For some reason, a cold knot of unease began to tighten in Ashe's stomach. He exchanged a quick look with Iger and saw the exact same dread mirrored in the fraudster's eyes.
"Now then, guests. This may be a bit overdue, but allow me to introduce myself," the girl said, rising to her feet. "My name is Evelyn Belldet, heir to the Belldet Consortium. I am currently ranked first on the Montphera Beauty Ranking, third on the National Outstanding Youth Ranking, and first on the Montphera Charity Ranking... And that's just the short version. I have quite a long resume, which you are welcome to look up at your leisure."
Belldet... Belldet?!
"That's right, Belldet."
As if she could hear their internal screaming, or perhaps because their sheer shock was written plainly across their faces, Evelyn playfully winked her left eye. "The very same Belldet that you called short, unqualified to inherit an angel's legacy, and destined for eternal rest."
The me in the projection didn't explicitly call you short, did he...
Despite the burning grievance, Ashe only dared to complain internally. He kept his mouth tightly shut.
Evelyn rose onto her tiptoes, executed a flawless, graceful spin, and then bowed deeply toward her captive audience. "Welcome to the Belldet's Montphera."