One-Eyed Monster

These Alchemy Servants with nowhere to go were like a horde of living dead, sitting or standing on this stretch of ground, howling in misery.

The wailing spread across the entire testing ground, which made the two Hunters very uncomfortable. They’d been out for so long and had never run into anything like this. Faced with this crowd, they really couldn’t bring themselves to hit them, but also couldn’t just leave them be; for the moment they had no idea what to do.

These two Hunters were Basto and Piers from the Dark Cabinet, and Piers was one of the better-known top fighters there, nicknamed the Butcher.

Yet this operation of theirs had crashed and burned—really crashed and burned. Not only had they failed to find any trace of Igor, coming all the way to this testing ground had been for nothing. And now they had to deal with this bunch of barely resistant yet maddeningly hard-to-handle Alchemy Servants; it felt downright cursed. The terrified wails of these Servants left them no angle of approach. They had never faced anything like this.

When it came to assassination, stealth, and ambush, Piers and Basto were sharp as knives, but having to deal head‑on with these defenseless Alchemy Servants—there, they were at a total loss.

After all, they weren’t bloodthirsty types, they couldn’t just lay into these unarmed people, let alone start slaughtering them…

They’d never encountered a situation like this, and it was indeed a bit thorny, but reality was what it was; they couldn’t run from it now and could only grit their teeth and push forward.

They were about to try something they’d never tried before, and at that moment Basto and Piers felt they were facing a huge challenge. Once the dust finally settled, they’d have something to brag about in front of their peers.

After all, this was the sort of thing Politicians did. As Hunters, they were now trying their hand at the kind of organizing and coordinating Politicians dealt with all the time; you could call it a first in history. Cross‑profession work like this had always been a bit unusual.

Basto and Piers glanced at each other. No way around it; they’d gotten careless too early and exposed their identity in front of this crowd of Alchemy Servants. The mess now was entirely the result of their own mistake.

Basto thought, if Chris were here, he’d definitely be able to settle these people down nicely, because that guy had been in Xinbal for a long time and was familiar with how everything worked.

Too bad Chris wasn’t here at this moment; the Cabinet Elder had assigned him elsewhere on another mission. Here it was just him and Piers.

As for exactly what to do, they were stumped and could only act based on imagination.

”I think we should first get them all gathered together,” Basto said. He wasn’t all that confident either, since this wasn’t his area of expertise.

”Yeah, let’s gather them first and then see what to do.” Faced with so many Alchemy Servants, even the Butcher was stymied.

They covered up their real faces—standard Hunter posture. After all, they always operated in the dark; many things about them were concealed and would never be exposed in front of people.

”Stop that wailing!” Piers couldn’t take these Alchemy Servants anymore. The way they were sobbing and sniveling like little kids, with not a shred of presence or backbone, was pure cowardice.

”All of you, gather up over here. Stop hiding in the corners. Wherever you hide, we’ll find you, so quit dodging.” Basto mimicked the tone of Politicians he’d seen before as he spoke.

The Alchemy Servants trembled, shoulders hunched, limbs drawn in, but they still feared these two from the Dark Cabinet and kept their mouths shut in terror.

The wailing stopped all at once. The Servants stared at the two Hunters, not knowing what they should do. Some covered their mouths, terrified that the slightest sound from them might turn the whole situation against them.

Basto and Piers were quite surprised because they hadn’t expected a few words from them to shut these people up. Why had it all happened so suddenly?

Since that was the case, Basto and Piers loosened up even more. They felt slipping into the Politician role had become a bit easier. Seeing how things were going, they actually got excited and started yelling orders with more enthusiasm.

These Alchemy Servants were, at heart, timid creatures. In that moment, every last one of them felt like meat on the butcher’s block, ready to be carved up.

”Hurry up and move over here, don’t shove.” Basto still wasn’t familiar with this type of organizing and coordinating, but he found it rather interesting. He suddenly thought of Chris again and finally understood a bit why Chris was so willing to stay here. Turns out these seemingly dull tasks could be this entertaining.

It was truly something. It was their first time going through this sort of thing, and they’d started to get a taste of the patterns in it.

Maybe out of fear of Piers and the others, maybe out of disappointment with the Alchemy Workshop, all the Alchemy Servants began to gather in the direction Basto and Piers had indicated. It was a natural reaction. They had originally come to the Alchemy Workshop in pursuit of power.

All for the pursuit of power, to latch onto someone strong, to have something to rely on.

But now the big tree they’d leaned on was gone, suddenly toppled in Xinbal. It had all happened far too abruptly, and it had happened right in front of them. They had no way of understanding what was really going on.

They had witnessed something incomprehensible—the experts of the Alchemy Workshop had vanished right before their eyes. It was beyond reason, and they couldn’t make sense of it. All they knew was that the big tree they’d depended on had suddenly collapsed. With no support, they truly didn’t know what to do.

Yet now the very Dark Cabinet that used to terrify them was gathering them together and didn’t look like it intended to beat them up. This left them deeply astonished, and at the same time somewhat relieved. Because it meant they might just have found themselves a new patron.

This sense of relief slowly began to erode their original fear, and those hiding in the corners gradually stepped out.

A judgment was slowly forming in their hearts: from now on, they, the Alchemy Servants, would be doing odd jobs for the Dark Cabinet…

Things might get bad, but at least they’d be keeping their lives, which was already a pretty decent outcome.

No one could know what their future would be like, but they had already begun to feel that the world’s sky had changed, that everything had been shaken.

The two from the Dark Cabinet were, at that moment, quickly reporting their results in their own unique way, and both Basto and Piers felt a strong sense of achievement.

After all, first time’s first time; freshness and sense of accomplishment usually rise in direct proportion.

They themselves had no idea what impact this newfound confidence of theirs would have on the overall situation…