Memoirs of the Returnee - Chapter 286: Pure White (2)

I brought Theia to the base camp. It was a modular housing unit set up at the edge of the Icefield.

“About twenty people, I guess.”

Theia counted the number of survivors. Since not even a day had passed, there weren’t many rescued, and most of them were in bad shape.

They must have had a tough time.

“Well then. Professor, you do your thing.”

I pointed to the door with my thumb.

“l’ll be leaving.”

The evaluation is still underway. I don’t know how much the bonus points for saving the professor, 10 points, are worth, but I plan to score as much as I can.

“……”

Theia looked at me silently. I shrugged my shoulders.

“Don’t worry about what Tei. Just… ah, my head hurts. Forget it.”

She seemed to know something about Tei, but I didn’t feel like prying.

After all, we shouldn’t get too close to each other. She will soon become Libra’s biggest enemy.

“Come visit when you have time.”

She handed me her business card. It had her name, [Theia Esil], and contact information on it.

I smiled faintly.

“Yes.”

Theia Esil before my regression.

She was killed by Libra.

I still don’t know the details, but I won’t lose her in this life. I won’t let my benefactors die.

Even if it means choosing the lesser of two evils…

“ITI visit when I have time.”

I will ensure that Theia Esil of this life enjoys a long life.

……

The 96-hour evaluation period ended. I rescued 7 people, and my results were quite high-ranking.

“……lt was incredibly tough.”

Soliette said, peeling off the seaweed strands that clung to her head.

“Really?”

“Yes. It turns out, if the survivors don’t send out signals while struggling, the rescue team can never find them. I was floating on a drifting ice sheet, an ice sheet. Seals were teasing me!”

She burst out in frustration. I casually played along while checking the scores on my smartphone.

“……WOW. Gerkhen rescued 18 people?”

“Hmm.”

Then, a cough came from the right. Gerkhen was right next to me.

“When did you get here?”

He glanced at me.

“Shion Ascal.”

“What? Why are you calling my name?”

It seemed like the first time he had called me by name.

“……Hmm.”

Gerkhen coughed awkwardly again. And then—

“Are you interested in neuroscience by any chance?”

He threw out a bizarre question.

“……What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“Hmm.”

Gerkhen coughed for the third time. He seemed reluctant to ask, as if he didn’t want to, but had no choice.

“lf you ever feel like you’ve forgotten something, something that you can’t remember, go see Professor Theia. She’s quite knowledgeable in neuroscience.”

His words sounded rehearsed, as if he was reading from a textbook.

“……Ah.”

So he’s been put up to this by Theia. Thanks to this guy, I’m pretty sure now. There’s definitely some connection between ‘Tei’ and ‘Theia’.

Are they actually related?

“Got it. I’ll think about it.”

“…… Hmm .”

Gerkhen nodded in satisfaction. I smirked as I checked the number of people monitoring me.

There were exactly 57 people monitoring ‘me’.

Johanna must be one of them.

“Hmm……”

I looked up at the sky and sighed.

The seeds have been sown.

Now, it’s just a matter of time.

……

At Johanna’s mansion. She lay in bed, staring at her tablet. She had been fixated on the tablet all weekend.

Watching scenes of Shion Ascal smiling, tearing apart a beast with his sword, and rescuing survivors from an avalanche… She kept rewinding and replaying them over and over.

But whenever she saw him with another woman, her blood seemed to boil, and a murderous intent to kill the other person surged within her.

Johanna knew what this feeling was.

Jealousy.

It was an emotion she had no need to feel. A completely useless emotion.

Yet it was like a thorn stuck in her heart, one that she could simply pull out if she chose to.

Perhaps because it was her first time experiencing it, Johanna couldn’t help but feel it. Inescapably, unavoidably.

“……”

Eventually, she took out the beta-blockers prescribed by Yu Hains. She popped the pill into her mouth.

“H aa h……”

Instantly, she felt at ease.

She picked up the tablet again. Even looking at Shion in the video, she felt no emotion.

“……Now I can finally get some work done.”

But was this really the right way to handle it?

Was it nothing more than running away?

Should Johanna of Libra, who has never run away from anything in her life, be backpedaling because of just this one man?

The most important issue— a matter of pride.

Johanna picked up the second note.

[Confession]

“……1 m possi b le.”

Johanna shook her head. She was not that kind of person. Not a girl who shyly conveys her feelings, driven by mere emotions.

Johanna of Libra. A lifetime of pride, walking the path of a winner befitting that pride, a member of the societal elite who would lead the continent.

The iron-blooded gambler who would inherit the family legacy.

She must not be swayed by mere emotions.

She absolutely must not.

And SO……

Johanna turned off the tablet. She erased Shion from her mind.

She had chosen the first prescription.

Time flows on. For me, time is more than three times as precious as it is for ordinary people, slipping through my fingers without the possibility of holding on.

The autumn leaves have long since dried and twisted, and the biting winds of winter have arrived.

In the meantime, I’ve been busy moving.

Sometimes as Killian, sometimes as Raquel Dra, and sometimes as Shion Ascal.

Killian became the savior of Vito’s nuclear Abyss, Raquel Dra became synonymous with villainy, and Shion Ascal…

…laid a foundation in the Intelligence Agency.

I managed to recruit an additional informant, a rather sizable one named ‘Rockendel’.

Chloe, Sia, Jeff, Rockendel, Luin.

With these five, I now have enough. After all, a task force doesn’t function properly if it’s too large.

I gave them hints about their future, hints about the ‘talents’ they would acquire in the future, so they could accelerate their growth.

[R199 mission complete.]

[C103 mission terminated.]

Our team, with the intelligence of Grawl and Luin and close cooperation with external teams, has accumulated practical experience through performance. In nearly three months, we’ve completed hundreds of missions.

We were developing into a force worthy of being called elite.

[R2B2: Gedley has completed the operation preparations.]

Just then, a message came from Luin.

Our current main enemy is Gedley. We need to take him down so Bell Moore can step up as director.

[R2B2: Should we interfere with the operation?]

There’s no need for that.

[No need. Just leave it be.]

As I said, this [New Frontier] short-selling operation is going to fail miserably.

I put my phone back in my pocket.

……

At the same time, Gedley is directing the project from the control room.

“Everyone should be ready.”

The short-selling volume has been adequately accumulated. Gedley even put in his own personal funds. It was a surefire operation.

“Starting now…”

This economic operation, Vern, will take a major hit, and they’ll have to worry about ending up behind bars for embezzlement, not to mention the evaporation of slush funds.

“Begin.”

As Gedley gave the signal, the Chasers immediately relayed the start of the operation to various media outlets.

Almost simultaneously, headline articles sprouted like mushrooms on the internet from the most representative news sources.

[The pioneering company New Frontier, created with embezzled funds by Everett…]

[New Frontier, a ghost company without substance?]

“NoW, right away!”

“Yes.”

Now, they openly resume short-selling again. They short-sell, take out loans with those short positions, and then hit with more short-selling in a cycle.

Tatatat—

The control room is filled with the sounds of mice and keyboards clicking.

Looking at the monitors full of charts and the news desks preparing exclusive reports, Gedley smiles.

…….

[Chairman Everett’s slush fund hideout, New Frontier.]

[Settlement without results. Loans without substance.]

[Top company Vern, suspected of embezzlement…]

Derek watched the articles about New Frontier light up the world like Firecrackers.

The stock price plummeted in an instant, and all sorts of economic experts appeared on the news to denounce Everett’s Vern.

“Ha ha ha ha ha.”

He burst into triumphant laughter, filling his office with his cackling.

Ka ha ha ha…

Suddenly, his smile faded.

Instead, something deep inside him surged, a sense of ecstasy overwhelming him.

He leaned on the table, his face drenched in sweat.

“Ah…”

He let out a strange moan, his chest shaking.

He let out a ragged breath, as if gasping for air.

“Ah…”

This was the sensation of climax.

Derek bit his lip. Still watching the exploding articles, the news criticizing Vern, the bending stock price graphs, and Vern’s flustered face captured on the TV screen, he wrapped his arms around himself.

“Kuh… Uh.”

It was a peak that transcended dozens of times that of an ordinary orgasm.

……

At the same time, in the capital Edsilla, at Johanna’s mansion.

Johanna also heard the news about Derek.

“So he was up to something. This was it.”

It was quite a smart economic maneuver. Even to her, it seemed like Vern’s cleverly hidden enterprise had been well targeted.

Should she interfere?

She briefly considered it, but didn’t feel the need to go through with it.

In the past, she would have spread counter-articles to make Derek suffer more losses and gain less, but…

“…Really.”

Lately, she felt as if she had lost her drive.

Johanna sighed, looking at the ceiling of her office.

Again, she felt sick to her stomach. ‘His’ face was about to come to mind.

“Damn it.”

She hurriedly took a blocker from Yu Hains.

—Gulp.

She swallowed two pills whole, but the effect wasn’t as strong as before.

It was due to tolerance.

The drug couldn’t stop her from thinking about Shion Ascal, and as soon as the effect wore off, his face would reappear in her mind.

The crossing of emotions made her feel powerless.

It made her want to see him.

“This is messed up…”

Johanna wanted to distance herself from him. She was trying to forget him by force.

Honestly, she didn’t want to confess.

Her pride wouldn’t allow it.

But… two months had already passed.

During this time, Johanna realized that she could not overcome it. She acknowledged that she was doomed to fall.

At the same time, she was curious.

Shion Ascal.

Does he feel something similar to what she does?

He hasn’t seen her just as she hasn’t seen him.

Does he also long to see her, to meet with her, feeling this burning desire?

“Confession…”

If possible, I could do it.

But a confession isn’t the start of a relationship. It’s the stamp that seals it.

Above all, Johanna had never experienced the kind of love where she confesses first.

She was fairly certain that he loved her, but what if, by some chance, it was all a misunderstanding on her part?

Where in the world would there be such a disgrace?

If she were to be rejected in her current state, she would either have to kill him or herself.

Therefore, a ‘situation’ was necessary.

A situation where she could be certain that he loved her, and he could be certain that she loved him.

Johanna’s mood turned cold. She abruptly stood up and sat at her desk. Thanks to the effects of the beta-blockers, she regained her composure, if only for a moment, and began to devise a plan.

“…This should do.”

It was a strategy she had been considering in her head for a while, so bringing it to the forefront was easy.

“Vitro.”

She called for Vitro.

—Yes.

“Come to my office. I have an operation to discuss with you.”

—Understood.

Johanna brushed her hair back.

She was planning a terrorist act.

A plane hijacking. Or a train hijacking.

Either way, during the event, Johanna would be kidnapped along with Zia. Then Shion Ascal would be deployed, and he would be given two choices.

Johanna, or Zia.

If he came to her, it would be tantamount to a declaration of love, and she would confess her love to him as well.

However, if he went to Zia…

“ITI have to kill her.”

Johanna would have to murder Zia.

Meow—

“?”

A beast’s cry came from the side. Johanna turned to look. A cat was sitting on the newly installed windowsill.

“What are you?”

Johanna opened the window and grabbed the creature with one hand.

She was about to burst it when…

Meow—

The creature meowed and rubbed its fur against her hand. Surprisingly clean, and not bad-looking at all, it didn’t seem like the kind of animal spies would use for scouting.

“…Tsk.”

It seemed like a stray, but was there any need to needlessly take a life?

Johanna simply put it down. Then the creature intently looked over her office desk. As if it was reading the operation plans she had written.

“Get down.”

Meow—

The creature responded and jumped down.

“…Clever thing.”

Knock-knock—

Just then, Vitro knocked. Johanna, tidying up the papers, said,

“Come in.”