“Baron Vorsith… Baron Vorsith…” I muttered over and over again like a broken record as I looked out across the city at the bright mansion. It sat on top of a large hill, which itself overlooked the Metronian Kingdom’s capital city of Rong.
Winter, Lilian, and I were inside a building across from the mansion. We were about eight hundred feet away, and fifty feet lower than the mansion itself.
The three of us were dressed in copies of a new tactical suit that I had received from Emperor Goto as a thank you present. The color was dark, and the skin-tight material was both bullet, and laser resistant.
There was something about wearing these suits that was starting to grow on me. Although, the displacement of my package during movement was something I hadn’t, and would probably never get used to.
Lilian’s black suit contrasted well against his white skin, and really made his face pop. Unlike me, he seemed to be fine, however. He explained that he took my advice of using a sports cup, and that helped with his displeasure significantly.
Meanwhile, Winter seemed to be enjoying herself in the tight restrictions of the suit. She constantly moved, flexed, and ran her hand over the material while it was on her body. The suit was darker than her skin, and added a subtle accompaniment to her natural chocolate skin tone. I had to take a deep breath to get my mind back where it should have been, and brought my gaze back up to her eyes.
After I had brought Winter into the palace, the king had decided to keep the fact that I was harboring a Strafe from his wife. In his mind, it was better to broach the subject once we had produced results, rather than bring it up while Cindy Metron was still fuming about me.
Of course, the idea hadn’t been solely the king’s, but rather a collective effort between Lucina and the king. Lucina had made me promise to repay her before I left for the Primal Kingdom, and it was a promise that I fully intended to keep.
It had been five days since I brought Winter and Un on board, and the two of them were proving themselves to be surprisingly competent.
Winter had let all the secrets of her employers spill the moment we stepped into my room on that day, and since then, there had been a slew of never-ending espionage work.
Raiden had offered his help as a sign of good faith, and had begun gathering information from the squad leaders under his employ. He had used his connections to Leray, using her bar as an information hub to confirm who exactly was connected to the Kingdom’s underbelly.
Even the king had volunteered to pitch in, after he was admonished by Lucina for leaving the problem of the cancerous upper class for me to deal with alone.
Now with the backing of King Metron, and his orders from our meeting perpetually circling in my head, we were prepared to infiltrate the mansion and eliminate those who threatened the Kingdom’s stability.
X had her hands full trying to figure out who was involved with who, and the whole thing ended up turning into a muddled mess. I had also been getting used to having two new voices inside my head at all times, and believe me when I say that it was no easy task.
Un was constantly playing the wildcard, and trying to manipulate me as a means to his end. On the other hand, Three was constantly arguing with the other Judgment Program, and had begun admonishing him when X was too busy to do so.
It seemed as though Three held more respect for X than I had originally anticipated, and whether or not that had anything to do with their, ‘extracurriculars,’ I couldn’t tell.
Seemingly overnight, Three became a much more obedient entity, and started to take X’s side whenever we had disputes in the matters concerning safety and security. She had even gone as far as to openly argue with Lilian, although I suppose that was nothing new.
“Joshua, all the firearms have been prepared, and we’re ready to commence the operation whenever you deem it fit.” Winter saluted. She had grown more accustomed to calling me by that title since she had joined, but it was still a slow learning process.
I had her sign a contract different to that which I made Lilian agree to. On the whole, Winter Strafe’s contract was a whole lot more friendly to the employee, with less degrees of pain inflicted should she betray me. On X’s insistence, I forewent the electrocution punishments, as she informed me that it would be more advantageous for me in the long run if my employees didn’t fear death simply from working under me.
“Good.” I replied, and gave Winter an approving nod. “As soon as the King lets us know that the Queen has left the party, we’ll move into phase two of the operation. Lilian, you’ll be on the sniper to catch any fleeing guests on our target list. Our main target is Baron Vorsith, who wishes to take the throne for himself. There are a total of 159 people in the building, and 104 targets. The remaining 55 people are staff, who we will evacuate before commencing the operation. Winter will accompany me, and the two of us will storm the mansion. Am I understood?”
Winter accepted, so I turned to Lilian for his confirmation, which he agreed to as well. “Alright then. I’ll assign Un to Winter, and Three to Lilian for tactical support.”
Both Three and Un appeared from my Judgment panel and floated over towards their two counterparts. Lilian smiled at Three, who smiled back, while Winter looked at Un with disdain on her face.
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“Is there any way we could switch partners?” Winter asked, and Un looked hurt for a moment. X had informed me of his plan to make me appear to be a chivalrous figure by comparison, and had done all he could to annoy Winter during his first day with me.
Unfortunately for him, it seemed his plan had worked a bit too well, and now Winter clearly had an unnatural aversion to the man. She seemed to be keen to his plan, and whether or not she resented him for carrying it out, or for even thinking about it in the first place, she did not want any part of Atlas Strafe at the moment.
Despite that, I shook my head at her request, earning me a sigh from the former mercenary. “You’ll be disappointed, but Un knows you the best, and has already supported you through a lot of missions like this one, from what he tells me. We can’t risk a chance of screwing up the mission due to a lack of synergy between partners.”
Winter frowned, but couldn’t dispute what I had just said. Instead, she turned on her heels and started to check the ammunition packets that we had shipped over here two days ago. She picked up a cartridge and started to count the bullets inside.
“I thought you said that everything was ready to go?” I said, causing her to turn my way. She tucked her long, white hair behind her ear and put down the cartridge.
“Yes, and it is. I’m just giving myself something to do so I can drown out the Founder’s incessant ramblings before the mission begins. Let me know when we start.”
Un sighed, and dissipated into smoke, which flowed into Winter’s Judgment Panel. Three followed suit, and I checked our communication line, making sure that we could seamlessly contact each other with the aid of the Judgment AIs, who were running on the same system. Soon enough, we were ready to begin the mission.
Winter and I drove to the base of the hill on Winter’s custom grav-cycle, and got off the bike right before the security checkpoint. I put on the mask I had used in the Luong Empire, which only covered the bottom half of my face. Winter pulled up a black scarf from around her neck, and used it to achieve the same effect.
X, security blackout. “Already done, Master.” Winter and I walked through the gates to the mansion. I gave a passing glance to the security drones, who were slumped over, having been hit by X’s EMP-like virus.
We walked slowly up to the large front doors of the mansion, and crouched down on either side. “You both have your list of the targets being managed by your Judgments, correct?”
I sent a mental message to Winter and Lilian, who both responded in the affirmative. “Perfect.” I double checked that my gun was loaded, and that the safety was off. I felt the reaffirming weight of the sonic knife strapped to my chest, and took a deep breath. “Alright then. I want Judgements hidden at all times. Am I clear?”
This time Three and Un confirmed my orders, so I motioned for Winter to move forward. It was time to begin the operation.
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The first thing we did once entering, was making sure that the servants and chefs remained in a separate room from all the action that was going to occur.
They were skeptical at first, but a flash of the Kingdom Key got them to comply instantly. After all, if I had one of those, I had to be doing this under the orders of someone important. The ‘who,’ as it turned out, wasn’t important to them.
With those obstacles out of the way, we moved to the upper level of the mansion, where two guards were guarding the doorway to the ballroom.
Winter and I laid low on the stairs, and took aim at different bodyguards. “On my mark. 3. 2. 1. Fire.”
The silenced weapons did their part, and both guards slumped to the floor with holes in the center of their foreheads. “Nice shot. Move forward.”
We moved towards the doorway, and Winter opened the left one while I peered through and took aim. No one was present in the entryway, so the two of us moved in.
We took a sharp right, and used the servant’s entrance as cover. As we got closer to the ballroom, the classical music became louder and louder, and the sounds of chatting reached my ears.
I took an EMP device that X had programmed, and stuck it to the wall of the smart house, which itself was connected to the Judgment Network.
Winter and I pulled out a pair of night vision goggles, equipping them before checking that the other had theirs on. “Ready for another blackout?”
She gave me a thumbs up, so I had X activate the pulse. The effect was immediate as the music stopped playing, and everything in our surroundings went dark. There were many voices yelling all at once, but they quieted as I heard one voice in particular being louder than the others. Knowing that our mark had just given himself away, I used the distraction he caused as an opportunity to make my way into the room unseen.
Winter followed suit, and soon enough we were standing at the edge of a large crowd, who were all turned in the direction of one man speaking. Several of the people in attendance had lights shining from their Judgment Panels, and were using them to illuminate Baron Vorsith.
“Don’t worry about this, I’m certain the servants will have it fixed in no time. Please, be careful not to spill your drinks on each other.”
That last line got a laugh from the crowd, and I signaled for Winter to take aim at the man. I took aim at him as well, and on my mark, the two of us peppered him with bullets.
The execution only lasted three seconds, before he slumped to the ground. The crowd was deadly silent in what I could only imagine to be disbelief, before all hell broke loose.
Winter and I started firing indiscriminately, spraying down people as fast as they could spring up. A few people begged for their lives, and some even tried to lunge at me, but they were immediately incapacitated by X and all dealt with in the same way: a bullet to the brain.
In a matter of minutes, the cacophony and chaos was over, and a tranquil silence had returned to the mansion once more. I looked down at the sea of carcasses, and let out a shaky breath. I’m fine… I’m fine. This is nothing. This is just business.
“Winter, go inform the staff that they should go back to their homes, and in the case that they were live-in hires, should report to the palace first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll contact the King and let him know that we've completed the mission.”