The Strongest Curse Master

"Sure. I'm free tonight. If not for his sacrifice, we wouldn't have caught them so easily in the first place," Agent Marcus said carefully, his words a clear attempt to avoid talking about Dee3. He didn't want to acknowledge that he had seen her and done nothing. If Berry were here, he would take the hint and not bring up the name of one of the C.I.B.'s most wanted right at the entrance of its branch headquarters.

"Great, I will save a seat for you, or you could return to the town with me," I said, trying to get as much time with Agent Marcus as possible. This way I would get the window to bring up the curse caster's innate curse tool.

"Na, just text me the timings and location. I will get there when I get there," Agent Marcus said, planning to ride the underground water channel that he had recently discovered connecting the boy's town and the city.

Though navigation was difficult underground even with his sky-tier curse senses, he planned to use the distance between the city and town and the speed of the water current to calculate his travel time through the channel. With that, he would simply set a timer before using his innate curse tool to jump out of the underground water current.

If his calculations were correct, he would arrive at the town in time for the funeral; otherwise, he would be lost in the middle of nowhere again and spend the day trying to find his way back. To him, that was a fun way to pass the time. Besides, he needed this to blow off some steam as fate had played a cruel joke on him today. He not only lost his partner but trillions that were promised to him.

I shook my head, finding it was hard to talk to Agent Marcus. His tongue was pretty loose when I talked about helping his buddy's family, but as soon as I brought up Dee3 and Mr. Birdie his tongue went stiff like rusted locks. It's hard to figure out a person while minding their feelings, always making sure to behave and appear humble.

Shaking my head, I decided to let nature take its course and followed Agent Marcus's lead as he helped me skate through the numerous security checks before finally stepping into the building. Looking at the mirror-polished granite floors, I couldn't help but lament that the last time I was here, it was covered with blood and corpses of innocent C.I.B. agents.

Honestly, who would have thought an eight-year-old child, Lilith, was capable of such gore and cruelty? I truly hope that Elinor was right about her and was able to get through to her. Otherwise, I would have spent a hundred billion dollars to bail out a genocidal maniac. Would that make it my duty to stop Lilith if she ever goes on a bender again?

My thoughts wandered as I once again walked what once used to be blood-soaked halls of the C.I.B. branch headquarters. Even though the walls and floors of the building were thoroughly cleaned and repaired, I still saw them covered in blood. I guess the night was more traumatic than I would like to admit. After all, what we all lived through that night was several times worse than any nightmare I ever had or video game I ever played.

I followed Agent Marcus absentmindedly and almost dashed into him when paused to greet a colleague.

"Ace, you alright?" Agent Marcus asked, as if he noticed the terrors of that night on my face.

"Yes. Are we there yet?" I replied, trying to collect my wandering thoughts.

"We are waiting for the lift," Agent Marcus said, pointing at the lift in front of us, a little puzzled by my reaction. Coincidentally, the lift opened up just then. To hide my embarrassment, I rushed into the empty lift, and Agent Marcus followed behind me with a look that said he just realized something.

Selecting the 7th floor, Agent Marcus suddenly spoke, "Ace, I read in your file that you were here in the building on the night of the attack. Not only did you manage to survive the ambush, but you even faced a void-tier curseling and played a significant role in killing it.

"Honestly, I couldn't believe half the things mentioned in it and thought Matthews was exaggerating until I saw you in action today. Especially your rifle-shaped curse tool. It's the wet dream of every man. If you don't mind, I would like to try it sometime."

"Sure, but it's nothing compared to a curse caster's innate curse tool," I finally spoke my mind, taking the window when it opened.

"Huh," Agent Marcus smiled self-deprecatingly, listening to me mention the curse caster's innate curse tool that he received as part of his loot from the emergency operation this afternoon.

"I see you heard about it, huh?" Agent Marcus said, as his face twisted into that of a frustrated one when he recalled what happened with his sky-tier curse caster's innate curse tool.

"How can I not? You are the hot topic on everyone's tongue. Everyone is talking about how you hit it big with the curse caster's innate curse tool," I answered, exaggerating my excitement about the topic. Acting like a teenager who likes to indulge in fantasies about hitting the jackpot.

"They do know that I lost a partner and almost lost my life in the process, right?" Agent Marcus scowled.

Only he truly knew the sacrifice and pain he had to endure as a captive of the enemy. Everyone seemed to have conveniently forgotten that and was only interested in gossiping about how he hit the jackpot when actually there was no truth to it.

"They're just envious and trying to escape from their hard lives," I said hurriedly. My words, meant to calm Agent Marcus down rather than defend the gossipers, worked. He finally opened up, saying, "Young man, everything isn't as it seems. There's more to the story."

Ding!