Mage Manual
Chapter 411 - 342 The White Fog Disappears_2

Chapter 411: Chapter 342 The White Fog Disappears_2

As the stomach acid scorched his throat, it also slightly stimulated his will. Ash took a deep breath for a few seconds, finally managed to reboot the operating system successfully, connected to all peripherals, and barely restored his basic mobility. However, the virus still severely slowed down his operational speed, and Ash suspected his efficiency could only defeat 1% of his peers in the Kingdom of Gospel.

There weren’t many people in the gaming area, as most of them were inside the gaming pods. Outside the window, the night sky was clear and serene. Tonight’s Vatican Mura was peaceful and calm. Ash looked around but didn’t find any suspicious individuals who might have cursed him.

He struggled to the front desk to ask for help, only to discover the receptionist girl paralyzed in her chair.

Her eyes were empty, her face expressionless, and lips tinged with cyanosis, which usually greeted Ash warmly. If not for her occasionally trembling eyelashes and the regular rise and fall of her chest, Ash would have almost thought she was about to become a client of Harvey’s.

"Miss Petilo?" Ash tentatively called out.

The receptionist seemed to try focusing her gaze on Ash, but even the mere act of controlling her eyeballs seemed to exhaust the little energy she had left. She couldn’t speak a word, her eyes devoid of any sparkle, resembling... a broken doll.

Ash had seen people in this state before.

On their first day in Vatican Mura, he had seen a whole train carriage filled with such broken individuals.

However, the Senheiser district was located in the city center of Vatican Mura, not on the outskirts where the fog was thin—fog?

Ash suddenly turned and looked outside, rubbing his eyes to confirm he was indeed seeing a clear night sky.

He ran over, opened the window, and a refreshing gust of nocturnal wind caressed his face messily.

The moon hung high, stars twinkled, and from the second-tier city of the Senheiser district, Ash could clearly overlook the myriad lights of Vatican Mura.

The air was so clean it was almost sweet, and the visibility was so high it made one want to grab an infrared light to aim at faraway buildings.

"The fog," he murmured, "has it disappeared?"

.....

...

"I never thought I’d come to Vatican Mura for a task, let alone that the fog in Vatican Mura would one day disappear."

Several floating cars whisked by the chaotic intersection. Even with the aid of autonomous driving systems, the terror of the entire city’s paralysis caused an inevitable stagnation in Vatican Mura’s traffic. People lay collapsed by the roadside, as if someone had pressed a mysterious button, putting the entire city into a deep slumber.

"But isn’t this making a mountain out of a molehill?"

Inside a floating car, a Red Hat youth chewing gum lamented, "Just to catch a few people, they’ve paralyzed the entire Vatican Mura. If Vatican Mura were a beautiful girl, then our actions are equivalent to forcibly stripping off her clothes, taking down her underwear, pulling out the strings from her panties, and making a slingshot to hit her with."

"Shut up, Leite." Cleos, with red-rimmed eyes, sniffed and said, "We got the advantage, so let’s not play dumb. Let’s just complete the task and leave, and give Vatican Mura back to them."

The two speakers were among the top ten Red Hat Captains in the country, ’Crying Red Hat’ Cleos and ’Sharpshooter Red Hat’ Leite.

Leite was the Red Hat Captain of Modora, and the two first-tier cities adjacent to Azura were Modora and Vatican Mura, which was why Leite caught up with this operation to capture Ash.

Cleos had always wanted to take all the credit for capturing Ash, repeatedly stating in the internal communications system that she would catch him soon. Therefore, the other Red Hat Captains who were a bit farther away thought about it and decided not to interfere. Only Leite, who was closest, insisted on coming over to share some of the credit, and Cleos had no way to stop him.

Aside from the two Red Hat teams, there were two offices accompanying them tonight.

There was no need to mention the Family Reunion Office, whose ability to control smart homes was practical anywhere, and the other office—

"No one has come out to intercept us so far. It seems Senheiser really is completely unguarded." Leite activated his Light Screen, "The final payment has been made, pleasure doing business."

"Pleasure doing business," came the voice from the Light Screen. "’Time Difference Office’ is committed to providing our clients with the most comprehensive concealment services. We welcome you to commission us again. Since the task is over, our employees will take their leave first."

The Time Difference Office, ranked first in Modora and tenth nationwide, was the guarantee of success for their operation tonight.

Because at its essence, their surprise raid tonight was equivalent to a conspiracy, catching Senheiser completely off guard.

And what conspiracies fear most is being exposed in advance.

But in the Kingdom of Gospel, foreseeing a conspiracy to harm oneself beforehand was all too simple.

Without going into others, if the Senheiser Clan Leader simply asked the Gospel Book every day, "Will there be any major event endangering the safety of the family today?" then tonight’s raid plan would have fallen through straightaway.

What the Time Difference Office offered was a service to conceal conspiracies and deceive the Gospel.

Although the Gospel Book would accurately record everything that had already happened, those conspiracies that were still just in the mind and had not yet been implemented left some room for discussion. For example, if they planned to stage the raid on the 19th, the Time Difference Office could help them make the Gospel Book believe the plan was for the 22nd, leading the Senheiser Clan Leader to also fail to get the correct answer from the Gospel Book.

Such a service naturally came at a steep price—whenever the Gospel Book made a mistake, it would pay compensation tenfold or even a hundredfold the points, depending on the damage to the inquirer. But the Gospel wouldn’t suffer losses for nothing, as every time it made a mistake, it would learn and the difficulty of deceiving the Gospel the next time would almost double.