The pristine white light of the Assembly was long gone, but the heavy, cryptic warning left behind by the God of Wisdom still echoed clearly in her mind.
The unknown is always the most unpredictable.
Maria moved through the grand, sunlit corridors of the massive Sanzenin Mansion with her usual, flawless poise.
Dressed in her immaculate maid uniform, her posture carried the grace of a master manager who kept an entire estate functioning smoothly.
Yet beneath her calm, professional exterior, her brilliant mind was working at hyper-speed, calculating a problem that had absolutely nothing to do with household budgets or cleaning schedules.
How am I going to convince Mistress Nagi to travel all the way to Hokkaido in the dead of winter?
Maria thought, her brow furrowing slightly as she meticulously dusted a priceless antique vase.
The white mark on her smartphone was still pulsing quietly in her apron pocket, pinning her first official assignment directly over Amagi Brilliant Park.
As a 0-5, she needed to investigate that localized reality distortion immediately.
But as a loyal maid, she couldn’t simply abandon her post or leave her hyper-dependent mistress behind.
The only logical solution was to orchestrate a trip that would make her mistress want to go to the park herself.
Nagi hates the cold, and she hates leaving the mansion even more, Maria analyzed, a soft, helpless sigh escaping her lips.
If I simply suggest a vacation, she will refuse and lock herself in her room with her video games and manga.
I need a catalyst.
A proper motivation to break her stasis.
A sudden, incredibly loud, and piercing scream shattered the quiet elegance of the mansion, echoing violently down the hallway from the main living quarters.
It was the unmistakable, dramatic voice of Sanzenin Nagi, throwing what sounded like a monumental tantrum.
“HAYATE! WHERE ARE YOU?! COME HERE RIGHT THIS INSTANT!”
Maria stopped her dusting, a gentle, familiar smile breaking across her face as she smoothed down her apron.
The daily chaos of the Sanzenin household was officially starting, and as the frantic shouting continued, the brilliant mind of the Little President instantly registered a perfect, golden opportunity.
If the household’s resident unlucky combat butler was about to be dragged into a storm, Maria knew exactly how to steer that storm straight toward Hokkaido.
Maria smoothly tucked her feather duster away and glided toward the sound of the screeching, her boots clicking softly against the polished hardwood floors.
She slid open the massive double doors to the main parlor, and the full weight of the mansion’s signature morning chaos hit her instantly.
“I’m telling you, Milady, it wasn’t my fault! I was just trying to dust the top of the cabinet!”
Ayasaki Hayate, the resident, monumentally unlucky combat butler, was currently dangling precariously from the grand crystal chandelier.
His uniform coat was snagged on a gold fixture, and his legs were flailing wildly in the air.
Directly beneath him stood Sanzenin Nagi, her twin blonde pigtails practically shaking with pure, unadulterated fury.
She was pointing a rolled-up gaming magazine at him like a sword.
“Excuses! You dropped my ultra-rare, limited-edition, pristine figurine right into the fireplace, Hayate! It melted into a plastic puddle! Do you have any idea how hard it is to secure a replacement for the master-grade magical girl series?!”
Sitting casually right next to Nagi was Tama, the massive, ferocious-looking white tiger of the Sanzenin estate.
Despite his terrifying size, the giant beast was currently acting exactly like a regular house cat, licking his paw with complete innocence and rubbing his large head against Nagi’s leg, desperately pretending he wasn’t the one who had actually knocked the figurine off the table with his tail in the first place.
“Tama was chasing a laser pointer and swiped it!” Hayate cried out, his tragic, universe-defying bad luck striking yet again as he looked down at the innocent-acting white tiger.
“He sent it flying across the room! I didn’t mean to, wah!”
The fabric of his coat let out a sharp rip, dropping him a few inches lower as the chandelier groaned ominously.
Maria closed her eyes, letting out a soft, thoroughly amused sigh before stepping into the room with a serene, radiant smile.
“My, my. It seems we are starting the morning with quite a high-flying performance,” she said, her voice a smooth, calming balm that instantly drew both of their gazes, while Tama let out a tiny, pathetic meow to maintain his innocence.
“Maria-san! Please help me!” Hayate begged, looking at her like she was a saving angel.
“Maria! Look at what this clumsy idiot and my poor, innocent Tama had to go through!” Nagi pouted fiercely, crossing her arms as she stomped her foot.
“He ruined my week! He ruined my life! There is absolutely nothing that can compensate for the tragic loss of my premium collector’s item!”
Maria’s large, intelligent eyes sparkled behind her polite demeanor.
Her brilliant mind instantly processed the variables, locking onto the rolled-up gaming magazine in Nagi’s hands.
A limited-edition figurine catastrophe…
perfect, she thought.
“Actually, Mistress Nagi,” Maria began smoothly, clasping her hands neatly over her apron as she walked over to investigate the damage.
Nagi’s pigtails perked up instantly, her teary, dramatic eyes locking onto the maid.
“A bulletin? What bulletin?!”
“Well,” Maria purred, her tone shifting into a flawlessly innocent, suggestive melody.
“It appears that a massive winter promotional event is being hosted right now across the country to celebrate the anniversary of the series. The grand prize for the local scavenger hunt is the highly coveted, autographed platinum variant of the exact figurine you lost. However…” Maria paused, letting out a heavy, artfully crafted sigh of disappointment.
“…it’s an exclusive on-site event. It is only being held at a single location in Japan.”
“Where?! Tell me where, Maria!” Nagi demanded, grabbing the maid’s sleeves, her gaming obsession completely taking the bait.
“I’ll order a private transport right now!”
“It is currently being held at Amagi Brilliant Park, right here in Hokkaido,” Maria answered back with a polite, deferential bow.
“But given the severe winter cold, I suppose it’s far too much trouble. We should probably just forget about it and accept the loss.”
“Forget about it?! Never! We practically own the infrastructure of this entire northern territory!” Nagi swelled with pride, her eyes burning with a manic, unshakeable gamer attitude.
She turned sharply, glaring up at the flailing butler.
“Hayate! You are going to pack our thermal gear this instant! We are deploying our regional security escort to clear the roads! You are going to run through that entire park and win me that platinum prize as punishment for your clumsiness! Tama, you’re staying home!” Tama let out a dejected whine, slumping onto the carpet away from the main group.
“Eh?! Amagi Brilliant Park?!” Hayate sputtered, his face turning pale at the sudden logistical command.
“But Milady, the winter chill-”
“No arguments! Move, move, move!” Nagi shouted, running off to her room to grab her custom travel blankets.
As Nagi’s footsteps faded down the hall, Maria casually walked over to the dangling butler, reached up, and smoothly unhooked his coat from the fixture, letting him drop gracefully onto his feet.
“Th-Thank you, Maria-san,” Hayate wheezed, rubbing his shoulder.
“But… a winter trip to an amusement park? Isn’t that a bit sudden, even for Nagi?”
“Think of it as a nice, refreshing vacation for the household, Hayate-kun,” Maria smiled warmly, offering him a spotless handkerchief to wipe the dust off his uniform.
“I’m sure we will all get to experience something truly unforgettable there.”
***
Taro Sakamoto sat heavily on his stool behind the convenience store counter, his massive, round frame practically swallowing the chair.
The store was quiet, the gentle hum of the beverage coolers the only sound in the early morning air.
Outwardly, he looked like nothing more than a peaceful, middle-aged shopkeeper daydreaming between customers.
In reality, his gaze was fixed entirely on his smartphone, resting flat on the counter behind a stack of cigarette packs.
His thick fingers tapped the glass with practiced delicacy as he quietly explored the new utilities.
Buzz.
A sudden, forceful vibration throbbed on his smartphone.
The standard screen flickered violently, entirely overridden by a crisp, automated crimson warning banner from the Foundation interface.
Sakamoto calmly tapped the warning banner.
The application immediately flipped to the [ RADAR ] map, tracking his exact location at the convenience store.
Pinned right against the local street, a single, sharp white marker was moving at a brisk pace, closing the distance to his storefront with alarming accuracy.
He didn’t reach for a weapon.
He didn’t blink.
His expression remained entirely unreadable behind his round glasses as his internal combat clock began to track the incoming anomaly.
Three seconds.
Two.
One.
Sakamoto subtly shifted his gaze toward the reflective security mirror angled above the front entrance.
Right on cue, a familiar, messy-haired youth stepped into view on the sidewalk, walking briskly toward the automatic glass doors to start his morning shift.
It was Asakura Shin.
Sakamoto dismissed the live tracking radar with a swift swipe of his thumb, diving straight into the automated system logs to know why his employee had triggered a Foundation alert.
The clinical breakdown populated instantly as he read them. New chapters come out on novelping.com first.
Sakamoto’s fingers paused over the screen.
Psionic Scanners…
telepathic emission, he processed silently, his unshakeable mind instantly re-evaluating the boy currently sliding open the front door.
Shin wasn’t just a regular underworld kid with quick reflexes.
He was an active telepath, a literal mind-reader whose cognitive radar had briefly spiked high enough to trigger the sensors of his phone.
“Good morning, Sakamoto-san!” Shin called out cheerfully as he stepped past the counter, completely unaware that his boss’s phone had just classified his brain as an anomalous psionic entity.
Sakamoto didn’t move an inch.
He simply stared blankly at the youth, but deep inside the hyper-lethal recesses of his legendary muscle memory, he executed a flawless, instantaneous assassination.
In his mind, he visualized stepping forward, snapping Shin’s neck with a clean, blinding twist, and dropping his lifeless body behind the register.
It was a mental simulation so raw, vivid, and precise that the intent radiated outward like a physical shockwave.
Shin violently recoiled, his legs buckling beneath him as he crashed backward into a display rack of potato chips.
He clutched his neck, his face turning entirely pale as cold sweat broke out across his forehead.
He panted heavily, his wide, trembling eyes locked onto his boss in sheer, unadulterated terror.
“S-Sakamoto-san…?! Why did you just kill me over in your head?! I just arrived!”
Sakamoto casually blinked behind his round glasses, entirely unfazed.
With an unshakeable mastery over his own consciousness, he adjusted his mental frequencies.
As a legendary hitman who had survived the absolute apex of the underworld, choosing exactly what to broadcast or bury within his own brain was as natural as breathing.
Then, he opened a clean, deliberate mental channel specifically for the boy to tune into.
‘You’re late by two minutes,’ Sakamoto’s deep, steady voice resonated directly inside Shin’s head, bypassing his vocal cords entirely as he used the boy’s telepathy to communicate.
‘And you dropped the shelf display.
Clean it up.’
Shin let out a pathetic, deflated groan, slowly dragging himself up from the floor while rubbing his sore neck.
“Come on, Sakamoto-san, using your raw killing intent as an alarm clock is terrible for my heart!”
Sakamoto didn’t break his stoic expression, but his mental voice cut back into the youth’s mind with an abrupt, serious edge.
‘Get yourself ready.
Once Lu comes to watch the register, you and I have a job to do outside.’
Shin froze, the broom handle slipping slightly in his grip.
His telepathic senses instantly tried to dig deeper to find out what kind of target could possibly make the legendary hitman move so early in the morning.
However, no matter how hard he tuned in, Shin couldn’t read any details from him.
“Outside…?” Shin asked aloud, his voice dropping into a tense whisper as he stepped closer to the counter, frustrated by the total lack of information.
“Is it an assassin? A rogue group? Sakamoto-san, what kind of job are we talking about?”
Sakamoto stayed completely quiet.
He didn’t offer a single mental reply or even look in the boy’s direction.
He simply reached out, his thick fingers resting against his smartphone.
On the screen, the red blip tracking SCP-127-SL continued to pulse aggressively on the interface, waiting for the executioner to make its move.
***
Author’s note:
So here’s the thing…
I’m kinda running out of extra chapters here…
I have a lot written in my notes…
But those are just scenes with no dialogue and such…
Transcribing them here is what takes much of my time…
Well, time to do my best!…
PLUS ULTRA!…