Chapter 178. The Knight’s Assault (1)
“Ha Mina lost consciousness? What happened?”
“Daji, what exactly happened?”
“I don’t know either. I never took my eyes off her...”
Ha Mina, whom they had brought back from China, had fallen unconscious.
Daji had been watching her the entire time, but nothing in particular had happened.
“I thought she might try to secretly escape, but I never imagined this.”
“Could she have escaped somehow and left behind an empty shell?”
“I don’t think so. I would have noticed.”
“Either way, this complicates things considerably...”
“Daji, you still haven’t gotten anything useful out of Ha Mina, right?”
“No. I kept torturing her, but she never revealed anything.”
“What about to anyone else?”
“Lord Kim Nameless interrogated her briefly.”
“Kim Nameless?”
“He’s a Contractor of the ‘Nameless King.’ But he...”
“That man is dead anyway. So there’s no point talking about him.”
Kang Yujin stared at Ha Mina with mixed emotions.
With her mouth shut and her body lying still, she looked like nothing more than an ordinary, pitiful woman.
“For now, let’s move her to a hospital.”
Lee Hyeonje frowned.
“She might wake up, so we’ll need to prepare thoroughly for that possibility.”
“Cheon Sangwoon is hospitalized there too. The facilities are secure, so keeping her there is probably our best option.”
“That would be safest. Just in case, we should all go together.”
Joo Minha agreed.
In the end, everyone headed toward the hospital north of the Han River.
Ha Mina is unconscious...
I stared into the Observer, lost in thought.
How did this happen?
Ha Mina had been restrained with multiple devices.
She couldn’t use magic.
It should have been impossible for someone else to rescue her with magic either.
Daji had even been watching her.
It’s hard to believe she escaped and left behind a fake body.
She really did lose consciousness.
On the submarine, I had coaxed information out of Ha Mina.
I hadn’t shared it with the others yet, but I had already obtained most of the useful information I could.
So Ha Mina collapsing now wasn’t a devastating loss.
But...
The timing was strange.
Ha Mina was about to be handed over to the Eight Guardians for a full interrogation.
And then, of all times...
It almost felt as if someone had deliberately rendered her unconscious to silence her.
Is there really someone else behind Ha Mina?
That was the point I had focused on aboard the submarine.
In particular...
I had been concerned about Ha Mina’s contracted Constellation, the ‘Prophetic Magician.’
The most famous magician in the world... Merlin.
Ha Mina denied it.
She claimed her Constellation had not been involved and that everything had been her own doing.
It hadn’t seemed like a lie.
No. It really didn’t seem like she was lying.
She had no reason to lie about that at the time.
But in this situation...
only a Constellation with transcendent power like Merlin could have silenced Ha Mina.
This is impossible for a human.
Only Constellations like Merlin could pull off something like this.
Then how should I interpret it?
Was Ha Mina being manipulated or interfered with by Merlin... or some other Constellation... without even realizing it?
The moment I reached that possibility...
I tensed.
If I was right, this was a much bigger problem than I had thought.
Until now, I believed all of this happened because of Ha Mina’s personal madness.
That was what I thought.
That was what the other Constellations thought.
Everyone in the world probably believed Ha Mina had simply gone berserk on her own.
Kang Yujin and the other Contractors.
Asmodeus and the other demons.
Everyone.
But perhaps someone else had been guiding everything from behind the scenes.
If that person is Merlin... manipulating Ha Mina wouldn’t be difficult.
Ha Mina herself had controlled the executives of the Church of the Morning Star with magic.
She brainwashed them into obeying her...
then erased only the memories of being manipulated.
That allowed Ha Mina to dump all responsibility onto the executives and continue pretending to be a benevolent saintess.
What if the same thing had been done to Ha Mina?
If it was Merlin, a being far above Ha Mina...
it was entirely possible.
Even if it isn’t Merlin, there could be other Constellations capable of something similar...
With that thought, I operated the Observer.
It stored a list of various Constellations I could contact.
I began searching through them for someone who might know something useful.
I already know almost everything Yang Jian knows.
And if Wen Zhong knew anything important, he probably would’ve told me already...
In the end...
there was one person most likely to help in a situation like this.
The S-rank Constellation ‘King of Avengers.’
Count of Monte Cristo.
But the Count...
To be honest, contacting him felt a little awkward.
He hadn’t contacted me once since I rejected the Committee’s invitation.
He hadn’t seemed offended at the time, but reaching out first and acting like nothing happened still felt uncomfortable.
This wasn’t merely an emotional concern.
The Count might use this opportunity to establish leverage over me.
Maybe instead...
I thought of another Committee member.
The ‘Pure-White Hero,’ Arjuna.
Unlike the Count, I still exchanged messages with Arjuna personally.
Not long ago, he had even congratulated me on resolving the crisis in China.
And he doesn’t seem like the type to keep careful score of who owes whom like the Count does.
Maybe I should probe Arjuna.
With that thought, I sent him a message.
“I’m pleased to see you visit again, Nameless King.”
When I arrived at his vast throne, Arjuna welcomed me with open arms.
“Congratulations once again on resolving the crisis in China.”
“The Contractors did the hard work.”
“I’m already aware that you were very busy behind the scenes.”
Arjuna smiled.
“Of course, I didn’t uncover every last detail.”
His expression was much brighter than before.
Unlike when Kang Yujin and Saionji Keito had clashed...
he seemed to have regained some emotional breathing room.
At Arjuna’s invitation, I sat down and exchanged pleasantries with him for a while.
“By the way, Nameless King.”
After we finished talking about China, Arjuna looked at me with a smile.
“Did you come today because you had some separate business?”
“Actually, there is one thing I wanted to ask.”
“Hmm. Something you’re curious about?”
“Yes. I haven’t been a Constellation for very long, so there are still many things I don’t know.”
“I see.”
Arjuna slowly nodded.
“I am still a relatively famous S-rank Constellation, and I have ears in many places.”
“So unless it’s something truly obscure, I should be able to answer.”
“Ask whatever you like.”
“Thank you.”
I bowed my head slightly, then carefully opened my mouth.
“Do you know anything about the S-rank Constellation ‘Prophetic Magician’... Merlin?”
“Merlin.”
Arjuna placed a finger against his chin and thought.
“You’re not simply asking for his profile, I assume.”
