Chapter 28: Marriage Blue (8)

The farce the two of them were carrying out ended quickly.

Adrian was the first to notice something amiss.

With all laughter completely erased from his face, he turned his head away from Sena.

“Wait a moment.”

Instead of asking him what was wrong, Sena quickly ran over to the balcony.

They say even a dog at a village school can recite poetry after three years, and Sena had been covering Adrian for far longer than three years.

She knew what kind of expression he wore when things like this happened.

A villain had arrived.

Sena hid her body behind the gently swaying curtains and looked outside.

A group of reporters had set up camp down there. Passersby walking down the street seemed intrigued by the sight and slowed their steps.

It was a scenery Sena was all too familiar with.

However, it was only normal for press teams not to be seen in a place like this.

Sena narrowed the space between her eyebrows and spoke to Adrian, who had approached behind her before she even realized it.

“The address has been leaked.”

As an investigator ranked among the very best, Adrian owned safe houses of various formats.

Part of it was having high purchasing power due to high hazard pay, but it was mostly to avoid villains or reporters who held grudges against him.

For instance, someone like Sena Han.

“This is ridiculous; even I didn’t know about this place.”

Sena swept her hair back and let out a helpless sigh. Adrian pulled her arm back from behind and whispered softly.

“There is a villain among them.”

At those words, Sena examined the journalists anew.

Aside from two or three who looked like rookie reporters, they were all familiar faces.

Morning of Ratz, Silver Times, Blue County Post, Oscar Tribune, Red County Tribune… She stopped counting the numbers and clicked her tongue.

“Literally every reporter who could possibly come has shown up.”

The moment Sena confirmed the faces of the journalists and stepped backward, the curtain fluttered, revealing her silhouette.

And then, it happened.

Clank.

It started as a very small sound.

The source of the sound was beyond the chatting journalists, easily ten meters away from the balcony.

However, Adrian reacted swiftly.

First and foremost, he snatched Sena away.

At that exact moment, an illegally modified magic bullet focused on armor penetration grazed the bridge of Sena’s nose and pierced smoothly through the wall as if it were butter.

Adrian stared with an expressionless face in the exact direction the sound had originated.

“They’ve already run away.”

“Suddenly, what… ah.”

Sena stroked the wrist he had grabbed. Red handprints remained vividly on her skin.

She glanced at Adrian’s profile, then swallowed her question back down.

Adrian, wearing an emotionless face as if all feelings had been surgically removed, looked like something between an exquisite plaster statue and a wax figure.

In short, it meant he didn’t look human.

She had never seen an expression like that even once until now.

Because Adrian had always maintained a composed, easygoing face whether executing impossible operations on the front lines or being gang-attacked by villains.

“Selena. Fall back.”

Adrian warned in a low, cracked voice.

And accurately three seconds later.

Her field of vision was dyed brightly, and right after that, a tremendous roar reverberated. By the time Sena recovered her sight and looked outside, the lightning had already vanished without a trace.

“Where did lightning suddenly come from…?”

A monologue leaked out from among the reporters who reflexively prostrated themselves on the ground, then cut short.

The buzzing journalists closed their mouths one by one.

Lightning out of a clear sky—any rational person could only think of an artificial lightning strike.

And so was the owner of this house, whose very symbol was lightning.

“Argh, my camera! My communication device!”

Starting with the photojournalist from Silver Times wailing, the area outside the wall became chaotic.

The reporters clutched their broken equipment—which looked as though it had been struck by an EMP—and fled for their lives.

All that remained were the Oscar Tribune, who put their lives on the line because they were utterly unhinged, and Morning of Ratz, true journalists risking their lives for their sense of mission.

Sena watched it with a peculiar feeling. If she had continued working at the Oscar Tribune, she might have been standing in that very spot.

And she would have hurled every curse imaginable at the culprit who broke her camera and recorder.

“Your mana manipulation ability is incredible. To break only electronic devices without turning people into roasted meat.”

It truly was a remarkable feat. Remarkable enough for her, who felt averse to Adrian, to admire it.

It was a stunt that even the professors of the Trace Magic University, who were known to be the most proficient at mana manipulation, would likely fail.

Well, that was probably because those people only researched fields where research grants were deposited.

“The person who taught me magic disliked seeing blood.”

Adrian spoke as if reminiscing.

Hearing those words, Sena tilted her head to the side.

It was her first time hearing that Adrian had a master.

If that master referred to an instructor at a training center or military academy, he wouldn’t speak so affectionately.

And there was a part that was even harder to understand than the master who may or may not exist.

“If you had a method like this, why did you let me cover you all this time?”

“Even if I had broken those, would you have given up on me?”

“…It’s not that, but…”

Adrian’s words sounded like something lovers would say to each other.

For some reason, Sena felt like she was constantly losing out the more they talked, so she shut her mouth.

That was merely the beginning.

“Sena, do you see how dangerous the outside world is now?”

“Even so, I don’t think it’s as dangerous as you.”

“That would only be the case in bed.”

“Forget it, just go catch the villain who ran away.”

“Since I am currently on standby, my colleagues will handle it.”

Adrian gestured toward the outside of the balcony with a flick of his chin.

Down there, investigators were arriving one by one and controlling the entry of journalists.

Visually, it felt like merely one or two minutes had passed since the lightning struck.

Compared to the Special Bureau’s average dispatch time, they had undoubtedly been lying in ambush near this house.

Sena couldn’t understand the series of situations and spoke.

“Is my personal safety really that important?”

“Regrettably, yes.”

Adrian, slightly lowering his eyes, looked truly sorrowful.

He carefully tucked Sena’s disheveled hair behind her ear and added,

“And since the address has been exposed, it seems we must move to another safe house.”

Something clicked in her mind at those words.

“Then what about the boarding house I was staying at…?”

“Investigators or villains have probably searched it already.”

“What?”

Dizziness washed over Sena, causing her to flop down onto a nearby chair.

Just showing her face briefly had led to a villain sniping at her and the Special Bureau intervening, so there was no way her cozy sanctuary would remain intact.

Because they wouldn’t care in the slightest that Sena had shed tears of blood over the murderous water prices of the capital to pay twenty million cells as a deposit.

An even bigger problem than losing her home was the database piled up in her room.

Of course she had backed it up, but with any information, the original file was what mattered, not a copy.

Adrian reached out his hand as if to comfort her gloomy face, then clenched it into a tight fist.

Knock, knock-knock, knock.

In his ears, the sound of rhythmic knocking on the door from the floor below was caught.

Naturally, it was the investigators who had come to inspect the incident.

“We can no longer use this room.”

Saying so, he took Sena to another room.

Not so surprisingly, that place was Adrian’s room.

Sena glared at Adrian, wondering if the series of events had been orchestrated by him, but he quietly bowed his head toward Sena.

“You must have been startled, so get plenty of rest. I will step out for a moment.”

Simultaneously with those words, his face drew closer.

Reflexively squeezing her eyes shut, a soft touch pressed against the bridge of her nose and pulled away. Sena turned her back to look at Adrian walking away and absentmindedly wiped the bridge of her nose.

A single drop of blood seeped out at her fingertip.

Only then did she realize just how dangerous the situation had been.

From the looks of it, a silenced pistol had been fired, but it was impossible to tell how on earth Adrian had known and reacted.

If he hadn’t pulled her away, she would have been a dead woman.

Sena clenched her fists tightly until her fingernails dug into her palms.

She was angry at owing her life to none other than Adrian Blake.

Sena had no intention of meekly stepping back and letting villains and the Special Bureau boss her life around. She hurriedly stood up and headed downstairs.

They were clearly going to talk about the attempted murder incident just now, and as the victim, she had a legitimate right to participate in that conversation.

“It looks like an item modified in Red County.”

“I don’t quite understand why they used an old-fashioned pistol of all things…”

As she walked down the landing, she heard voices of people conversing.

Among them was a voice that sounded somewhat familiar.

In her urgency, Sena unconsciously took the stairs two steps at a time.

Adrian, who turned around to look at her, opened both arms as if it were natural.

However, the person whose hands she grabbed was someone else.

“Sena!”

Adrian looked at her with a face full of betrayal, but Sena paid him no mind and turned her head to the person who had caught her. Her face brightened with delight.

“Professor Sasha!”

“I heard the news, Han.”

The man who greeted her calmly had curly black hair falling over his forehead, and looked thirty-five at the very most.

No matter how much Trace Magic University prioritized achievements, he was exceptionally young for a professor.

Withdrawing his arm once Sena regained her balance, he spoke.

“I didn’t expect to meet you like this.”

Unlike the accompanying investigators, the black-haired professor stood out because he was dressed in casual street clothes, specifically a plaid shirt.

Gradually, the delight vanished from Sena’s face, replaced by suspicion.

“By the way, why are you here, Professor?”

“Well, because I don’t have a spot on the podium?”

“Nonsense. If not you, who else lives in the lab?”

“Calm down, Han.”

He shook his head side to side. His curly black hair swayed aimlessly following the movement.

“I was merely suspended due to a slightly… dangerous experiment. Fortunately, the Special Bureau hired me, so my research funds were saved.”

Speaking in a light tone as if it were a pleasant anecdote, he extended one hand. His gaze was already fixed on Adrian, who had stepped up beside Sena.

A unique glint flashed in his green eyes.

“Has it been twenty-six years? It has been a very long time, Sol.”

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