Chapter 354.

Chapter 354.

Chapter 354. Forming a Strategic Alliance. (6/10)

“It’s not that I don’t trust you-”

“Yeah, I get it. You already said it, I’m just being difficult because she gets to know and I don’t. I like watching mysteries as they unfold so I’ll suck it up and figure out whatever your little scheme is on my own. Maybe I’ll come up with a good story to write later on out of all this.”

“So, what do you say? Will you hear me out, or not?”

Lea took a deep breath and held it in for a minute. She slowly exhaled out a long sigh and said, “Haaaaaaaah. Fine. As your girlfriend said, it wouldn’t hurt to at least hear what your plan is. I can decide what to do after hearing it. Follow me. We can talk in private upstairs.”

“Yuna, wait here for the time being.”

“Yeah, yeah. Go ahead, you womanizer.”

“I’m not womanizing.”

She rolled her eyes, “Sure you aren’t.”

“I’m really not,” I grumbled discontentedly as I followed behind Lea up a set of stairs past the reception desk.

I was led into a small office space. It was pretty messy and disorganized. It could hardly be called an office with the condition it was in. There were motorcycle and car parts strewn about the room on the ground and desks in the room.

I took a seat across from Lea at the desk in the corner of the room. She raised her legs up on the chair. Her right leg was flat, parallel to the seat, while her bare left leg was raised up perpendicular. She had her left arm hooked over her left knee and her right hand holding her left elbow.

“So? What is it you wanted to talk about? If you tell me you fell in love and couldn’t get me out of your mind after our first meeting despite already having a girlfriend, I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”

I rolled my eyes and countered, “Fall for you? That’s a pretty funny joke. I don’t have such a strange taste in women.”

“Are you lookin for a fight?”

“Heh, you’re the one who started it, Ms. No Boyfriend.”

“Shut up and get to the point. I don’t like wasting my time. I’m a busy girl.”

“Busy doing what? Riding around the city crying about your pitiful search for a romantic partner bearing no fruit?”

She puffed out her cheek and grumbled, “Shut up, just leave me alone. I don’t want to remember. Guys are jerks.”

I shook my head regretfully at this woman squandering her charms and said, “If you showed guys your cute side you’d probably have better luck.”

“There isn’t a single cute bone in my body.”

“You look pretty cute right now though.”

“Womanizer.”

“I’m not a womanizer. I simply state the facts.”

“A big fish?”

“Yes.”

“What is this big fish?”

“Unfortunately I can’t go into details on that either. You will need to trust me. Once the brain is out of commission, that is when the hunt begins. When they’re in chaos, that will be the time to strike. With the plan I have in mind, they won’t even be aware their leader has been assassinated.”

“Let’s say you are able to do this. What does this... hunt... entail?”

“I’m glad you asked...” a nefarious smile grew on my face.

I opened my mouth and explained in great detail the order that would be issued and how everything would go down.

As she listened, a sharp gleam appeared in her eyes.

By the end of my explanation of how zero casualties on her side would be possible, her eyes conveyed the horrible grin she had on her face hidden beneath her face mask.

“If you really can get things to that stage, the endgame really would be a piece of cake. They’d be like flies running headfirst into a bug zapper. Nothing more than prey walking into a lion’s den.”

“Exactly. But what this hinges on is whether we can occupy all their eyes on us so they don’t notice the capitalizing hunter directly behind eyeing them in secret.”

“You won’t tell me any specific details of the hunter’s plan?”

“No, I cannot. It’s complicated and very sensitive information. The smallest information leak could ruin everything. We only get one chance with this plan. If it fails, it’s not something that would work again. It’s do or die. Eat or be eaten.”

“I see. In that case, I’ll have to refuse.”

“Haaaaah. May I know why?”

“I can’t trust you. You could be working for Swastika and this could all be an elaborate trap. If I’m not careful, and I blindly trust you, the ones being wiped out could be my side. The ones with zero casualties might end up being Swastika instead.”

“Certainly, that is entirely possible. Declining for that reason does make sense.”

“The only way I could trust you is if I have a hostage that is valuable to you. How important is your girlfriend to you? The reason you’re having her stay with us isn’t it to give us that hostage to win our trust?” I couldn’t deny, her reasoning wasn’t flawed.

“No. It’s simply for her protection. I wouldn’t give Yuna to you to be a hostage. If you want a hostage, you can take my life hostage if you want.”

“Huh? And how would I do that? You’re going to be running about staying low, aren’t you? I’m not going to be able to keep my eyes on you and I’ll probably lose track of you.”

“You could strap a bomb to me that will remotely detonate at the press of a button or automatically explode if I flee the city or try to remove it or something.”

“Where do you think I’m going to get something convenient like that?”

“No idea.”

“Then it looks like we’ve arrived at a roadblock in negotiations.”