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Cynthia wasn't sure if Emilia believed her excuse, but since her partner only hummed thoughtfully, no one could stop her from convincing herself that it must be so.
While the raven-haired girl was still nodding to herself, Emilia had already moved on to turning whatever remained intact in the room upside down to see if she could find something of interest.
Of course, it was impossible for a low-level scumbag like Andrew to possess anything worthy of her attention, and the crimson-haired girl soon trudged back to the broken sofa in disappointment. "Guess I can only wait for Penny's helpers to get here now. Hopefully the manager won't burst a vein by then."
Cynthia coughed. "W-Well, don't be so sad. You only wanted to clear up one of the dirty dens in this area to get started with your plan, and that's already done, right? Plus, we did find the record of that politician buying a child slave, which isn't nothing!"
Emilia hummed thoughtfully as she mulled over her partner's words before shaking her head. 'It's just something written down by Andrew, and it's definitely not enough to prove anything on its own.'
Even if they managed to get concrete evidence against that politician it wasn't a fish big enough for its death to make any waves in the ocean, so it couldn't really be considered that much of a loss.
Of course, even if she wasn't too disappointed in the end, Emilia was still happy to receive her partner's care once in a while. After all, haughty and arrogant Cynthia might be cute, but when she showed her caring side, her partner was even more adorable!
The crimson-haired girl smiled. 'But… thank you for comforting me.'
Cynthia almost choked on her words as she hurried to 'defend her dignity'. "W-Who said I was trying to comfort you?!"
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The goons who had been anxiously waiting for their boss to finish negotiating a deal with the Nightingale clan had naturally heard the commotion inside during their 'fight', but none of them dared to go in, or even question what was happening.
After all, even if their boss was more dashing and fierce today than usual, they weren't stupid enough to believe that he could be the one beating the people from the Nightingale clan by himself.
If he wasn't getting taught a lesson and humiliated thoroughly, the noise could only be from him kneeling or banging his head on the ground over-enthusiastically. And they couldn't really afford to ruin the good deeds of their boss at this time, could they?
Not to mention, if they were really pulled into the meat grinder together with the boss because they stuck their necks in where they shouldn't, wouldn't their intestines turn green with regret?
After a while, though, one of the more impatient goons couldn't help but complain. "I-It's been a while since we last heard a sound… do you think the boss is okay?"
His 'coworker' shushed him angrily. "You can shut up if you don't have anything good to say! With how thick the skull of our boss is, do you think it's going to break just by banging on the ground a few times?"
The other goons also quickly voiced their agreement. "That's right, our boss may not be very smart, but you cannot go doubting the thickness of his skull!"
Naturally, none of them were particularly concerned about the safety of their boss, though that wasn't much of a surprise considering their line of work.
The only reason they cared at all was because right now Andrew was the only thing standing between themselves and the people from the Nightingale clan, and none of them wanted to directly face such a terrifying opponent, after all.
Small goons like them would be chewed up and spit out by that kind of behemoth in just a moment, and no one would even know what happened. How could they even muster up the thought to resist?
"T-The noises must have stopped because the actions of our boss moved them, and they must now be negotiating… um, something, r-right?"
Although the man's words weren't very convincing at first, the people who were desperate to believe it naturally found them extremely logical.
"Right! Just you wait, the boss will definitely get us a good deal!"
"Thinking about it again, being the Nightingale clan's dogs doesn't sound so bad, right?"
The expressions of the rest of the goons also lit up as they thought about it.
Wouldn't this mean they would no longer be petty criminals who had to sneak around and remain wary of offending those they shouldn't, and instead start to swagger fearlessly around the town?!
Unfortunately, their dreams were shattered along with the front door of the building as another group broke in without warning.
Although they were powerless in front of people from the Nightingale clan, simply looking at the non-gray hair on the heads of the new intruders was enough to fill the goons with righteous fury.
"FUCK! Do you think this is your grandma's house?!"
They'd had enough of getting their pride trampled willy-nilly!
"Brothers, let's teach these idiots a lesson!"
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As the 'poor' goons soon realized, dreams and realities were often two very different things. The people who dared to rush in had obviously come prepared, and didn't even pause when they were told they might soon be facing the Nightingale clan.
Their lack of response was the same as mocking them for 'lying', as if they weren't even qualified to be the Nightingale clan's dogs!
Unfortunately, no matter how unjust they felt the situation was, after being tasered into a twitching mess, most of them could only faint obediently.
A 'lucky' few managed to avoid the wires and pull out their knives in time, but much to their despair, the opponents they faced were disgustingly good at dodging their strikes, and a second round of tasers got them before they could even think of a way out.
The leader of the 'intruders' didn't pay the slight burning smell on the ground any heed and quickly rushed into the 'office', only to be stunned by the scene inside.
When first informed about the White Deer's new mascot's 'kidnapping', they never imagined they would find her in the middle of a 'sea of corpses', while the girl herself appeared completely fine.
'W-Well, she looks a little bored, but that's not the point!'
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