Chapter 128: Hideout

“There’s a transmission signal. As expected, they used the default settings—this thief is really lazy.”

At exactly twelve o’clock, Fran detected the surveillance and ** signals.

“The data transfer will take some time. That’s our window of opportunity. Let’s go find the target’s hiding place!”

Fran stood up, holding her tablet. At the top of the screen was a chibi depiction of Nyx.

“Nyx, I’ll leave the guidance to you.”

As Fran said this, the chibi Nyx gave a polite bow.

“Understood. Nyx is at your service. Navigation commencing.”

Lucia stood up as well and asked, “About how long will the window last?”

“Not long. Five minutes at most~”

Fran slung her small bag over her shoulder and pushed open the door, urging, “So, let’s move quickly!”

Their opponent had used the resort’s base station. As long as the target didn’t move during this time, the location they’d locked onto wouldn’t change. Even if more than five minutes passed, they could still find it.

So Fran wasn’t especially anxious.

The two followed Nyx’s directions all the way up the mountain, and behind a slope covered with greenery, they found a cave.

The entire mountain, and even the resort’s island, had been artificially constructed. This cave was the same. The areas not open to tourists didn’t even bother with camouflage—it was just a tunnel, shaped like an air-raid shelter. Their footsteps echoed as they walked.

“Hey, hiding out in an air-raid shelter? Easier to find than I thought!”

Exit

But the air-raid shelter was pitch black inside; the lights weren’t on. It seemed the culprit had gone out.

The place was hardly decorated at all. The grayish cement dome was rough, to say the least—if you wanted to sound nice, you could call it ‘industrial style’. If you wanted to be blunt, it was just a bare-bones unfinished room. The passageways inside were complex, almost like an underground maze, and with no light, the deeper you went, the more uneasy it felt.

“So dark…”

Lucia couldn’t help but move closer to Fran.

“Hiding in a place like this… The culprit must really be one of the resort staff, huh?”

Fran, on the other hand, seemed completely unafraid, leading the way with a flashlight. With Lucia, her ‘big sister’, clinging to her for reassurance, Fran actually found her reactions amusing.

She comforted her, “Don’t be scared, it’s not as big as you’d think in here. Besides, there’s a breeze, so there must be… Look, we’ve reached the end.”

Not far ahead was a wall.

Lucia muttered, “This resort really is shady. Don’t tell me it’s run by some evil organization?!”

Fran curled her lips but made no comment.

A pole extended from her backpack, the top opening up into a small radar umbrella, spinning to scan the environment and generating a much more detailed map than the narrow beam of the flashlight could offer.

“According to the radar, there’s no one here.”

They walked up to the wall they’d seen earlier. There was a locked door in it.

But it was an electronic lock, which was actually easier for Fran to handle.

Lucia asked, “Why put a big door like this in such a useless-looking facility? What’s inside?”

Fran rubbed her chin, pondering. She couldn’t figure it out, so she simply took out her lock-picking tools.

“We’ll find out once we’re inside.”

“Miss Fran, you’re so brave—aren’t you afraid of dying?”

Lucia finally couldn’t help but tease, but Fran didn’t mind at all.

“If I die, I can just revive. What’s there to be afraid of?”

“Even if you can revive, dying still hurts!”

“Oh, come on, this is Central City! Even ordinary people could get caught up in a hero battle and get sent back to the Chaos City of the Abyss. Compared to a quick death, what’s scarier is what might happen to you before you die, right?”

With a crisp “click,” Fran opened the electronic lock.

The space behind the door looked lived-in—there was a bed, wardrobe, table, and some luggage belonging to who-knows-who.

The suitcase had a physical combination lock, which was actually harder for Fran to pick. She couldn’t force it open either, or it would alert the culprit.

The furniture was the kind used in guest rooms—pretty high-end, which really didn’t fit with the bare-bones air-raid shelter. It must have been moved from the resort.

“This resort really is suspicious.”

Lucia repeated herself, though her tone was a bit shaky.

Although she had confidently accepted the task from Clara, Lucia was actually quite scared. She just liked to act tough so her brother wouldn’t worry.

The timid side of her still followed Fran in.

She was only an intern, but she was the oldest among them, which left her feeling a bit responsible.

“Scan complete—there’s no one else here.”

Nyx’s good news let Lucia breathe a sigh of relief.

“There’s no one now, but the culprit could come back at any time, so don’t let your guard down, okay?”

Fran gave the warning as she rubbed her hands and walked over to the computer on the desk.

“Besides, people aren’t what’s important—the computer’s still here!”

To receive the surveillance footage being transferred, the computer was powered on and didn’t even require a password. That made things much easier for Fran.

Of course, even if there had been a password, to Nyx it was just a thin piece of glass—she wouldn’t even need to bother Nyx, since Fran had developed her own backdoor program.

“Tech staff have their own methods!”

Fran plugged her tablet into the computer and began working. Meanwhile, Lucia retreated to the door, pressing herself against it and keeping watch for any movement outside.

“Huh? I can actually get this file… This paparazzo is really something—even I couldn’t get my hands on this data.”

Fran’s sudden praise left Lucia baffled.

“What are you talking about, Miss Fran?”

“Remember that accident at the exhibition center—the wormhole device you all saw? After the Association retrieved it, there was no further news, but the culprit’s computer has an analysis report on that thing… This person is really professional! I wonder which organization they’re from?”

Lucia nodded as well.

“So, the culprit is a spy for some evil organization, and this resort is their intelligence base?”

No, definitely not someone from Nightmare. Fran thought this inwardly.

So, with Lucia on watch at the door, Fran installed a backdoor program on the culprit’s computer and browsed through the strange “files” it contained.

“Hah, is this guy a diehard Pure White Storm fan? The desktop is Pure White Storm, and there’s even a folder named Pure White Storm. There are even secret photos… A stalker fan?!”

Could the culprit be a fan of Miss Sista?

But in Fran’s heart, Miss Sista was supposed to be paired up with Senior Clara.

A mysterious third party in the mix? A cool, twisted spy?

Lucia just blinked, quickly making up a whole drama in her head.

“Let’s try guessing the culprit’s motive. Could it be that the culprit adores Storm so much, and found out she spent the night with Clara yesterday, so they snuck into Clara’s room to plant surveillance?”

“Ha, you’re saying the culprit’s personal feelings gave them away?”

Fran was intrigued by Lucia’s imagined scenario, but her rational mind rejected it.

“It’s hard to imagine such a capable intelligence agent leaving such an obvious flaw just out of jealousy. They could have done everything completely under the radar—why deliberately appear before Clara? There must be a reason…”

Before she could finish, Lucia, still pressed to the door, suddenly made a gesture for silence.

Her expression darkened, and she used her fingers to mime walking, then pointed at the door.

The meaning was clear—

Someone was coming.