Bermuda [bl]

Tergio was in front of the secret underground storage where he had entered with Flynn earlier.

He narrowed his eyes and picked up the location tracking sensor hidden among the fallen leaves. Then, looking at the blinking light on the sensor in his hand, he turned his head and spoke to someone.

"Come out quickly. It's dangerous here now too."

He spoke as if throwing his words into the empty air. However, even after he spoke, the surroundings remained quiet.

As the person he was waiting for continued to show no reaction, he brushed his brown hair back and frowned as if annoyed.

"Do you want to get caught here? If you want that, then do as you please."

His voice, mixed with frustration, scattered around once again. Then, from the quiet place, a wooden board under the fallen leaves lifted slightly, and someone inside spoke in a slightly trembling voice.

"You... who the hell are you?"

At the softly spoken woman's voice, Teo looked at the gap in the opened wooden board. He then knelt on one knee in front of it and said,

"Does that matter now? I told you. I'm a low-ranking member."

"A member? You're a member?"

The slightly opened board door slammed shut again. From inside, the woman's shouting voice was heard, muffled by the ground.

"Get lost! The guys who were with me all ran away, abandoning me to save themselves! You're probably leaving me here to hand me over to the Council too!"

At the woman's screaming voice, Tergio looked at the closed board door and sighed, rubbing his dry face. Then, massaging his stiff neck as if it was sore, he said,

"...It would be disappointing to be treated the same as those bastards."

"..."

However, no words were heard from inside the tightly closed board door.

After staring at the closed wooden board for a while, Tergio took out a watch from his pocket and checked the time. Feeling that he could no longer delay, he immediately grabbed the wooden board with one hand and tore it off, throwing it far away.

Then, the figure of the grand master was revealed, crouching right in front of the entrance to the storage inside the board door. As the board was torn off, she looked up at him with a very startled face. Her deep, chestnut-colored eyes were slightly moist.

Seeing her like that, Tergio softened his voice a little and spoke as if comforting her.

"Grand master, I'm sorry, but we really don't have time right now. It's a miracle that this place hasn't been dug up yet, so we need to go somewhere else quickly. Come out now."

The grand master looked at the man in front of her, extending his hand, with a tired face.

She had no idea whether to trust this man or not.

***

This morning, after talking with the fake Blaine, she had left the Count's residence to find the low-ranking member who had secretly entered her room last night.

But as soon as she came out, the executives of the merchant group suddenly approached her, took her to a secluded place, and urgently informed her that the Council had arrived in a nearby town.

She had already heard about it at the Count's residence, so she tried not to pay much attention to it. However, they acted as if they were being chased by something and made an unreasonable demand, telling her to steal the contract from the Count's residence if she wanted to live, saying that they had to withdraw from here immediately.

Of course, she refused. Count Servia was thorough when it came to contracts, as he was cowardly and indecisive, so it was obvious that he wouldn't hand it over easily. Above all, she couldn't understand the executives who were saying they should withdraw from here just because a few Council members had come to the neighboring town.

The executives were close aides to Filione Delberg and also had the task of evaluating and monitoring the new grand master, so they might have been able to easily utter the word withdrawal. But for her, the past days and the days ahead depended on this job.

Moreover, their plan didn't even include the other members. If they withdrew like this, it would only mean abandoning the people she had worked hard to gather.

Even if she had gotten involved in illegal activities as soon as she became the representative of the merchant group and took on the role of grand master, she had no intention whatsoever of abandoning the members like cutting off a tail.

The executives, who seemed to be terribly afraid of something, immediately disagreed with her and tried to escape, leaving Frost. When they really abandoned the merchant group and left, she panicked in the rapidly spiraling situation.

Barely holding herself together, she ran around on her two feet to gather the scattered members. At that moment, the person who appeared in front of her was none other than this man standing before her eyes now.

And he was also the low-ranking member who had informed her last night that two outsiders were looking for Leonardo Blaine, the one she had been searching for.

When he encountered her wandering around the town, he first looked at her as if he had seen something he shouldn't have and said,

"You... why are you still here?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Those scumbags should have all left by now... Why are you still here?!"

Last night, he wasn't exactly polite, but he had acted with courtesy. However, the man she met again suddenly spoke informally and confronted her, asking why she was here when he had given her a 'chance'.

She couldn't keep up with his sudden actions at all.

She had thought that he wasn't simply a low-ranking member, but she had no idea how he knew that the executives had just left, and she couldn't even grasp what the 'chance' he mentioned was.

However, before she could even ask, she closed her mouth at the man's face, which looked quite confused and angry. In that appearance, which was quite different from the relaxed smile of last night, she even felt an indescribable fear.

When the man met her gaze, silently looking at him, he soon took a deep breath as if trying to maintain his composure and said,

"Listen carefully. The Council will be barging in soon. Leave here now, even if it's late."

At his words, the grand master frowned as if she couldn't understand.

"What are you talking about? Suddenly telling me to leave here? The executives are like that, and you're like that too. Why are you all..."

"Stop talking and leave."

When the man interrupted her and repeated the incomprehensible words, she shouted angrily, choking up.

"I can't leave my merchant group behind. No, I won't leave!!"

She was already on the verge of going crazy because of the situation where she suddenly had to take on all the responsibility and lead the members. But when even this man of unknown identity told her to leave this place, the grand master felt like she was going insane.

As she stubbornly refused to leave, screaming, he looked around in a bit of bewilderment, avoiding people's gazes, and took her to a place with few people.

Then, with a very serious look in his eyes, he grabbed her shoulders tightly and said,

"Is this the time for you to worry about the merchant group? It's not completely yours anyway."

"Ha, then what if I just leave like this, not caring? Do you even know what will happen to me then?"

As she spoke with veins bulging in her neck, the man bit his lip and stared at her intently. Then, he continued, sounding a little tired and frustrated, ruffling his hair.

"You chose this. To stay here."

"Yeah, I chose it. Who cares?"

"Ha... I deliberately leaked information to all those I caught and tried to send you out with them..."

"...What?"

At his incomprehensible words, she asked again as if she had misheard. The 'guys who were all caught' he mentioned seemed to refer to the executives of the merchant group. She widened her eyes in disbelief and asked in a trembling voice, trying to confirm the truth.

"Don't tell me... the reason the executives ran away in such a hurry was because of you?"

"That's right."

"You... you!!"

She grabbed his collar with a very angry look. Then, she stared into his eyes with a fierce gaze and said,

"What the hell did you do...?"

She looked at him with a murderous gaze, but even then, he spoke to her with unwavering eyes.

"It's no use venting your anger at me now."

"Venting? Do you think I'm venting right now? Because of you, all those executive bastards ran away, and thus the middleman disappeared, but you're saying it's just venting... Isn't it normal to want to tear you apart and kill you right now?"

The hand grabbing his collar was filled with strength, and the bones on the back of her hand were trembling as if they would protrude out, pale white.

However, he grabbed her wrist and easily removed her hand that was gripping his collar. As her hand fell powerlessly due to his strong force, she tried to slap him, looking even more resentful, but that was also easily caught.

"There's no time to get excited."

His coldly subdued eyes stared at her as if piercing through her.

"If you want to live from now on, listen to me."