Chapter 92: Too Many Coincidences, Maybe This Is Fate’s Doing
"No, sir. No one’s on the cameras."
"Lock down the entire base." The orders were swift.
"Yes, sir!"
He ended the call, then turned to the combat specialist.
"Take a team. Check the House Head’s quarters, and bring me confirmation."
The combat specialist nodded once, all traces of casualness gone.
"And send another team to watch the children," the head of security added, his tone leaving no room for questions.
...
MC’s POV
The first generator going down was my signal.
It meant Asterios Dukas was dead.
Still, I didn’t leave immediately.
I stepped into the training hall, moving silently, and looked over the scene.
The body was charred black, and the mana residue in the air was almost choking. There was no question.
He wasn’t coming back from that.
Satisfied, I slipped back into the shadows.
Even though I killed Asterios, I did not leave the underground base.
I still had to save the kids, and steal the gold.
I made my way to the room housing the second generator.
It hummed steadily, oblivious to the chaos in the rest of the base.
I took a small EMP bomb, and flicked it toward the floor beneath the generator.
It appeared directly under the machine, hidden from every camera angle.
The device did its work in seconds.
It began pulling electricity toward itself, building charge, then detonated with a sharp pop of white light.
From the outside, it would look like a mechanical failure.
The surge ripped through the system, frying the generator’s circuits and sending a violent pulse into every connected device.
Cameras went dark, short-circuited.
Several other security-linked systems blinked off at the same moment.
’Perfect.’
...
Watchguard’s POV, Surveillance Room
The lights cut out again, plunging the surveillance room into darkness.
This time it lasted longer—five full seconds—before emergency power brought them back.
The first thing the watchguard noticed was the monitors.
Every feed was black.
"W-what?"
He reached for the console, hands moving quickly, checking one camera after another. All dead.
The power surge had taken them all offline.
His stomach sank.
He switched over to the system logs that tracked the status of critical areas.
The graphs told him what he didn’t want to see: electrical spikes across the board, multiple connection failures.
A sharp tone signaled an incoming call.
He answered.
"What happened now?" The voice of the head of security was ice cold.
"Sir, the second generator just went down. It looks like the electrical discharge from the first generator’s short-circuit traveled through the system and hit the second one as well," the watchguard said quickly.
"...What?"
The head of security’s voice was cold.
The watchguard could feel his anger.
"....Is that even possible?"
"It’s... theoretically possible. If the circuits are still connected at certain points and the grounding fails, a discharge from one system can feed into another. But the odds of that happening the way it just did are... extremely low. We must have been very unlucky."
Silence.
The watchguard swallowed hard.
"S-sir."
"What?"
The watchguard shivered hearing the voice.
He had seen the brutality and strength of the head of security and it made him afraid.
Still, he had to deliver the news, even if it pissed off the head of security.
"The surveillance system is gone."
"...What?"
His voice almost cracked under the weight of that tone.
"The cameras were short-circuited by the discharge from the second generator. They’re completely offline."
There was another pause.
The seconds dragged on.
Each second made the watchguard shiver more horribly.
When the head of security spoke again, it was with the precision of a man setting a trap.
"From now on, we will act as if there are multiple intruders. Lower all gates. Order everyone to the main hall for interrogation.
"We’ll check if someone inside is a traitor. Send the elite team to search every corner of the base.
"Tell your adjacent staff to leave the surveillance room and join the others in the main hall. You will come there too," said the head of security.
"B-but sir, what about the surveillance room?"
"It’s useless now. Do as I order."
"Y-yes, sir."
The line went dead.
The watchguard turned to his partner, relaying the order.
His partner looked just as uneasy but left without protest.
The watchguard stayed behind for a moment, lowering the gates one by one.
The heavy steel barriers clanged shut in the connecting tunnels.
Then his hand stopped.
He knew the head of security’s reputation.
If they didn’t find a culprit, the man would act rashly.
Without the House Head there to keep him in check, it would be dangerous.
He might kill everyone just to be sure the intruder was gone.
’That guy is insane.’
The body double was already dead. Now the real House Head was gone too. Things were going south for the Dusk Hand hidden clan.
’I might die if I go there.’
’Maybe I should...’
He decided.
He left a few gates open. One was his escape route, and the others were decoys.
Then, without a word, he slipped out of the surveillance room and moved towards the tunnels.
...
Combat Specialist’s POV
The air near the House Head’s quarters was heavy with the lingering scent of burnt metal and something worse.
The combat specialist pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The training room was a ruin.
In the center lay the House Head’s body, or what was left of it.
The flesh was blackened and cracked, patches burned away to reveal white bone.
Some areas had melted into unrecognizable shapes.
The gold bars that had been part of the rune array were warped and fused into the floor.
He crouched, taking in the scene, then began checking the surrounding equipment and runes.
Every step was careful, and professional.
After several minutes, he took out his communicator.
"I have a report."
"Speak." The head of security’s voice was tight.
"It looks like the House Head was absorbing mana when something went wrong. He lost control.
"The mana surged, overloaded the rune array, and it exploded.
"The gold acted as a conductor, feeding the surge into the electrical system.
"That tied directly into the earlier damage, and when the lines broke, it fed straight to the main generator.
"That’s what destroyed it," explained the combat specialist.
"...So you’re saying there’s no intruder?"
"Looks like it."
There was a pause before the head of security said, "The surveillance system went down with the second generator."
"What?" The combat specialist straightened. He’d known about the second generator, but this... "How?"
"That’s the question."
He understood immediately.
The head of security was asking for his assessment.
"I don’t think this is the work of an intruder," the combat specialist said slowly.
"So you’re saying all of this is coincidence?"
"No. I think it’s the work of [Fate]."
The line was silent.
Then the head of security spoke again in a careful voice,
"Rank 5 Cursed Spirit [Fate]?"
"Yes. Too many coincidences happened recently.
"The House Head’s body double dies of a ’natural’ cause. Then the real House Head dies during a mana absorption accident.
"The main generator is destroyed in the process. Then the second generator fails in a freak electrical transfer.
"Now the surveillance system is fried.
"And all of this happens while the Exorcist Police are on the mansion grounds. If any more chaos unfolds, they might find this place," said the combat specialist.
"You think [Fate] is trying to expose us?"
"Yes."