After f a tract upon him, Sora interrogated Fran?ois with the same cold detat he had shown Gérard.

  "So you're telling me... the first person Rachel had yuild kill was her own husband?" Sora's voice was calm, masking his emotions as he feigned ignorance. Gérard watched from the side, as he was asked to stay silent.

  "Yes," Fran?ois admitted nervously, forced to tell the truth. "His name was Nathan, if I remember correctly. We kept his identity hidden from the lower-ranking members at first. We tracked him for a while, learning everything about him before ambushing him. Rachel was with him when it happened. As he protected her from us, she... she stabbed him in the heart from behind. She was level 20 or so back then! But after she killed him, it felt like she became strohan us—though we couldn’t be sure. We started suspeg she had some way to hide her true power..." Sora’s fists ched at this revetion. His blood boiled with a the extent of how premeditated his brother's death had been, and how simir to his owh it was. ‘Nathan... Rachel lead you to your death, step by step... ’

  Fran?ois swallowed hard, sensing the ge in Sora’s mood. "I swear, that’s how it happened," he added hastily, feeling the iy of Sora's gre.

  Sora took a slow, deliberate breath, f himself to remain calm. "And Nais? Your friend here mentioned her earlier. How was she involved?"

  "She was just a rookie back then, not involved in the first assassination," Fran?ois expined. "But she did help with the killings of Rachel’s friends. Rookies like her were never part of the pnning—they were used as on fodder until they proved themselves." His tone carried no hint of remorse, only a casual aowledgment of the methods he’d employed.

  The silehat followed was suffog. Fran?ois and Gérard began to shift unfortably, sensing something ominous from the way Sora stared at them. They would have preferred the questioning to tinue, anything to break the tension.

  "We... we could work for you—just don’t hurt us, please," Fran?ois begged, his voice shaking with desperation.

  But before he could finish his plea, an immense pressure crushed him face-first into the ground, sileng his plea. Gérard found himself pinned down by the same force, uo move or evehe properly.

  Sora’s gaze darkened, his voice calm. "I'm no hero," he said. "But when I see trash, I take it out."

  With that, Sora summoned fmes in one hand and i the other. Half of each man was surrounded by bzing fire, while the other half were engulfed in a biting cold. He deliberately kept the iy low, f them to ehe agony of both elements for a long, excruciating miheir screams filled the air, but Sora’s expression remained indifferent.

  In the end, their suffering ceased. Parts caught in the fire were reduced to ash, while parts trapped in ice became a frozen moment in time of their suffering that he reduced to fine particles.

  [You have killed a pyer who has not initiated a fight with you.] x2[Pyer Killiy: 24-hour suspension from accessing safe areas.] x2[20% Experience malus for 24 hours.] x2He khere were rules against killing other pyers and that the punishments got worse if you kept doing it. But right now, he didn’t care.

  He had more important things on his mind. ‘Rachel… yoing to pay for this. You pnned my brother’s death so carefully, and you did the same thing to me. Just wait a little longer. Your end will be much worse than ours.’

  He sighed, feeling both frustrated and a little relieved. "It was the right decision not to go after her during the first resets," he muttered. "She would’ve wiped me out in seds. She may still be strohan me now, with the month I wasted before my first prestige."

  His anger faded, repced by a calm, cold focus. Nothing had ged—Nathan was still gone, and Rachel was still out of reach.

  Sora didn’t feel bad for killing Gérard and Fran?ois. If anything, he thought he’d been kind. He could’ve made them suffer much more through tracts, but they weren’t worth the trouble. Still, he felt dirty inside, like he was losing a piece of himself with every fight. 'I’m starting to feel less and less human,' he thought.

  Wheurned around, he saw Kara and Hiyoko walking toward him. They didn’t say anything, and their usual happy energy was gohe space between them felt heavy.

  Sora broke the silence. "Sorry you had to see that," he said quietly. Kara and Hiyoko didn’t respond, but their eyes showed that they uood.

  Sora opehe list of pyers Sin Soo-Yun had provided, sing through the names. Most of Rachel's acquaintances were in France, Russia, a, South Korea, or Japan. A cluster in South Korea caught his attention. ‘Is this where she’s hiding now?’ he wondered. ‘If what Gérard and Fran?ois said is true, I think she likely froups, betrays them, and moves on. It’d make sense for her to keep scattered tacts in different regions probably unaware of her nature, or for other reasons I'm not aware of.’

  He turo Kara. "Kara, I’m going to track down everyone she’s ected with and iigate. It’s going to take some time. What will you do in the meantime?"

  Kara’s gaze hardened, a refle of the determination she now carried. Everything Sora had told her about Rachel was true, and the full extent of the situation was even worse than she had imagined. "Let’s split up," she said. "You take half the list; I’ll take the other."

  Sora blinked, momentarily surprised. He hadn’t expected the usually gentle Kara to take such a resolute stance. But seeing the resolve in her eyes, he knew he couldn’t ge her mind. He nodded. "We might even need Alius’ help for this. Let me tact him."

  Opening his friend list, Sora froze. Only two names appeared: [Kara Spirine] and [Sin Soo-Yun].

  ‘What the hell?’ he thought, quickly solving the puzzle. ‘I know each time I prestige, my friend list resets. That's why I don’t have Amélie, Thierry, and e on there anymore, but why would Alius be...’ He realized what happened, ‘Alius must’ve prestiged too.’

  He quickly tried to add Alius back, only for an inve notification to appear:

  [There is no pyer with the name Alius.]“Damn it!” Sora shouted in frustration. He was sure of it now—Alius had either ged identities, died, or something even worse.

  "Let’s split up," Sora said, his tone sharper with urgency. "You start with this list of pyers. I’ll hahe ones in Frand work my way east. Maybe you cover Southeast Asia? For now, we just need information about each of them. However," he added, his voice ging, "I’m going to look for Alius first."

  Kara nodded, and after discussing Alius' situation, she uood Sora's worry. They parted ways, with Hiyoko staying loyally by Sora’s side.

  Sora’s search took him to the st pce he had seen Alius—a level 110-119 zone filled with various monsters. He searched the area relentlessly, crossing the region many times, but never sensed Alius' presence. What was more ing was the eerie silen the region.

  After an hour of running through the zoedly, a grim realizatioled in: ‘There isn’t a single creature left in this entire area. Not a single boss, not a single soul… What happened here?’

  Searg for clues for hours, Srew frustrated and moved to ions around this deserted one. All ions were intact, and only this "high level" region in Europe was affected by such a phenomenon.

  'Did something happen to Alius here?' He couldn't help but worry for his other half. He spent the day looking for him, and even Sin Soo-Yun said they didn't have any clue about the whereabouts of such a pyer, as they didn't even find his existence.

  ‘I hope he’s just reset his character and chosen a new identity... and that he’ll expin himself ter,’ Sora thought, relutly pausing his search for Alius. He decided to resume it in a month, hoping his alter ego was not deceased. If Alius had decided to ge identities, he wouldn’t reappear in the world until the one-month period had passed, after all.

  Refog on Rachel’s friends, Sora utilized the skills he had copied from assassins and thieves he had followed. Now, he could seamlessly blend into his surroundings, disappear into shadows. Spying on many pyers, he didn't hesitate to copy their skills and perfect them while he was at it. He would eveime in [bat Trainier] when he was hungry for specific skills, as he would find people training all kinds of skills there, including instructors.

  For aire week, Sora carefully observed Rachel’s work of friends. Afterward, he regrouped with Kara in Seoul, South Korea.

  What they uncovered was uling. Rachel’s friends rgely fell into two distinct categories: talented, often na?ve pyers, and ruthless pyer killers who huhers for profit or to grow.

  "The first group..." Sora said, summarizing their exge,"they’re probably just future victims. She likely picked them as targets to betray when it bes her. As for the pyer killers, they’re no different from that [Rouge Sang] guild. She’ll use them until they outlive their usefulness, then discard or destroy them."

  "Still," he noted with some satisfa, "except for her es in South Korea, we’re strohan most of her friends in terms of levels." A small smile appeared on his lips as he reflected on the advantage. Despite the time spent gathering intelligence, Sora and Kara remai levels 110 and 122, respectively.

  Sora had one bold idea—a move to make before the upi in Japan.

  Kara asked, with a look that seemed to question his sanity. "Are you sure about infiltrating her guild?"

  Sora’s smile widened, a glint of determination in his eyes. "This is just the first step of my revenge. She wants to toy with people? Let’s toy with her instead. They say, ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer,’ don’t they?"

  mimou

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