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After listening to Simon's description, Zayne was completely at a loss.
If what Simon said was true, then he could only assume he was being excluded—or that he'd offended that lord in some way before.
But after thinking about it carefully, he still couldn't figure it out.
On the contrary—as the Director of the Public Security Office of the East-Haven Cardmaker Association, it was impossible for that lord not to inform him if he really wanted to do something like an assassination.
Of course, the most crucial point was that with that lord's strength, although he might not definitely defeat Vice President Russell, he wouldn't be beaten to the point of running away in panic either.
Looking at Russell, whose clothes were only slightly dirty, Zayne touched his chin.
He kept feeling something was wrong.
But soon Russell's voice interrupted his thoughts.
"Maybe." Russell's expression was calm, making it hard to tell what he was thinking. "Let's leave it at that for tonight. Everyone go back and rest."
He wasn't injured and had already identified the suspect. There was no point in them continuing to crowd around him.
Upon hearing this, Simon and the other two didn't waste any words. Soon they left with different expressions.
But before Zayne left, Russell called out to him. "Director Zayne, please have your people come help repair the area during the day tomorrow."
"Consider these as payment."
As he spoke, he took a thick stack of materials from the Shadowkhan beside him.
Most were Bronze and Iron-rank materials, but there were some Silver-rank ones mixed in. The quality wasn't very high—all things Russell had collected before.
Even a slacking counselor like Hazel could come up with a large pile of Silver-rank materials. Given Russell's position, there would be even more useless materials accumulating.
In fact, some of them had been donated by subordinates.
As mentioned before, those Russell had been able to find original owners for, he'd returned. Those remaining were ones whose senders couldn't be identified.
This also left him speechless.
Even if he really wanted to use his connections, Russell didn't even know who'd sent them. How could he help?
That said, with his current strength and status, it didn't really matter if he didn't provide these materials and let the Civil Engineering seniors work for nothing.
But since he had no use for these low-rank materials now, he might as well take them out and win people's hearts.
Compared to being stingy, it was better to be generous.
If it were ancient times, what he was doing would be very taboo—equivalent to a border general secretly building up power. He'd easily be reported.
But now that the Federation had monsters like cardmakers, it didn't matter.
After all, even if you had 100,000 low-rank cardmakers, it might not be enough for a single Diamond-rank master to defeat alone.
In the extraordinary world, everything depended on who had the stronger fist.
Taking the materials, Zayne lowered his head and replied. "I understand. I'll take care of it tomorrow."
After speaking, the expressionless middle-aged man disappeared on the spot.
Seeing several people leave, Russell sighed and returned home.
Fortunately, only the bedroom was damaged. The rest of the place was untouched—otherwise he'd have to sleep on the street today.
I feel like I could make a [Wallpaper Room] if necessary.
As a prop frequently used by a certain blue all-purpose robot cat in the movie, compared to other outrageous things involving time and causality, spatial props like [Wallpaper Room] were quite convenient.
If you thought about it, they were more suitable for cardmakers exploring secret realms.
Shaking his head, Russell gathered his wandering thoughts and had several Shadowkhan start cleaning up the guest room.
He'd have to make do with the guest room tonight.
In the basement of Simon's house, Sebastian Sterling—who had previously attacked Russell—was eating out-of-season oranges as if nothing had happened.
Thanks to the existence of cards, there was no need to worry about whether various fruits in the Federation were in season.
After all, even in the world before Russell's transmigration, you could already eat out-of-season fruits anytime, anywhere.
"How did you fail?" Simon's face was gloomy, his tone slightly cracking. "Didn't you say you alone were enough?"
Sebastian shrugged. "It indeed was enough. If I hadn't told you not to come with me, wouldn't you have been exposed just now?"
Simon paused. He knew the man before him was telling the truth. "What should we do now? After this incident, he must be on guard. It'll be even harder to assassinate him in the future."
The chain reaction from this failed assassination was very serious—not just making Russell more vigilant.
Simon was afraid that if Russell directly called for help, things would get troublesome.
What might be waiting for him then was probably suspension from his post. His previous fantasy of gradually becoming a high-ranking official would shatter like a dream bubble.
Sebastian scratched his itchy cheek and asked tentatively. "How about I try again tomorrow?"
Hearing this, Simon hesitated to speak. Finally, he sighed heavily. "You'd better not go and die."
"Let me spread the news about the Spirit Begging Society attacking him tomorrow, and then we'll talk."
At this point, he couldn't help feeling discouraged. The situation seemed like a dead end no matter how he looked at it.
Seeing his expression, Sebastian rolled his eyes and then slumped down in his chair. "Then I'll find a place to hide first. Otherwise it'll be troublesome if someone finds out I'm in your house."
Simon was almost at his wit's end by now. He didn't have time to care where Sebastian went. "Fine. I'll let you know if anything comes up."
Seeing this, Sebastian didn't intend to say anything more and immediately vanished from the basement.
Only Simon was left standing there.
Time came to the second day.
Russell sat in his Vice President's office for the first time in a while.
Knock knock knock.
There was a knock on the door. "Come in."
Pushing open the door, the person who entered was Zayne, Director of the Public Security Office.
"Vice President, this is what you instructed me about yesterday." As soon as he entered, the middle-aged man spoke straight to the point and handed the documents in his hand to Russell.
At first Russell thought it was about street repairs.
But after taking the documents, he found out they were about the Unification Sect.
Soon, he finished reading with a frown on his face. "So there have been disappearances all this time, and the numbers have increased?"
Hearing this, Zayne nodded. "Yes. They're still targeting the gang members. We didn't find anything unusual using the method you mentioned before."
Earlier, after Russell said the Unification Sect might not be peaceful, Zayne had already arranged for his subordinates to start collecting the most recently registered missing persons cases.
They discovered that compared to the last time the Unification Sect committed crimes, the number of missing persons had actually increased.
And their actions were more secretive.
Russell rubbed his brows with a headache. If Zayne could think of it, he could too. "Didn't I kill that demon who could perform the so-called secret technique?"
"Why did it start again?"
"Or maybe there are new monsters coming from the north."
At this moment, he couldn't help but feel a bad premonition.
Russell just felt like he'd triggered a situation where you beat the little one and the big one comes.
No—do demons also play this trick?
After complaining internally, he calmed down a little.
Then Russell stood up. "Let's go. We're doing field investigation today."
Before leaving, he casually asked Zayne. "By the way, have you told President Simon?"
Zayne was stunned and shook his head honestly. "No."
"Do you need me to say something?"
Russell glanced at the middle-aged man subtly, then patted him on the shoulder. "No. This is good enough."
He glanced at the tightly closed door of the President's office and sneered internally. From top to bottom, from underground to legitimate—they're all my people.
What are you fighting me with?
Thinking this, Russell took Zayne and left headquarters to investigate the Unification Sect's whereabouts.
But unfortunately, they didn't notice any signs until the end of the workday.
The few people under surveillance hadn't come into contact with anyone strange.
After returning home and having dinner, Russell didn't rest. Instead, he went to the underground study—which had previously been used as a Spirit Begging Society meeting place instead of the abandoned location.
After last night's assassination, he was no longer prepared to wait.
Getting rid of Simon—that disgusting fly—had now become his first priority.
Besides, Zoro was already made. It shouldn't be difficult to cooperate with Zayne to eliminate Simon.
The pity was that he still needed to play the role of Vice President and couldn't personally lead Zoro, Kumoko, and the others to kill that jumping clown.
[Six: Come see me.]
After notifying Kai to come, Russell began looking through the books in the room again.
Soon, Russell's designated tool man arrived at the underground study. "Sixth Master. You called for me."
Looking at the young man flipping through a book before him, Kai was a little confused. "Is there a mission from above?"
As far as he knew, the Association hadn't issued any tasks since the Sixth Master came to East-Haven.
But Russell's next words froze him. "I'm planning to kill Simon. But it'll be inconvenient for me to be present during the operation, so you'll continue pretending to be me."
Kai's head was full of confusion. He asked in a daze. "Assassination? Simon?"
Russell nodded, then looked at the middle-aged man before him strangely. "Don't you know he had someone assassinate me yesterday?"
Kai was shocked and said with some guilt. "So he was the one who ordered it..."
In truth, he really didn't know about Russell's assassination. But he couldn't say that he'd gone fishing last night—only to fish for a whole day and night and come up empty-handed.
He'd been so angry he almost illegally fried the fish.
Then he'd received Russell's message.
So he could only pretend to be shocked that Simon had actually sent someone to assassinate Russell.
Wait.
Simon?!
The middle-aged man only reacted belatedly at this moment.
Seeing this, Russell pulled the corner of his mouth helplessly but didn't expose him. "It's him. So I'm going to kill him—save myself from being upset all the time."
Hearing this, Kai's face became serious. "Sixth Master, you're absolutely right. We should have done this a long time ago."
Russell stretched out his hand to stop the tool man from speaking and continued. "I'll have Zayne cooperate with you to ensure we can successfully kill the target."
"By the way, I've made a few new cards. Don't let any flaws show in front of Zayne later."
As he said this, he summoned Kumoko, Frieren, and Zoro.
"?"
A question mark appeared in Kai's head. If he remembered correctly, not long ago, Sixth Master only had one card—Lady Kumoko?