Arena Forty-Eight: Their Secrets VIII

"Breaking News! The young Technician recognized by His Majesty, Arnold Tilgen, has been reported missing from yesterday's rewarding ceremony held in the Imperial Castle."

I raised my eyebrows as those words entered my ears. I waited for the reporter to continue.

"The Imperial Guards claim that it was done by Jeffery Valentina, the former-noble who is currently on run, but no evidence has been shown. They have also warned everyone not to have much hope about his survival..."

I frowned hearing the last bit. I then turned towards our bedroom, which had opened loudly.

"Alfred! What's the news saying?! How can Arnold just disappear from the castle?!"

My wife, Dina, came out of the room running. Apparently she had also heard the news from somewhere... Well, I already knew it from yesterday night. I wanted to confirm things first... And it seemed that the bad news was the truth.

I closed the tablet I had in my hand before standing up. Then I grabbed the shoulders of my frantic wife, whose face was pale with fear and worry.

"Calm down, Dina. Everything will be fine."

I gently said as I sat her down on the couch. In reply, she hissed at me.

"How can you be so calm?! He is our son, Alfred! And he's missing!"

Dina yelled at me, while I sighed.

"Will he come back it we yell loudly?"

"T-that's..."

"Don't worry. He is alive and well. Grey has some kind of monitoring device on him, remember? Apparently that device is still functioning, which means that  Arnold is safe and sound."

"D-did Grey tell you that?"

Dina asked with hope, and I nodded with a smile.

Well... It was true, just that he hadn't told me personally... And I had been told about the incident right after Arnold was reported missing last night.

However, I knew that he was still alive. Arnold was an important piece for the empire. They wouldn't harm him needlessly.

But if they did...

"I'll go to ask Grey... You wait here."

I said, going back inside our bedroom. I made sure to close the door before opening up the closet and pressed down the floor of it.

A blue light flashed and the floorboard opened wide, revealing a set of dark clothes, a small custom handgun and a night-vision goggle... Along with a black dagger and a pouch.

Making sure everything was there, I brought the items out and put them inside a bag before stepping out of the room.

"I'll be back tomorrow, at the latest."

"And... At the earliest?"

She asked, calmer now.

"Maybe tonight."

I said before heading out of the house.

I decided not to take the car. Instead, I walked by the busy road, treading my way through the crowd until I saw a familiar dark alley on the side.

Without hesitation I entered the alleyway, walking towards the wall at the very end.

That was when I heard his voice behind me.

"Alfred Tilgen. Drop your weapon and turn around."

Sighing, I looked over my shoulder to see Grey standing there, pointing his gun at me.

"You're here... That means you know about me already?"

"... I do."

"Then it makes things easier. You know about my deal with Christopher, right?"

"I... do."

"You also know my past, right?"

"..."

Grey hardened his jaw as I snickered.

"It wasn't enough for you guys to take my son away... But even I understood that. He was necessary for the sake of humanity and whatnot. Yeah, I understood that and let him go. And what did you do?"

"... I'm sorry."

Grey apologized, but I wasn't finished.

"... You cut all contact of him with us, and you brainwashed him to the point where he didn't even think of us."

"As I thought, you had contacts inside A.R.M.A."

Grey said, clenching his gun hard. He didn't even try to deny the accusation.

"Well, being the leader of an assassination squad has its own perks."

I shrugged before pulling out my dagger from my waist.

"Christopher repaid his debts by kidnapping my son, Grey. He needs to pay for that."

I warned him to step down as I took my stance.

"I know what he did was wrong... Even so, he's the emperor. We can't just remove him, Alfred."

Grey tried to reason with me, but it made me annoyed instead.

"Things have gone too far. As a Tilgen, I can't step back."

I said before turning around. Instantly, the area around us darkened. The time around us had stopped. There were just the two of us, standing alone in a world where time had been frozen.

"[Chronos's Legacy]"

I whispered the name of the skill just as everything stopped.

"Alfred... You left the path of darkness. Isn't that why you hid your past... no, erased your past from everyone? Don't go back there... I beg you."

Grey said as he started sweating.

"If I knew Christopher would be like this, I wouldn't have saved his life on that night ten years ago."

"I know... But we can still talk things through."

"Declined. You should have contacted me before brainwashing Arnold."

I said before dashing forward. Grey immediately pulled the trigger, but none of the bullets hit me. Tilting my body to dodge the bullets which looked frozen in this dome where I had absolute control, I approached the old spy. I brought my blade down immediately on him.

Grey dropped his gun and pulled out his own knife, parrying the attack by a hair's breadth.

I instantly dropped the dagger and grabbed it from the air with my free arm before stabbing at him again.

Grey once again barely dodged the attack before trying to kick me. I moved my head to the right to dodge the kick before switching the blade to my other hand.

I stabbed at him again, this time barely getting a cut on his cheeks before he jumped back.

"Arnold is still alive, Alfred! You can still save him via peaceful means!"

He yelled as he took a defensive stance. I snorted before speeding up again.

"I don't care about peaceful means, Grey! I want my son back by the end of today!"

I hissed back before releasing a flurry of strikes on his arms and legs. Countless shallow cuts appeared on the unprotected parts of his body. But I didn't stop. This wasn't enough to kill him.

"Goddammit!"

He cursed as he suddenly dropped down and rolled away from me. I turned around to attack him, but something struck me in the face hard.

Before I could see anything, A sharp pain in my abdomen shook me as I felt Grey's blade slipping into my body.

Just as I thought, he had attacked a non-vital part to weaken me, but not to kill me.

"I don't want to kill you, Alfred! I don't want to be the murderer of Arnold's father!"

Grey yelled as he twisted his knife. He was implying that he would kill me if I resisted.

However... After surviving through countless bloody battles back in the day when I was a part of the Schatten, this much was nothing. The underworld was a much painful, unforgiving place... A wound to the abdomen was nothing but a scratch there.

And additionally, sympathy also meant nothing to me.

I didn't reply as I clenched my dagger hard before driving it straight into Grey's heart.

The old spy let out a grunt before stepping backwards. I looked at the object that had hit me... A fire extinguisher. Sighing, I looked at the dying spy in front of me.

"I didn't want to do this, Grey."

Hearing my words, the spy looked up at me. He tried to say something, but blood came out of his mouth instead of words.

"I'll relieve you of your pain, old man."

I said before stepping forward and cleanly cutting off his head.

The bisected head fell on the ground with a surprised and pained look. I crouched down and closed his eyes before standing up again.

As always, killing someone I knew left a bad taste in my mouth.

Wiping away the blood from my blade, I quickly checked my clothes. Except for the tear on the abdomen, most of the blood stuck on my body had dried and fallen off.

There was a reason why I used this outfit... It was really easy to dispose of all evidence of my involvement using this special equipment.

I quickly grabbed a regenerative drug from my pouch before grabbing my bag from the ground. It had fallen off in the initial stages of the fight.

Once again sighing after glancing at the corpse, I walked towards the end of the alley where an old, rusty dustbin was sitting. I pushed it to the side to reveal an old manhole. I pulled up the plate before jumping down the dark ladder inside.

...

An indefinite amount of time had passed after Alfred had left the alley. The time skill had already expired, but due to the alley being in an isolated part of the city, no one came to look at the corpse bleeding on the ground.

They were fortunate enough to not look at it, though.

The fingers of the corpse twitched, before the blood splattered on the ground reversed back into the body, as if someone was playing a video from the end to the starting.

The blood from the walls also fell off and returned to the wound, infusing with the remaining blood inside.

Then, the body trembled. Once. Twice. Thrice. Finally, it moved its arm.

The headless body stood up, dragging its feet along the pavement as it walked towards the decapitated head.

It picked up the severed head before putting it in its rightful place once again.

The wound healed instantaneously and the throat looked like it hadn't suffered from any injuries to begin with. Then finally, the closed eyes opened.

The eyes shined brightly with golden light before returning to their previous shade.

"... Damn it."

Grey, who had miraculously revived himself, spoke as he stumbled forward towards the manhole.

His wounds had healed and some of his blood had returned to his body, but he still felt weakened.

He peered down through the dark mouth before closing the lid. Then he leaned against the wall and sat down, panting.

"... As always... This damn skill of mine takes too much..."

He cursed at his SS rank skill, [Phoenix's Feathers] as he pulled out his smartphone. Thankfully, he had decided to leave back his Stigma gear, otherwise it would have turned into scraps by now.

He quickly called some of the agents from A.R.M.A. to let them know about Alfred... Before putting down the phone and thinking about the battle itself.

It was true that Grey had brainwashed Arnold to some extent. It was true that Christopher had betrayed Alfred's trust... Yet he couldn't accept this situation.

Alfred was the one who had saved Christopher from countless assassination attempts back when he was just a crown prince. And in return, Christopher had promised to never reveal his identity and never harm his family, which only included his newly-wed wife back then, for the crimes Alfred had committed in the past.

And yet... The emperor had abducted his son. Well, while Grey thought of this as an abduction, he didn't have any definite proof. But no one besides the emperor should have any motive to kidnap Arnold.

Thankfully, Christopher had kept the health-monitoring device Grey had on Arnold active while disabling the tracking data... maybe because he wanted to ensure Alfred that he hadn't been torturing Arnold, let alone kill him.

Yet... To the former assassin, this was akin to getting stabbed in the back by his allies.

"But just three more tries... Eh. Then I'll be dead for real..."

Grey muttered as he remembered the numbers he had seen on the skill page before coming here.

He could come back to life three more times... While any other person would be happy with this, Grey wasn't.

Sighing, he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. He wanted to rest for a bit.

"Breaking News! Just after Arnold Tilgen has been reported missing, Lady Roxy Rubiat, the only daughter of the Rubiat Family, has also gone missing. The noble houses are..."

Hearing the news broadcasting nearby, he opened his eyes again.

It seemed that the world didn't intend to let him get some rest.