I am the only one. No one else in this world, except me.. Is allowed to understand their true value. ... Every diamond in this world shall be mine.
**Year 1935**
German, Concentration Camp
In an open field, there were many men and women, ranging from the oldest to the youngest, lining up, waiting for death as German soldiers prepared to shoot. Suddenly, a giant whale carcass fell on all the soldiers.
The high-ranking officers watching this from a distance felt scared and tried to escape in their cars, but all vehicles had vanished, and the nearby tanks also disappeared without a trace.
As one of the military leaders was about to run, a grenade appeared right in front of him and exploded.
***
After all the chaos with the appearance of the whale carcass and its sudden disappearance, the prisoners in the concentration camp saw an advanced aircraft suddenly appear.
Vincent Lalo, who had summoned the Aircraft from his Inventory, was aboard with one adult woman and two young children. After they entered the aircraft named Valkyrie, Vincent Lalo immediately flew it to the Soviet Union, where he was hiding and building his base.
"Why did you save us?" the woman asked.
"I need something for an exchange, and you are what I need for negotiation. Besides, I'm curious if your mother is Jewish?" Vincent Lalo asked.
Greta Erskine, hearing this while hugging her two children, felt confused by the man's question but still answered:
"My father is Jewish; why do you ask this?"
"Uhh, I don't know. I've heard that if your mother is Jewish, you will be Jewish too, but since only your father is Jewish, you will not be considered Jewish…"
After Vincent Lalo said this, the plane grew silent, and it only took a few hours for the aircraft to land at the destination.
Greta Erskine, seeing that the aircraft that had brought her had vanished, felt scared, while her two children looked amazed.
"Sir, is that magic?" asked Marlene Erskine, who was Abraham Erskine's daughter.
Klaus Erskine, hearing his sister's question, looked at the man who saved them and said,
"Sir, what is your name? I want to know the name of the person who has saved me."
Vincent Lalo, hearing this, didn't really pay attention to the two kids' questions.
He just took them to a place that had a name:
[Soviet Chess School]
Once they all entered that building, a handsome man in a suit with glasses approached Vincent Lalo.
"Take me to the man," Vincent Lalo said.
The glasses-wearing man, named Mikhail Botvinnik, immediately led him to a laboratory where Doctor Abraham Erskine was confined in one of the rooms.
Vincent Lalo, upon seeing Erskine, laughed.
"Look who I brought…"
Abraham Erskine, hearing this, turned and saw his wife and children.
"Don't hurt them; I'll agree to your request..."
'So easy? Earlier, he wasn't even afraid when I threatened to kill him.' After thinking this, Vincent Lalo instructed Botvinnik to take Abraham Erskine and his family to another room to clean up.
Vincent Lalo saw they had all left and walked to the library to meet an old associate.
"What are you doing here?"
Vincent Lalo, hearing this, looked at his old associate, who had a bandage on his left hand.
"Do you hate me that much?" Vincent Lalo said.
"Are you pretending to forget? You paralyzed Arisaki Akira because of your plan to defect from MI6, and Billy died to distract so you could escape… damn it, you have something like magic that defies logic—why didn't you save them??" Yuuki replied, looking angry.
Vincent Lalo, hearing this, could only accept his friend's anger.
'The Inventory can only store dead beings, and if I try to store a living being in my Inventory, that being will immediately die,' Vincent Lalo thought.
As the library started to become noisy, a six-year-old boy walked in carrying a chessboard.
"Sir, why are you making a racket? Is there a problem?"
Vincent Lalo and Yuuki turned to the boy upon hearing this.
"Is that your child?" Yuuki asked.
I shook my head at hearing this.
"Don't mind this ruckus, and I just remembered I have a gift for you." After saying that, Vincent Lalo produced a book he had written himself.
[Modern Chess Theory & Positional Advantage]
After summoning the book from his Inventory, he handed it to the six-year-old boy.
"Thank you; I will read it," the boy said before quickly leaving.
"I thought this place was just one of your hiding spots; I didn't expect you to actually establish a chess school," Yuuki said.
"A school? I don't even have any students; the kid you just saw is just one I've raised. I had previously planned to set up an orphanage to raise him as an Agent to obtain something," Vincent Lalo replied.
Yuuki, hearing this, pondered for a moment and said, "Why did you build a base to hide here? If Viktor Ivchenko and his subordinates find you, you'll be dead."
"The man you mentioned is already dead, and I let a few of his subordinates stay alive so that certain things wouldn't change," Vincent Lalo responded.
"Why didn't you kill his subordinates? If that Organization (Leviathan) still exists, it's only a matter of time before you're found," Yuuki said.
'Leviathan has to remain, with that organization, I wouldn't have to contact Howard Stark.' The Agents from Leviathan in the TV series Agent Carter often steal Howard's inventions.
Yuuki, observing the man before him, pondered… then clapped his hands to make a sound.
"What are you thinking?"
"Nothing," Vincent Lalo replied.
After hearing this, Yuuki walked towards the library door. Just before leaving, he asked one last thing:
"The boy from before seemed quite clever; what's his name?"
Vincent Lalo paused before saying.
"Erik Lehnserr."