Once the next day arrived, Faith and Caroline took the old man's car, and followed the directions found in the envelope. The boy couldn’t help but grow more and more suspicious as they made their way towards that location. It seemed like it was by the outskirts of the city, almost in the opposite direction of Faith's company, so getting there took longer than expected. This meant that they had to cross the entire city, until the sea of buildings surrounding the landscape was not visible anymore.

Looking at the desolate rural land that surrounded them, it was hard to believe that this was anywhere near the city. Additionally, the burning sun enveloped the land, making it feel like the middle of a desert.

And yet, once they arrived, what waited for them was something unexpected as well. They now stood before what looked like a pure white castle. Unlike a real castle, this was much smaller, and it was nothing compared to the buildings in Glint City. That wasn’t all though. The air felt a lot more fresh and the building was surrounded by a dense composition of trees, giving birth to a tiny forest.

If Faith were to describe this, it would be that it was like an oasis in the middle of nowhere. Ironically, it was fitting for the base of an organization that claimed to be centered around the concept of hope.

Even though this place was surrounded by a strong sense of isolation, a place like this also looked like it would be heavily guarded. Both were ready for anything. It wouldn’t be surprising if the enemy came charging at them any moment for approaching their headquarters.

“So… you did come after all!”

A sudden voice reached Faith. He immediately turned around and pulled out his gun in a swift movement only for his eyes to meet with the same woman who had approached them yesterday.

“Just so you know, I won’t hesitate to end your life here at the first suspicious thing you do.” Faith decided it was best to intimidate her, he didn’t know what she was capable of, but he wasn’t about to let her get the upper hand.

The woman smiled in response. She pulled out a large, fluttering red cape from her purse and waved it in front of her. The cape danced through the air, completely covering her figure and then fell to the floor.

Faith and Caroline stepped back by instinct. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

The one in front of them was not the woman anymore. It was the man that had given them the car the night before.

“Now now, you wouldn’t hurt an old man, would you?”

“A-Are you some sort of magician?!” Caroline was both surprised and excited.

“How rude.” The old man pouted. “Something as lame as that doesn’t compare to my talent!”

He waved the cape in front of him again, and this time, it revealed a whole new appearance.

The black haired boy sighed. Faith’s expression completely changed once again, this time it was an expression of disappointment.

“I should’ve known it was you.”

“Hehe, surprised ☆?”

The person who stood before them proudly stroke a victory pose.

“?” Caroline glanced at her while bringing a hand to her chin, examining her from head to toe.

The girl standing before them had a small and fragile frame. She had long black hair that fell all the way to the end of her back, and her bangs were dyed with burning red color.

She swung the cape in front of her once more. This time her outfit changed into one more fitting of her style. She wore a black blouse with long sleeves and a red skirt accompanied by a pair of long black stockings. To top it off, she had a red choker around her neck which matched with a red ribbon on top of her head.

"Eri, what are you doing here?” Faith asked as he glared into the girl’s silver eyes.

“Hmm? I’m pretty sure miss assistant here can answer that!” She pointed at Caroline who tilted her head confused before realizing what Eri meant.

“Me?! I… Well…Hehe…”

Faith stared at her and raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t amused at all.

"That won’t do Faith.” Eri shook her head and placed her hand on Faith’s shoulder.

She acted comfortable and familiar even towards someone as dangerous as Faith; they were cousins after all.

“If you keep forcing beauties like that to do such impossible tasks for you, you are never going to get a girlfriend~”

“Wait- does that mean you-”

“Yep! I passed by the company yesterday and saw her struggling with cleaning that huge place on her own! Of course, I decided to give her just a “little” help.”

"Oh, is that so?” Despite Faith's calm tone of voice, there was also a hint of aggressiveness in it.

Caroline tried covering her face with her scarf and stepped back away from Faith.

“Stop Faith, stooop!” Eri stepped in front of Caroline and extended out her arms as if to protect her. “She did help you a lot yesterday, so you have no room to complain!”

"I’m guessing you were the reason we could conveniently find a car with a nice timing last night.”

“Of course! Aren’t I the best? Aren’t my acting skills the greatest?”

"Come to think of it, does it mean that after I met you yesterday, you were following us all along?” Caroline asked while trying to change the direction of the conversation.

“Mhmm.”

That surprised even Faith. He was incredibly sharp when it came to noticing someone tailing him, and yet, he never realized they were followed for so long.

“So...” Faith turned around glancing at the structure before them. “What’s your business with this place?”

Originally Eri made him come here while pretending to be a lady who claimed to have been attacked by the Organization of Hope. That was obviously not the case at this point.

“They stole a little something from me.” Eri frowned. “Er… or rather, someone.”

For Eri to come this far to help somene, Faith could tell who she was talking about right away. “Oh. Then we aren’t needed here.” Just as easily, he could also tell he didn't want any involvement in this.

He turned around ready to leave the place, if it was the person he had in mind, maybe leaving this place as soon as possible and pretending this never happened would be the best option.

“Hey, wait, wait, wait!!” Eri clung onto Faith’s arm. “This is a great chance to gather information and get back to these people for what they did yesterday!”

Eri then quickly pulled out a red smartphone from the pocket of her skirt. She selected a few options and then showed the screen to Faith and Caroline.

It was a map with the entire layout of the building before them. According to some added notes below the chart, this was the only branch for the organization of hope in Glint City, and if they could take them down, the whole problem could be solved in a quick swoop.

“So? What’s in for me if I help?”

“Well…” Eri thought for a moment and then quickly realized something. “Remember the reason you were left without a vehicle in the first place last night?”

“Ah-” Faith had almost forgotten he let the owner of the shop run off with his motorcycle. “How is that related to this?”

“Heh, thank May for this later, she’s done quite a bit of research to get us this information you know~”

Eri looked through her phone and pulled up another screen. This time it had the photo of a familiar man. It was the owner of the old restaurant.

Faith stared at the letters under the image, they read:

Organization of Hope - Member number 029 - Branch 02 Chief

“Wait, so all the things this old man said about wanting to live for his restaurant were lies?!”

Even if it was something silly for anyone else, Caroline remembered the taste of the hamburgers she had been served last night. It was food with dedication placed behind it. When the old man spoke about how important his restaurant was for him, she couldn't help but to empathize with him. Deep inside she wanted to do something to help his business flourish again. And yet... they were all lies?

“Not only that, he was trying to poison you. Or at least, he used the restaurant to do that to other people before to "purify” them ahead of time.” Eri shrugged. "You didn’t actually eat any of his food did you-?”

“Uh... well, we just managed to take a little bite from the one he actually prepared.”

Caroline twirled the end of her scarf around with her finger. She wasn't anxious about eating poisoned food. As a super part-timer, Caroline took pride in being able to follow rules and orders, or at least, if the brunette was going to break the rules it was something that she wanted to keep as a little secret. The thought of people realizing she had made a mistake of any kind, even if that very mistake was to put her health on the line, was frustrating to her.

“After that, we did eat food we prepared ourselves. We kinda broke into his kitchen so-”

“Hmm… the one you prepared should be fine, but I’d recommend you to get yourselves checked later just in case. By now though, I have developed a really useful plan to get us inside there and solve matters here first!”

Faith had remained quiet until now. To all this, he even let this man get away with his precious motorcycle so that he could escape safely. It only looked like a stupid mistake now. But if this was the only branch for this organization close to the city, at least it meant he could get it back.

"Eri.” Faith spoke with a neutral expression on his face. “Do you have that "thing” with you?”

"Eh? Ah! You mean this?”

Eri pulled out a small silver tube from the pocket of her skirt. She pressed a button on it and shortly after, the tube quickly changed shape, color and size, turning into a red megaphone. It had a few buttons to set the output, and it seemed it was something she always used to carry around with her for different purposes.

“Thanks.”

Faith grabbed the megaphone.

He started walking forward towards the large white castle-like structure ever so slowly.

As he did, he set the megaphone to the max output and approached the large doors that led into the organization’s base.

“Wait… what are you-?” Eri tried to ask, but she was too late.

Faith slammed the doors open apart with a kick and stepped in. At the same time, he moved the megaphone closer to his mouth and yelled.

“YOU PIECES OF TRASH! I’M HERE TO TAKE YOU ALL DOWN!!”

Caroline suddenly felt a grasp on her arm and was pulled away. Eri had quickly reacted and taken her to safety. They could only see the doors closing behind Faith as an alarm started to ring throughout the entire building.

"Well…” Eri stared at the ground for a few seconds. “There goes the plan. Security will be super tight now, so it’s going to be almost impossible for us to get in.”

Caroline didn’t respond. She had spent the last few seconds staring intently at Eri’s face. The black haired girl tilted her head a little confused.

Eri was growing uncomfortable by Caroline's intense look in her eyes. Just what was she looking at? But then the brunette slowly poked Eri's forehead and started pulling on her cheeks.

“W-What?”

“How did you do it before, the whole changing your face thing?” The girl with the light blue scarf asked.

“Ah, that? It’s all thanks to this little friend!” Eri pointed at a small metallic, red bracelet on her left hand.

Caroline looked closer. She could see it also had a few buttons.

“It lets you make people perceive your face differently, but the range in which it works is limited… and also-”

Eri paused and cleared her throat. This time she spoke in an entirely different tone, sounding exactly like the old man from before.

“The only reason I could pull it off was mostly due to my amazing acting skills!”

"That’s true, you are great!” Caroline’s eyes sparkled in admiration. “You could use this to enter then!”

“Hm.”

Eri pushed a few buttons, and a tiny screen on the bracelet lit up. It read: Charge 26%.

“I guess I could, but the battery would go poof in a flash if I did.”

Both of them remained silent for a moment while hidden behind a patch of large trees. The sound of gunshots and battle cries resounded from inside the building, but both completely ignored it while acting carefree.

A small beep then came out of Eri’s phone. It was an update on the data relating to the structure of the building.

“Oh!” Her face lit up. She had good news.

“Hm?”

“I have a new plan now, let’s go Caro ☆” Eri instantly decided on a nickname for her and started walking deep into the woods with a cheerful expression.

“Hmph!” Caroline pouted. “It’s not fair! Your name is too short to think of a good nickname!”

““Amazing Eri”” will do!”

The black haired girl with a red ribbon on top of her head was getting farther away from the castle at a steady pace, almost as though she was in a rush.

“Is it okay if I ask what your plan is exactly?”

“There’s an underground passage over here. They usually use this to transport weapons and such, but it seems the area is clear now, pretty nice huh?”

“I see, I see.” Caroline had no problems with that plan. “One question though. The picture of the old man you showed us said he was the chief of branch number 02. Doesn’t that mean there’s more than one branch in the city than this one?”

Eri shrugged.

“I believe there were more, but there were reports of someone breaking in and shutting them down. May found pictures of a blonde woman in the securiy cameras as well, but they were very blurry since the cameras were mostly destroyed.”

To think someone willingly fought against the organization like this, it sounded like something Faith could have done as well. Caroline also noticed she had brought up this “May” person again. It was odd, if she had someone on her side that could get so many details on this location, did Eri really need their help?

Faith’s original reaction had been strange too. On one hand, it would make sense if May was the person who Eri was trying to rescue, but it didn’t seem like she was in a bad situation either. For now though, now that Faith went and jumped in, it would be best to keep following this girl and try to get more details out of her.

Even though this place looked like a large forest, it was actually a lot smaller than what met the eye. The only reason it seemed so menacing was because of how tall all of the trees were. While following Eri however, Caroline noticed they were walking across what looked like a clear path made with silver stones and fancy grass. Was this just the castle's garden all along?

Unlike the nature that surrounded them, they soon found an opening that led into the underground passage. The contrast between the solid walls that made the tunnel before them and nature around them was strange. Just as expected of the organization though, strange was the perfect word to describe them.

They walked across a solid ramp that let them lower into the underground passage. After descending for a bit, it was a straight large tunnel-looking passage with walls of steel. From what Eri mentioned before, they used this path to move weapons in and out, and they likely went through here using a vehicle. Still, this didn’t match with the overall structure of the castle either, did they go as far as to create this entire tunnel just for that? It didn’t seem too likely. Caroline couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to this place than what met the eye.

Eri continued walking carefully while leading the way. This was a rare occasion for her. Usually, it would be her older sister on the front, and all she had to do was to follow her back. This time, she was the one guiding someone else. If something were to happen, she didn't feel like she could just run away and hide. Being responsible for someone else’s safety was a more burdensome task than what she could have ever imagined. The metallic sound that echoed with every step they took made her gulp.

The deeper they were in the tunnel, the more she realized that there was no turning back. No, thinking about it this way wasn't good. This was no biggie after all, right? And besides, everyone at the castle should be busy dealing with Faith's rampage. Knowing that her cousin was close by, eased the pressure on Eri's shoulders.

After a few minutes of walking, they were able to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Just like the previous disparity, this time the tunnel converged with a room inside the castle, creating another weird scene.

Eri slowed down as she stepped into the room. There wasn't much of a place to hide, so if the enemy came for them, they would be wide open.

After stepping in the room, however, it looked like there was no one inside. The infiltration had been a success.

"We did it." Eri sighed in relief.

"Woah, this sure is a fancy place!! Imagine how much money you could make by selling everything here!!" Sparkles appeared on Caroline's eyes.

She examined the room. The floor was covered with a fancy blue carpet. It looked like the room was a bedroom as there was an elegant queen-size bed by the corner along with a royal-looking drawer next to it. There were also decorations on top of the drawer, resembling a lion and a bird that looked like they were made of gold.

"I got you!!!" A new voice yelled.

"?!"

Eri rapidly turned around in the direction of the voice.The doors of the closet just to her right opened with a loud noise, and an attacker came running at her. Eri's eyes opened wide the moment she saw the person wearing the organization's uniform who came at her with a knife, she had no way to defend herself, and even if she did, it was too late for her to react.

Eri closed her eyes shut, and a loud crashing noise resounded. At the last moment, with a swift movement, Caroline jumped up and slammed her leg into the attacker's face. The organization member was sent crashing full force into the drawer, breaking it in half.

"C-Caro?!"

"Really? Was this attacker hiding in the closet all along to wait for someone?" Caroline looked unfazed, almost ignoring what just happened.

"Probably." Eri sighed while placing a hand on her chest. "Or maybe they were hiding from Faith."

"Let's go!" Caroline opened the door, ready to walk into the main area of the castle. "If anything happens I'll keep you safe!"

“Wait!! Wait, don’t go anywhere just yet!!” Eri called out to her and checked her phone once again. “I would prefer if we didn’t move without a plan.”

“Right.”

Caroline crossed her arms while looking at the girl who continued to fidget with her phone. If all her other enemies were like the ones they had encountered up till now, they were frankly all pushovers who seemed to have little to no fighting experience. They only came off as threatening because of their weapons, but it wasn’t anything that Caroline couldn’t handle.

The reason she decided to listen and stop here, however, was because she could tell Eri was visibly growing nervous. What was she getting so worked up about? Since she did want to come up with a plan and talk things through, maybe this was her chance to get some more information out of her.

“I’m a little curious.” The brunette finally spoke up. “Who is the person that they took from you? It might help us find them faster if you tell me some more details.”

“Hm? Oh, it’s my sister, May!”

“The one that has been sending you information?”

“The one and only!!”

“But if she’s able to send you this much… has she managed to escape? Is she hiding somewhere safe?”

“Something like that.”

Somehow, Eri looked a lot more conflicted after being asked these questions. By the looks of it, it was a delicate topic for her. Of course, Caroline understood if she didn’t trust her enough to tell her anything just yet, they just met after all. Judging by her eyes, she was definitely related to Faith as well. Although this was feeling more and more like she was intruding in family matters, maybe she could even get a raise if she continued to go along with this, not a bad deal at all.

Breaking the silence, Eri’s phone beeped once again.

“Uh-oh.”

☆

While this happened, deep inside the structure, Faith ran across a large corridor.

The castle was as fancy in the inside as it looked from the outside. No one would have guesses this was the headquarters for an organization ready to kill people if they didn't know better; and that peaceful-looking castle had been turned into a battlefield.

With exploding noises, a rain of bullets all came Faith's way from different directions.

Forget about reloading his gun, he didn't have any space to dodge the incoming attack. But bullets weren't something where he could take his time and think of a strategy. Looking at his side, he body slammed the door next to him, breaking it apart and rolling into one of the castle's rooms.

There was no time to worry about the pain running through his body from that impact. He had barely dodged the bullets in time but the attackers were inevitably going to come after him here.

Getting up, he ran while simultaneously reloading his gun. This room was similar to the one where Caroline and Eri were before, all that was in there was a bed, a drawer and a closet. But there was no secret exit or anywhere to escape.

"Get him!!" "Don't let him escape!!" "We got him now!!!"

At least ten members of the organization all ran into the room with guns in their hands. But their target was nowhere to be found.

They were certain Faith didn't leave the room, but where was he hiding? Under the bed? Inside the closet?

The time it took them to figure that out was enough for Faith to gain an advantage. He was high above, standing on top of the fancy chandelier. With this room being so big, it made sense that they weren't able to see him right away. Of course, because it was so big, no one expected someone to be able to climb up this high either.

A loud gunshot shot by the center of the room, just in front of where the attackers were. They all jumped back to dodge the attack, but that opened a path towards the exit of the room if only for a moment.

A moment was enough.

With another gunshot, Faith blew away the chandelier itself, making it descend from high above.

The members of the organization immediately reacted and pointed their weapons to fire at him. Using his legs, Faith kicked the chandelier down, sending it towards his enemies while also using it as a base to gain impulse and jump into a different direction. With a crashing sound, at least half of the attackers were buried under the giant chandelier. In the commotion, Faith dodged a bullet from one of the remaining ones below.

He immediately disarmed one of them, and used their body to slam it into the one charging from behind, sending both attackers crashing against a wall. With only three attackers left, Faith used his bullets to intimidate them, creating an opening to slam his fist straight into the face of one. He used his elbow to take away all the air from the lungs of the second one, and slammed the handle of his gun against the third one, sending some of their teeth right out.

With all ten attackers down, Faith was able to leave the room and make it back into the now safer corridor.

ϟ “Faith, Faith! Can you hear me?” ϟ

A muffled voice reached his ears, it was Eri’s voice, and it clearly sounded like it was coming out of some sort of electronic device. This was accompanied by a soft vibration coming out of his pocket. Quick to catch up, he pulled out a small silver tube, it was the same that could be transformed into a megaphone, although, he didn’t need to change its shape to communicate.

“What is it?”

ϟ “Good, I was able to connect, as expected from Amazing Eri ☆!”ϟ

“I’m throwing this away.”

ϟ “No, no wait!! There is something important I need to tell you!! Looks like you are in big trouble!!” ϟ

“Huh? Because of these weaklings?”

ϟ “Yes and no. Looks like security has tightened and they activated a special mechanism to trap you. Can you check your phone now?” ϟ

Immediately, Faith’s phone vibrated, what a pain, how did they find his phone number? And he was making sure to make a fresh start when he got this new phone. Tapping on the notification on screen, the image of a map was displayed. It was easy to tell this was the layout of this building.

ϟ “As you can tell, this place is made up by three main floors, and you are currently still on the very first one. Here comes the important part, pay attention, okay? This place seems to be armed with an advanced security system, well; they wouldn’t be an evil organization without one, good job of them by doing their part hehe!” ϟ

Faith slowly walked across the corridor while paying attention to Eri and glancing at his phone. Even if the area seemed clear, this noise would surely attract more enemies his way. He had to be more wary than usual right now.

“So what did these idiots do?”

ϟ “Well. They kindaaaa, locked you in! There should be steel shutters blocking the main entrance and the windows, so don’t even try to use those. The same goes for the stairs leading up, but well, that’s not really the bad news. I have good news too, though! Which one do you want to hear first?” ϟ

“Don’t give me that dumb question and just tell me!!”

ϟ “Hmm… okay! The bad news is, they are releasing poison gas on the first floor so you are kinda done for if you don’t get out of there fast, which you can’t do right now! Good news is, they should have some sort of safe room there, since they wouldn’t murder all of their members locked in with you… I hope! It should be marked with red color on the map, so try to get there before they close the access to that place too. We’ll take care of the security system with Caro up here!” ϟ

For someone delivering those kinds of news Eri sure sounded pumped up about this. Faith couldn’t tell if it was that she believed in him a little too much or if she was being infected by Caroline’s positive attitude already. At any rate, he didn’t have a single second to lose.

He still couldn’t feel the poison gas in the environment at all; he wouldn’t even have imagined something like that would happen. Problem was, if all the remaining organization soldiers that were in the first floor were going to that safe room, his goal was the nest of his enemies. They might all have been very weak, but the advantage in numbers also proved to be a formidable force.

This was no time to continue taking it slow. Taking one last glance at his phone he sped up the pace and ran out of the corridor at full speed. By the looks of it, the safe location he was headed to was a long way away, almost at the other end of the floor. Despite this place looking small at first glance, it was bigger than what it seemed once inside. Not only that, but there were way too many rooms.

Faith’s specialty, however, was to analyze the situation and find the best route possible to take. It didn’t matter if there was no time to waste, for now, he shut himself down inside his mind as he continued to move across the castle.

(The deciding factor here will be what the enemy decided to use as their main tactics. The information I have right now is that they have sealed me and plan to use a surefire way to deal with me, but a lot seems unlikely about this.

The safe room being created along with the security system makes sense, but how long has it been since they activated it? If they had a way to deal with me without sacrificing manpower and sending their main forces into combat, there wouldn’t have been so many members charging towards me in the first place. In other words, either they plan to sacrifice them as pawns or… no.

They wouldn’t do that.

Back at the restaurant, they retreated the moment some of them got hurt even though there were still many that could fight; this leads me to believe they have a strong sense of companionship. In that case… this “safe room” has to be bait. There are still defeated members lying around that wouldn’t be able to retreat. And if that is the case then that means…)

“Tch.” Faith clicked his tongue. His deduction had made him abandon the plan of finding a safe room, but instead, he found another immediate action he had to take before it was too late.

☆

“Okay! Now than that’s done, let’s keep going, Caro!”

Caroline who was observing Eri could easily tell that the tone of her voice while speaking with Faith didn’t match the expression in her face at all. She was completely pale while relaying this information to him. So she was the kind of person who tried to lighten up the mood with jokes while hiding how they really felt, huh? Caroline decided to update her mental notes about Eri.

The brunette still wasn’t too worried about Faith; he was more than capable of handling something like this, at least that’s the impression that he had given her up till now. Yet, Eri was supposed to know him even better than this. Could it be that this May person was in a similar situation and Eri was simply worried about her regardless?

“Let’s go!” Caroline finally gave her a response. “You said there should be a security room somewhere here, right?”

“Yup! We got lucky that the underground path led right into the second floor!”

“We did climb up quite a bit while walking through that ramp.” Caroline made a mental note to never underestimate how much altitude one can get by walking up a steep road.

Both left the room and stepped into the main floor. Unlike the first one filled with corridors and rooms, this one was a vast hall decorated by a blue carpet and more silver ornaments. Everything about this place screamed luxurious. It wouldn’t surprise them if the leader of the organization was some sort of ancient king after seeing this.

This time, the one leading the way was Caroline. Ever since they stepped outside, the place had been empty. Was everyone busy fighting Faith or were they all hiding, waiting for the right moment to attack?

Eri made sure to take hold of Caroline’s sleeve with her fingers as she followed closely. With the place being such a wide area, following the map wasn’t too complicated, the place where they had to go was very straight-forward. On the other hand, the more they walked across the hall, the more it felt like there would be nowhere to run in case anything were to happen.

Glancing all the way behind them, Eri was able to see the big steel shutters blocking the way to the main stairway. The first floor being completely blocked off was an undeniable fact.

Still, it was weird that there would be a control room in the midst of an area such as this one. It did seem like there were a few rooms at the edges of the hall, but something didn’t feel right.

After a while, the two finally stepped in front of the door that would lead them into the control room. There was a scanner outside, this was one of those doors that needed an ID to enter, but Eri had a simple solution.

She used an image on her phone’s screen as the ID, with a click, the door opened. But as both were about to step inside, two significant events happened at once.

The first one, at least twenty members of the organization all rushed from inside the depths of the room while pointing guns at them, leaving them nowhere to escape.

The second one?

A massive blast sent the attackers flying into the air. Its power was so grand that Caroline had to catch Eri in midair, falling back into the empty hall in the process.

☆

So what was the conclusion that Faith had come up with?

If the safe room was a bait to drag him into checkmate, and if the only reason he found out about the safe room was because of Eri’s data in the first place, it meant that it was possible the enemy was sending her fake information while pretending to be her sister.

If that was the case, then they didn’t seal Faith in here in order to kill him with poison gas. They sealed him here to separate them from the other “intruders” that would be dealt with in the control room, another location where they had been baited to go.

Knowing this, Faith knew he had to make it to the control room before them, but he would take a huge gamble in order to do so.

This is something that not everyone was aware of, but his gun, the Scarlet Grimoire, wasn’t a regular gun for many different reasons.

One of these was its capability of being able to switch between different types of bullets. The ones he would regularly use were simple common bullets for dealing basic damage.

Being someone that was always prepared, Faith decided this was the time to go a level higher and use his “Burst Bullets.” Something he only reserved for an emergency.

Thanks to the map that Eri sent him, he was able to stand just below the area where the control room would have been; thankfully this was also a lot closer to where he initially was compared to the safe room. Assuming he would fall for their bait had been the enemy’s first and last mistake.

He hurled his gun in the air. The Scarlet Grimoire, a black gun decorated with red outlines and with the imagery of a red sun to its side, spun across the wind. Immediately, Faith reached for his special bullets from an inner pocket inside his coat, and with a quick motion, he reloaded his gun as he caught it and held it firmly in his hand.

Without hesitation, he aimed upwards and pulled on the trigger. This time, what shot out of his weapon was an immense and powerful blast that broke right through the roof of the castle and spread its destruction all the way to the floor above. Surprisingly enough, Faith was able to withstand the powerful recoil that pushed him back a few steps.

All that was left was for him to use another Burst Bullet to propel himself upwards and their plans to trap him in the floor below would all shatter.

☆

Once the smoke of the explosion dissipated, Caroline and Eri slowly turned towards the now destroyed control room only to look at a certain black haired boy that now stood before them.

“Faith!!” “Boss!!”

With this, the first floor had been cleared.