A man barges into the room without any tact or decorum, he seems to be flustered and out of breath.

- Reporting!

- Did you find them?!

- N-no, sir. When we stormed the room they were supposed to stay in, there was no one in there. Seemed like someone left it in a hurry, but no clues or items of interest were found. Some of the pedestrians we questioned said they seen a half-naked man and a girl descend from the drainpipe and run into the back alleys.

A fist slams down on the table.

- YOU FUCKING MORONS! Do you even comprehend the magnitude of the situation?! Impersonation! Possibly treason against the Crown! Unknown amount of other not-yet-proved crimes! And you just lost him?! Son of a bitch, are you in cahoots with them?! Want to be sent to the gallows?! HUH?!

Messenger turns pale in the face and is afraid of making a sound before the furious man. And no wonder, as those weren't empty threats - member of the secret police could easily end his and his family's lives with but a word.

- Knock it off, Joshua.

- But boss!

- You may leave, thanks for the report. Tell your captain to increase the intensity of patrols in the suburbs, put anyone suspicious into custody, all the gates - on lockdown. Dismissed.

- Thank you, ma'am!!! Will be done immediately!

Sigh. Maybe it was a mistake after all to let him leave the palace unhindered. No, it was the right decision at the time. Sometimes it is simply impossible to foresee all the possible consequences - and this is one of those times.

I stuff my pipe with tobacco and ignite it. Today is going to be a looooong day, might as well enjoy the last moments of peace.

Somehow I'm not sure at all that we'll be able to pin that person with conventional methods. He overpowered Vale - although that is unproven, I believe it to be fact. Nobody remembers him leaving city, as two unknown powerhouses appear and vanish, shaming our agency and everyone else involved in dealing with information as nothing concrete can be found on them - as if they never existed before. Some week later there's an uproar at Belga's east gate, which ends in a not-so-small riot that required joint efforts of guardsmen and soldiers garrisoned in the city to quell. Perpetrator? Never found, caught or seen again. The only person who seen his face directly got a concussion and was incapable of providing proper description of the felon with his muddled memories of the event. Later a slave trader who was heavily wounded and crippled (most likely for life) by a robber, recovered just enough to continue his business, finally noticed that he was paid with his own money in his last transaction prior to the attack and reported to the guard post about a man bearing the crest of one of the Five Great Families of Delfina swindling him. After a short investigation several other incidents with this unknown noble were confirmed - mostly from merchants of the noble district. Person in charge of the baths confirmed that the person bearing the crest had a short dark elf with him, proving that it was indeed the same person as the one who supposedly tricked the halfling slaver. House of the Nightshade denied any allegations, stating that all of their close relatives and even the second branch of the family were in the capital when said events unfolded. This ended up into a full-blown witch hunt in the end.

I was skeptical at first, thinking that it was just one of the Nightshade's unaccounted bastard sons making a ruckus - nobody in their right mind would be suicidal enough to impersonate nobility, let alone one of the five families directly related to royalty. But what if? What if the person didn't know? What if the person knew but didn't care, as he believed he could get away with it? What if the person decided to leave the country forever, outside our grasp and jurisdiction, and wanted to prove something, make a statement?

Very vague reasoning, I know. But there was one person who came in mind. John Norman. Man of unknown affiliation with unknown goals. Someone who was thought to be powerless and useless, but most likely killed one of the oldest and most experienced operatives we had, one that infiltrated invading country's camp and slayed the king, effectively stopping a war that would cost us dearly. Someone who played us as a fiddle while not even deigning to put in any kind of effort, almost openly mocking us and everything we stand for.

He's dangerous. We need to get rid of him before he leaves the country or we'll regret it later.

- Andrea, what's with the long face? You've got the look of the person who noticed the waiter throwing a cockroach into your bowl of soup after pissing in it.

- I'm thinking that we need to call for more operatives, tell them to disguise themselves as highwaymen, stay put on the road to Berg and kill everyone who fits the description. And forget about the elf. If I'm judging the target right, he most likely already strangled her and hid the body in some nondescript corner.

- Hey now, let's not get hasty. That description is generic as hell, I bet 20% of the entire population fits the bill.

- We need to eliminate Norman before it's too late.

- That again? What, did the spring finally visit you? You seem to be obsessed with that git, boss.

- And you seem to be in need of severe penile mutilation.

- Whoa, put the knife away! But seriously, he's a mere skill-less traveler. Why are you so worked up over him?

- And what makes you think that he is powerless? He could've falsified his info.

- Hogwash! You know better than anyone that it is impossible to trick the magic identification tools. Our bureau tried time and again, but to no avail. And no records of this being a thing were ever found too.

- Sure, you can't trick the tools. But you can always trick the people.

- What?

- You know, this whole mess is full of holes that need filling in, and smudged grey areas that are undecipherable. What do we know about the man? Nothing. We summoned 30 people. We got 31 instead. All of them are children and yet one adult is mixed into the fray. All had superior capabilities, yet just one is completely useless. All afraid to speak up, but one has the guts to access the situation and address the king directly, fixing some immediate benefits for himself with no cost. All the children spilled loads of info on each other with little prodding required, but nobody can say anything about him. And who was the first among them who spoke about status, hmmm?

- Okay, okay, I get it already! You've been banging me over the head with this countless times now. Still, how the hell would he mask his abilities?

- I dug up the archives on the previous summoned heroes. And you know what I've found out? There was a man that had affinity for water, wind and light magic. That person could effortlessly conjure up mass illusions.

- Wait, you don't mean to say...

- I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. We still have his hair, right?

- Of course, we collect it from all the heroes that get summoned, even that usele...wait, seriously? You can't do this, our mages are still nearly dead after the last summoning!

- Can't be helped, Joshua. We need to know about him. And therefore we shall summon another person, someone close who knows all about him. Everything is already falling apart - first five of our heroes just go AWOL and nobody knows where the hell they are, now this. We are losing control. Do you want to wait until old Harold gets fed up and purges us all, setting new agents on our places?

- Let me say this for the protocol: I'm against the idea and I find it thoroughly idiotic. If one of the summoners dies in the process, I'm not gonna take the fall with you, boss.

- And no need for that. I'm taking full responsibility.

____________________________________________________________________________

~Somewhere, Sometime, Somespace~

- It's all your fault, Three! I told you there was a mistake in the Plan!

- "Mistake" in the Plan?! MISTAKE?! How dare you spout such heresy, Twelve?! It is perfect - all of us designed it together, it is airtight!

- Was airtight. And look where we are now: Subject #31 running amok, five of the targets left the place where we could get to them and now humans are about to summon the seventh one. Has the flow of time blinded you, you old fool? Seven beasts, all of them! Seven balance breakers that bring chaos and change are going to converge in this world, what are you going to say to that?

- Why you little runt! I shall erase you!

- Let me see you try, traitor. First you insist on pushing the incomplete future onto everyone else when we are at our weakest, now you want to attack one of your own as he calls you out. Bastard, it will be better for all of us if you die h...

- Silence, you two.

- One!

- The council was summoned to deal with the issue, not make it worse. Six, did you collect information that I asked you for?

- Yes, One.

- Good. Then let everyone hear it.

- Ahem. First and foremost, cancellation of Subject #31's transformation into the Demon King isn't set in stone yet. It seems that Erde has blessed one of her former followers' child and now it stalls the mental damage caused by curse of the dragonblood upon the Subject. If we somehow get rid of her...

- You said Erde?! I thought that wench perished in the last war among the other gods.

- ...may I continue the report?

- Ah, yeah. Sorry. But wait, can't we just directly shut him from the System? His transformation was approved upon as we wanted humans to deal with one of the beasts themselves and spare what little strength we still have. But I'd wager now it calls for a more direct approach since the situation changed.

- That would be impossible - the custom personal terminal XS-Mira's AI has gone haywire, attained sentience and doesn't respond to System's commands anymore. In other words, Subject can keep on freely using the System without being affected by the killswitch. Truly, now he's the most troublesome of the beasts we have on our hands. And even if we could get to him directly, we'd just use up all of our divinity left and remain fangless when facing the other six.

Deep silence fills the room, those attending unable to say anything as they observe everything they were working for collapsing before their eyes.

- So... What do we do now? Does it mean that we'll never build the land of Order ever again?

- No need to be so pessimistic, Eleven. I say we...swallow our pride and admit that the old future is destroyed. Then we think of something new to counteract the foul situation we found ourselves in. I even took the liberty to make the first step.

- What exactly did you do, Six?

- Fight fire with fire. Old gods might've thought they erased every record of our existence, but that's not entirely true. There was one cache I kept secret even from the council, just a little good luck charm to ease my conscience... Never brought it up before, as it wasn't included in the initial Plan and I truly thought it wouldn't be needed. I've guided a very...spirited...man towards it. I say he will certainly bring us a lot of problems in the long run, but he can be dealt with infinitely more easier than the seven beasts and the benefits he shall bring us are vast.

- For instance?

- A cult. That person shall spread our religion across the lands once more and restore our power to the former glory.