Chapter 35: The Smiling Angel

"I hope you have a good reason for calling me here or you are sure as hell being fired"

Victor appeared to be in a bad mood and that might be because he was woken up early this morning since some sort of 'message' was discovered and of course in this city when even a breeze looks suspicious he must be called to inspect it. The more time he spent working as a protector mage the more he regretted applying.

"Sir, I assure you this is of incredible importance!"

A young man wearing something similar to a lab coat with a name tag which said 'Frank Lupin. Junior Mage Researcher' replied to Victor who actually turned a bit more serious seeing him practically have a panic attack over this.

"Then tell me what's the issue then"

"Sir, it's best if I simply show you"

Frank said so while opening a large double door revealing an enormous room filled with dozen or so people all wearing similar lab coats, some gigantic measuring devices that beeped with urgency and multiple magical arrays securing everything, ensuring that in a case of something going extremely wrong at the very least the expensive equipment would remain undamaged.

Everyone inside looked tired yet their movements were swift. They practically ran left and right checking on some sort of tests or while performing a number of weird experiments. All that combined with their crazed expressions made it seem like they were at some sort of asylum for the insane rather than a research facility.

All this hassle was because of one item leisurely placed on a pedestal in the middle of the room.

It looked like a simple… letter?

"Okay either all of you have gone crazy or there is something special about that letter. Which is it?"

"Sir, this letter was discovered yesterday at the exact moment the execution took place at a nearby post office and of course it is no simple letter"

Frank handed Victor a stack of documents with a terrifying amount of data. Still, his intention was not to wait till he reads all that as it would take hours but rather to show off the insanity contained in it.

"Sir, so far on the envelope containing the letter we documented an exact 789 runes in total. We are yet to open it as we are afraid of a violent reaction between so many runes but more on that later as what concerned us the most was the encoded message contained within them. Out of the 789 runes the 786 describe multiple geographical coordinates, one is a simple 'confinement' rune whereas the remaining two we believe describe the creator of the letter… by combining 'smiling' and 'angel' we believe the pseudonym of the sender is… The Smiling Angel"

"Smiling Angel huh? You mentioned coordinates. What have you discovered?"

"There sir!"

Frank pointed to a table on which was a map of the world. It depicted two continents that appeared mirrored. Those were the northern and southern continents that were separated by the middle sea but there was also the large eastern continent that in land mass equaled the two former and was separated with them by an enormous and wide ocean called the warring ocean.

On the entire map multiple dots were present. They were all connected by lines forming…

…a self devouring snake coiled to form the symbol of infinity.

"Dear Goddess… So that's their ambition... To conquer the world. Did they leave it as some sort of warning or maybe a threat?"

Victor seemed shaken by the discovery.

"Sir, what will you do?"

"Me? Nothing. I will report it to the higher ups in the capitol and... Wait f*ck! That woman from the Church of Purity mentioned being concerned and the possibility of establishing a branch of the church in our country. This letter will now probably serve like a nail to the coffin. What a headache"

Victor had a change of mind and approached the letter ready to open it.

***

"Did you really send that letter which Arthur wrote?"

"Who do you take me for? Of course I did it was funny as hell"

Renfri and Amon were sitting at the table playing cards while Arthur was outside doing actual work a charity is supposed to do. Winter is coming and although it does not snow as the Veron island is located in the warmer parts of the world it still can be quite cold especially during nights so he was giving away some clothes.

"Won't it lead to us? Arthur described our location after all"

"Please… The abomination that he concocted was so unreadable that without knowing everything from the start it could lead to hundreds of locations depending on interpretation. You don't write addresses with runes for a reason and if anyone takes this seriously then they have my condolences"

Amon laughed off the idea of anyone being stupid enough to take the letter seriously.

"But what if they open it? There is my name in there you know"

To this Amon smiled widely.

"I rigged it to explode"

"What!?"

***

Victor tracked with his finger a rune symbolising 'opening' and was terrified to see all the runes on the envelope rearranging. They now together formed an array that had one simple purpose. Explode.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

The magical arrays in the room however did their job protecting the equipment and by extension as a nice bonus the personnel as well. Victor looked haggard as his robe tore in many places but was also mostly unharmed.

He looked angry since he was obviously playing like a fiddle. What a clever plot to assassinate him that was.

"DAMN YOU OUROBOROS!!!"

From today onwards Victor would have a personal grudge with Ouroboros.