The moment quitting time rolled around, Alice bolted out of the office like a bullet. Her destination? None other than the western labyrinth where the Ghost was last seen.

Despite what happened just yesterday, she didn’t even take a single day to rest and was already chasing leads again. To Yuria, the subject of Alice's obsession, it felt more than a little excessive.

But to be fair, Alice hadn’t initially planned to go this far.

When Victor had tasked Raven with investigating the Ghost, Raven was the one taking the lead on directly questioning those tied to the Ghost. Alice, in contrast, had been assigned the smaller role of gathering rumors and tidbits of information from the back alleys.

It made sense. Alice was far from skilled at anything beyond fighting, and she knew better than to become a hindrance by overstepping. While she wasn’t particularly bright, she wasn’t entirely clueless, either.

That was until yesterday happened.

To let the Ghost slip away right under her nose, at a distance so close she could almost touch them—it was too much for Alice to stomach. She was so frustrated that she even abandoned her recent diet and ate half a bowl of rice more than usual.

"Not that they seem like a bad person… but still! They totally outplayed me, and I can't just let that slide!"

Alice was already half-convinced that the Ghost wasn’t a villain.
After all, what kind of evildoer would fight so fiercely against vampires, bleeding all over in the process?

But knowing that the Ghost wasn’t bad and being annoyed at having lost them were two entirely different things. Alice’s pride was bruised, and she wouldn’t be satisfied until she gave the Ghost a piece of her mind.

"Just wait, Ghost. I’m going to rip that white veil off with my own hands!"

Alice was competitive to the core. When she wasn’t distracted by something cute, she could be incredibly relentless.

If she hit a wall, she would fight tooth and nail to climb over it or break it down. That was her nature.

Though she often showed a clumsy, scatterbrained side in front of a certain silver-haired girl, it was usually a way of blowing off steam. When Alice was serious, even Raven couldn’t stop her stubbornness—it left him shaking his head in resignation.

Unfortunately for the Ghost, they had caught the attention of someone with no intention of giving up.

"For now, I’ll dive deeper into the labyrinth. Especially since the Black Pillar Society’s bounty on the Ghost seems suspicious."

With that resolve, Alice headed straight for the depths of the western labyrinth.

Normally, someone with her striking appearance would attract all sorts of trouble in the underworld. To avoid unnecessary conflicts, she usually kept a low profile.

“Hey, look over there. The pink-haired swordswoman.”
“Is that really… the monster who butchered an endless swarm of zombies last night?”
“Ahem. Best to leave her alone. Not that I’m scared or anything.”

But the chaos of the Bloody Night had made her exploits well-known. The back-alley thugs were too intimidated to approach her, allowing her to move unimpeded.

“Excuse me, may I ask you something?”
“Y-Yes! What is it…?”
“Do you know anything about the Ghost? Even small details would help.”

She stopped to question anyone she spotted, collecting every scrap of information about the Ghost. She asked about their appearance, the timing of their sightings, the patterns of their victims, and their role during the Bloody Night.

Most of what she learned was either things she already knew or completely unhelpful.

The Ghost was a master of vanishing without a trace, and few had seen them up close. Aside from yesterday’s events, there were almost no reliable accounts of their actions.

"Judging by the rumors, you’d think they were an actual ghost. If I hadn’t seen them myself, I might’ve thought the stories were exaggerated."

No one knew what lay beneath the white veil. No one had heard their voice. Their mere presence caused people to lose consciousness for unknown reasons, and those who encountered them often lost all their possessions.

Their methods were so meticulous and thorough that Alice couldn’t help but feel baffled.

“Excuse me, elder. Do you happen to know anything about the Ghost?”
“Hm? Are you a bounty hunter, young lady?”
“Well… something like that.”
“Forget about the Ghost. The Black Pillar Society is about to cancel the bounty.”
“They’re canceling it?”

Alice’s eyes widened in surprise at the old beastfolk man’s revelation. She had expected the Black Pillar Society to give up eventually, but not so soon after the events of Bloody Night.

For an organization as influential as the Black Pillar Society, canceling the bounty so quickly would be a blow to their reputation.

But as the man explained further, it became clear there was a reason behind their decision.

“The bounty hunters were furious after the zombies’ corpses disappeared. The Society had to pay them all consolation money, which already strained their finances. On top of that, it turns out the vampire the Ghost fought was a noble-class vampire. A foe like that? The Society doesn’t stand a chance against someone with that kind of skill. If the Ghost were hot-headed, this labyrinth would already be soaked in blood.”
“...That’s… certainly logical.”

Alice nodded in agreement, recalling the scene she’d witnessed yesterday.

When she arrived, Drakel had been so damaged that he couldn’t even regenerate his severed limbs. Noble vampires were powerful, often requiring a troubleshooter ranked as a Double Number or higher to take them on.

If the Ghost had managed to subdue such a foe, they must have been at least as skilled as Victor. It was no wonder the Black Pillar Society had hastily retreated.

“And the public opinion in the labyrinth has swung in favor of the Ghost. Plenty of people saw them take down zombies and vampires alike.”
“The Ghost, you say?”
“Yes. Whatever their grudge against zombies is, they fought so fiercely that it was chilling to watch.”

The man described the scene to Alice in vivid detail.

The Ghost dashed like a white gale, leaving behind piles of broken-necked zombies. Vampires pinned to walls by iron stakes. Ghoul corpses rolling across the ground, their heads severed.

It was no exaggeration to say the Ghost had been the single most destructive force during the Bloody Night.

"…But why would the Ghost go to such lengths?"

Alice felt a pang of confusion. What reason could the Ghost have for fighting so desperately against the vampires?

Was it personal hatred?
But if that were the case, why had the Ghost been so restrained when they first encountered the vampire? They had only lightly subdued them at the time.

If the Ghost were trying to keep their identity hidden, this was excessive to the point of recklessness. Yesterday, they’d nearly been caught, their identity almost exposed.

"Could Victor be right? Is the Ghost a superpowered experiment from the Nexus Project?"

Alice remembered the Ghost’s small, wounded hand waving at her in farewell.
If they really were a child, as Victor suggested, how could they have fought someone like Drakel?

Perhaps the Ghost fought because they understood the agony of suffering all too well and didn’t want anyone else to endure the same pain.

Though she couldn’t be sure, Alice felt a quiet determination take root.

"A kind-hearted child. I’ll find you. I promise."

She vowed to herself, her resolve now different from before.

If the Ghost truly was someone who could embrace others despite their pain, Alice swore she would become the person to share warmth with them. Every flower deserved to bloom.

“...?”

Of course, none of this made any sense to Yuria, who was currently rolling around in the warmth of Greg’s shop.

For her, the vampires had simply annoyed her to the point of taking out her frustration. Pain and suffering? That was someone else’s problem.

The misunderstandings continued to pile up.

*

At the same time, in the Crowley Troubleshooter Agency.
Raven sipped whiskey leisurely, gazing at the sprawling cityscape of Night Haven through the office window.

"Yuria… could she really be the Ghost?"

If anyone had been beside him at that moment, they would’ve had a hard time hiding their reaction to such a sharp deduction.

Raven’s thoughts weren’t baseless.
The pieces fit together far too perfectly.

He already knew far more about the Ghost than Alice’s investigation had uncovered.

Eyewitness accounts consistently described the Ghost as having a small stature, standing at around 130 cm.
Some who’d been helped by the Ghost had glimpsed enough to confirm they were undeniably human—and likely a child.

The timing of the Ghost’s disappearance aligned precisely with Yuria starting work at Greg’s shop.
On top of that, Yuria’s identity was entirely unknown—no record of her face, background, or anything else.

Frankly, with this much circumstantial evidence, failing to connect Yuria and the Ghost would’ve been strange.

"But… she has an alibi."

Even so, all of this was just conjecture.
Too many unanswered questions remained.

If the Ghost’s powers were tied to the Nexus Project, why did they only surface now, long after the project had supposedly ended?
How could someone who survived an experiment with a success rate in the decimal points be physically and mentally intact?

And most crucially, how had the Ghost, who was reportedly covered in blood after battling Drakel, appeared perfectly fine the next day?

As long as luck and coincidence existed, Raven couldn’t definitively confirm Yuria as the Ghost without catching her in the act and removing her veil.

Not that he felt any urgency to make that call.
After all, Yuria would be working at his agency for about a month. Time and opportunities were in abundance.

And to Raven, the Ghost’s identity as Yuria wasn’t the real issue.

What mattered was whether Yuria was truly a superpowered survivor of the Nexus Project.
And if she held information that could lead to his missing sister.
Everything else was secondary to those two points.

"No need to poke the hornet’s nest unnecessarily. I’ll wait and see."

Of course, Raven had already half-convinced himself that Yuria was the Ghost.

If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have let her walk home alone through a city as dangerous as Night Haven.

Though he rarely extended help unless asked, he wasn’t the type to neglect a promise to protect someone under his watch.

"Hm? A message…"

While nursing his drink and enjoying the view, a notification appeared on his computer.

The email read:

"Nemesis Corporation cordially invites you, as a renowned fixer, to a private party hosted by our company.
You may bring up to two companions, and all expenses will be covered by Nemesis."

Raven’s instincts, honed from surviving countless battlefields, immediately sensed something was off.
This invitation wasn’t just a party—it was a sweetly scented death trap.

A carefully disguised ploy.
Something filthy was undoubtedly brewing behind the scenes.

"Smells dangerous. I like it."

Raven grinned.

There was nothing he enjoyed more than messing with people who thought they could get away with dirty schemes.
It had been a while since he indulged in his favorite pastime.

Elsewhere in Night Haven.
In a cramped, dimly lit room filled with the hum of fans and faint beeping noises, a man hunched over, surrounded by countless computers and an overwhelming number of monitors.

The flickering screen in front of him illuminated his face as he muttered to himself.

"…Found it."

The man was a Code Runner, a hacker operating in the virtual neural networks of this era’s internet.

He stood, finally breaking away from his keyboard, and approached the window.

Beyond the glass, neon lights pierced the night sky, skyscrapers towering as if to touch the heavens.
He stared at the highest peak above the clouds with a determined expression and spoke solemnly.

"Reine, I’ll be there soon."

On the glowing monitor behind him, the word *Nemesis* blinked repeatedly.