Rewrite That Witch
CH1182 · Rewrite
☕ Support

Chapter 1182: Infiltration

That’s not what you said when you handed me the hunting license, Roland thought, swallowing the retort. Instead he said, “Why are you only introducing modern martialists? Shouldn’t a mission like this send more traditional martialists against Fallen Evils?”

“There are more traditional martialists —” Garcia broke off and pointed at a cluster of people Roland had dismissed as bystanders: homely, disheveled middle-aged men who stood in glaring contrast to the polished modern martialists nearby. “I don’t have details on any of them. They work alone. Only their personal agents know where they normally operate. So practically speaking, I have nothing to tell you.”

Abashed, Roland mopped his forehead. He’d taken those unkempt men for chauffeurs or assistants. The contrast between their bedraggled stillness and the preening modern martialists gave him a sudden, unwelcome urge to defect — he genuinely did not want to be the representative of this particular cohort.

Could he still enter the Martial Arts Contest trials and be counted as something else?

A black bus swung into the parking lot.

“That’s the one from Prism City,” Garcia said. “Let’s go.”

Roland patted his right shoulder — as long as Faldi’s bug clung to him, the witches could find him anywhere — and followed Garcia to the rear of the bus.

“I like this seat best,” Roland said, stretching out unceremoniously. “You can see everything from here. I feel like a king.”

“You just want to be a loner,” Garcia snapped.

“I didn’t beg you to sit with me.”

“It’s your first mission. As your senior, I obviously have to keep an eye on you.”

They were still glaring at each other when a wave of voices rolled down the aisle.

“Miss Fei Yuhan, over here!”

“Yuhan, come sit with me!”

Every passenger twisted around. Every hand went up. The girl who stepped onto the bus walked past all of them without a glance and came straight to the back.

“Is anyone sitting here?”

She pointed at the seat beside Roland with the flat affect of someone asking about a bus stop, not a social gambit.

Garcia’s eyes moved between Fei Yuhan and Roland, searching for whatever had already passed between them.

Roland felt every set of eyes on the bus lock onto him. He coughed. “No.”

“Thanks.” Fei Yuhan sat down as if the matter were purely logistical. “Nice to meet you — well, actually we’ve already met. I’m Fei Yuhan. I’m looking forward to working with you.”

“Er, me too. I’m Roland. This is — Miss Garcia.”

Silence dropped over the three of them like a lid. Garcia turned to her phone. Fei Yuhan sat upright, aloof, frosty, apparently unbothered. Roland, wedged between them, became an object of collective, unblinking fascination from the rest of the bus.

The bus pulled out slowly.

He was calculating whether to swap seats with Garcia when Fei Yuhan leaned toward him and said, quietly, “Your Majesty?”

Bang.

Garcia’s phone hit the floor.

Roland stared. For one suspended second, he couldn’t form a response — his lips had already begun to shape a silent yes before he caught himself and forced the sound back down his throat. “You —”

A booming voice cut him off from the front of the bus: “Good afternoon, everyone. I’m liaison officer C02 for this mission — you can call me 02. Over the next few hours I’ll walk you through the target and the operation plan. Questions are welcome at any time.”

Roland swallowed whatever he’d been about to say and fixed his gaze forward.

“According to our intelligence, Fallen Evils have become increasingly active and are starting to move in groups — historically, that signals an Erosion is close. We’ve learned from a reliable source that a number of Fallen Evils intend to congregate inside an abandoned factory in the southern suburb. We don’t yet know their purpose, but we’re certain it isn’t benign.”

“Maybe they just want to make some friends,” Luo Hua offered from midway down the aisle. The bus laughed.

“I wish that were true,” 02 replied without missing a beat. “Unfortunately, Fallen Evils are our greatest enemy, and I would rather see them eliminated entirely. There is an underground highway leading directly to the factory; it was sealed when the factory closed, and the Association opened a covert passage through it two days ago. We move at nine o’clock tonight and distribute equipment when you disembark. The army will also be positioned to prevent any escape — but only those with the Force of Nature can actually injure these creatures. We’ll divide into two teams: one to engage the Fallen Evils directly, one to cut off their retreat. You’ll find your team assignment on a list under your seat. Unless there are further questions, we proceed as planned.”

Fei Yuhan turned the list over in her hands without reading it. Her attention had drifted from the operation entirely and settled on Roland’s face — on the precise, layered reaction she’d seen there when she said “Your Majesty.”

She had a facility for reading people. She could track emotion through the smallest tells — a shift in breathing, a change in the set of a jaw — and she was confident she could catch even a skilled deceiver in the moment before he masked himself, unless he had anticipated the confrontation ahead of time.

What she’d seen in Roland was nothing she could readily name.

Surprise, alertness, confusion — and underneath all of it, a flicker of something that looked almost like delight. His lips had begun to form a silent yes. Then he’d pressed them shut.

No embarrassment. None.

Was he simply accustomed to being called that?

She turned the question over slowly. She remembered the conversation at the party — Roland and those three young women, talking in a register that had seemed like an odd private game. She’d dismissed it. Now she wasn’t sure.

Was he actually the king of two worlds?

The curiosity that had begun as a competitive interest in testing herself against him had transformed into something else entirely — a genuine desire to understand what he was. She was glad she’d decided to join this operation. Her master had once told her that the Association’s history was older and stranger than it appeared, that it knew secrets touching the very origin of this world.

Was that the real reason Roland had been granted a hunting license?

She watched him stare at the seat in front of him, clearly working through something, and kept her questions to herself. There was no point creating hostility before she had answers. There would be time. She was patient by nature, and Roland, she suspected, would remain interesting for a long time to come.

Two and a half hours later, the bus stopped at the end of the underground highway.

The martialists divided into two groups and moved into position. Roland and Fei Yuhan drew the assault team; Garcia was assigned to the flanking group. She disappeared into the dark after gripping Roland’s arm and telling him to be careful.

As everyone had expected, Mr. Youlong — rumored to be as capable as a “guard” — was elected assault team captain. “Follow me,” he said, giving the rest of the team a steady look, and crawled into a ventilation duct.

The operation was more sophisticated than Roland had anticipated. Off the bus, every member received panoramic night vision goggles, a location watch slaved to a shared map, a vest with identification and enemy-recognition hardware, and a headset. Roland thought, not for the first time, how much he wished the First Army had equipment like this — the bitterness of fighting blind at night was something he knew in his bones.

He counted fifteen in the assault team. Beside Mr. Youlong, Luo Hua, and Fei Yuhan, all the rest were traditional martialists. The Association still trusted tradition when real combat was on the table. But if this mission went poorly — if the modern martialists outperformed — that trust might start to erode.

He had no interest in taking sides. He was simply curious to see how celebrated martialists fared against something that wouldn’t yield to a competition score, something that didn’t stop when the referee raised his hand.

Through the night vision goggles, the world turned an even, luminous green. The team moved through the dark without a sound and reached the factory wall like ghosts closing on a sleeping house.

Discussion

Suggest a change