Chapter 45: You Wouldn't Want Your Secret Known by Others, Would You?
Hodell's heart lurched.
The instant her words landed, every alarm in his mind went off at once.
Ever since his advancement, he had already noticed the problem. Whether it was because of growing resistance to the drug or simply because his strength was rising too quickly, the potion that maintained his human appearance was no longer lasting as long as it used to. The transformation still held, but the duration was undeniably shrinking.
Even so, he was still in a human form now.
So how had she noticed something so subtle?
For a split second, his breathing nearly faltered. Then he forced it back under control and activated [Acting Skill] without the slightest hesitation. His expression remained calm, his eyes level and still.
"What exactly are you trying to say?" he asked. His voice was low, clear, and sharp enough to cut ice.
The woman across from him only smiled.
She was in no hurry to answer. Instead, she slowly circled the desk, her gaze moving over him in deliberate silence.
From the contour of his ears, to the line of his neck, to the slope of his shoulders, then lower, lingering at the skin near his collar and the bone structure of his wrist.
It was not a gaze filled with desire. It was inspection.
That only made Hodell more wary.
"You seem," she said at last, stopping at an angle where she could clearly see his profile, "very unconcerned about these little... traits of yours being noticed."
Her tone was light, almost conversational.
"Is it because you're certain no one can see through them? Or because you have no choice but to keep doing this?"
Hodell's brow creased. "I don't understand what you mean. If this is part of an investigation, then show me proper authorization and a formal list of questions."
She gave a small wave of her hand, as if brushing away the point.
"Relax, Specialist Ryan."
Then she took another step closer.
"Powerful disguise spells exist. So does biological reconstruction. But some details are hard to erase completely. Pupil contraction under different levels of light. The tiny delay in muscular feedback when appearance and natural structure don't quite match. The way life force adheres to the body."
She tilted her head.
"Your human form is very complete. Too complete, in fact. Almost as if it had been corrected by something external, something acting directly on life itself."
Her eyes flicked across him, bright and thoughtful.
"A rare potion, perhaps."
Hodell said nothing.
Seeing that he would not be baited by hints, she finally stopped circling around the point. Reaching into her inner pocket, she withdrew a small crystal vial.
Inside was two or three milliliters of deep blue liquid.
It was not bright, yet the liquid seemed to contain a miniature nebula, slow moving, silent, and strangely profound. Just looking at it made the energy within Hodell give a faint, involuntary twitch.
She set it on the desk between them with a soft click.
"This has a very troublesome name," she said. "It is also very rare."
Her fingertip brushed lightly across the vial.
"To simplify it, it helps things return to their original state. Magic. Biological alchemy. External transformations. All of it."
Then she looked up at him, calm and expectant.
"It does not even need to be swallowed. Inhaling the vapor would be enough."
She smiled.
"Why not try it, Specialist Ryan?"
The room went deathly quiet.
The blue liquid turned slowly in the crystal, and for a moment it felt as though even the air had stopped moving.
Then she leaned in just a little and lowered her voice.
"Specialist Ryan, you would not want your little secret known by others, would you?"
She expected hesitation.
She expected fear.
Instead, Hodell's eyes sharpened, and he spoke a single name.
"Elanis."
The woman's expression changed.
It was only for an instant, but that instant was enough. Her pupils contracted. The aura around her rippled, betraying a crack in her composure.
"How do you know that name?" she asked.
A faint smile touched Hodell's mouth.
"The Black Bone vein incident was the closest I have ever come to dying," he said casually. "When people survive that kind of experience, certain details stay with them. More vividly than they should."
His gaze locked onto her.
"Over time, one question kept getting bigger in my mind. How did the Silver Radiance Sword arrive at exactly the right moment to ruin Black Bone's plan?"
He paused, then let the next words fall with quiet precision.
"Unless Lady Elanis is far more idle than her reputation suggests."
This time the look in her eyes changed for real.
No more testing. No more leisurely curiosity.
Only thought.
Hodell pressed forward.
"The first time you approached me in the archives, I barely noticed you. Today it happened again. With my current senses, that is no small thing. And now you have also identified the instability in my body with terrifying precision."
He took a slow step closer.
"That leaves very few possibilities."
Her lips tightened.
"There are many capable people in this world."
"Yes," Hodell said. "But very few with your level of clearance, your freedom of movement inside the General Administration, and your ability to come and go without fear of leaving traces."
He did not mention the final piece.
With [Energy Vision], the thin layer of distortion over her body was impossible to miss at this distance. It was a subtle illusion, incredibly sophisticated, enough to fool almost anyone. But now that he could see energy directly, her disguise looked like a smooth layer of false light draped over something else.
He had not needed much more.
Hodell stepped closer again, his eyes hard.
"So let me guess. The reason you kept visiting the archives was not curiosity. You wanted to know how far the General Administration had progressed in analyzing the soul stones."
Still no answer.
"Or perhaps," he continued, "you wanted to know how much the General Administration understood about the force behind you."
Her shoulders tensed slightly.
He did not stop.
"The high level officials you have influence over, their short term memory gaps, their sluggish mental states, their strange lapses. You were not just checking reports. You were trying to learn how to optimize the magitech involved, so the people under your control could remain functional."
That finally made her take an involuntary step back.
Hodell's voice turned colder.
"Lady Elanis, you would not want the secret of your cooperation with a hidden organization exposed, would you?"
For a few seconds, neither of them moved.
Then Elanis let out a quiet laugh, though there was nothing light about it.
"You really are clever, Specialist Ryan. Far cleverer than I gave you credit for."
She tilted her head.
"But now that you know who I am, are you not afraid?"
The pressure in the room changed.
Documents rose from the desk and drifted into the air. A sharp chill spread outward, rattling lightly against the windows. The aura she had been restraining finally leaked out, and it was enough to make the air itself feel heavier.
Hodell did not retreat.
"Afraid you will silence me inside the General Administration?" he asked.
He let out a short laugh of his own.
"My deductions are already on record. My conclusions have already been heard. Killing me now would only make you more obvious."
The suspended documents trembled once, then slowly fell.
Elanis looked at him for a long moment. Then she turned and walked to the window, gazing out into the night.
When she spoke again, her voice was lower.
"Do you think this is about profit?" she asked. "About personal ambition? You are wrong."
She turned back, and for the first time there was something raw in her expression.
"What we are doing is for change. This order is rotten. The nobles, the power holders, the institutions that claim to represent civilization, none of them were ever built to make room for people like us."
Her eyes settled on him.
"You are a Hybrid. Do you really think talent like yours would ever be accepted without fear? Without suspicion? Without the expectation that one day you will be cut open and studied if you become too troublesome?"
Hodell's face remained unreadable.
"But whose words are those, exactly?" he asked. "Yours? Or someone else's?"
Elanis's gaze sharpened. "Does it matter?"
"It matters very much."
She exhaled slowly.
"You may never understand the things I have seen, or the things I've had to do. The world has not been simple black and white for a very long time. Justice, order, loyalty, all those beautiful words, they rotted long before you and I stepped into this game."
Then she added, quieter, "You should not be standing on the opposite side."
Hodell watched her for a second.
"Are you trying to change the world," he asked, "or are you trying to find noble language for your own decisions?"
That struck deeper than he expected.
A flicker of uncertainty crossed her face.
For the first time since entering the room, Elanis looked genuinely tired.
"Perhaps both," she said after a pause.
Then, unexpectedly, she gave him more than he had asked for.
"I am not a true member of the Dark Feather Alliance. Only a collaborator."
Hodell kept his expression steady even as his mind jolted.
Dark Feather Alliance.
So that was the name.
Elanis continued, though now she seemed to be speaking partly to herself.
"Not everyone inside a movement understands the whole of it. Some people carry ideals. Some carry orders. Some simply carry burdens until they no longer know where duty ends and manipulation begins."
She lifted the blue vial slightly, then lowered it again.
"We all think we are changing something. But are we really? Or are we only being used to move a wheel we cannot see?"
Hodell narrowed his eyes. "Who is this 'we'?"
She smiled faintly, but it was a weary smile.
"Have you never wondered whether the enemy you were told to fight is truly the enemy? Whether the thing you believe you are protecting even deserves protection?"
Hodell did not answer.
He did not need to.
The system's mission name was already enough.
[Cancer of Civilization.]
Whatever ideals people inside that faction might cling to, whatever excuses or visions they were given, the mission itself had already judged the nature of the thing.
That was enough for him.
Elanis finally straightened.
When she spoke again, her voice had regained its earlier coolness.
"You may never fully understand me, Specialist Ryan. But one day you may understand that this struggle goes far beyond what you can currently see."
Then she opened the door.
At the threshold, she glanced back.
"Goodbye."
The door closed softly behind her.
Silence returned.
Hodell stood alone in the room, looking at the scattered files.
Then he muttered under his breath, "Damn it. I do not even know a spell that restores things to their original state."
Still, the exchange had not been a loss.
On the surface, it looked like a draw. They both knew each other's secret now.
In reality, he had gained more.
His deductions about her were now basically confirmed. He had a faction name. He had a clearer picture of the political layer above the visible events. And perhaps most importantly, he had learned that not everyone inside the hidden force fully understood what they were serving.
That could matter later.
Also, if he was being honest, once the truth began surfacing, mutual secrecy no longer meant much. His suspicions were already close to becoming public anyway.
He sat back down, opened a sealed gel jar, and stared at the galaxy colored night beyond the window.
The sky of this world always looked unreal at night, like a vast translucent curtain covered in drifting jewels.
Beautiful.
And dangerous.
He turned his attention back inward.
If Elanis could not be fully trusted, and if the Dark Feather Alliance might be pushed into desperation, then he needed more insurance. More mobility. More ways to escape if the knife finally came for his throat.
The interface responded almost immediately.
[You have obtained an ability growth opportunity: Phase Shuttle. Consume 60,000 EXP to replicate?]
Hodell accepted.
The first sensation was weightlessness.
Then everything became wrong.
The air thickened into sluggish, translucent paste. The wall in front of him stopped being a wall and instead became layers upon layers of cold membrane, stacked so tightly they looked solid. Time itself seemed to lose its normal rhythm.
When he moved, touch vanished before motion did.
Sound disappeared.
A strange, absolute silence swallowed him whole.
He leaned forward.
The closed window was no longer an obstacle. It was just another mass of overlapping films, cold and dense and strangely soft. He pushed through them, feeling each layer cling and slide away in turn, like passing through endless sheets of wet skin.
Then, for an instant, something opened.
With his eyes closed, he saw a room made entirely of mirrors.
Every movement. Every thought. Every possible shift in direction. All of it reflected back at him in infinite fragments. There was no front or back there, no inside or outside, only an endless structure folding over itself, each layer devouring the one behind it.
Then it was gone.
Hodell landed outside the window without a sound.
He opened his eyes and stood still for a moment, thoughtful.
.....
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