“With me here, there’s no way business won’t be booming.”

“Right? As expected? You’re a mage, after all.”

“Living and adapting in that country, I had no choice but to learn magic. And what’s the difference between Tae-ha moving a pen without touching it and me?”

Ma Yu-jin, whose hometown was Korea, was a dimension traveler. She was also called a returnee.

Like the members of the Black Lizard, Mago was said to have an unpleasant past. Yoon Tae-ha remembered her saying that she had been able to escape her past with Chertan’s help.

Afterwards, she decided to stay with the Black Lizard instead of returning to her hometown. She said that the negative perception towards returnees was also a reason why she didn’t go back.

As soon as a returnee was registered with the government, they were designated as a special management target, making it impossible for them to lead a normal life. After being deprived of the freedom to choose their profession, they had to live as government agents and couldn’t move freely. It was natural for their every move to be monitored. Mago had once said that she realized early on that she wouldn’t be able to endure that.

“Have you ever fought a crow?”

Mago, who had been briefly engrossed in the map, asked her a question. Was it an interrogation? Yoon Tae-ha glanced at Lev. As soon as he entered the conference room, he had grabbed his charged-up game console and was passionately engrossed in the game. He didn’t seem to have any intention of joining the conversation.

“Yes, I have.”

“It’s not that it’s wrong. It’s just that I need your cooperation for what we have to do in the future.”

Mago lowered her voice solemnly.

“We’re going to join hands with them.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re going to join hands with the crow prince. He says he’s going to betray his own organization.”

Was Raphael’s brother going to betray Orca? She frowned, alternately recalling his arrogantly shining sky-blue and red eyes. She decided to listen to Mago’s story first.

“You’ll know if you’ve faced him directly, but the crow prince is strong. He’s one of Orca’s top three executives. He’s probably in direct contact with the leader.”

A crow, a red witch, and one unknown esper with an unrevealed face. That was the composition of Orca’s top-level executives that the Black Lizard had identified so far.

It was a list that matched the information Lee Hae-kyung had obtained. She had heard that Lee Hae-kyung’s side was currently busy chasing after the third executive whose face had not yet been revealed. Lee Hae-kyung’s opinion was that this person seemed to be living an ordinary life in the esper society.

In any case, obtaining the cooperation of one of the top three executives would make many things possible. They would be able to grasp the enemy’s overall scale and gathering evidence would become easier.

They might even be able to obtain detailed information about the experiments Orca was currently focusing on. Whether they were still continuing Professor Yoon’s legacy, or if they had shifted direction to another project.

As she continued to think, she pictured a strong and beautiful woman with the same constitution as Cheon Geon-young and was surprised at her own image, clearing her throat.

Mago concluded in a calm voice.

“It’s dangerous, but it’s too sweet a temptation to ignore. A top executive would know a lot, after all.”

“Did he say he would give us information?”

“He seems to be implying that he will if we take care of what he wants. He told us to prove that we are the natural enemy of orcas.”

“What made him change his mind?”

“He said a dangerous brother is coming.”

A brother is coming.

Unless there was another brother, that would probably be Raphael. But the word used to describe the brother bothered her.

‘Raphael also said his brother was a dangerous person.’

Were they trying to eliminate each other by bringing in different forces? It was a very harsh thought for blood relatives.

Deep in thought, Yoon Tae-ha unknowingly drank the coffee she had pushed aside and choked. Mago, seeing her cough repeatedly, widened her eyes and handed her a water bottle. Yoon Tae-ha, who quickly gulped down the water, calmed down and said,

“I think I met the crow prince’s brother.”

“What are you talking about? Tell me in detail.”

She relayed everything Raphael had told her.

Going to the island on the Red Lake with him. The fight between the First Prince and the Second Prince and the Crow Garden. Raphael trying to cross over to Lethe using green feathers. The existence of a crown with power.

When she even mentioned that Raphael called his brother Nox, Lev, who had been engrossed in his game, showed interest. Mago and Lev knew that she was Professor Yoon’s granddaughter. So, she revealed the details of the deal Raphael had proposed without leaving anything out.

“He said he would tell me my mother’s name if I brought him the green feathers. Not the mother registered in the records, but the mother who gave birth to me.”

“So, you weren’t Yoon Jeong-hoon’s family after all?”

“There’s no guarantee that everything Raphael said is true. Don’t get your hopes up and be disappointed later.”

After finishing her story, Yoon Tae-ha felt a pang of guilt twisting deep within her conscience. It was because she hadn’t been able to tell Cheon Geon-young about this.

She didn’t want to say anything related to Professor Yoon without certainty. In fact, it was a topic she wanted to avoid forever if possible.

Mago leaned back in her chair for a moment, organizing her thoughts. Lev approached Yoon Tae-ha and grilled her about what the man named Raphael looked like.

“White hair and sky-blue eyes. Easy to recognize.”

“Those are unique colors. Certainly, it’s rare for an Earthling to have those colors. You’ve met both brothers. Do they look alike?”

“Not at all. Their atmosphere is different, and their features are different too.”

Mago, who had been listening to their conversation, finally leaned forward from the back of her chair. Mago asked for her opinion with a cautious attitude.

“Which one do you trust more?”

“I don’t trust either of them.”

As Yoon Tae-ha took off the ring on her index finger and spoke, Mago made a surprised expression. She seemed to have thought that Yoon Tae-ha would side with Raphael.

“There’s one hypothesis that came to mind after hearing Raphael’s story.”

“Go ahead.”

“What if Raphael is the First Prince?”

She had lightly tested Raphael’s reaction by calling him the Second Prince. The other party skillfully deflected the question, but a fleeting change in his expression bothered her. His subtly more arrogant tone, unlike when he was at the company, also bothered her.

What if he was acting?

“Hoo-hoo……”

Lev, who had perched on the desk, crossed his arms sternly.

“You’re thinking there’s a possibility he approached you by stealing his younger brother’s identity?”

“There’s no proof. It’s just what I would do. It’s too much of a headache to make up everything with lies. It’s easier to live as the Second Prince, who lost his subordinates and was chased to another dimension because of his older brother, than as the First Prince, who was blinded by the throne and tried to kill his younger brother. You can also gain sympathy.”

“As expected, a current spy thinks differently.”

Yoon Tae-ha couldn’t laugh and retort at those words. Lev watched her reaction and narrowed his eyes as if to say, “See?”

“If Raphael is the First Prince, and Nox, the crow prince, is the Second Prince… then me collecting green feathers and going to Raphael is suicide. I’d be tricked by a stranger trying to create a rift to return to his own world.”

“You’d just be doing someone else a favor.”

She lightly agreed with Lev’s words and asked Mago, “Is it possible to meet the crow prince directly?”

Just then, Chertan appeared, opening the translucent door of the conference room. The gazes of the three people focused on the large man.

As soon as Chertan entered, he stared intently at Yoon Tae-ha’s face and then nonchalantly turned his head. Yoon Tae-ha, knowing the nature of the man who always picked childish fights with her, was dumbfounded.

“You can meet him. Under the guild leader’s arrangement.”

“Is that true?”

“What?”

“Huh?”

The three people expressed their surprise in their own ways. Chertan gave a satisfied smile at their bewildered and confused eyes. He tugged at the end of his riding vest and swaggered.

“I gave you the blueprints of the chimera research lab. Two of them.”

Taking out a small storage device, Chertan connected it to the machine in the conference room.

The hologram that had been showing the rugged mountain range disappeared, and the blueprints of the research lab sprang up. As the research lab designed like a honeycomb appeared, the inside of the conference room fell silent.

Yoon Tae-ha jumped up from her seat and first examined the overall structure of the lab. Lev, with an unusually fierce gaze, leaned forward to understand the interior of the building.

“This is the lab that’s creating the highest-grade chimeras. Inside Orca, they call this lab the Green Hive. Seven hexagonal buildings are attached like a honeycomb. If you look from high above, it will look like one giant circle.”

Chertan slowly turned the desk and began to explain.

“The main hexagonal building in the very center. He said that’s the room where they store the successful finished products. The great crow prince, that is.”

He stopped beside Yoon Tae-ha, adding a sarcastic remark.

She was memorizing the structure of the lab without even blinking. As if worried that the blueprints would disappear like a desert mirage. Chertan quietly watched Yoon Tae-ha and then patted the back of Lev’s head next to her.

Lev was annoyed by the rough touch. The boy turned into a cat and slipped through Chertan’s fingers. The cat, sticking close to Yoon Tae-ha, purred and rubbed its head against the back of her hand. Chertan, clicking his tongue briefly at the cat’s behavior, shrunk the lab and showed the surrounding terrain.

“It’s a building that won’t collapse from a decent attack. It’s surrounded by defense barriers from Orca-affiliated mages. In addition, all sorts of unique chimeras and monsters are hidden like landmines, so it’ll be impossible to even break through a single wall with ordinary conventional attacks.”

Yoon Tae-ha, who had been rolling the ring in her palm, put it back on her right index finger and said,

“There probably aren’t any tall buildings near the lab, are there? Or tall trees.”

“They certainly don’t exist. I just came from checking. It’s impossible to get in by teleportation.”

A moment later, Chertan displayed a new lab next to the honeycomb-structured one. It was a building with a familiar appearance to Yoon Tae-ha.

“This is the second lab. They call it the Small Hive. It’s a facility that develops chimeras one step lower in research value than the Green Hive. The territory of a two-headed snake surrounds this place, so it’s not easy to approach either.”

“I’ve been here.”

Chertan looked at her, his eyes asking for an explanation.