PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

This is how Desmond managed to create a small sphere of hidden and scattered influence around Green Seed Town. Although Desmond had also managed to read and use the right people for it, it was thus that Desmond managed to have so many canaries scattered around the city, waiting to hear a piece of exciting news that they could sing back to Desmond.

As one of the most vulnerable and often overlooked sectors, orphans, regardless of age, were lonely people without any support and in dire need of means to survive.

Desmond had used his connections to the orphanage in Green Seed Town, tracking down and researching many people currently residing in the town who had the potential and profiled to become his canaries.

Through a middleman and some under-the-table business dealings, Desmond had financed these people, using the power of money and military influence to place said people in positions where they could be of help.

Of course, this posed a risk if these people ever discussed their dealings with him, which is why Desmond just made sure to hide any piece of information that could be traced back to him from these people. But he had also relied on Natalie and Kyuru to choose candidates with the best mental attitude and the least likely to betray him.

One thing that made this minor clandestine spy system so efficient was that Desmond’s canaries weren’t actively trying to get secrets or anything like that but instead became passive listeners that Desmond had placed in a few positions of advantage.

Also, none of these people had anything to gain by informing anyone of their actions since they also didn’t know much about their own roles or who they worked for. The work of these canaries was strange enough on its own, as their only job was to send messages via an encrypted phone about anything these people heard that they found interesting or important.

The canaries were, of course, rewarded handsomely every time they reported an essential piece of information. Still, even the canaries themselves didn’t know precisely the reason for their rewards. Payments were made via hidden electronic transfers every month without mentioning their reason.

.....

The system wasn’t perfect, but it had enough safeguards to keep it operational and hidden. Of course, it also helped that in modern times humanity used to be more concerned with surviving mutated beasts than the evil intentions of other countries; so espionage was not a significant source of concern for most nations.

Whatever the case, this showed how much money could accomplish for one person, and Desmond had obtained a gigantic sum of money when he plundered the underworld forces in the city.

Much of that money had been used to finance the rudimentary intelligence network set up by Desmond and finance all of ‘s equipment and infrastructure.

A complete arsenal with multiple models of hand weapons, assault rifles, semi-automatic, shotguns, fragmentation, smoke, flash, stun grenades, and a large number of bladed weapons and tactical equipment such as kevlar combat suits.

Desmond had even contacted private security and intelligence equipment supplier and purchased high-tech tracking, listening, monitoring, and espionage devices.

Likewise, Desmond had also invested some additional funds to make the Garden restaurant a comfortable and safe place. But even then, there were things money couldn’t accomplish, and Desmond learned a valuable lesson from it, which cannot be achieved with money and could sometimes be performed with mana.

It took a lot of effort and cost Desmond all his remaining tyrant wasp honey. Still, with the help of Kyuru and her mastery of all mana elements, including earth mana, the Garden Restaurant now had two floors below ground and a set of passageways that led discreetly out of the building.

The underground floors contained mainly a conference and monitoring area where much of Desmond’s purchased equipment was placed, a training area where the armory was also located, and a medical room in case of emergencies.

While Claire ate comfortably on the restaurant’s first floor with the last rays of the late afternoon sun streaming through the windows. In one of the passageways below the restaurant, There was Sara, who had ended her call with Yulei a few minutes ago.

Although dressed in casual clothes, Sara wore a wig and makeup that made her look significantly different from her usual appearance. Inside a backpack strapped to her back, Sara carried a 9mm Glock, a silencer, two magazines, the second set of wigs and clothing, a tablet linked to the tracking device, a mask, gloves, and tactical binoculars with night vision.

Sara slipped out the other side of the secret passageway, a combat knife well concealed in her clothing, fully prepared for any unforeseen event.

Hidden in her hair, a wireless headset linked to the tracking tablet gave occasional instructions guiding Sara to her destination. A relatively elegant residence soon entered her field of vision, and it seemed that was the goal of her mission.

Sara recognized the residence. Even though Green Seed Town could be considered just a satellite town of a true metropolis, the population was still ten thousand or more. No matter how picturesque the town might appear on the surface, it even had its own underworld.

Desmond directed his attention to the underworld in the city of Kars because he preferred not to make too much noise in the town he lived in. However, that didn’t mean that Desmond had wholly overlooked and ignored the underworld of Green Seed Town. And quite the contrary, Desmond had used his military authority to investigate a lot about it. Desmond’s information on this and other topics was in a database that the girls had access to.

Being ‘s intelligence operator, Sara used her superior learning and memorization ability to digest that database as soon as she had the chance. She recognized the residence since that was none other than the house of the Minora family.

Sara just hoped this wasn’t a waste of time since, from start to finish, this entire drug operation was just an attempt to corroborate a specific piece of information that Revna had obtained.

To begin with, the Garden girls would never dare to act entirely on their own, and all their current operations were being carried out following the orders left by Desmond before he left.

And what Desmond wanted was evidence, corroborating evidence of what Revna found so he could get rid of a particular character who was slowly turning to stone on Desmond’s side.

Revna obtained this information during the bitter winter battle when Desmond sent her on a mission to take advantage of the chaos. It had almost cost Desmond his life in the final stages of the fight, so he really hoped he could get something good out of all this.

But his target hid his clues very well, and it wasn’t going to be that easy for Desmond to get rid of that old fox, so despite his efforts so far, Desmond hadn’t gotten anything definite that he could use.

Hours passed, but Sara remained vigilant, hidden on the roof of a building almost two hundred meters from the residence; she had been keeping a detailed record of everything she could observe.

However, no matter how long she waited for her, Sara didn’t manage to get anything significant. At some point in the night, a shadow emerged from one of the darkest corners of the roof, where the moonlight was unable to reach; this shadow spread and expanded, revealing the figure of Revna.

“Another dead end?” Revna asked with a slight irritation; even Revna was upset after failing so many times in the mission entrusted to her Master.

Shrugging at Revna’s irritation, Sara could only respond with a serious look. “It seems so, but I would like to set up surveillance equipment to keep basic monitoring of the place. We might not find anything today, but I find it hard to believe that the Minora family isn’t related to someone high up in the military. Even if we didn’t manage to tie them to our current target, we could still find information that benefits the Master.”

Revna was intelligent, but her analytical abilities were different from Sara’s. Not only did they operate on different frequencies, but the power was also different, it was expected that Revna didn’t think as far as Sara, but she was still able to understand Sara’s intentions.

“I see. Since you are the expert in that field, I will leave this matter in your hands. Since it is for the benefit of the Master, I will authorize this operation even if it is unlikely to be related to our objective. You are free to use the equipment in the arsenal, but I will not authorize any contact or combat operations until the Master is here. It is understood?”

Sara could act as Garden’s intelligence operator, and Tania could be the older sister of the group, but it was Revna who had the most authority since she was Desmond’s right hand. Revna was also the person with the most remarkable fighting strength in Garden, so Sara had no problem obeying her orders.

Revna’s orders weren’t unreasonable either, so it seemed Garden’s current operations would be kept to a minimum until Desmond returned. The quiet nights continued on earth, waiting for a particular individual to act as a catalyst for the events to come.