This follows on from 'R&R,' the chapter about Tao napping on Raizel. I managed to write it, then I was 'really I should finish the island arc first,' but I haven't been able to write much for awhile and I wanted to post something to thank people for leaving reviews.
Refusing wasn't an option.
Sangeen already looked what, ten years older than Yonsu? Twenty? Even a well-preserved thirty. How long until he couldn't be out in public with his wife without looking like a creepy old man?
That wasn't why he couldn't refuse. A cure for cellular degeneration existed? They'd have the chance to observe a scientist who could create something like that while he worked and report back? He had a duty to his country.
But maybe the personal reasons were why he'd let Yonsu head to the driver's side without even clearing his throat or making some other token attempt to remind her that this wasn't an emergency, they were in a city and not everyone had her modified reflexes.
He was a little surprised the noble who came to get them hadn't headed home over the rooftops right away after delivering the message, but maybe he'd been ordered to escort them? Rael hadn't demanded the front seat, either, and didn't seem to be sitting like Yonsu was his chauffer, a human servant to drive the noble around. Red eyes were looking out the window pointedly, whipcord-thin body tense and straightened up. The mask of arrogance was on, but he had the same little moue of displeasure he'd gotten when the training wasn't working because humans just didn't work the way he thought.
"What would I know about what you humans need?" he'd answered when Sangeen asked if he should grab an overnight bag or something. He kept one packed for missions, so he had grabbed it from his locker while Yonsu notified the director.
Arms folded, Rael looked prickly. Deliberately prickly, like a porcupine spreading its quills out not even because it was afraid of attack but because he didn't want anyone to get close while he was thinking about whatever had him so annoyed. He'd barely even glared at Yonsu and Sangeen when he delivered the message, and even that was a momentary 'why are you talking to me' glare instead of a 'Union scum' glare, the one that had started to dim in intensity as he got it through his head that they weren't Union.
Rael was one of the most teenage teenagers to ever teenage. Over five hundred years old and he could still pass for a teenager. How long could nobles live? How long could enhanced humans live without the Union's planned obsolescence?
Sangeen took his eyes off Rael for one second as Yonsu parked and heard the door close, Rael already out of the car. He and Yonsu looked at each other, but they both already knew Yonsu would be writing the report on their observations of the nobles and enhanced humans. Sangeen would be doubly compromised after this.
Rael left the door open behind him: when they walked in he was bowing to Cadis Etrama di Raizel. "I have brought the humans your Bonded wanted."
The noble official gave him a nod of acknowledgement and Rael moved to stand beside his chair, glancing at the Chairman as he walked into the room as though he suspected that the Chairman would try to take that spot if Rael didn't grab it first.
"Ah," the Chairman said, sparkling at them. "As I said, the last time I let anyone at my techniques the Union happened, but giving you the ability to heal your cellular degeneration isn't very complicated. It's a technique the Union already has, but doesn't let the rank and file scientists know about. So if anything that would give them an incentive to terminate anyone who managed to examine you…" His expression turned calculating.
Raizel set down his teacup with a click. Rael practically teleported into the kitchen and back into the living room, already pouring the tea when Sangeen could see him again. Forget scuffing the floor, he had to be doing something to prevent a sonic boom!
"Taking a Union researcher with me as the last thing I do? Sounds good to me," Sangeen said, and saw M-21 nod slightly out of the corner of his eye.
The enhanced human caught Sangeen glancing at him where he stood leaning against the wall and frowned, looking away.
"When can we get started?" Sangeen asked.
The Chairman smiled. "First, let's discuss how you'll pay for the treatment."
Yonsu tensed beside him.
"Experimental data is its own reward," the Chairman continued, "but this is a medical treatment, one I already know is effective on previously-enhanced humans. I don't have the time or inclination to take notes on you."
Not when they were so inferior to his own work. Yonsu had to be annoyed, but actually, Sangeen was relieved. He wouldn't be handing over South Korean defense secrets.
"I've already been repaid for your Director's surgery by his reorganization of the KSA. My students and most of their families live in this city, so planning how to evacuate them along with the other citizens repays the debt you owe Ye Ran and its alumni association." The ones who'd pulled the strings to get the KSA emergency funding and assistance from other departments. "As for curing your cellular degeneration… Takeo is the one who asked me."
"M-21 was concerned," Takeo said, smiling apologetically when his teammate gave him a betrayed look.
"You wouldn't be the first case he's seen, I'm sure." The chairman bared his teeth. "This has been known technology for a thousand years and the Union has done its damndest to keep it from being used to help humanity… I'm willing to give you this treatment because it's one I don't mind if your doctor reverse engineers. In fact, tell him, 'Please do,' if he can manage it. If he can't figure it out despite what you're learning about the theory of power use from Takeo and Rael, then it's not something he should be messing around with after he shut off your natural psychic abilities. Although," he mused, "perhaps he was trying to focus your energies in order to allow you to manifest projections. He still should have checked what else you were doing with that energy. If your control wasn't so imperfect you would have lost half your natural healing factor, but that shouldn't be a problem after the treatment…"
That was when Sangeen noticed that Tao and Takeo were leaning away from the Chairman, sitting as far away from him on the couch as they could get. Why? It honestly had Sangeen puzzled, because they lived with the guy, and even Sangeen knew he could get a lot more terrifying than just this.
Seeing him raise an eyebrow, Takeo seemed to realize what he was doing and gave Sangeen an apologetic smile. His shoulder nudged Tao's as he straightened up.
Of course Frankenstein noticed. "These three were subjected to… no, I can't call them scientists, much less doctors. Union mushrooms." The Chairman rolled his eyes. "Your doctor at the KSA still had all his brain cells."
Sangeen was in Intelligence: he knew that joke. Mushrooms were kept in the dark and fed bullshit. Like all the people they couldn't tell about the threat of the Union, or else.
"So being in the lab won't bother them?" Tao blinked, smiled.
"Well, it is Doctor Frankenstein's laboratory, after all those centuries of Union propaganda." The doctor's smile was fanged – not literally – amusement, not offense, thank goodness. Sangeen couldn't help tensing slightly at the name, and there was no way this guy hadn't caught it. "You can work things out with Takeo and M-21 yourselves. As for my payment, there is a little experiment I'd like you to help me with." This smile was an 'innocent' one that seemed all the more 'innocent' for the fact it wasn't even trying to hide that the doctor was Up To Something.
The fact that he was being honest about it instead of trying to actually deceive them (insulting them by thinking they'd fall for it, too), made him seem more trustworthy, because if he was actually going to harm them he'd hide it, but a ploy to appear trustworthy on that level was itself a warning sign, that this was someone who knew how to calibrate their techniques for intelligence agents.
It made Sangeen feel like he'd been in the spy business too long. He wasn't even halfway to thirty – they'd picked young and strong agents as most likely to survive the experiments, although they'd been with the KSA for three years by then, enough to prove themselves trustworthy. To the extent anyone could be trusted when there was so much at stake.
"I'll do it," he said, instead of trying to talk alternate payment plans. He didn't want to promise this guy a favor that could be extracted from his organization.
"I'm volunteering too," Yonsu said, stepping forward. "Whatever experiment you're doing on him, you do to me too."
He stared at her – their modifications weren't the same! – but she ignored him. With two samples their doctor would have a better shot at protecting them from side effects, but what if the point of the experiment was those side effects? If they messed with a scientist's data, they'd ruin the experiment and how would this guy react if they dealt with him in bad faith like that?
Tao and Takeo glanced at each other, eyes wide. Tao shook his head slightly. Takeo sighed a little. He seemed disapproving, but of what?
"Excellent!" The scientist said cheerfully.
"It won't be a random sample of enhanced humans, but a larger sample size will still give you more data to work with." Tao grinned at Sangeen and Yonsu, making it clear just how much he was looking forward to this. Some more payback for having the trainees test those students? This was going to be bad, but Sangeen needed this treatment, or how long before he wasn't of any use to anyone, his country or his wife?
Ignoring the tension, Frankenstein said, "Everyone, if you'll follow me to the testing room…"
M-21 walked past them, looking stoic but resigned. Seira's expression was dignified and unreadable; Regis followed after her looking faintly confused. Rael was nowhere to be seen, so he might already be there waiting for them.
They all trailed down into the lab, and Sangeen glanced down at that panel in the floor. The one with the cookie machine. A cookie machine, in a lab like this, with technology to create modified humans like these… Was he going to get a lollipop after this 'treatment?' He heard automatic doors slide apart, but Yonsu was the first into the room.
Her what sound was faint, but everyone here would have good enough hearing to catch it. Sangeen looked up to see a conveyor belt with cups every half meter.
Familiar cups.
"Let me print out two copies of the non-disclosure agreement…" The Chairman said, bustling past them back into the main lab.
So this was how he'd gotten all that money. Sangeen had figured he was centuries old and had enhanced human technology, he might have investments or been doing modifications for money or loyalty and hiding it from the Union or something, but this?
The Noblesse coffee and tea shop chain was the biggest in the world. Sangeen bought coffee there all the time – no one else had managed to get their roasting method quite right. It had been a great place to study back when he was sitting exams, and their seasonal menu kept people who didn't drink coffee all that often checking in to make sure they weren't missing something fantastic.
He heard a noise, and saw M-21 drinking the last bit of something iced through a straw. Tao had the biggest grin – he'd been expecting this and looking forward to their reactions.
A clipboard with a sheaf of papers was pushed into his hands, another into Yonsu's. "Industrial espionage is a constant threat. No matter what I work on improving, someone's always trying to steal my research for their own use." He sighed. "It's time to start preliminary testing of next year's summer menu. Since I have access to nobles and enhanced humans, I should take advantage of the opportunity for market research."
It wasn't as thought the Union's enhanced humans were buying anything. Not when they can just take it.
"If he woke up, he'd want tea!" Tao exclaimed. "You wanted him to go to the place named after him and recognize your recipe, right Boss?"
Regis was drinking boba tea resignedly, while Rael was holding some kind of concoction at arm's length. Seira had claimed one of the ordinary-looking cups of tea, while Cadis Etrama di Raizel was gazing at the conveyor belt and the remaining drinks, in deep contemplation of the options.
"I wanted Master to have a decent cup of tea, wherever he was," Frankenstein corrected him. "When I think of that swill Urokai Agvain – the Sixth Elder – tried to make him drink…" There was that terrifyingly powerful aura, but the context that brought it out? Sangeen's eyes were wide almost more with the inability to take this seriously than fright. "Also planes don't grow on trees."
"We do have a runway," Regis said, sounding vexed. "The Kravei had to clean up the wreckage."
Seira Loyard passed Cadis Etrama di Raizel a drink that seemed to be mostly whipped cream. He took it with a nod of thanks.
Ignoring his noble student, the Chairman said, "Just to check, has your doctor identified any new allergies or food sensitivities since the attack on your headquarters?" They shook their heads, noting the implication that his information on them was out of date and wondering if that was true. He might just not have bothered to get his hands on it. "Good. The pens and assessment forms are over there – I'll print out more forms – Oh, and switch the cookie recipe," and bustled out again.
Yonsu had finished reading her papers and held out her hand for Sangeen's. He gave them to her – her memory was enhanced, she would be better at checking for any differences.
"They're not spiked," M-21 said, and Sangeen turned to look at him.
"Unless you count nutritious stuff," Tao chimed in.
"The Clan Leader says he won't do anything inappropriate when his Master is involved." Regis' voice held an enthusiasm they'd never heard from the youngest noble. Was that admiration, instead of the contempt and dismissal he gave the Union and how serious he was when accompanying Seira Loyard to speak with the KSA? Or in class, for that matter. Not that Sangeen had paid a lot of attention to the three nobles in class…
"And Gramps doesn't…" Tao paused. "Gramps trusts him a lot less far than he could throw him!"
"Gramps?" Yonsu looked up from the papers with an eyebrow raised. A noble from a noble bloodline – that could get confusing, was there a term for the immediate families of the clan leaders? – and a mindwiped Union enhanced human shared a grandfather? Couldn't be genetic – Tao was good at ingratiating himself, but good enough to wrangle an adoption?
"The Clan Leaders, the Central Order Knights… he's like everyone on Lukedonia's Gramps!" And Tao was taking shameless advantage, it looked like. "He offered the three of us contracts to apologize for using us to teach Regis a Valuable Life Lesson. We turned him down because it might have been another test of character, to see if we were really the kind of people who'd 'betray humanity for power.'"
Takeo frowned at Tao. "That was why you turned him down?"
"That and I didn't…" Tao frowned. "I'd seen what Gramps and Regis were like, but it still didn't quite seem real? I wasn't going to let someone get power over me just for power. And he said it would be a 'rebirth,' and I'd already woken up someone completely different once, you know?"
…Rebirth? Sangeen wasn't the only one to look at Seira.
The ambassador nodded serenely. "You had just become the Tao who is Ikhan's big brother. It would be difficult to learn to be that Tao while also becoming the Bonded of Gejutel K. Landegre. You have also learned to be the Comrade of Takeo."
"A lot of how humans identify is tied up in our relationships with others," the chairman mused. "Family names, for example." He looked at M-21. "Part of the M-series. Comrade of M-24."
Oh. Putting it in terms the three from the Union, who'd had their names wiped and faces and bodies altered, would understand.
Regis nodded, folding his arms while still holding his drink without tipping it. "Your clan is a part of who you are. Acting inelegantly as a Landegre would be inelegant."
Tao tipped his head to the side, staring like an owl for a bit. "I don't think that word means what you think it means."
"Eligere." Frankenstein said, and sipped a boba tea. "On reflection, you can blame me for that one – I thought in… well, a dialect of Latin when I visited Lukedonia. Noble translation powers have a bit of trouble when they have decided on a certain word in a human language as the translation of a Lukedonian term and then the human language changes around them. See the word 'noble' itself – I would personally use Sentiens – not homo sentiens, of course. Sentiens sentiens? Like humans are calling ourselves 'homo sapiens sapiens' these days. 'Those who know themselves well. Or 'those who are aware of their self-awareness.'" That last amused him.
"So what would modern people say to say what Regis means when he says inelegant?" Tao made a face, after saying 'say' that many times.
Frankenstein smirked like he'd been waiting for this. "Darwin Award-winning."
Seira sighed. Regis blinked and then nodded, as though realizing yes, that was right, although he hadn't thought of it that way.
"Elegant means carefully chosen. Actions that are taken in accordance with your own free will. If you don't think about what you're doing, then you can accidentally do something that goes against who you are," Frankenstein explained. "The Union's victims don't know who they truly are, and almost certainly aren't acting as they would in their right minds. Nobles seem to find that painfully obvious." He looked around and raised an eyebrow. "If you don't hurry your drinks will get cold. Or melt." Sangeen and Yonsu got longer looks: they did want Sangeen's life extension and their chance at what was hinted to be a very versatile technique, right? So why weren't they getting on with it?
"Can we get a copy of these?" Yonsu said, as Sangeen watched her sign her name.
"Of course." Frankenstein paused. "Don't bother handing it over to the tax people. I've been hiding from the Union for centuries – they shouldn't bother trying to connect this identity with ownership of the Noblesse coffee chain."
"You'd think…" that it would be risky to have that much money given how jealous the Union is with power, Sangeen started to say, and paused. "Right. The Union doesn't pay for anything." They demanded money from governments sometimes to give to agents to maintain their covers, but that was along with people, computer chips… it was just one more thing they could take whenever they wanted.
The Chairman shook his head absently, sorting through papers. "The Union thinks themselves superior to all other humans, and merchants were a low caste in every culture with a caste system, including Europe. It's beneath the Union's dignity to concern itself with money."
"They just want to make sure everyone knows they can kill them," Yonsu said, handing Sangeen his own non-disclosure agreement. He signed it, not wanting to keep Frankenstein waiting any longer.
At least it would be good coffee. If there was any coffee left – no, the nobles seemed to have all gone for the tea. Takeo too, from the color of his drink.
"Using the threat of mass murder to extort money from a group subject to them… Not that death and taxes are inevitable. Lukedonia doesn't have either one."
Sangeen hesitated, because he wasn't going to say 'didn't these two's families all get killed?' in front of two high school students, no matter how old they really were.
Frankenstein looked at him, amused, and answered the question he hadn't asked. Mind-reading? No, it wouldn't have been that hard for him to figure out. "Nobles call it eternal sleep because they don't cease to exist, they enter a state rather analogous to human sleep. How deep it is fluctuates, they're at least partially self-aware, there are mental processes occurring and they're capable of responding to stimuli. As for taxes, taxation is a compulsory surrender of resources, backed by force, and the Lord can't force nobles to do anything. If they try, it merits immediate execution."
Cadis Etrama di Raizel nodded solemnly.
"Being forced to do something that goes against who they are is a fate worse than death for nobles. It corrodes their identities and will eventually drive them insane. If someone tried to force nobles to obey, the nobles would have to rebel out of literal self-preservation."
Sangeen tried to focus on listening because this was important, but he'd just picked up one of the drinks and how weird these people were shocked him again. Scientist… cook, or whatever you called someone who came up with drink recipes… had he made these himself?
A centuries-old barista?
Whenever he thought these people couldn't get any stranger…
"Instead, the Lord has authority because they're the authority on the subject. They rule because they are the smartest and can plan out the best things for nobles to do. When the traitor clan leaders claimed Raskreia was too young to come up with plans that were better than their plans, and she wasn't able to prove her intelligence by convincing them otherwise, there was nothing she could do. She couldn't force them to stay on Lukedonia, only try to make them acknowledge her authority. With the country destabilized by the defection of half the clan leaders so soon after the other half changed over, it was important to the future of the nobles that she stay there and organize the place instead of hunting the traitors down to debate with them. Lagus Tradio thinks that he can arrange a better future for the nobles than Erga Kinesis di Raskreia can. If he's right, that would make him the rightful lord."
"He's wrong!" Regis insisted, looking personally offended.
Rael was glaring and reaching towards his hips, while Seira sat down her drink and said, "Even if you are my housekeeping teacher…"
"Of course he's not right. He's working with the Union so he can backstab the werewolf and human quisling factions and try to subjugate humanity. Raskreia's strategy is obviously better for the nobles because it's the one where we humans don't exterminate you." He smirked.
They were having this conversation in a lab, as Cadis Etrama di Raizel painstakingly wrote "The" on his assessment form and then started to contemplate the second word, frowning at the empty drink cup worriedly. All that whipped cream had given him a cute little milk mustache, just to make this even stranger.
Seira sighed. "You have taught us that humans are not weak."
So by fishing for them to say 'humans couldn't be a threat to us nobles!' the Chairman wasn't just insulting them, but implying he wasn't a very good teacher?
"The Clan Leader said that humans destroy everything," Regis pointed out, frowning at the implication that his grandfather underestimated humans? "He also said that the Previous Lord was grateful to you for sentencing the nobles who made false contracts. If we became criminals like the traitors instead of following the Lord, we would deserve to be forced into eternal sleep." Regis nodded firmly, folding his arms. One of them still held his drink cup.
"Well." Frankenstein cleared his throat. "Yes, we are good at destroying things… I'll have to let that old man know I appreciate the compliment." Regis looked a little worried now. "Some nobles considered themselves 'better than the weak humans,' so when I proved that humans wouldn't stay weak, no wonder it scared that scum enough to go running off to ally with werewolves and human traitors trying to neuter humanity." He looked over at Rael. "Need… need is dangerous. People will go against who they are in order to obtain something if they think it's what they need. You had your brother very worried, young man. He was watching you go crazy and since he had no idea how to help you, ended up avoiding you out of fear of making things worse."
"Urokai Agvain was not my type." Seira shook her head, as did Raizel.
Rael tried to vanish into the corner.
"Sir, I've finished my first assessment," Takeo said with a broad smile, handing the form to the Chairman. They could all hear the, 'Stop picking on Rael.'
"Ah, thank you. Is anyone else ready for their second dri-" Frankenstein paled. He was in front of Cadis Etrama di Raizel so quick Sangeen couldn't tell who was faster, him or Rael. "Forgive me, Master!" he wailed as he pulled a napkin from the conveyor belt and wiped the whipped cream from the noble's face. "Letting you get dirty just because I wanted data… I don't deserve to live…"
Sangeen figured that the Chairman was being dramatic, the way he had when his master threatened him with doing chores. Then again, he'd just been reminded that nobles were different and the Chairman, Frankenstein, was from Dark Age Europe when rich people weren't upper class. For all he knew, a milk moustache could have some serious meaning to some of them…
Then he heard Regis' gasp, saw Seira's stoic face pale and saw Rael's mouth open in pure, horrified, what the fuck.
"I am fine," Cadis Etrama di Raizel reassured all of them.
It didn't stop Frankenstein fussing over him. "If you won't go to sleep for a bit, will you at least use one of the charms?"
From the pleading expression in blue eyes full of worryingly sincere distress, he was expecting a 'no,' but after a moment's pause the noble reached down to his wrist. Sangeen heard metal tear and Raizel lifted something tiny to his lips and swallowed. "Frankenstein."
"Yes, Master?"
The noble held up the cup he'd been drinking from.
Frankenstein blinked down at it, saw that it was empty, and looked at the conveyor belt. There were three drinks left on it. "You don't need to choose only one, Master, I would like you to try all of them." He smiled. "I'm flattered that you think it would be a difficult choice. They are very different, but I hope most of them will be to your taste."
Raizel patted the hand still holding the napkin. "You made them, Frankenstein."
He looked happy to hear it, but, "The machine assembled them, they won't have the secret ingredient. I would add sugar for you, but I wanted you to know what they would taste like when you have them with your friends." At the coffee shop, not made to Raizel's taste. He looked around, and his eyes focused on Tao and Takeo. "Ah… Tea and coffee should be enjoyed in comfort. Why doesn't everyone find somewhere they can sit down, and I'll bring you the next drinks to try as you run out?"
"Sure, Boss!" Tao said quickly. "Come on, Regis."
His tug on the short noble seemed to snap Regis out of his attempt to hide his distress. M-21 glanced at Regis and Tao, but decided to stick by Raizel, following him and Frankenstein as they walked towards the elevator without Tao's hurry.
Sangeen got Yonsu's attention and called dibs on that group, since he didn't want her temper around M-21's. She nodded and hurried after Tao, because Tao clearly wanted answers and the KSA wanted them too. Sangeen nudged Rael's shoulder with his fist to snap him out of it, then walked towards the elevator before Rael could process that just happened and decide that sputtering over human indignity was better than freaking out about what just happened.
That meant Sangeen ended up spending the rest of the day in the living room with M-21, Cadis Etrama di Raizel and Seira J. Loyard. Also sometimes Rael, because Frankenstein bringing the drinks turned out to mean Frankenstein making the noble handle delivery, which he did with varying levels of politeness. He was too focused on the noble at the head of the table to even comment about serving drinks to a human, glancing at Raizel even when putting drinks down next to Seira. Both the other nobles ignored him, except for the occasional nod from Raizel, whose attention seemed almost entirely focused on what to say about the drinks. He took it very, very seriously, looked like, but then it was something he was doing for Frankenstein, who seemed to seriously care about him, so that was fair. Sangeen wouldn't want to risk saying the wrong thing if Yonsu ever found the time to try to learn how to cook for him.
Frankenstein came in a little after the sun set outside. "Agent Sangeen."
"Yes?" he asked, a little nervous almost because the man seemed entirely businesslike. It meant that something was going on, and Sangeen didn't rate high enough for Frankenstein to play games with him now. When these people were protecting the country, something that they took seriously could be big trouble.
"If you'll come by tomorrow, a half-hour before school starts, I'll have the treatment set up."
Sangeen assumed he wouldn't want them in the lab unsupervised. It was that fast?
Did it take longer when he invented it, before power grids and modern technology?
"Thank you," was what he said.
"Don't mention it." The Chairman smiled. "It's been a very long time…" There was something tired and honest in how he said that; the man himself seemed to realize that, because he made the effort to smile for a second as though he was about to do something to scare Sangeen, but seemed to feel it was enough to see Sangeen tense up in reaction to that smile. "Agent Yonsu will be down soon."
With enhanced hearing, Sangeen could hear her on the stairs, and it was something that actually, he didn't have to pretend he couldn't hear her yet. Everyone here knew he was enhanced.
"Good night," the Chairman said, dismissing them.
"Good night," Seira Loyard echoed, and Cadis Etrama di Raizel looked up from the form to nod regally.
"What happened?" Sangeen asked Yonsu when they were in the car.
"Noble enhanced healing heals their clothes too, and keeps them clean. They've only seen a noble get dirty when they're too busy healing serious injuries for their powers to fix the minor stuff."
Sangeen grimaced. Damn.
"He hasn't been in a fight recently," Yonsu confirmed.
"Do they know what's causing it?" With these people's enhanced healing, or natural healing for nobles, what could keep one sick even after this long?
"They don't want us to know, and I don't think we do either."
Sangeen nodded. Cadis Etrama di Raizel was the most powerful of that group, and the Union had announced it was going to rule South Korea directly, and other countries were eyeing the fact that South Korea was still independent. They hadn't pushed for answers after the Director said it was the kind of thing the Union would kill them for knowing, but the mere fact that someone, somehow had avoided Union takeover was giving a lot of desperate people hope, and at some point agents would start going rogue trying to find out how the hell South Korea had done it and how to get the same deal for their country.
The only reason the Union hadn't made an example of his country just to crush that hope, forget being where multiple Union elders died had to be that they didn't want to lose even more Elders. If they found out the Chairman's group was weakened, then the city would become a battleground. Their country would become an example. When the KSA had to be the buffer between the Union and the country, it was too risky. What they didn't know, the Union couldn't get from them. "Interesting that he thinks curing something that kills a ton of Union enhanced humans is trivial."
Yonsu shrugged, nodded. It might be frustrating that the two of them were so weak, but if it was their honest opinion that those guys were absurdly powerful then they couldn't give the Union any ideas for fighting them other than 'don't.'
Well. They'd do their best to keep the Union from getting even that much out of them, if it came to it, but when were the odds ever in their favor.
Rubbing the back of his head, Sangeen said, "I think I'm still a little wired from those drinks." Normally he had some trouble keeping his blood sugar up, but half of those were calorie bombs to fuel major projects, so they also came in handy for an enhanced human's metabolism – if other enhanced humans even needed to eat, when nobles didn't. "Are you up to sparring after we give our reports?"
No tetchy Rael. No Takeo to be helpful and encouraging and so much better than them. Just him and his wife.
"Great idea," she said, punching her fist into her palm and smiling at him, and for a moment the world was just fine.
The secret ingredient is love.
Yeah. That's a canon thing.
Ah, the Noblesse S webnovels. We need more of the household being a very very strange yet loving family. Also puppy.
I wanted to write something like the automatic door scene, with Raizel encountering Interesting Tea and the couple seeing him contemplate the drink options like shirts, but he's almost certainly been invited to the Noblesse coffee shop before and his friends have worked out a system for Rai's paralysis when confronted by too many options. Like, they know that it's fun for Rai, but they can't be there all week.