Chapter 113: A Job For Zero

"You’ve grown taller."

Was the first thing Zero heard when he walked into Sable’s new base, which doubled as his office, with a hand in his pocket.

After the attack on the last one, the grey market agent had relocated to one that was a lot safer and more secret.

"And you’ve grown older," Zero responded as he looked at Sable behind a desk.

It had been quite a few months since they last saw each other, mostly because Sable had been busy handling ’stuff’.

Which was simply just spending more time with Noa, as the agent was actually enjoying becoming a father...which was quite surprising.

"..."

Sable looked at the kid for a while before letting out a sigh. "You’ve become a lot more famous than I anticipated."

"Does that mean my price has also gone up?" Zero asked with a wide smile.

"It does," Sable nodded, "but it also means that the contracts you’ll be receiving will get a lot more dangerous now."

"Sounds like a fair trade," the hitman responded, shrugging at the agent’s words.

Sable looked at him, wondering how the kid had led his nineteen-year life normally. The agent still couldn’t understand what brought on the sudden change.

But he decided against finding out, not that he had managed to find anything in the first place.

Sable sighed again before reaching for his cabinet, pulling out a folder and handing it to Zero.

"I think you’ll be quite interested in this job," the agent said as he stood up. "After all, the target is someone who previously worked with Dr. Crew in the HA."

Zero curiously opened the file, read through it and closed it as he nodded. "Seems he also knew my parents."

"Will that be a hindrance to you?" Sable asked.

The hitman looked down at the folder for a while; he then let out a chuckle and replied, "I just need some answers before completing the job."

Sable didn’t know exactly what questions the hitman would be asking; all he knew was that the kid had been investigating something involving his parents recently.

The grey market agent, from his own investigation, found out that the kid’s parents used to work for the HA, though as secret researchers.

Given how sudden it was, it was obvious their ’accident’ was anything but. Perhaps that’s what the kid wanted to find out?

It was also the reason why the agent had specifically presented this contract before him, despite there being a few others.

Since the kid didn’t ask for his help, he’d try helping indirectly.

"Besides," Zero interrupted his thoughts, lifting the folder, "I don’t think this is someone who deserved my sympathy, even if he did know my parents."

"I see." Sable nodded in understanding.

"Alright then," the hitman turned around with the folder in hand, "I’m off."

"Do you need help?" Sable already knew the answer to that, but he still decided to ask.

Given what the target was capable of, this was going to be a dangerous job...even for someone like him.

"Nah," Zero responded without turning back, "I’ll be fine."

***

"I should’ve probably brought help," Zero said with a blank expression as he looked at the scene before him.

He seemed to be in some sort of lab, surrounded by walls made completely of metal.

Within the lab were large tubes with broken glass that could fit humans...well, that was probably because they were built to hold humans.

Around the tubes was glowing purple liquid, but that wasn’t what caused the blank expression on the hitman’s face.

Rather, it was because he was currently surrounded by things that looked like humans, but not quite.

They stood on two feet, but their skin seemed to be dark purple, with even darker veins visible beneath said skin.

There were also glowing purple bumps in different places around their body. They seemed like some sort of mutated zombies.

"When the hell did we switch genre?" The hitman asked as he watched the things run towards him, wondering how he got himself in this situation in the first place.

***

[A few minutes earlier]

"I guess this is it?" Zero muttered as he looked ahead of him.

Sitting in the middle of nowhere was a massive building, one that was obviously some sort of research facility.

Perhaps a lab, even.

The facility was ok the outskirts of Sterling City, so it had taken the hitman quite a while to get to it.

"Seems Dr. Magnus wanted his research to remain secret," the hitman added as he continued looking at the facility from the hill he stood on, "kind of hard to achieve that with such a track record."

Dr. Magnus Krell was a man who worked in the HA’s Pragma research division, the same division responsible for finding out what Pragma was.

He, alongside Dr. Victor Crew, was let go by the HA just after the death of Liam’s parents, and just like Crew, the reason seemed to stem from what the Bennetts discovered.

Of course, the HA wouldn’t just let him go with knowledge of whatever that was, so he was also more than likely mind-wiped.

But that wasn’t the reason why Zero was hired to get rid of him.

Rather, it was due to his obsession with creating the perfect awakened human.

Apparently, the doctor had been kidnapping people to use as test subjects.

"Sounds like a lovely guy," Zero muttered sarcastically.

He had already gone through the information Sable provided him, but there was one thing that hadn’t been mentioned in the file.

The number of missing people.

Dozens of people had disappeared over the past few months, most of whom were awakened.

This told the hitman that those disappearances weren’t related to the Argent Ring, since that group was only interested in unawakened humans to use Primagen on.

Zero had originally assumed that Magnus was simply conducting illegal experiments involving Factors, perhaps attempting to artificially strengthen them.

But after seeing the security around the facility, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

There was something else going on.

"No use guessing," he said, "let’s just go ask him, shall we?"

With that, the hitman disappeared from where he stood.