It was almost midnight after Atsuku returned from his mind archive. Time moved differently inside the mind archive, which was why using it outside the safe area you trusted was dangerous. He also didn't risk and use it in his apartment yesterday due to this reason.
Without him realizing it, an hour had already passed just to process a small amount of information about the time difference between the first, second, and third Trials from his memories of Fantasia.
And the reason why he didn't just his first novel was simple. They had differences, and Atsuku trusted the information he gained from Fantasia more after getting information from Gaia about the paused world instead of the information from the novel he first wrote.
Atsuku silently returned to the main building. When he entered, he was greeted by men wearing casual clothes with intricate designs often worn by a yakuza surrounding Masa. Their arms were tattooed, and some had a scary look.
"Remember to burn them all, got it?"
"'Course we understood, leader! Just leave it to us!"
"Alright. Run it, folks. Do it quietly or create a mess; it's up to you. But you can still die if you are shot, so evade the cops if possible. Don't bring up Fujiwara's name. Everything is done by people who want to target information in Young Boss' book."
"Understood!"
After Masa finished giving instructions, the men surrounding him scattered. They saw Atsuku walking in as they were out to do the mission.
"Good evenin', Young Boss."
Atsuku nodded at their greetings. From what he had heard earlier, he assumed that they were going to destroy his books and the bookstores after this. Masa also nodded at him, so he decided to remind them of something.
"Tell me if you see a glowing light floating around. Contact Masa immediately so he can report it to me."
"Yes, sir!"
"Good."
After that, he looked at Masa and nodded slightly, giving the man a little praise.
"Good work. Stabilize your Arcane more and prepare for the worst in the next 3 days. Tell Misaki… Nevermind… I will do that myself. Instruct the men to raise the security around the mansion."
"Yes, Young Boss," Masa answered, pushing his sunglasses with his fingers, "Have you found the date of the second Trial?"
Atsuku looked at his subordinate and said, "The fastest will be in three days. The longest will be three months. Anyway, prepare for the words."
"Three days…" Masa muttered in horror. "That's too fast."
"Fast or not, it doesn't matter. We can only prepare ourselves." Atsuku answered, turning around. He walked away and waved his hand at Masa, "Don't hesitate to kill. And report it to me immediately if those guys find the glowing light."
"Yes, Young Boss."
Walking away, Atsuku went back to his room and operated his computer. He opened the news website and read the information posted. New information kept popping up every few minutes, showing how many strange things were happening all across Japan.
What he was searching for was the news about glowing light, or he and the people in Fantasia preferred to refer to it as Secret.
"The definition of Arcane is: understood by few; mysterious or secret. Secret is a part of Arcane and can strengthen our Core, so calling that light Secret isn't really wrong. Besides… It contains knowledge of a mysterious being that can even corrupt a person and turn them into a Demon if the knowledge is harmful."
Atsuku muttered what he knew about the light and put it into a note in his computer as he kept reading news that popped up one after another on the local news site.
There were two ways to reach the Second Stage.
One was absorbing Secret, and the second was to refine the Core slowly. Atsuku took the latter until Fifth Stage back in Fantasia, but he had no time to spare right now. So absorbing Secret was the fastest way to reach Second Stage Core.
"I have a mind archive to keep the harmful knowledge out of my head, so that doesn't really matter. As expected, absorbing Secret might be the best way for me. I won't make Yamada or Rio do it, as it's too dangerous for them."
Deleting the note, he closed every tab and application he opened. Nothing useful popped up, only news about what he did to the editorial building earlier. Opening the novel site's forum was probably also filled with rubbish information, so he didn't bother about it anymore.
He was about to sit on his bed and refine his Core as there was nothing to do besides that, but his phone rang first before he could even stand up. He looked at the screen that lit up and found a familiar name written on it.
"Misaki?" He muttered and took the phone up.
"Hello."
[Good evening, my shitty brother! How are you? Hahaha, have you gone to another world and returned with trouble? Sounds like so from your second book and the fact you deleted all your hard work! Enough of the joke, though. So, have something to say to your lovely sister?]
A voice with a cheerful but annoying tone rang loudly from the phone. Atsuku brought it away from his ear due to how loud it was. His lips curled into a dry smile after hearing his sister's annoying tone after 21 years total.
Also…
'She's as sensitive as always whenever it's related to me. Her wild guess is actually true.'
Bringing his phone close, he began to speak.
"Don't trust the information written in my novel blindly. I will send the revised version of the document you sent to the group chat Masa mentioned after the call. Masa became my subordinate now, so you can contact him if you can't reach me."
[Got it! Still, you really returned home. What made you do that? Last time you didn't even stop, even when I faked crying in front of you! How heartless!]
In the past, it indeed worked a little bit against him. Atsuku felt a little bad leaving his sister because she cried on the day he went. But over time, he realized that she just cried because she didn't want to be burdened by the job he left behind for her.
"Don't act like an idiot, Misaki. Just tell me the reason why you called me here at a time like this when you could call me earlier."
[Aha, did you miss me? Forgive this lovely sister of yours, oh my brother. She's really really really busy with the JOB you ARE supposed to do in Kyoto.]
Atsuku's vein popped up on his temple after hearing the sarcastic words sent by his sister. He felt like he wanted to go to Kyoto and chop that girl on the head.
However, he also knew that it was supposed to be his work as the family's heir, so he was partly at fault. That was if he really felt responsible about it. Unfortunately, he wasn't. So he made a note to hit Misaki at least once when they met.
"Yeah, sure, it's my fault." He hissed, trying not to get angry at his sister's cheeky attitude. She was his family, someone he needed to protect as he finally had one after not having any in Fantasia.
No matter how irritating she was, she also still cared about him and would be willing to lay her life for him in a dangerous situation.
"My lovely sister."
So he would hold back, as he knew that what Misaki said about all that was the fact he knew as well. And in the middle of her 'busy' schedule, she still called for him.
"What kind of important thing do you want to relay to your brother?"
[Ah, right. About that…] Misaki's playful tone still remained as she exclaimed. [You better go to Kyoto tomorrow, or something bad will happen!]