Everyone waited for Eric to continue.

The silence stretched on for several seconds.

Eric scratched the back of his head awkwardly before suddenly bursting into laughter.

"Haha! I’m sorry, I’m sorry." He waved his hand dismissively. "Truth be told... I’m terrible with numbers. Maths was never my strong suit."

The heroes stared at him.

"So I genuinely have no idea what the valuation is." Eric grinned shamelessly. "Dana handles all of that stuff. We’ll have to head back to the Association before she can give you the proper figure."

A collective sigh escaped from the heroes.

Several of them looked visibly disappointed.

Selena pressed two fingers against her temple, already feeling a headache coming.

"But..." Eric suddenly raised a finger.

The heroes instantly looked back at him.

"What I can tell you is this."

Reaching into the inside pocket of his costume, he pulled out a small case and flipped it open.

Inside rested a circular golden badge.

The Hero Association’s emblem was embossed at its center, shining brightly beneath the sunlight.

"For saving Denvi Town." Eric said with a smile. "You’ll receive the official ceremony later, but consider this a preview."

His gaze shifted to Nicholas.

Nicholas looked down at the badge.

Then he looked back at Eric.

"Does it come with money?"

Eric’s eye twitched.

"...We’ll discuss that at the Association."

Nicholas shifted his gaze to Selena, "Let’s go."

Selena opened her mouth.

Closed it.

Then let out a long sigh.

"Fine."

The two of them broke away from the crowd and began making their way through the ruined streets of Denvi Town.

The sunlight had finally returned to the town, bathing the destroyed buildings in a warm golden glow. Broken walls, shattered roads and collapsed structures filled the landscape, yet beneath the sunlight the destruction somehow appeared less severe than it actually was.

Selena lit a cigarette as they walked.

"The valuation." She suddenly spoke after a moment of silence. "If I had to guess, and I’ve been doing this long enough to make a fairly accurate guess, it’ll probably round up to several million."

Nicholas glanced at her.

"Country-level threat. Minimal support. Successful capture of the Impure. Then there’s the dragon." She exhaled a stream of smoke. "There’s no way the Association gives a small payout for something like this."

Nicholas nodded slightly.

That was good.

Very good.

At least all the trouble had been worth something.

"Eric probably already knows the exact amount." Selena continued. "He just didn’t want to say it in front of everyone."

Nicholas wasn’t surprised.

"You noticed too?" Selena asked.

"Mm."

She chuckled softly.

"That idiot act of his is mostly intentional. He acts like a lovable fool so people lower their guard around him."

Nicholas recalled the first day he met Eric.

The testing room.

The punch.

The effortless way Eric handled everything.

A man who could sit at the top of the Hero Association wasn’t someone who relied on charm alone.

The Association dealt with heroes, money, politics, powerful people and even more powerful egos.

Someone had to keep all of that under control.

Someone had to make difficult decisions while making it look easy.

Eric hid it well beneath the laughter and ridiculous behaviour, but Nicholas had already realised something.

The man was far more dangerous than he looked.

That took a very specific kind of intelligence.

The kind that knew exactly when to act like a fool.

Nicholas didn’t voice any of those thoughts.

Selena seemed to take his silence as agreement and dropped the topic.

They soon reached the edge of Denvi Town.

Selena turned toward where she’d parked her car.

Then stopped.

"...Right."

Nicholas followed her gaze.

Or rather, what remained of her car.

"My car!" She stared at the wreckage for a few seconds.

The vehicle had been crushed beyond recognition during the chaos.

A vein twitched on her forehead.

"Fine." She took a deep breath and turned away. "We’re walking."

Nicholas nodded.

"The town is still under restriction, so getting a cab nearby will be difficult. We’ll have to walk a bit before we find one."

Without another word, the two continued down the road.

For a while neither of them spoke.

Nicholas’s thoughts drifted elsewhere.

The mission was over.

The reward would be substantial.

Between the money from his previous missions and whatever valuation Dana eventually arrived at, Katie’s admission fees were no longer something he needed to worry about.

That alone made the entire trip worthwhile.

But there was something else on his mind.

The house.

The Association had provided it.

Which also meant the Association knew exactly where he lived.

Nicholas wasn’t particularly bothered by Eric knowing.

The problem was everyone else.

The more people who knew an address, the less valuable that address became.

Records could be leaked.

Information could be sold.

Mistakes could happen.

As someone who had spent years hunting people for a living, Nicholas understood that better than most.

Sometimes all it took was one address.

One piece of information.

One mistake.

And suddenly someone was standing at your front door.

He needed a new place.

Somewhere private.

Somewhere that existed outside Association records.

He’d start looking as soon as possible.

His thoughts shifted again, this time toward home.

Katie would probably be waiting by the door. The moment she heard him arrive, she’d come running.

Marina would pretend she wasn’t worried.

A faint smile appeared on his face.

"What?"

Nicholas glanced sideways.

Selena was looking at him suspiciously, a cigarette hanging from her lips.

"Nothing."

Selena narrowed her eyes.

She stared at him for a moment before finally looking away.

"I wanted to ask you something."

"Ask."

"It’s about your abilities."

Nicholas remained silent.

Selena continued.

"I’ve been trying to figure them out for weeks now."

She took a drag from her cigarette before speaking again.

"Most heroes awaken a single ability. Sometimes that ability has different applications, but at its core it’s still the same power."

Her gaze shifted toward him.

"You aren’t like that."

Nicholas didn’t respond.

"I’ve seen too many different things from you and they don’t even look related." Selena exhaled slowly, "Is your ability some kind of copying ability?"

Nicholas remained silent for a moment.

He already knew the answer he was going to give.

Selena had helped him more than once.

She’d kept certain things to herself, and despite how annoying she could be at times, she was reliable.

But reliability wasn’t trust. Trust was something else entirely.

"Copying is part of it," Nicholas finally said.

Selena’s eyes narrowed slightly, she didn’t look surprised. Almost as though she’d already expected that answer.

She took a slow drag from her cigarette.

’I’ll have to get closer to him,’ she thought, ’That’s the only way I’ll figure out what exactly his ability is.’

A faint warmth crept up her neck as she stared at him from the sidelines, his sharp jawline and his calm face.

Selena immediately looked away and focused on the road ahead.

"I want to go home first," Nicholas said.

"Before going to the Association."

"Alright."

Selena nodded.

"We’ll stop by your place first."

In no distant time, they finally got a cab. Nicholas had to remove the X-glasses so they wouldn’t recognise him. But the two still attracted strange glances from the driver from time to time.

Another fifteen minutes passed before they finally reached the house.

Nicholas stepped out first.

The street was quiet.

The afternoon sun hung high overhead.

A few birds chirped somewhere in the distance.

Everything looked normal but that was only until he walked to the front of the door.

The door wasn’t closed.

It rested at an angle, slightly ajar, the way a door looks when it’s been pushed hard enough that the latch didn’t catch on the way back.

Nicholas stood very still.

His eyes moved across the entrance. The small scuff on the lower panel of the door. The way the interior hallway light was still on at this hour.

He pulled out his phone.

Called Sam.

It rang once.

Twice.

Then a flat mechanical voice: The number you have dialled is currently unavailable.

The call ended.

Nicholas lowered the phone, his expression didn’t change.

He simply started walking.

"Nicholas?" Selena quickly caught up to him, "What’s wrong?"

"My sisters were taken."

Selena froze, "What?!" She hurried after him.

"How do you know? Who took them? Where are you going?"

"I know who took them."

"Hey calm down a bit, we need to know what’s going on and make a plan first. We can’t just rush in—"

"Selena."

Something in his voice made her stop talking.

He turned to look at her.

He hadn’t put the X Glasses back on after the cab. His face was fully visible, the small cut along his jaw from the fight, the small tint of dried blood at his hairline, and beneath all of that his eyes.

Those cold blue eyes.

Completely empty of everything except certainty, "They don’t plan to kill."

She instantly felt a cold chill run down her spine, ’Just who was that idiot’