‘A way to improve accuracy? That’s too broad a question.’

‘Something like instinct or feeling?’

He could not remember exactly when, but he had once met Upsilon by chance at the shooting range. Quietly admiring the man’s ability to hit the exact center of a target that flew irregularly through the air, he had asked. Honestly, Upsilon had not expected Upsilon to answer his question seriously, but after thinking it over, he had replied in earnest.

‘No. You have to calculate everything around the target so you can hit it, like breathing, pulse, wind direction or speed, distance to the target, height, all of it. Whether shooting or sniping.’

‘You calculate all of that… every single moment?’

‘Don’t you?’

Seeing Upsilon, who seemed more puzzled by the question than anything, Upsilon never asked him about guns again. Geniuses could not teach people who were not like them.

Upsilon, as the layperson, had no way of knowing what happened in the genius sniper’s head the moment he pulled the trigger, but if there was one thing he had learned from Upsilon’s not-quite-a-lesson lesson, it was that whether shooting or sniping, it was not simply done by “feel.”

That was a completely different situation from his days as a mafia member, when he had had no proper training and had relied only on instinct to survive by any means necessary.

Beep.

At the sound announcing the start of training, Upsilon raised his pistol. The scoreboard on the front screen of the training range activated and the seconds began counting down. The goal was always to surpass Upsilon’s recorded score, but when the first training round ended and Upsilon checked his score and time, he let out a sigh at how far short he had fallen and began the second round.

Shooting and sniping could not be placed on exactly the same line, but as Upsilon watched the targets activating again, he thought back to the scene from five years ago when Upsilon’s bullet had pierced cleanly through Serpente’s boss’s chest.

Regular, rhythmic gunfire filled the training range. Upsilon’s score was by no means low, but once again it was far from enough to catch Upsilon’s record. During the short rests between rounds, he also skimmed old news reports about the Ashford family that he had not managed to check at the fast-food restaurant.

– Tragedy of the Ashford family, Duke and Duchess die in a fatal car accident with their eldest son.

– The Ashford family’s sole heir, second son Rowan Ashford, expected to inherit the dukedom.

– Minor Ashford heir, uncle to be appointed guardian.

They were old news from more than twenty years ago, and perhaps because the family was so closed off, or perhaps because of media control, it was difficult to find anything beyond that. Searching for the Ashford family with the latest dates only brought up news about Ashburn Arlen. He had been leaning against the wall of the training room and looking at his phone for some time when a familiar voice came from the entrance.

“Wow. Upsilon, second place. Second place.”

Ro smiled sharply as he checked the record on the screen installed at the entrance. Remembering why Ro was here, Upsilon checked the time at the top of his phone. It was already past 4 p.m. Robert had not yet called, and there was still time before 6, so he could not understand why Ro had appeared.

“Been second place for a long time.”

“I know. I know, that’s why I’m saying it, eternal runner-up.”

Ro smirked and touched the screen, checking the training records up and down.

“Oh, Upsilon’s score is so overwhelming that yours still has a long way to go, but your score has gone up quite a bit too.”

“Training alone isn’t officially counted anyway, so I’m not sure there’s much point.”

“You say that, but you’ve tried all kinds of things to beat Upsilon’s record, haven’t you? It’s obvious without even looking.”

At Ro’s words, which hit the mark by half, no, about eighty percent, Upsilon simply changed the subject.

“Why are you here already? The boss hadn’t called yet, and I thought you were out on a date with that secretary, Selly.”

Ro, still fiddling with the screen, finally turned his eyes to Upsilon and smirked.

“Why, did it bother you that I ditched you to go on a date with Selly?”

“If I said yes, would you comfort me?”

Ro had expected him to say nonsense, ignore him, or deny it, but at Upsilon’s question, delivered without any change in expression, he looked at him silently for a moment before letting out a laugh.

“That’s my specialty. Come on, I brought coffee, so cheer up.”

“You should be the one who learns to tell jokes from serious remarks.”

Upsilon said that with a small sigh, as if Ro’s reaction had been that of someone coaxing a sulky child. He had forgotten for a moment that a flimsy joke like that was more likely to backfire with Ro, who was practically a master at dealing with people.

“Coming from you, it was probably half joke, half serious. Anyway, are you saying you won’t drink the coffee? If you’re busy training, we can just meet when the boss calls later?”

“…No.”

He had come to the training range to spend a boring waiting period with nothing else to do. Since Ro had gone to the trouble of coming back to comfort him after leaving, there was no reason to refuse. He had time to spare, so this was actually welcome.

Upsilon followed behind Ro as he walked ahead and sank into thought. There was no way he had actually come back because he felt guilty about leaving him on the street. Had he gone to see Selly and then simply come looking for him because he still had time?

He knew that Selly was the woman Ro had targeted to get evidence of Roelo’s stock manipulation. But now that the mission was over, why would he meet her privately? The situation was already over because he had gotten ahead of her before she could be swayed by Ro and act as a spy. It did not seem like they had really planned to date… probably.

“I only introduced her to a lawyer.”

“……?”

The moment they returned to headquarters with takeout coffee from the cafe where Ro had once been deprived of menu choice three days ago, Ro’s words flew out at him, and Upsilon looked at him in confusion. At that look, Ro sat down across from Upsilon and took a long sip of his own coffee before continuing.

“Selly. Weren’t you wondering why I met her?”

At Ro’s piercing question, Upsilon frowned faintly. It was true, but he had not thought he was making it so obvious that Ro would notice. Unable to tell whether Ro had really said it because he knew or because he was just probing, Upsilon answered with his usual expressionless face.

“Not really.”

At the short answer, Ro let out a chuckle.

“Fine, let’s go with that.”

“But why did you introduce her to a lawyer?”

“As aftercare.”

“Aftercare?”

The client company that had received Roelo’s stock manipulation evidence seemed to have tried negotiating something with Roelo, and when that did not go well, yesterday they anonymously leaked part of the evidence to the press. It had not officially been reported yet, but according to Amabile’s information, the authorities had apparently applied for a warrant to raid Roelo over this matter.

If that happened, Selly, who had been Roelo’s president’s secretary, would inevitably become part of the investigation too, and Ro had apparently introduced her to a lawyer to prepare for that situation. That made sense. What he did not understand was why Ro was the one doing it.

“Was that the boss’s order?”

“No, that was purely my own goodwill.”

“……”

“You look like you don’t understand, but there’s no need to try understanding. It’s just my way. For the record, the boss didn’t say anything either, so you’re not allowed to complain.”

As Ro had said, it was hard to understand, but Upsilon gave up on trying to make sense of it. In Upsilon’s eyes, his actions were…

“Useless meddling.”

“I think I said three seconds ago that I wasn’t accepting lectures.”

In the end, at Upsilon’s grumbling, Ro, already used to it, sucked on his straw. It was not just this time with Selly. Whenever a mission ended, Ro always took care of the mental and physical state of the people he had targeted, as much as he could, under the name of aftercare.

There had once been a time when Robert reacted just like Upsilon and stopped Ro from doing that “aftercare,” but when Ro ended up more stressed than expected from that incident, Robert had allowed it in a limited way, on the condition that it would not affect the mission or Amabile.

Of course, Ro adhered to that line better than anyone, to the point that the connections he built that way had even helped missions at times, so Robert had come to recognize Ro’s aftercare as one of his abilities.

“Anyway, then the misunderstanding’s cleared up, right?”

“Misunderstanding?”

“You didn’t think I ditched you on the street to go date Selly, did you?”

“I wasn’t thinking anything.”

“Upsilon, at least don’t lie in front of me. You really can’t lie.”

It was true that half of that had been a lie, but come on. In twenty-nine years of life, he had never heard such a thing. Upsilon was a mafia man from the underworld, someone who had survived by learning to speak falsehoods as if they were truth, and truth as if it were falsehood.

He was not proud of being good at lying, but at the very least, he looked at Ro like he was some bizarre person for saying such impossible things as if they were obvious.