Chapter #25 - Underground Network

A few days later into the Zen clan and became my personal butler, and we are now discussing our next moves in my new study.

"Sebastian I thought about using the homeless people like beggars, vagrants, and panhandlers to act as eyes and ears in the city, training crows to act as messengers, to act as a largely anonymous and untraceable intelligence and data network across The Capital. What do you think?" I told Sebastian my plan to build an underground empire.

"I have to say it's a brilliant idea but how do you plan to recruit them? You can't do it openly or you will be in trouble!" he agreed with my plan and also voiced his concerns besides me.

"With homeless shelters giving out coins with a crow and eye on each side symbolizing that they are working for us. Varying by the importance of the information they gather we give them money, so they will keep gathering information. Before they send the intel it will be encoded, so if the crow gets caught it cant be read, and I already have sorted out how to do it." I further explained to calm his concerns, while showing him some documents about the encoding.

"This will work my lord, but do you have anyone in mind that will be taught this encoding? You can't teach it to every homeless or it will be useless if they betray you and tell the method to decode the messages!" Sebastien again voiced his opinions and advice.

"I do have two people in mind but it's too early to say if they are fit and can be trusted," I told him while looking for two papers with information about the two people.

'Found them' I thought when I found the papers and gave them to Sebastian.

"Eto Zen and Noro Zen, so they are from your can my lord?" He asked me after he read the last name on the papers while still reading.

"Yes, and the most important thing is that my father hid them from The Empire, afraid that they will see the Zen clan as a threat because of their unique Kagune's, so they can join Aogirii tree without being affiliated with the Zen clan," I replied to Sebastian's question.

"Why is that so, isn't the Kagune the Zen clans' unique ability, then it should be easy connecting them with the Zen clan if they use it?" He asked with a confused tone, but his face is still that of a stern and uptight old man.

"No, apperantltly a few generations back, the former head of the Zen clan orchestrated a power struggle between two sides of the clan, to give an excuse of letting about 1/4 of the clansmen escape to the Southern Lands. The clan head at that time was also afraid because the old Emperor began slowly stripping the Zen clan of power, leading to us falling from a Major royal family to a minor royal we are today, so to be sure that our bloodline wouldn't go extinct he used the power struggle so the Emperor couldn't use the excuse of betrayal and deflecting the Empire"

"So Eto and Noro can freely use their Kagune if they join Aogiri Tree because my father can just say they are part of the group that escaped in the power struggle back then, to escape punishment from The Empire," I replied while leaning back in my chair and placing my feet on the desk looking relaxed as ever.

"That's good, so what's their Kagunes ability, I suppose it's not written in the paper for the security reasons, afraid of them getting leaked?" Sebastian questioned their abilities after hearing my reasons for hiding them.

"Normally our Kagunes comes out of a part of the back, but Eto can make it cover her whole body like an amour with two scimitars like arms for melee and spikes on the back that can be fired for ranged attacks. But the terrifying part of the transformation is that she grows to a 2,5-meter giant while getting superhuman strength, speed, durability, and pain tolerance making her a tank of a fighter. " I said with a voice, little excited because I'm a battle maniac that can't wait to fight her.

"???!!!" Sebastian looked at me a little surprised by what I revealed with a raised eyebrow before his eyes squinted fully like a hawk.

"Although her power sounds good, but if she can't be trusted it's better not to recruit her! So what about the other one?" Sabastian advised after getting surprised, and I just nodded in understanding.

"Noro is an oddball! His Kagune is a thick tail coming from his back with a mouth and razor-sharp teeth, that eats his opponents and can be divided into two, but that's not the surprising part. He has superhuman regeneration way above Eto, so even if his head is cut off, his body will grow together again, that coupled with superhuman pain tolerance, he's almost immortal. He's also the foster-father of Eto." I said with a weird look because there's no way I would let my head be cut off even if I can regenerate because it would be a disgrace letting my head fall on the ground.

"That's..... truly surprising!" He said truly surprised by Noro's regeneration ability because it not out of the world if people transform into beasts or at least grow animal features to boost power so he wasn't much surprised by Eto's ability but to be cut into pieces and regenerate that is something he's never heard before.

"I will interact with them a little and maybe even try to fight to test them and see if they should be recruited. Then I will be able to join the military while you act as the Leader for the time being before I get some rank and freedom in the military." I told him before going to my bedroom calling it a day.

"Yes my Lord" Sebastian replied while bowing elegantly with a straight back, a hand on his chest and the other on the back.