My Level Zero System-Chapter 297: Investigating (2)

However, in the moment of provocation, Faith showed no expression at all.

He was not stimulated, did not frown, did not get angry, standing there like a statue, calmly accepting the provocation with a smile, as if Nostragia's recent insult and contempt were just a passing breeze.

No, a normal person would at least blink if a passing breeze blew across their face, but Faith wasn't even affected.

"Although I didn't get a good result, it matches the prediction."

"It seems this person named Faith will be a formidable opponent." Cyrus thought to himself, then turned his head towards Lion, who was talking to Nostragia.

Because of Nostragia's previous action, Lion felt that his dignity had been somewhat restored, and his back was even straighter. A smile even appeared on his face, showing that Lion had greatly improved his mood.

Cyrus continued to ponder.

"This person has considerable dissatisfaction with Faith, but he will still participate in the game."

"It's not surprising. The power structure of the Sword Family is heavily skewed towards strength as dominance. It seems to be a lingering remnant of the ideology from the era before the Akazac Empire was founded. This means that the appearance of someone like Faith is nothing short of a ticking time bomb waiting to explode in the minds of Sword Family members like Lion."

"I can exploit this."

But Cyrus didn't know that the moment he turned away, Faith briefly glanced at him from the corner of his eye, seemingly having noticed the little trick Cyrus had instigated.

Sometimes the hunter will appear in the guise of the prey.

From the moment Nostragia appeared to provoke him, Faith was on guard.

"The intuitive monster"—that's how those who knew Faith often described him. And in that brief moment, he decided to "perform" the "self" that his opponent most wanted to see.

A calm and profound individual.

Thus, the mysterious opponent hiding in the shadows would experience two states:

Relaxation, because what Faith exhibited matched his predictions.

Seriousness, because Faith was a relatively difficult person to play with emotionally.

Regarding the state of seriousness, Faith could easily draw conclusions from the fact that Nostragia deliberately provoked him in this highly ritualistic party.

In this situation, Faith should have outwardly appeared calm but inwardly felt resentment. For example, by clenching his jaw while turning away, intending to deceive the observer in the shadows.

However, Faith did not do that.

Why didn't he? Naturally, because Faith's ultimate goal was for the Sword Family to lose the game.

Therefore, the stronger and more vigilant Faith's opponents were, the better. Kain was just the primary chosen opponent; that didn't mean Faith couldn't consider a contingency plan.

Faith did not harbor the thought of "only Kain is allowed to defeat me." In a normal situation, Faith might have been leisurely enough to play like that for a while. But facing the goal of overthrowing the Sword Family, Faith had no room to insert chivalry.

"To defeat the Sword Family, I need more powerful chess pieces."

That is what Faith once said, and now, a new chess piece had appeared.

As for confirming who that was, it wasn't difficult for Faith.

First, this person would definitely be in the entourage behind Nostragia of the Bethel Family.

Second, to avoid detection, this person would certainly use a comprehensive observation method, pretending to look around rather than staring intently to avoid being spotted.

Third, the above behavior would lead to the frequency of head turns having a statistically identifiable pattern. Because a person cannot turn their head 360° to look all around at once, each time they turn their head to observe, they can only turn at an angle of about 90°, maybe 120° at most, and that would almost be glancing behind them. In short, to observe the entire scene, one needs to divide the observation into multiple turns, across different time intervals.

Therefore, Faith only needed to observe who in the group behind Nostragia met the following three conditions:

Condition one: This person had a high frequency of turning their head to observe.

Condition two: Hiding a tree in a forest is a known principle, so to prevent their repetitive action, even if it wasn't staring, from drawing attention, this person would choose many different angles for turning their head to observe, in order to conceal the viewing angles they truly needed within the set.

Condition three: To observe Faith, this person would not just repeat one observation angle each time they wanted to see Faith but would try to vary different angles. As long as Faith was still present in each of those angles for him to observe, that would suffice.

These three conditions were the three shields protecting the secret of the observer in the shadows from being detected, but all were mercilessly stripped away by Faith. He then recognized Cyrus hidden in the crowd as the only one who matched all the conditions.

"Began laying out a conspiracy before the game even started, huh?"

"But a moment ago, when the families were suddenly given bad news, the Bethel Family was no exception."

"It seems this is also this man's strategy. Quite clever, playing this game of using the false to conceal the true. The other families fundamentally cannot pinpoint who is responsible. The suspicion will even be focused on the Sword Family, the only power with enough audacity and influence to act against nearly all the other families."

"The Sword Family fundamentally did not hire outside representatives and suffered no loss, but they won't be absolved. In this matter, even white becomes black."

"But wouldn't that be even better?"

"The other families, except for the Bethel Family, always defer to the Sword Family, but the relationship is not one of master and servant submission. An enraged rabbit will still bite, let alone these aren't rabbits, but a pack of hyenas circling a lion."

"The Sword Family will be targeted in the game!"

"My plan will be even easier to achieve. I didn't expect this new chess piece to be so useful."

Faith couldn't help but feel excited. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Of course, for someone who could so easily expose a hidden purpose in Cyrus's plan, solving it was not impossible.

But as he had always said, Faith didn't care; the more things went wrong for the Sword Family, the better.