Illusion Report

Chapter 340: Chapter 295: Brianna: November 16 (2)

Strangely enough, he had come back to the estate early.

What was going on? Hadn’t he said this banquet was important?

She had gone to considerable trouble to dig up the information that the head of the Knight Family would also be in attendance. Westley already had four of the target Illusions in his possession, but the next one had stalled completely — right now, more than anything, he needed the next Illusion Report.

Could it be that things had gone exceptionally well, and that was why he was back so soon?

"Mr. Westley?"

Brianna called out softly as she pushed open the door.

Back when she had first come home from the Nest, she had slipped up once and called him Dad. Westley hadn’t been alone at the time. Maybe to cover it up, he had mocked her mercilessly for it — and she had never made that mistake again.

The moment Westley looked up, Brianna knew the next day or two were going to be anything but pleasant.

He was slight and small, seated behind an oversized desk and flanked by two hulking bodyguards — the whole scene almost comical, like twin moons orbiting a dim little star. Almost, except for the thunderous scowl on his face, which seemed to summon invisible storm clouds right there in the room.

The part that found it comical was the Brianna who had died and slowly grown distant from all this. The part that could barely breathe was the Brianna who still remained.

She closed the door and said quietly, "...The Knight Family was difficult?"

There was no point asking whether the acquisition talks had gone well. Clearly, they hadn’t.

"I wouldn’t know," Westley said, fixing her with the kind of look one reserves for a stain on the carpet.

Brianna blinked. What did he mean, he wouldn’t know?

"I never approached him." Westley seemed to be holding back a surge of anger. "The acquisition can wait. I’ve got bigger things to deal with right now."

Brianna blinked a few more times, trying to make sense of what he was saying. "Did something happen at the banquet?"

"You have the nerve to ask?" Westley snapped suddenly, his voice sharp. "You’re the one who sent me to that banquet — don’t tell me you were hoping something would happen to me."

Brianna glanced at the bodyguard sitting beside him. "...Dylan?"

Dylan’s expression was pained. He shot a look at Westley, opened his mouth, then closed it again without a word.

"I’ll tell you myself," her father cut in. "Someone got wind of it early — knew I’d be there — and arranged for a hitman to slip in ahead of time."

Brianna was genuinely shaken.

For the past several months, Westley had stopped telling anyone his whereabouts in advance. Even for important meetings, attendees couldn’t be sure he’d actually show up until a few minutes before it started.

For someone to know he’d be at this particular banquet — and plant an assassin there beforehand — did that mean there was a mole?

But then her gaze drifted back to Dylan.

He sat with his eyes downcast, lips pressed tightly together, as if he were trying to put some spiritual distance between himself and whatever Westley was describing. He said nothing. He didn’t need to.

"The hitman was..." she began, already half-understanding.

It wasn’t hard to guess. The same kind of thing had happened more times than she could count over the past six months.

The owner of the Blackmoor City baseball team was a notorious playboy, and tonight he happened to have a new girlfriend on his arm. Westley didn’t like the look of her — said she reeked of Hunter the moment he laid eyes on her. And on top of that, she had "accidentally" grabbed the wrong drink and nearly brushed against his shoulder.

"Mr. Westley made quite a scene at the time," Dylan finally couldn’t help adding, quietly.

"What was she trying to do? It’s a big venue — why was she edging up next to me? And the timing was just too convenient. The exact night I show up, she becomes his brand-new girlfriend?"

Westley clearly hadn’t finished venting on the spot and had saved half his fury specifically to unleash on Brianna. "What kind of background checks are you people running? A gap that gaping, and you didn’t see it? Didn’t know about it? That’s impossible. And another thing — that Knight—"

Brianna immediately perked up.

"He had an Illusion on him!"

She didn’t quite know how to react to that.

The head of a Hunter Family Faction — carrying an Illusion? How was that even possible?

Westley wasn’t a Hunter himself, but he had handled more Illusions than most Hunters ever would, which made him confident that his instincts for them were sharper than most.

The moment he suspected that the head of the Knight Family might also be carrying an Illusion, he had refused to go anywhere near the man. He sat there sweating and on edge until, before long, he made his excuses and left early.

If the conversation had ended there, Brianna might have assumed his anger was rooted in fear — that after months of genuine threats and imagined ones, he was simply taking out his frustration on her. Half the time the danger was real; the other half, he was jumping at shadows.

But today, Westley finally lost his grip on the dark, lurking thought that had been circling his mind for so long. It dragged him down, inch by inch, into a place he couldn’t come back from.

"Why did you specifically push me toward the Knight Family?"

His voice dropped. He looked at his daughter and said, "The report laid out three courses of action... Acquiring the Knight Family only gives me a 61% chance of securing the next Illusion Report."

Brianna still hadn’t caught on to where he was going with this.

Not because she was slow. Anyone else would have seen it coming by now.

But the person sitting across from her was still the man she had called Dad for over twenty years.

"The option with the highest odds — the one that wouldn’t require me to put myself at risk — I handed that off to you. And there’s been zero progress."

An instinct that should have died long ago pushed Brianna to defend herself. "The rumor that would let Vulture enter the human world still hasn’t taken hold... And as for the Path Illusion — wasn’t it your idea to let them run a trial first before moving to acquire it?"

By rights, if Westley had been willing to buy the Path transfer Illusion when it first came up, they might have had the second Illusion Report in hand already.

Instead, they were waiting on the Hunter Family Faction to comb through the entire population, find some ordinary person with a Path, run one transfer trial, and only then decide whether to buy it...

He had kept it from her, probably knowing she’d object. She had only found out about it two days ago.

"Yes, it was my idea."

Westley gave a quiet, low laugh. "Do you know why? I have to keep something in reserve. I’ve run into danger after danger — if you think I’m still naive enough to just keep collecting without a second thought, you’re seriously underestimating me."

"...What are you getting at?"

"The more target Illusions I collect, the greater the threat to my life."

Westley looked at his daughter and said softly, "You and I are on the same team. But just because it’s called the Westley Team, all the danger seems to fall on me alone.

"You’re part of this team too — have you faced so much as a single life-threatening situation? If I collect most of the target Illusions and then drop dead, you’d still be perfectly safe, carrying on under my name, inheriting my Illusions, continuing the game. You’d be reaping everything I’d bled for, wouldn’t you?"

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