CHAPTER 477: THE START OF THE SUMMIT

Whether there was any truth to the saying, Lane didn’t know, but the following days suggested otherwise. Despite how nicely he celebrated the New Year’s with Damien, after that, things had gotten insanely busy. Even for the Association’s standards.

All because of the summit. On the fourth of January, delegations started arriving. Although the summit didn’t officially start until the ninth, some people just decided to come early for some incomprehensible reason. Normally, Lane wouldn’t have cared, but...

Some of those people were high-ranking officers of government organizations from influential countries and world-famous members of powerful Guilds. The Association couldn’t assign any random members to welcome such important figures in their country, since that would have been insulting, thus Damien, as the only S-rank Esper in the Association other than Director Torres, had been assigned to take care of some of them.

All on top of his other duties, of course, as they had still other tasks to finish before the summit started.

As such, Damien hardly had time to sleep, let alone have sex! He even had to give up on preparing any meals at home, and resort to the Association’s cafeteria and take-out. That’s how busy he was. Lane was a bit better, since he wasn’t a part of the welcome committee, but that only meant that he had to return alone to an empty home. Of course, in a way it worked well for him, since it gave him time to manage his ’boss of the secret organization’ stuff, but...

Lane didn’t feel happy about it at all.

Especially since he had a lot of concerns on his mind, and left alone, he just couldn’t push them aside, into the back of his mind. Not only was he worried that Blanc might be planning something more than they had agreed on, but there were also the Allens... Both of whom could ruin Lane’s current cozy and comfortable life if he didn’t deal with it appropriately. And, while with Blanc it might still be fine, as long as Lane’s second identity doesn’t get exposed (and it shouldn’t be, since no one in the organization knew who he was), with the Allens...

The Allens’ plans were a big enigma to him. Nyla might have given him the Allen Guild’s organization plans for the summit, but all they contained was all schedules, safety protocols and measures, and so on... They were all very detailed, but they didn’t contain any mention of ’Lane Allen’ at all. Not even a hint, nothing that Lane could use to even try to guess what they had in store for him. They could still be useful, as Lane would be able to try to look for any discrepancies between what was written in the plans and what was happening around him, but...

Brushing his hair back, Lane let out a sigh, staring at his reflection in the mirror. In the blink of an eye, days had passed, and the summit was finally about to start. Whether he felt ready or not, there was no more time to prepare.

"Are you done?" Damien peeked into the bathroom. "We have to head out now."

There were still four hours before the gala, but as a part of the Association’s official representation, they had to be there early, as the Association was the organizer this year. Unlike the previous days, this time, Lane was also included in the representation, the whole elite team was.

"Yeah, I guess." Lane nodded, turning to Damien, about to leave the bathroom. "Hmm?" he suddenly paused, tilting his head, as he noticed a glint of light reflecting of Damien’s wrist. "You’re wearing the watch?"

"Yes..." Damien adjusted the watch. "It’s the gala, so I thought... You’re not wearing yours?"

Lane wasn’t planning to. After all, while the gala was seemingly a suitable occasion to dress up, as the official representation, they all had to wear the Association’s uniforms. And the luxurious silver watches that Lane had bought for them hardly went well with the uniforms...

But if that was what Damien wanted,

"Ah, right. Give me a second," he said, as he walked over to the chest of drawers, and grabbed one of the boxes from the top...

"That one’s mine," Damien pointed out.

"...Right."

Indeed, the box was empty. It was an easy mistake, since the boxes and watches were identical. And Lane couldn’t remember which one was which.

Not like he even cared to remember. He already treated all of Damien’s things as mutual property, sometimes stealing Damien’s clothes when they were at home, or accidentally using his herbal shampoo, even though the bottle it was in looked completely different from the one that Lane usually used... It was just because he wasn’t paying attention for a moment, though. Not at all because he wanted to have Damien’s scent on him or anything!

"Alright. Let’s go," he said, quickly grabbing the watch from the other box and putting it on, and they headed to the five-star hotel near the Association’s Headquarters, where the gala, as well as most of the lectures and conferences, were held.

It was all pretty boring, as far as Lane was concerned. They waited in the near-empty hall for hours, greeting people once they finally started to show up. There were far fewer participants than the previous year (for obvious reasons), so, even putting aside how dull exchanging greetings was, there wasn’t even much for them to do... Around half of the people attending the gala were from the Association or from the Allen Guild, and they naturally didn’t have to be welcomed. At least for the most part. Damien still greeted some of them, since they were attending in civilian clothing...

The Association couldn’t just send all their members in the uniforms, after all, not if they didn’t want to make it so obvious. They were there to make it look as if the summit was a massive success with high attendance, and it would have been ruined if everyone could tell what was going on at a glance!