The night had finally settled over the city, which meant my mission was about to begin.
After sneaking into the E Class house, I slipped into Kaida's room and left the letter containing all the detailed information about the criminal group.
Now all I could do was hope that she and her team would make their move tonight.
"I knew this place wasn't good, but seeing it in person is even worse. Especially after living in the Golden Dragon House," I muttered as I exited the shabby building.
Not much else I could do for Kaida besides this.
---
"They really know how to hide their business," I whispered.
The building looked like any workshop you'd visit if you wanted a woodcarver to make you something special.
"To think they're doing such illegal things here..."
Grandr Root Dust. A drug made by trapping fairies and—well, the process was never fully explained in the game. Most of the community believed that bodiless fairies—spirits—were sealed in jars and starved until death, at which point their mana was harvested and mixed with powdered branches from dryads' trees.
But that was only a theory.
"What's the plan, mister?" Sheiran asked.
"You three—"
"Four."
"You four stay inside the cloak and wait until I call you."
"Okay!" the goblin boy said before slipping back under the cloak.
I was perched on the roof across the street, facing the target building. With my spells ready, my shadow-blending cloak, and a half-mask covering my face, I was set to begin.
"One guard patrolling outside. I can slip in when he's on the far side."
"[Breeze Step]."
"[Feather Fall]."
Silenced footsteps. Time to move.
Dropping down with quick precision, I sprinted toward the patrol.
"Or I can knock you out for good..."
"Huh?" the man muttered as I appeared in front of him.
"[Wind Ram]."
The blast slammed into his face, knocking him out cold.
"I don't know any restraining spells, so wires and duct tape will have to do," I muttered, binding his hands and feet, gagging him, and tying him to a post. A quick search of his pockets gave me the shop key.
Inside, the place looked like a normal workshop—boards with carvings, small idols, even wooden mugs.
"Raychmen work," I noted, inspecting a fine piece displayed behind a glass in one of the many shelves.
Though the face lacked detail, the slim body and six elegant wings marked it clearly.
"Raychmen is the kingdom most known for their religious devotion to one of the nine elementals. The Elemental of the light, Uriel."
Bluemar's Hope tied itself to the Elemental of Nature. Nothing I could do there.
"But for a façade, someone here really knows how to carve..."
I tore my eyes from the displays and studied the shop itself.
"In the game, these guys clashed briefly against Kaida and had to relocate somewhere else. But thanks to the story being altered, the duels between the A and S class took over that event. Meaning that, there's gotta be a hidden passage somewhere
Sure enough, behind the counter, under a rug, was a trapdoor.
I drew my daggers, then stacked several wooden boards on the counter. With quick, precise cuts, I scrawled: Hidden door under here.
"Just in case Kaida attacks tonight."
But if she didn't... I'd still shut this place down.
I descended the stairs. The air grew heavy, suffocating. A vile stench of rot and bile clawed at my nose.
The walls dripped with yellow slime. The floor was greasy, layered with grime.
"You filthy rat!" a raspy voice shouted. "I already bet fifteen gold! I've got nothing else!"
"Shouldn't have gambled on a single card," another man chuckled.
"Grr... rematch! Double or nothing!"
"And what could you wager now? You've got nothing I want."
"Heh... I've got it!"
"Ugh, I hate that look on your face..."
"My treasure—information about that demi-human woman!"
"That cat girl you've been cheating with? Who'd want that?"
"You've got no taste at all!"
"You two! What are you doing wasting time?" a firmer voice barked.
"Gah! We—we're on break! Grinding branches takes effort!"
"Yeah! Happy workers mean better work, right?"
"Hmph. Be back at it the moment you're done. We're on a tight schedule."
"Aye, sir!"
With the two workers' affirmation, the man with the commanding voice turned around and walked away.
"He's coming here!" I whispered to myself as I turned around, looking for a place to hide before that man exited te door.
The man with the commanding voice opened the door and stepped out, stopping as soon as he closed the door behind him. He wore a black-and-white business suit, hair slicked back, a curved blade at his hip. Even in this filthy underground, at night, he wore black sunglasses over his scarred face.
"Hm...?" He glanced around, hand on his hilt. "I thought I heard something..."
His blade flashed.
"Squeak, sque—ack!"
"So it was rats," he muttered, wiping blood from the blade before sheathing it. "Three more months, then we're done with this pig barn." He disappeared through another door.
I exhaled silently, wedged in a ventilation duct. Too narrow to advance, but enough to stay hidden. The stench here was even worse...
When the coast cleared, I slipped out. Two choices: the door he entered, or the one leading to the workers' area.
I eased into the latter, cloaked in shadows.
"If only this job were easier..." one worker sighed over his cards.
"We've got machines now. Imagine grinding branches by hand!"
"Fair point."
The rest labored at their stations.
"I've never seen this many dryad branches."
"Our suppliers are big names in the black market."
"First, we're hired to make a new drug. Then, we're handed supplies by top players... We're in deeper than we ever thought."
"The pay's good. No complaints here."
"Still... worth leaving our kingdom for this city?"
"Hmm. Aurum Academy's city isn't as grand as Raychmen, but the nightlife's decent. No complaints."
"True. Especially since that bandit group—the Crossed, right?—got wiped out. Nights have been calmer."
"Still... I don't think the pay is enough to justify these insane hours."
"Those darn Montanevians... thinking they can boss us around and expect an impossible deadline for this one-of-a-kind drug."
"What does the drug even do?"
"No idea... I heard it drove one of the testers mad. That's why only the boss and his assistant handle the second part of the process."
"What's involved in the second half?"
"Meh... who knows? Not me."
As the two argued, I slipped past them unnoticed. Since I was already here, I might as well take a handful of dryads' branches while I was at it.
"Sheiran, can you take these?" I whispered, low enough that only the Eleventh Songbird Squad could hear.
No words — Gola's hand popped out from the cloak, grabbed the pile of branches, and took it inside the cloak.
Now... find the weakest link.
My eyes scanned the room for the worker who looked most isolated, the one nobody would notice if he vanished. Found him.
I waited a beat, then moved. I slipped behind him, grabbed his shoulder, and spun him around.
"Huh?" he managed before I hit him with a quick spell.
"[Wind Ram]."
The blast struck his face and he slumped, out cold.
While I could've easily killed him by using my daggers, the blood flowing from the corpse and pooling in the ground would've probably been noticed by the other workers. That would mean them getting alerted that there's someone here dispatching from the shadows.
I bound him with wire, taped his mouth, and dragged him out of sight. Then I repeated the process — one by one, knocking workers out, restraining them, moving on.
Some with spells, while others I simply used a simple punch at the face to knock them out.
By the time I finished, six men lay tied on the floor, unconscious. Maybe I could interrogate one, but the man with the curved sword could return at any moment. Could I take him alone? He looked tougher than the actual boss for this event, honestly... but this wasn't the time to find out.
I was about to move to the next room when the whole building shuddered.
"Hm? An explosion...?" I muttered as my ears rang and the floor thrummed beneath my feet.
"We've been attacked! All members—prepare to fight any intruders!" a loud voice bellowed from beyond the next door.
Almost immediately, the ground shook again, louder now, like a stampede. Footsteps pounded somewhere deeper in the complex.
"Enemies...? Attack...? Kaida... did you decide to move tonight?" I whispered, heart picking up pace.
I peeked through the door, and saw that almost every extra worker already departed to the surface to face off against what I assume to be Kaida's group.
Helping Kaida would be nice and all, but I can't for a multitude of reasons.
One is that I have to see if she and her group can deal with this raid by themselves.
The other one is that I have to make sure to find the fairies before anything else, so I can't go meet them right away.
The third one is that I simply wish to keep my presence here a secret, without anyone knowing I even came here in the first place.
"!!!" My instincts reacted quickly to a slash that came diagonally toward me.
"I knew I wasn't mistaken when I felt something earlier." The man with the curved sword commented as he retrieved his sword inside its sheath. "Don't you think you can escape from me!"