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Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Stygian Thunder] has risen from [Level 19] to [Level 30]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job [Stygian Thunder] has been reached

Mutation requirements acquired. [Level 30] of Job [Stygian Thunder] was achieved. Mutation skills unlocked for acquisition. [Lightning Shadow] have been added to the SP shop

Individual [Stygian-Scaled Wolfkin, Saori Segawa] has switched her Main Job to [Assassin]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Assassin Level: 0/20

Job Skill gained: [Critical Spot]

Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Lightning Shadow] gained. 2900 SP remaining

Mutation acquired. Merging [Lightning Shadow] into skill [Stygian Voltage Lv. 2]

“Alright, you really brought us a ton of trouble. You and your friends. Didn’t expect the cartel to come find us this fast when we were just looking around for now. Still, you did us a good one by coming to us first, so how about you talk, or do we need to continue this shit?”

“F-Fuck you! As if I would—”

“Grrr KRAHK!”

“Iiiiiiiieeeeeee!!! D-Don’t feed me to that monster! Please, I don’t want to end up as crap!”

Shadows hold grim warnings for the living… or however you would say this to make it sound edgy. Maybe Hestia or Tatsuya could think of a better quote. Quite embarrassing.

Outnumbered but not outmatched. In the history of wars, victory usually went to the side who were either more technologically advanced, strategically adept, or possessed superior forces. Of course, having all three advantages would be for the best, but a good tactician was said to win even against the odds with timing and resourcefulness, like the battle between Scipio and Hannibal.

But, of course, we were in Peolynca. Just like Hannibal, the use of terror routing your enemy with war beasts was quite effective. I had my garms and the new addition of the virigresses, mostly Varya, just like Hannibal had his elephants. It also helped that my shadow pack all possessed magic.

Now, whoever would I send my pack against? An army? A devilish evildoer? No, none of those… well, I had done all of those before, but for today, I sent them to capture just a bunch of thugs. Yeah, I was overkilling it against some street delinquents.

“Do not worry, I trained my garms to not eat human, beastman, or any humanoid meat. However, the virigresses haven’t yet,” I told the cowering thug Gael was interrogating, telling Varya to roar at him.

“Iiiiiieeeek!!!”

I sighed. Getting into trouble was part of being Aurora, but I didn’t think we would have it on the first day we were in Gleisvale. As Gael suspected, people around the city probably noticed our entry into the country. There were plenty of chances. The bandit ambush on the road was evidence enough of that.

I turned around, watching my garms hunt down any runaways before dragging them back wrapped in [Dark Tendrils] or mana threads. Imagine giant wolves and a large tiger able to control and dive into shadows to hunt you down in a wide alleyway like this. It would be frightening.

In addition, there was also Tasianna. With her eyes closed, she was channeling mana through her catalyst and using her [Cryokinesis] to control the air around us, making it impossible for any of them to escape regardless of how fast they could run. Melloxtressa could create a bubble of frozen air without affecting the temperature within it, and Tasianna learned to do the same after training with her.

However, unlike Hestia’s mom, Tasianna required complete focus when using this technique and couldn’t do anything else, otherwise it would collapse. Oh my, who could have possibly known it would be that difficult, right?

Still, the effects weren’t perfect. I could see the buildings around us gaining a sheet of ice on their walls while the ground was forming ice spikes. Tasianna had already made three custom ice spells, but I could see a day where she wouldn’t need the System at all. Just like Melloxtressa and the snow wyvern twins.

“Oooh, look at that. Hmm, one, two, three, 15, 21. Yeah, that’s about all the guys I counted when they came to mug us,” Gael continued his interrogation after seeing Uno bring back the last three. “Looks like you lost, mate. Now, how about you talk since I’m pretty sure that if we hand you into the guards, your gang boss will buy them out to get you to either shut your mouths or take you out.”

In other words, we will extract the information now or never. One way or another, Gael will get it out of them.

“S-Shit…” he cursed under his breath as he finally broke from Gael’s threats. “The cartel is gonna make you regret the shit you just pulled.”

Pulling the ruffian up, Gael patted his shoulders, smirking. “Take care of yourself first, mate. After we supposedly die, you can gloat at our corpses… but you probably have to do it from Death's side if that future were to happen, hahaha!”

Tasianna dispelled the barrier of ice and we had the garms “motivate” our prisoners to move forward by growling, making them lead the way. Moving through the streets with them did garner us some attention, but not enough to be a problem.

Unlike Shaturein, Gleisvale’s underworld was similar to one you can find in any normal city. Some sections had areas where criminals like to congregate, forming gangs and organizations — like the Yakuza, the Mafia, the Triads. It wasn’t a self-sufficient city, it was just a bunch of people gathering with others that shared a similar “profession.”

As such, entering this place wasn’t too hard after we asked around in the local hunter’s guild. After registering ourselves into the guild’s ecosystem, they sent us to an info broker working for them. He gave us all we needed to know to find what we needed — where the black market was and any alchemists working there.

After strolling around a bit, getting used to the locals, we were “ambushed” by some thugs. Blocking all paths out of the alleyway, the only way these ruffians left for us to escape was for us to flee was through the skies. Now, I was aware this was entirely possible for us, but our ambushers apparently weren't aware of this. The thugs were all well-equipped and looked like they worked as E or D rank adventurers, so they could clearly threaten people and were used to springing traps like this.

Only problem was they chose the wrong targets.

“Grrak!” Uno growled, towering over one of them moving his eyes as if he was looking to escape.

Seeing my garm’s silhouette blanket him completely and Uno’s drool splatter on his face, he quickly made himself small all while shivering. Any thug who showed even a sliver of rebellion was quickly sniffed out by the garms and Varya.

““Greow!”” Shere and Ajay tried to imitate their mother, but it was all futile. They were too young and it only made them look cuter. In hindsight, I probably should have handed them to Hestia, like Rajah. Though, if Rajah had expected he wouldn’t be as useful and stuck with Hestia for that reason, then I would be shocked.

I picked up the two virigress cubs and held them in my arms. They were like kittens… just in the size of normal house cats. It made it hard to embrace them.

“Do you know who this emblem belongs to?” While I was managing the prisoners, Tasianna went over to the lead and showed him the broken emblem we got from the bandit ambush.

“H-Hey, I’m already show— Guff?!” Unwilling to answer her question, Tasianna immediately grabbed the man’s throat before he could finish his sentence. White smoke like cold air began to form around her hand, clearly causing the man pain. “Grk?! Alright, alright! Stop, please!”

Tasianna unhandled him.

“I-I really don’t know much about this symbol. I really don’t! Honest! B-But, I think I saw something similar when I went out to get stuff for our senior members. Uhm, potions, yeah! We gotta hunt monsters since you can’t find certain mons’terials in other countries. Brings in a good price, but gets pretty dicey without some potions to back you up.”

“Where?”

“U-Uhhh, there are some people selling them in the back area of some mons’terials sellers. Quicker access to the good stuff. You can find some potion sellers at the edge of the market, but most of them are amateurs. People who can’t afford training from the alchemist guild or aren't good enough to sell the potions in a normal store, so they sell them there for cheap.”

“Thank you very much. Now, please, hurry us along towards the person who sent you to us. Quickly, I have better things to do than speak with you.” Turning around and returning back to me, she left those cold words behind in the poor thug’s ears.

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“… You can be pretty fierce, Tasianna,” I told her and she shrugged. Once again, I was reminded of Tasianna’s aggressive habits towards humans she didn’t like. She did admit to crushing somebody’s throat after freezing it once.

In any case, after walking deeper into the area, the thug notified us that we made it into their territory. As he said that, I began noticing a few people moving around with [Detection Sensor], so I whistled for my garms and Varya to dive into their shadows. Informing them through [Telepathy], they began stalking them, funneling me information.

When one or two of them nodded their heads and stopped observing us in order to run away, my garms or Varya captured them and allowed them to join their friends. When the thugs saw my shadow pack leave, they initially let out a sigh of relief, only to fall into despair again when they saw their numbers increase with more and more of their gang members once the pack returned.

“Y-You people are relentless!” The thug in the front complained.

“Hahaha! Right?” Gael laughed and placed his arm around his shoulder. “And you haven’t seen them fight properly yet. Now, how about you start moving faster, eh? The longer we take, the more you have to deal with us.”

Eventually, the people learned from their mistakes and simply moved into the clear, letting us see them. We were simply stopping them from informing their people, since we wanted the element of surprise here. If they didn’t run off, we wouldn’t act. Our prisoner count did increase some more as we went on, but it was what it was.

We eventually ended up a little bit away from the black market, at least according to the thugs. Looking around the neighborhood, the buildings and streets weren’t the cleanest but they were well-maintained at least. The thugs explained that established gangs invest in their territory’s infrastructure. They might be criminals, but they still wanted to attract normal people wishing for normal lives, just because renting off apartments was good money in this city.

Eventually we ended up at a building that screamed “I am the most important one in this place” due to the detailed engravings on its stone walls. Looking closer, I believed the whole place was made using the stone of the rich, fairnite, including the stone statues, and there were even guards placed before the entrance. This was, without question, the base of this gang.

Money rules this country. It seems like in every world or place, bragging about what you have more of is a universal, no, dimensional trait.

“Okay, I guess that’s the place?” Gael asked the thug he had his arm wrapped around. The thug nodded to his question. “Good, thanks, mate. Okay, now if you would be nice enough to no—”

“INTRUD—”

The moment Gael wanted to tell the thugs to not announce our appearance, one of the thugs from behind suddenly raised his mouth and shouted, but, before he could finish it, Shere jumped out of my arms and paw punched him to the ground. They might be cubs, but they were still the cubs of a tigress.

Agitated by this, the other thugs saw their moment and shouted from the top of their lungs, only for a green magic circle to appear below us, materializing an [Air Shield]. Their voices still escaped it, but the climax of their screams were stopped just in time by Tasianna.

Still, as I said, their cries still managed to catch the attention of the guards standing before the building. The seven of them had finally noticed our group. They came closer to us, shouting out why we were messing with their members, only to suddenly notice the large group of prisoners we had the moment they came over the corner. Turning blue, they clearly understood what was going on and attempted to run.

I reached my hand out and conjured [Dark Tendrils] from their shadows, wrapping them up and pulling them to the ground. I also had their mouths wrapped shut.

“Tasianna, make sure they can breathe. Let’s go!”

[Shadow Armaments] wrapped themselves around my hands and the stygian armguards I was wearing before I shot out a [Dark Tendril] from my left shadow-cloaked arm, wrapping it around Gael’s and Tasianna’s waists. I jumped out from the latter’s air barrier and cast [Smokey Haze].

My shadow erupted into a cloud of darkness, enveloping the whole front part of the building, reaching high enough to blanket a few windows. I kicked the door in, attracting everybody’s attention before pulling my smoke fog into the building as well. [Shadow Armament] allowed me to control my shadows and dark spells as if I had a “-kinesis” skill.

Heat vision, on.

[True Wolven Instincts] activated, allowing me to see heat signals within this fog. It didn’t allow any light in, so you had to rely on other methods to get by this. It also helped that a lack of light made it “night,” also activating [Night’s Caress].

I didn’t care in the least if one of them was strong or not. Using this moment of surprise, I activated the twin catalyst embedded into my armguards and began generating black electricity through them. With pinpoint knowledge of where everybody in the room was, I blitzed through the room, hitting them all with a thunder palm, stunning them.

Once all of them were down, I grabbed my fog once again and pushed it upstairs. Those above me most likely heard my raid since, according to my ears, they were running towards me. Still not a problem, though.

“Woah, what the hell is this fog?! I can’t see for shit!”

“Arck, you bastard, you stepped on my foot!”

Mutation skill [Lightning Shadow] from the [Stygian Thunder] race Job allowed me to move my thunder through any shadows I controlled with [Shadow Armament]. I bought it after I hunted in the Griffonpeak dungeon a few days before we departed, just so I could Job change in time. It was pretty obvious what I would do with this new skill of mine.

The moment electricity crackled around my hand, I saw black lines flow through the fog, followed by the loud cries of numerous men and a few women before silence came with the sound of something falling to the ground. I walked up and used [Identify] on all of them. None of them were dead.

“Are you two keeping up?” I spoke to the people slowly following me from behind.

“Well, better than nothing, I guess. I stepped on somebody, so, oops.” I could hear Gael say as he tugged on the tendril hanging off my arm.

“I am doing fine, Miss Saori.” She also tugged on the line.

As they couldn’t see in this fog, the [Dark Tendril] was there to help them follow me.

Once I made sure they were okay, I continued onwards, using my [Smokey Haze] to completely take over this building. Sure enough, on the third floor, there were actually a few C rank adventurer level thugs amongst them who might have the ability to threaten us. They seemed well-equipped and capable, seeing as they were able to coordinate even in the dark.

It was just unfortunate that their [Enhanced Enemy Sense] was underleveled against me. With their eyesight robbed and their smelling and hearing abilities worthless against my [Night’s Caress], all they could do was hear their comrades fall one by one before I came for them.

“Gaaaaargk! Monster! gRRRgZZKKKKrrk?! Urgh…”

There is the last person.

Seeing through the walls with my heat vision, I found a single person shivering alone in a spacious room. As I couldn’t see mana like Hestia could and I was wary of the threat of a rune planted somewhere as a trap, I blasted the door open with a bolt of lightning before flicking some small currents around the fog to hopefully activate a trap or two.

I got this idea from Muraina’s [Manalocation] spell and the action of electroreception from hammerhead sharks. I was currently planning on turning this ability into a custom spell, since I did need more ways to scout ahead for our group. This was just my way of testing out the theory before I committed to it.

Hmm, no traps?

“Arck! Fuck!”

Oh, seemed to have shocked them. Hmm, that didn’t go as I wanted to.

Disregarding my disappointment, I shot out a set of [Dark Tendrils] from my arm at him. Surprisingly, he was more adept at fighting than I thought as he did manage to avoid getting captured. So, instead, I simply shocked him with a quick stygian thunder to stop his movements.

With the defeat of everybody inside this building, I had my spell retreat back into my shadow, reforming it. The moment my body came into view of the supposed boss of this gang, he began crying out for no reason.

“Arck?! W-Who the hell are you?! How did you get through all my men, you monster?!”

Wow, twice now. I’ve been called a monster twice now. I mean, I am one, but it's still rude to call me one while I’m in my wolfkin form.

“Haaaa, Gael, get to it,” I told him before taking two chairs from outside the office room and putting them inside for Tasianna and me to sit on.

Taking some of my mana threads, Gael then proceeded to wrap the person up and place him back on his chair. He couldn’t move since I paralyzed him, so Gael was just being polite.

“Anyways. Introductions, right. My name is Gael, I’m coming here to Gleisvale as a representative of Shaturein. Could I know your name and your gang’s?” Gael introduced himself before sitting down.

“Fuck you.” The man spat out, so I whistled for Uno to reappear from outside the room, growling and baring his teeth. As he entered the small room, I could see he felt it was too cramped for him, but he still did his job well by scaring the man into speaking.

“M-My name is Neville Layavete. Underboss of the Layavete cartel! Dammit!” he cursed to Gael’s satisfaction. Knowing he would talk, he asked him what his duty was in the cartel. “Dammit! Do you really think I would continue talking after you admitted to being from Shaturein! The moment you entered this city, we knew you were coming this way, so do you really think I would— Arck?!”

Gael jumped up and grabbed onto the collar of Neville’s embroidered robes, pulling him closer to the table. He then conjured up his own [Dark Tendrils], wrapping them around his neck, holding him down like that.

“I get it, as a cartel, you aren’t too fond of having rivals enter your area, but I’m not here to talk about that stuff. Mister Vangrim Blackreach and Lady Jenghil Grengar have sent me here as their representative to learn why you assaulted and obstructed their people when they came here to talk to you for a partnership. I heard they were diplomatic, wanting to co-exist within the ecosystem of Gleisvale. Sadly, you and your organization weren’t so appreciative.”

“”Of course we weren’t!” he retorted. “The moment we let you into the city, Shaturein will do everything to take control of every single bit of the place. Don’t you dare underestimate the Layavete cartel. In this city, your threats and power do not matter one bit. It is all about money and influence here, and that is something the Layavete cartel has aplenty. We will never share it.”

“Hmm, yes, I heard about that. You got one of the senators under your control… or was it two? Nevermind, the important part is that you have at least one of the senators in your grasp and you can control things through them. That is why I believe you are scared of us. Shatu is a city. We have the money, so if we make it into this city, we would take over your position.”

“…”

It seemed Gael landed a bull’s eye.

“Here, do me a favor, alright? Send a message to your boss and the other underbosses that Shaturein wishes to talk to. Let’s meet at the discussion table, alright? Shaturein has things the Layavete would like to know,” Gael patted his head before pulling out the broken emblem. “Ever seen this?”

“… What’s it to you?”

“Nothing much, but for those two ladies?” Gael pulled the man’s head and had him look at it for a moment before blocking his sight from us. “A lot. You see, they were attacked on the road when they arrived in the country. A bunch of slaves were sent to attack them and we then found out their master was killed. The slaves dropped this emblem, but we have no idea where the master is from. So…”

Gael unsheathed his dagger, pointing the tip on the man’s ear, drawing some blood. “Answer carefully, alright? Did the Layavete cartel send those people to attack them? Were you behind the attack? Who does this emblem belong to?”

“…”

The man fell silent. I didn’t expect him to talk immediately, so I wondered what Gael was—

“Alright, got you. See ya later after you give my message to your boss. Come on, you two.” Gael stood up to leave.

““Huh?!”” Tasianna and I blurted out, following him. We tried to stop him, but he didn’t answer us until we left the building.

“Tasianna, free those goons for me will you? Good thinking not to kill any of those people, Saori. We’ll need them for later. Let’s send them off for now.” We did as Gael wanted but we still weren’t sure what he was planning, so we asked him our questions once again after we freed the thugs. “This gang isn’t the one.”

“Huh? How do you know that?” I asked him.

“It’s a bit of a conjecture, but I don’t believe the Lavayette cartel is currently in charge of the underworld of Estralia. Not anymore, at least.” He waved his hand, telling us we would go to the black market before continuing. “I haven’t visited Estralia in a long while, ever since I went on an adventure with Farron and Yorshka. But, the last time I came here, I knew the Layavete cartel was so intimidating and influential that you didn’t need to repeat it after a made man tells you his name.”

According to Gael, the Layavete cartel had a tradition where every made man had to abandon their family name as a sign of unity. These men would introduce themselves proudly, as the Layavete surname was a medal of honor. People knew not to fuck with them the moment names were given.

“However, that Neville guy? Never heard of him before, but he was made an underboss? Lady Grengar’s intel is usually good enough to sniff out important members like an underboss. But that guy? He didn’t represent the pride of a Layavete at all. He was unwilling to say his name and repeated the cartel as if it was his shield, instead of his sword.”

“And that’s why you believe the Layavete aren’t in charge anymore?” Tasianna summed it up. “So, who is it then?”

“I have no idea. I don’t know how it happened, but they either got taken over or something happened with the previous underbosses. We’ll need to seek them out. Also, I get the feeling it might have something to do with this emblem.” He pulled out the broken emblem again. “As such, let’s go to the black market. That guy from before gave us the directions and Tasianna has her own problems. Let’s head over there before returning home.”

Accepting his answer, we went to the black market. Our objective from Shaturein wasn’t done yet, but Tasianna’s goals had to come first before we left Estralia.

“I’m ready.” Tasianna nodded firmly.