They passed through the arch and entered the village. There were not many people roaming the streets as they thought there would be and they saw people with red hair and tails that seemed to have multiple spikes sticking out of a stinger at the end of it. They all turned to looked at Rune and his group as they passed over the road.
Suddenly, a group of people came out of an alley in between two buildings. They were carrying hoes, shovels, and daggers and were headed their way. Rune glanced at them quickly and kept going.
His thinking was that, if they started attacking, he would disable them and hurt them starting with their fingers. He was thinking that a Yakuza style way of taking fingers would be more than appropriate in this occasion.
There were seven of them and they changed their course to head towards Rune. They stopped in front of him and Rune kept driving the carriage. Some of the people in front of him started to sweat as the wagons edged closer to their faces.
One of them piped up as Rune had zero intention to stop whether or not people were in his way.
“Hey!! Stop!! This is our turf!! Hand us your stuff as it will go to the rebellion!!”
Rune looked down upon them and stopped his wagon. Then he got down from it and told everyone inside something using telepathy.
Then he hopped down from his perch and walked up to the man who talked. He was a bit smaller than Rune, but looked like a delinquent while tapping his shoulder with a shovel. He sneered as if he was superior to Rune.
“So what do you want?”
Rune answered in a grave tone that said that he would kill anyone who got in his way. At the same time, he also used the skill given by the title, Envy’s Chosen which stated “Send out Bloodlust anytime or crush enemies weaker than owner three times per day”. An immense bloodlust was sent to all directions and everyone took at least two steps back.
Even in the carriage the groups shuddered and even some of the bystanders around them jumped and accidentally bumped into each other. The one who had talked was now a couple yards from Rune.
“I-we need those supplies to help us fight the oppressor!!”
“And do you know the supplies we carry?”
“F-food and drinks and health potions?”
He was surprisingly optimistic for someone who was taking in a large amount of bloodlust. Rune smiled as he heard his words.
“No. We have enough weapons to blow you off the face of this planet and then some.”
It was a pretty large bluff, but they did have enough weaponry to destroy a continent. It he had wanted to, Rune could likely have made a device powerful enough to destroy a planet, but he was on that planet and didn’t want to be on it when it was destroyed.
“T-that’s better!! We’ll take that then!!”
“So, shall I give of a knife in your stomach?”
“N-no. N-n-nevermind.”
“So, what is this “rebellion” fighting against?”
“Uh, um, it is to fight the oppressing Dragon. We worship this fake god and we follow his will. We can’t do anything about it…”
“And you want to take action by steal my stuff?”
“Uh, yes?”
“Then I will see what this is about. I have come to free this suppressed place from the dragon. We will kill him for you. Just tell us where he is.”
Rune grinned as he spoke while thinking about getting a Black Dragon’s corpse.
“Um, excuse me, but, uh, what are you thinking about now?”
“Corpses. Just corpses.”
That was extremely unsettling to everyone who heard him. Luckily, he spoke in a soft enough tone that only those who were part of the “rebellion” heard. The person talking to him backed up another yard.
“So, tell me, what is your name and where is the dragon?”
“I am Ogyi. The son of the mayor. However, I do not know where the dragon is now, but I know that he comes into the town once a week. Unfortunately, he came yesterday. He will come back in one week.”
The person started to back away from him and head back into the alley that they had come from and Rune hopped back onto the wagon. Currently, his objective was to find an area to park.
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Rune and his group were moving towards where Ogyi was. Rouna was able to track him as soon as Rune told her the person’s name and his features.
Before they started to move, they interacted with some sort of police that helped them out, then said that they should worship some god that Rune believed was the Black Dragon. It seemed that travelers were very rare, but not unheard of as other villages of different races came to trade.
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Their village produced crops and fruits. Their buildings were not too neat as they had no clear architecture. The people living in the village were all descendents of Manticores from a couple hundred thousand years ago.
Back to Ogyi, it was extremely obvious that he had red hair and a tail with stingers at the end, but he also had blue eyes, skin on the pale side, and was rather young looking. He was also carrying a shovel and surrounded by people with knives, shovels, and hoes.
It seemed that they were in an abandoned building where the there were two basements. They used candles to light up the place and the bottom room seemed to be for sleeping. The middle floor was where the kitchen and dining area was. Their bathrooms were outside and the first floor was just a foyer and maybe a family room.
They moved towards a building that was at the edge of the village. They had separated into three groups of three or four and set out through the streets. Everyone was using a portable communication system and were all moving in different paths to reach their destination.
Rune’s group was made of Mynn, Hyht, and Yula. They planned to go through the alleyways as all of them were experienced in quickly moving from place to place as Hyht was a knife wielder, his girlfriend, Yula, used close combat techniques, and Mynn used a bow.
Rouna’s group was made of Riika and Erin as Rouna and Erin needed to protect Riika. They had decided to travel through the market on their way to the location.
The last group, led by Rena, was made of Hika and Elisa and they decided to travel through the main road.
It seemed that nothing could be gathered regarding information about the Black Dragon god. The only thing of help was the guard officer who told them that they should join their religion and the young teen, Ogyi, who talked about when the dragon would come.
Everyone reached the area without any incident and Rune’s group parkoured up to the roof where they crouched down low. There were small walls on top of the houses that were great for hiding and Rouna went up to them with Riika in her arms.
Then, Rune spoke to everyone using telepathy before the mission started.
Rena started to pick the locks. The building that they were near was surrounded by houses on all sides and the only entrances were the alleyways in between the houses. No one would see them entering the building. There weren’t even any guards around the place.
Rune crouched down and looked around the roof. It was quite bland with the walls being made of sticks and wood. There was a hatch that was closed and led into the first floor. The other roofs had strange shrines on them with small figures of a dragon with eight curved horns and its wings were outstretched.
Rena had finally unlocked the door and pushed it open slightly. She peeped inside and took a look. Then Rune heard something on his radio. It sounded like someone whispering. It was Rena who was talking quietly while surveying the building.
“Route is clear. Heading in.”
This feels like one of those covert military operations were they break in to steal intel or something.
“There are five sofas around a huge circle table with papers on it. They all seem to talk about how to kill the Black Dragon and what they noticed the dragon doing.”
“What has it been doing?”
“People take their sons and daughters, when fourteen, to the temple in under the capital building. It seems like people become hypnotized to think that the dragon is a benevolent god. For now, all they have written other than that is just scribbles on a town map.
Oh, I found the stairs. Wait. There is a light coming from the next floor. We might have to take some people out. Rune, can I have one of those invisibility amulets?”
The people around Rune looked at him in confusion as he fished around his storage and pulled out two necklaces with a white gem inside. He crawled over to the edge of the roof and dropped both of them to Hika who promptly headed over to Rena.
“Thanks. I will head down now. Hika will be behind me to cover me… There are four people hunched over a table. Each had a shovel or hoes at their side. I can’t see the table though, but their clothes seem to be regular clothes, but have hoods sewn into them.
I can hear them talking about something… ‘We should go in from the side. The priests won’t notice us if we distract them from the front.’ ‘What about those new people? I heard that they had a lot of weapons.’ ‘They don’t look like they came from any nearby villages… I wonder who they are.’... They stopped talking after that. They wrapped up some papers and went to the floor below.”
Hika spoke up while looking around the floor.
“I couldn’t see before, but it looks like there are many tables along the wall and there are many posters and papers hanging from the walls. The table is full of papers talking about attack plans on the large building we saw earlier.”
Rune was getting tired and urged them on. He was going to send four people in as loudly as possible to scare the people inside. First, though, he had to tell Hika and Rena.
A while later, Hika spoke into the microphone. She seemed somewhat anxious.
“Uh, we are set. It seems that everyone in the building is in this room.”
Rune jumped off of the roof and called over Elisa, Rouna, and Erin with him as he walked up to the door. He creaked it open and headed down to the next floor. He moved down the stair with the other three and noticed a door at the end of the staircase.
He promptly kicked it open as loudly as possible and started to run down the next flight of stairs. His plan was to scare the rebels and force them to hole up in one room where Rena and Hika would capture them.
Rena started to describe the pandemonium around her as she and Hika crept around the group.
“They are running around and are scared. They are locking all the doors and covering up their plans. We can get them now.”
Rena took out her chained kamas and easily wrapped up over half of the people in the room. Everyone was startled at the chain suddenly appearing and a rope, used by Hika, wrapping around the rest of them.
Rune walked down the last flight of stair and encountered a boarded up doorway. He reached out towards it and froze it. Then he threw a light punch and it shattered. He noticed that the people who were wrapped up were scared of the wood freezing over and it exploding.
“So, tell me, what is this scheme to kill the Black Dragon. If it is good, I will help in a weeks time. If it’s bad, well then, I guess I’ll kill it myself.”
The person, Ogyi, was bound in a separate chain where he was sat in a chair. He saw Rune and started to speak.
“We-I can show y-you if you help!”
“Sure.”
Rune released the chains around him and made him talk.
“I-in one week, the “god” will come and we have a small chance as this will be the time that it hypnotizes people into believing in itself. I am scheduled to go in two weeks ‘cuz I’m turning 14 soon.
We will stop it then. When it is busy hypnotizing, we will kill it ‘cuz it will be too busy to attack or defend. It focuses solely on hypnotizing. We can kill it there.”
“Good. Let’s do it.”