A potential blockade was a scenario we were prepared for. The employees went to the storage, rapidly pulled the premade palisade walls, and started to turn our territory into a small fortress. I had already made them run drills for this exact purpose, and it would only take fifteen minutes to complete.
However, I didn't stay to watch them, but changed my disguise before slipping away.
What I had just done was a declaration of war. Even though I hadn't killed anyone, I had disrespected the Night Blades, and did it very publicly.
Only the fact that the Greens didn't want to escalate the situation yet because their mysterious objectives completely prevented it from escalating into an instant battle.
Pointing at one of their agents and blaming him for arranging an assassination was a good start … but ultimately, it was just a start. Greens could easily conceal their relationship with him, and paint him as a lone operator trying to get revenge.
Assassinating him and blaming it on me was also a smart option.
I had no intention of allowing them to cover it up.
That was why, I was going through the outer town, ignoring the rapid mobilization of the Night Blades and instead looking for familiar faces of Greens. Since they targeted my organization to create some smoke screens, it was only fair for me to repeat the favor.
With the secret dungeon entrance about to open, I wouldn't say no to everyone paying attention to other stuff and ignore the location of Jertann and the rest.
As I searched for the Greens, I wasn't running around randomly. I wasn't an amateur, and I hadn't wasted all my time in the town for nothing. I had already identified several safe houses belonging to different groups, my Memory enough to guide me toward the ones that had been frequented by the people I remembered belonging to the Greens from the camp.
The silent ones that did nothing but observe…
I went through several of them, for once not restricting my usage of Speed, hoping that Concealment would be enough to at least prevent the others from recognizing me as I rushed.
I was trying to see which of those safe houses had the most movement. As it happened, the town was showing signs of increased movement, but no clashes yet.
I needed to find a sensitive location for the Greens to trigger some fighting, or the Night Blades would start targeting us.
Five minutes later, I reached one of the safe houses I had identified before, just to a couple familiar faces rushing in silently, their expression stony, yet not panicking. Hopefully, it was an important location.
As they entered through the door, I moved toward the window. I put my hand on the glass, radiated off my mana, and felt the presence of a rune connected to the latch. It was small and weak, so I didn't expect it to be a trap. Probably just an alarm, I thought as I reached and broke the rune.
Whoever crafted it didn't expect to keep away a thief capable of magic.
The moment I entered, I started hearing several voices, arguing loudly. Clearly, the alarm rune wasn't the only magical attribute of the building. They also had a silencing barrier up — which was good, as it increased the likelihood of the building being important.
"— I don't care if it's too early. The Night Blades have already started poking around, trying to catch our agents. We need to do something."
"Why are they reacting that fast? Isn't it just an unfounded complaint."
"They are afraid of Artmiss. The last time they had a scuffle with that old man, it cost them quite a bit. And that moron just had to panic and run away. I hate working with talentless locals."
"Do we even know who that old man is? It's not the first time he's made trouble for us. He even managed to sneak a priest capable of establishing a dungeon under our noses. It wasn't supposed to happen."
Interesting, I thought as I moved to the corridor carefully, making sure there was no one on my path. However, as I listened to them, my frown deepened. I didn't expect their biggest problem to be the dungeon. It immediately increased the danger of their existence.
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The fact that they were invested in blocking the dungeon meant only one thing. They were here to deal with the Duke Yoentia; though, probably just to make him fail rather than to kill him. There was no other realistic option with the timing of their appearance.
I might have assumed that they were working for House Maell, but it didn't work well with the timing of their appearance.
I moved lower as I continued to listen. They stayed silent for a moment before continuing to speak.
"He's an opportunist trying to use the changes to his benefit. I told you guys we should have gotten rid of him before things got to this level."
"We don't have any assets here that could take him down. We tried a few times, but he turned out to be better than we expected, and we only wasted our resources."
"Just a dagger a few measly stat stones. Hardly a treasure," the other one countered, the dismissive nature of his tone clear. It forced me to upgrade my estimation of their capability further.
"And how do you plan to bring more items without rousing suspicion of the agents of the kingdom? We still don't have enough connections here. Any resource counts. And we can't afford to any more on someone unimportant just because you're annoyed. Unless you're willing to go the headquarters and manage to convince one of the masters here, it won't happen."
"Yeah, like a master would even deign to travel to this godforsaken place."
"They won't, because it's not important. We already knew that one way or another, the Duke would be able to invite someone to build a dungeon. That's why we're blocking his trade channels."
"We're lucky that the rest of his family is doing their best to help us…" another murmured.
With that comment, they fell silent once more, and when they started again, they were focusing on the operational details, like exactly how which part of their organization they would have to cut off to suppress the suspicion and position it like the assassination was the arrangement of a jealous rival trying to get more bribe.
Not a bad plan, which scared me. Other than their carelessness about the security of their safe house — assuming their magical protections would be enough — they were smooth and professional … and the mentions of a larger headquarters made me even tenser.
Certainly not an organization that I wanted to deal with … but sooner or later, it would, as they didn't seem to be particularly forgiving. The only reason they were not focusing on me was that they had bigger problems.
I decided to give them some more … but first, I wanted to check their basement, which was protected by magic, this time more complicated.
I frowned as I examined it. Unlike the single magical rune, the door was blocked by a combined set of runes, one that was glowing not only more intensely, but also they were interconnected.
I doubted that my earlier trick would work.
Using the same path, I left the building, and started searching. Soon, I came across a large Night Blades patrol. "Sir, I just heard a few people talking about blowing the city in revenge," I said as I stood in front of them, churning my Charisma to the max to look trustworthy.
"Are you sure?" their leader asked immediately.
"Yes, they said it's their revenge for getting caught," I responded, this time adding a sense of urgency. Their state was already confused after getting several conflicting orders — the Night Blades didn't look particularly ready for an emergency — and the Charisma push was all they needed to rush toward the safe house.
I chuckled as I slipped into the building once more, already pulling one of the smoke pellets from my pouch. I waited until they smashed against the door.
"What's going on?" one of them asked.
"It's the guards. Nitka, you have the highest official rank. Go and stop them," another voice said.
The door opened, and an armored figure, dressed as a guard commander outfit of the inner town rushed out, no doubt to use his rank to stop the issue. Pity I had no intention of allowing that. I followed him through the corridor, Concealment helping me to avoid his attention.
And, just as they were about to meet with the Night Blades, I broke the smoke pellet and rushed forward, decapitating him.
Considering he was part of the group that already admitted to arranging my assassination, with clear intent to repeat it, I wasn't feeling particularly merciful.
Then, I kicked him toward the entrance, for the guards to find him. "They killed Commander Nitka. Kill all the traitors," I shouted.
"Kill them all," the guards shouted as they rushed into the smoke, with more courage than sense.
"Stop," a voice shouted from the meeting room, enhanced by Charisma to calm the guards. It would have worked as well, too bad I was there.
"Kill them all, they are traitors to Night Blades," I shouted from behind them, using my own Charisma.
Just like that, the ethereal presence of our Charisma clashed, the impact enough to make me shudder for a moment. It felt like a mental duel, pushing forward. He was not weak, his Charisma was easily in his forties.
Too bad he was facing me. In a direct confrontation, I was easily able to push his cloud away. I could feel that, while that conflict was going on, I couldn't affect the guards at the same time. It might have been if the difference was greater, but the relative weights of our pressure were close enough to prevent that.
Luckily, after the 'assassination' of their commander, they were already bloodthirsty enough to rush toward their secret meeting spot and attack them. With a chuckle, I rushed toward the basement, where I saw the door, and rapidly breaking the magical protections that kept the basement safe.
I felt a magical flare, which was likely an alarm, but I ignored that as I arrived at a nice treasury, several magical weapons, gold, and mana stones. They were rich enough.
"Someone is in the basement. Catch them," they shouted, but it was too late. I grabbed as much as I could carry … which was a lot under the circumstances, and rushed out. It made a spectacular sight, but I didn't care, directly rushing out of the town, moving fast enough not to be caught.
Leaving the mysterious Greens to their fight with the Night Blades.