My decision to meet with the city lord immediately had led me to a waiting room. It was stocked well with food and drinks, and there were two servants ready to serve for any need that might have been prepared already.

But, I was kept waiting for hours.

It wasn't a surprising development. I didn't have any friends in the city, only enemies; including the city lord himself. If it wasn't the veneer of honor that had defined most of their life, they might have actually tried to kill me.

Of course, their honor was more cosmetic than anything, so I expected several attempts against my life. Otherwise, I wouldn't have delayed my visit until I reached level eighty, confident enough to avoid and escape any method they might try on me.

The door to the waiting room opened almost four hours later, and a man entered. This time, not even a knight, a calculated insult to test my limits. "My lord, I'm sorry to inform you that the city lord is dealing with a last-minute emergency, and he won't be able to meet with you today. He asked me to convey his apologies."

I said nothing for a moment, but tensed up with a pure, burning anger covering my face as I grabbed the edge of my seat. The poor man flinched, ducking his head like that would prevent me from cutting his head. Then, I took a deep breath, and the anger was stuffed back. "Bring me to my residence," I said, acting like I had barely held myself back.

Naturally, I didn't care about the so-called insult in the slightest, but they expected me to react. My incredible success during the battle clearly brought some expectations to them, and playing into those would make my life easier.

To my surprise, the man didn't immediately start moving either. "T-there's a problem in your residence as well, my lord."

"What happened?"

"There was an accident, my lord. Some servants triggered a defensive ward by accident, and it damaged several residences." I paused and took a deep breath, like I was trying to keep my fury down. "But, we have arranged an inn for you?"

"Where?" I asked.

"I-in the middle ring, my lord," the guy said, trembling badly as he spoke. Poor guy. The worst thing, his fears weren't unfounded. I could kill him without a word, and it'd only be moderately troubling. A fine, maybe some other punishment that was merely a slap on the wrist, and that was with the city lord and the other nobles being determined to cause trouble for me.

"Just describe the location and I'll handle it," I said.

"You can't go around without an escort, my lord," he replied.

"Really?" I responded, my voice cold. This time, I used my Charisma to reinforce the message, the combined weight hitting him hard to make him actually tremble in fear.

"I-it's not appropriate for a man of your stature to walk around without an escort, my lord. We can't guarantee your safety."

"It's not a problem," I answered, confident and daring even as I walked away. It was a relatively simple trap, one that was supposed to absolve them from the blame if someone attacked me. However, while it created some kind of plausible deniability for them, there were limits to it. For example, it wouldn't be enough to explain my death.

My best guess: they wanted to create an excuse to test my limits.

Listening to Marquis Somaton had already revealed to me that a Domain was something important. I might not know exactly what it was apart from it being somehow linked to Stat Awakening, but its significance was clear, considering that, just by showing progress toward it, I had forced the Kingdom of Somaton to change their strategy.

I was happy to grant them an opportunity. I left the inner ring, but I didn't go toward the inn they arranged for me. Instead, I went toward the port, which was the most important target of my visit.

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I needed to set up a smuggling ring.

I wasn't planning to smuggle anything. I just needed to create one so as not to reveal our secret forges. Of course, I wasn't naive enough to think that we could hide their presence forever. Sooner or later, their presence would be revealed.

Later was far more preferable.

As I walked toward the port, quite a few people around me gossiped about my presence, some smart enough to do so from a distance, where they were sure that I couldn't hear them — but my Perception allowed me to detect it — while the others recklessly did it where I could hear, their words just insulting enough to feel deliberate.

Their presence had the fingerprints of the city lord on it.

I gave occasional signs of anger. Nothing more obvious than a twitch of a finger or a tense expression, enough to convince my hidden observers — their presence caught as easily as the gossips at a distance — that I was bothered by the constant annoyance, but failing to do so.

I expected something more direct to bother me before I arrived at the port, but I had been allowed to move without a problem. Even the guards that were defending the gates allowed me to pass after checking my sigil, and I found myself in the port area.

I stopped for a moment to examine the layout of the port which represented the only access point between the border colony and the rest of the world.

Both the port and the attached marina were more compact than I had expected. The port area only allowed ten cargo ships to be unloaded at the same time. Which, at first, felt small, but as I watched the speed the ships were being unloaded, that disbelief faded.

There wasn't a need for complicated cranes or other bulky equipment when dock workers could easily lift crates that weighed in tons. Strength was convenient for more things than just battling. The dock workers moved with a surprising speed as they removed crates from the ship, filling the assigned wooden carriages, which then went to one of the three gates.

The same applied for the visitors as well. The ships not only brought on cargo, but people. Some were directly brought away by the soldiers, but a majority were gathered into some kind of temporary dormitory that clearly also functioned as a recruitment office. People arrived — with appropriate permits — to recruit people from there, some easily finding a job, the others waiting desperately.

Another nice vulnerability for me to exploit in the future.

Then, they went to visit one of the three gates, just like the cargo, and the guards examined them carefully, trying to understand their level, class, and their divine patron.

Of the three gates, two of them were connected to the outer ring. The third one — which I used — was connected to the middle ring, though it had far fewer carts lining in front of it, and they were going through a more detailed check. Not just in terms of dangerous objects, but to make sure the content matched with the permits.

Smuggling was treated as a serious problem.

It wasn't too much of a surprise. The sea trade was the primary way the royal family exerted their control. Add in their attempt to suffocate the princess' new duchy before it could start operating, and it surprised me that the security hadn't been tightened even more.

After watching the gate guards going through the delivery contents for a while — and identifying several ways to bypass their standard procedures — I turned my attention to the next stage.

The defenses.

The first thing I noticed was the security system of the port being partially shared with the city. The wards of the middle ring extended to cover a part of the marina, exclusive for the use of the royal fleet. Both the military escorts, and the cargo ships that belonged to the military.

Another, bigger marina extended from the port, which wasn't connected to the city wards, but surrounded by an additional bubble of mana. It was strong enough to keep back a few Lord Beasts if they attacked the city despite the patrol ships that moved back and forth a mile away from the city, but not enough to defend against a stronger beast wave.

The sea trade might have been a profitable business, but it was risky, even after they arrived at their destination.

Their misfortune was an opportunity for me, as I could see it wasn't impossible to sneak through said ward, though not easy either. It would require a combination of stats: Concealment to avoid the sentries and patrol ships, Intelligence and Attunement to breach the ward without triggering an alarm, Speed to let the breach disappear in less than a second to make it look like some kind of a glitch.

It was a pity that I didn't dare to do the same against Oniphia. The city wards had too many mages maintaining it to pull the same trick — unless I was willing to dump my unused stat points into Intelligence and Attunement, which wasn't something I was ready to commit to.

I had all that was necessary, and more, making it a reasonably achievable heist once I approached it from the sea. I stayed at the port, walking around while I carefully memorized the important details about the port by using my Perception and Memory to the limit. Some simple, like which companies employed which worker; some more complicated, like which guards were receiving bribes to bypass some of the security checks.

Perception extended my range, true, but it was a lifetime of smuggling experience that allowed me to catch the signs that others might have dismissed as ordinary, giving me the founding blocks of a fake smuggling heist.

The operational details were gathered. Now, all I needed was a patsy to take the blame.