She looked through the documents on the table again, gathering up a number of them that had notes about criminal movements. The city had no good way in particular to track people's movement, with no great surveillance apparatus or system of cameras or such. A lot of what she had laid out in front of her was basically hearsay; guards or officials having taken note of places suspected criminals frequented. She was able to get a long and somewhat sketchy list of places to check out compiled, which she would like to cross check against what Blood found.

Beth spent the next four hours going over documents, reviewing most of what was in the room. Her enhanced INT and WIS, which she had boosted to forty, combined with other improvements such as the elixirs, gave her near-perfect recall and much clearer insight. Despite having read the equivalent of multiple books, she was able to remember all the information easily, as well as begin making a few connections between different points, such as which criminals moved on which day for what reason.

Blood returned a few hours later, managing to let herself back in without issue thanks to her rather high DEX. She padded around the table and sat by the chair Beth had previously used, seemingly not tired in the least. Beth joined her after tidying up the table and files she had been at the tail end of reviewing, sitting in the well-padded chair when she was ready.

"What did you find?" she asked.

'A lot and very little at the same time,' Blood replied. 'I was able to narrow down three of the places that we suspect are hideouts in the Labor District to just one, though there are several other places that are suspicious. At the same time, I can eliminate quite a number of suspects from the files; not that they're not criminals, just that they are not associated with our current target.'

"Excellent work, Blood," Beth said, ruffling the wolf's thick mane. "It's somewhat late in the afternoon, but I don't mind working at night, and I don't know how long we have. Let's head out and see who we can catch and what we can find."

The two left the room before leaving the city hall entirely, making their way from the City Center to the area known as the Labor District. Beth let Blood take the lead throughout, following along as the wolf confidently slipped down alleys and side streets. Beth took note of the population as they walked, a fairly diverse mix of humans and elves, with a handful of dwarves thrown in. Most people seemed to be happy going about their day, though there was a certain tension she picked up on as she looked closer. Hunched shoulders, slightly too quick movements, and multiple wary glances around; all signs that people were a bit more on edge than what one would expect from such an apparently peaceful and prosperous city.

Blood eventually halted them in a narrow but mostly clean alley, looking out upon a main road that was a little narrow than some of the others. It was also almost devoid of traffic, even with there still being plenty of light left in the day. Beth took a quick glance around, her speed enough that even someone close to her level might only catch a blur in the corner of their eye if they weren't expressly watching for her. What she saw matched what she would expect from such a stereotypical scenario and area; a set of burly, rough-looking types guarded the door to a moderate sized warehouse just half a block to their right, glowering at anything and everything.

"I take it this is our first target?" Beth asked quietly after she had stepped back slightly in the alleyway.

'Indeed. It's a location that matches not just the patterns of being used for something nefarious, with how well it's guarded, and the way deliveries and purchases seem to be hidden, but also matches many of the people,' Blood replied. 'The two out front right now, for instance, are two of our suspected targets, and they have a smell of some strange chemical about them. It's faint, but I can detect it even from this alley.'

"What's the plan, you think? Go in hot and heavy, or try a different approach?" Beth inquired, still keeping her voice quite low.

'I will circle around the back, sister. I don't believe there's anyone in there who could pose a threat to you. We should be more concerned about them running away,' Blood answered.

"I appreciate the confidence, but let's not get too cocky quite yet," Beth replied softly. "Go ahead and circle around the building. I'll wait a minute before making a racket. If somebody runs out the back, even better, follow after them."

'Ah, I see. You want to track their movements under stress. See if they go running to the main base,' Blood replied with a nod before slinking off into the shadows.

Beth waited for about three minutes, likely more than the incredibly nimble and surprisingly stealthy wolf needed, but she would rather be safe than sorry. Once she was confident that Blood would be in position, she strolled out onto the street, hands swinging by her sides and head held high, looking at everything around her. It certainly wasn't the attitude that a lot of the low-level, fast-moving citizens took when moving around some of the less savory areas of town, causing the guards to alert on her, though only after a moment. It appeared they weren't entirely fools, but they weren't the sharpest people she had yet encountered.

Beth walked right up to the doors of the warehouse without any contest but was stopped there by the guard on the right. He was a tall and heavyset human with some kind of bulky clothing, something like the heavy padding of a gambeson everywhere but his chest and upper back, which were protected by a solid mana copper chestpiece. Beth gave the equipment a fairly critical eye as the guard was holding up his hand, noticing the hammer-work seemed a little rough and hasty, while the copper itself was somewhat thin. It would provide decent protection against weaker beasts or a sapient opponent that wasn't particularly strong, but it was the same as wearing cheesecloth in front of her.

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"Halt!" the tough practically yelled in her face. "You can't be goin' in here like that, little missy. If you're lost, we'd be happy to give you some help."

He finished the statement with a glance at his partner, a slight leer forming on both their faces. Beth couldn't help but repress a slight shudder, causing the men's expressions to twist slightly further, but she decided not to just start swinging. Best that she at least attempt to confirm some details before going in for the kill.

"You guys part of the Yellow Leaves?" Beth asked, knowing that no one had ever accused her of subtlety and deciding to just play into that.

"The fuck are you?" the second guard asked, his expression shifting as his mouth drew into a grim line and his eyes hardened. The first guard had grabbed hold of the hilt of the shortsword on his waist and proceeded to loosen it in the sheath as he also frowned at her.

"I'm with pest control," Beth replied with a smirk. "I was told there's a big infestation around here."

The two guards looked at each other, confused for just a second, taking a moment to process that they were the pests she was referring to. When they seemed to 'get' it, they both drew their blades, the one on the left starting to say, "The Yellow Leaves won't tolerate a whor-" but couldn't get the full insult out before Beth's left fist buried itself to her wrist in his gut. She hadn't empowered the strike, but had flared Beastly Body as she hit, delivering a massive amount of force into the opponent's weakly armored gut.

As the guard on the left staggered and vomited half his guts out, Beth lazily deflected a sweep from the guard on the right with the back of her right armored gauntlet. She hadn't bothered to draw her blade, and didn't think it would be necessary to finish these two. With the guard's blade shoved up and to the side, she twisted on her lead foot and delivered a left straight punch with her entire arm fully empowered by Crush, impacting the guard in the center of the chest. It was the first time Beth had consciously made use of the skill since she had hit Silver[0] with it, and the first time she had fully empowered a limb with it since the upgrade.

She noticed several things right away, the most prominent of them being how the guards chest exploded as if an artillery shell had just slammed into it. The copper chestplate didn’t just bend, but instead shattered upon contact from her fist, the pieces ripping through the guard's chest and slamming into what remained of the rear plate. The shards were followed quite quickly by Beth's armored fist, which slammed into and through the guards sternum and heart before blowing apart his spine.

Beth winced at the gore but didn't slow down, using her free arm to give the now-corpse a powerful shove as she pulled her left arm back, withdrawing it from what little was left of his chest. As her arm came free, she used it to block a strike from the remaining guard before punching his hands with her right fist, breaking a few fingers and moving his sword even further out of position. She took advantage of the opening she had just created to punch the tough in the face. Hard.

The blow rocked his brain, causing him to flail slightly and stagger a half step back into the wall of the building. Beth hadn't empowered the strike, but her huge STR stat still led to a blow to the head from her mana steel clad knuckles being quite devastating, particularly to someone not wearing a helmet or faceguard. Beth didn't pause, following up on her first strike with a rapid series of steel-clad blows.

It wasn't even the punches to the face that wound up being the thug's undoing, but a quick elbow following a combination as she batted his sword aside again. The blow snapped his head back and to the side, the popping crunch of his neck snapping followed by a notification of the kill confirming his death. Beth dismissed the notification and tried the door, finding it locked, which wasn't exactly surprising. The fight had only taken a dozen seconds or so, but it had made enough noise that she was sure somebody inside was alerted at this point.

Deciding to continue with her current path, she drew back her right arm and charged it up with mana before slamming it into the locked door. The second thing she noticed about her new level of the skill, now that she wasn't immediately in combat, was the amount of mana it consumed with a fully charged hit. As she had leveled and grown, her mana reservoir had increased slightly which, combined with her increasing proficiency in adjusting the mana used when activating a skill, had allowed her to fight with her skills for quite a long time. It appeared Silver rank of a skill had proportional increases in both mana usage and damage dealt. She assumed it might also increase range or area of effect, but Beth had no skills that operated at greater than body range.

Luckily for her, she had practiced manipulating the amount of mana used when activating a skill extensively, as well as grown quite proficient at manipulating where and when the mana was concentrated within her body. The new Silver rank, with a fully charged hit, used nearly ten percent of her mana, but the results spoke for themselves. There was no way she would have been able to shatter the first guard's armor, destroy his chest, and crush his organs with a single strike if Crush were still Copper[9]. Thanks to her skill with manipulating mana, she was confident that she could still fight for long periods of time, including using the trick of just empowering her knuckles that she had figured out in her fugue state.

Dismissing the thoughts as she entered the warehouse, she looked around in the entryway as she drew her blade, noting that it was a moderate sized room with two doors leading out. One was directly across form her and looked like it led into the main warehouse, while the other opened to her right, perhaps into an office area. Beth moved to the side door first, thinking that clearing something that might be smaller in area would be better, as well as the fact that the area might contain useful information on the gang. She decided it would be better to continue not being subtle about the whole assault, charging the door with her sword in one hand and one hand free.

She hit the door at a run, smashing out a slightly empowered left fist, the mana steel and skill pulverizing the non-reinforced door as Beth moved through. She quickly took in the room, seeing only a single person sitting at a table off to the side, a bookshelf and a large box the only other furnishings in the room. Beth altered her path as she continued moving, running into the man as she swung her sword around from her right, aiming directly for his throat. The man tried to both rise up from the chair and block with his left arm, fumbling with his sword with his right hand. Beth adjusted for the angle, both correcting for him standing up, as well as taking into account his raised arm, able to weave her blade around his defenses and sink it directly into his throat.

She finished the criminal off with a massive flex of her arms, turning as the door on the far end of the room burst open, practically knocked from its hinges. The hulking brute who barreled through only took enough time to look at the scene before charging her, attempting to mash her head with a large, heavy hammer held in one hand. Beth's feeling of slight guilt for her aggressive posture so far was diminished by the highly aggressive, lethal, in fact, response that she was met with by an even semi-prepared gang member.

She responded in kind, countering his swing with a swing of her own. They immediately exchanged a series of rapid strikes and counterstrikes, Beth easily able to hold her own, something that both surprised and angered the man, if his slightly widened eyes and growing frown were any indication of his current mood. He made a move to grab Beth, either by the face or throat, using his free hand as she parried a swing to make a swipe at her. He was rewarded for his efforts with a few cracked fingers, as Beth had no problem transitioning to a one-handed grip on her greatsword mid-fight, using her freed left hand to solidly punch the gang member's encroaching mitt.