The Lord's envoy didn't answer, seemingly absorbed by the view of the streets through the glass window. Cless thought about what was going on. Was she being kidnapped? Was this how a Princess was kidnapped? She always thought she would be carried away unconscious on a snowfield at night with the sound of tracker hounds after their trail. Cless had to admit but she had no idea how to kidnap a Princess. Besides, she was a Queen. In exile, but a Queen. Maybe the procedures to kidnap a queen were different. Who could know?

She knew the envoy was wary of her as if refusing to give a name wasn't enough. He would be an idiot not to and she was not in the business of underestimating her opponents. He was harmless, bound by her Skill. She decided to let the charade go on, just to figure out who was behind it.

She tapped one of the hidden pockets of her dress. A chip of the manor's fireplace was in that pocket, ready for a Hearth Recall spell. Even after giving [Brownie Magic] to Kurt, she knew she was still in range.

The carriage entered a warehouse. Cless started to put on her buffs. Mage Armor, Protection, Blessing. The man didn't notice or pretended to ignore her. His loss. Earth armor had to wait. She was in a wooden cage right now. She was glad she took the unarmed Skill back from Venaris. It was time to bend this man to her will. She chose to combine the [Intimidating Authority] Skill from the angry priest with the [Seductress' Charm] from Marion the betrayer nun. It was her best bet to solve this in a social manner without bloodshed.

Or she could just straight out talk to the man. He was already neutered.

"What is going to happen now? I'm rather busy if you don't mind." She asked him, pretending to be bored.

"We want the money you took from Clegane. Give us the money and you can walk free." He told her.

There was a calm in the man's voice that unsettled Cless. She knew he was bound by their previous agreement. He couldn't allow her to be harmed. It didn't mean he couldn't hand her over to someone that could. She had to assess how much of a threat he was.

"I want to make a test, would you let me? I'll punch next to your face, don't flinch."

He smirked and nodded. Cless threw a punch at him, intending to deflect it at the last moment. He didn't flinch and she stopped her fist right where she wanted. Cless withdrew her arm and smiled, averting his eyes. She knew he wasn't dangerous. Underdog didn't trigger. He was below level ninety-seven.

"Thank you," She told the envoy. "Now I know you are no danger to me. Protection! Blessing! Mage Armor!"

His eyes opened up a bit for a few moments. "Are you going to resist?" He asked, surprised.

She ignored his question and went back to the only reason she was entertaining him. He might be really working for the Lord. Maybe all this charade was a test.

"What about the deeds? Weren't you here for them?"

"I don't care about these deeds. I want the gold, girl. If you don't give us the gold we'll get that gnome friend of yours and..." The envoy did the only thing he couldn't. He threatened to hurt Venaris.

"NO!" Cless punched him and broke his nose.

The sudden movement shifted the air pressure and made the glass panes of the carriage to thump in their frames. She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and kicked the door out of its frame. The man flew out of the carriage with Cless coming a few seconds behind him. She looked around. Six people hiding in corners of the building, with hand crossbows. They were hiding in shadows but there was no such thing for her after she took Xander's Skill. She indexed the hiding thugs in her enemy inventory.

With a series of staggered twangs, six crossbow bolts flew in her direction. Cless spun and weaved around, dodging the bolts. Underdog didn't trigger. The envoy started to scream in pain, frozen in place by wracking spasms. She felt cold inside. Venaris.

'They threatened Venaris. I should eat their souls and gift their lifeforce to her', the thought floated in her mind.

She felt darkness flowing from the dark recesses of her mind and taunt her. Seeing red, Cless fired a Crystal Dart at the one nearest a window. The elongated shard pierced his stomach and went through. A second one took the Dart in the forehead. The man with a broken nose was getting on his feet. Cless wouldn't have it.

"Soften!"

The ground below the man became quicksilver. He sunk into the ground and disappeared, leaving him trapped inside the dirt and stone. The other men were almost with their crossbows ready despite her fearsome display. She darted between the bolts and fired two more Crystal Darts. Two kills. The others jumped around, using some technique to meld into the shadows. She lost track of them. Moments later Cless felt two crossbow bolts bounce off her dress, making small holes on the fabric. She retaliated with Crystal Darts, piercing their clothes as well. Both the front and the back of one of them in leather armor. And the person between these two cured leather pieces as well.

    For defeating 7 humans, you gained 10,271 kill and 14,000 Proficiency Experience points.

Cless checked the men, removing their hoods. She recognized the carriage's driver and footman. She had no time to waste. With a hand in his pocket, she touched the shard of the fireplace of her home.

"Hearth Recall!"

After a moment of disorientation, she found herself in her bedroom. Cless stormed out, yelling. "VENARIS!" She kept [Tremorsense] active and blinked down behind the stairs, barging into the kitchen.

"Venaris!"

The four of them were in there, cooking food. Cless stormed through her confused guild members and hugged the gnome, crying.

"You're hurting me! What is wrong, Cless? You are trembling!" Venaris protested, her feet dangling in the air.

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Chess sobbed, "They threatened you. I... I killed them."

She told them the story of her carriage kidnapping. Since she left with the warehouse closed, it would take some time for them to find the dead bodies. It felt like a test or an attack by some stupid and misinformed group. The Lord wouldn't order such low levels to attack her. He knew she could withstand at least one blow from that Knight. She made some calculations and figured out their average level. Between forty-three and forty-eight. Strong but far from enough to take her even on a bad day.

After Venaris wriggled free of Cless' embrace, the guild master looked around and remembered she had someone to punish. "Where is Heimdall?"

"He's at the orchard, helping..."

She didn't hear what Vic had to say. Cless Blinked to the back of the house as far as she could and ran to the orchard with her fists balled.

"Heimdall!" She yelled. The former smuggler appeared shortly after.

"You called, miss?"

"You never let anyone inside without letting me know first. I don't care if the Church Patriarch shows up at my door. Nobody enters if I don't say so. Look, you work for me. If you can't have my best interests in mind at all times, I'll let you go."

He didn't answer. He did meet her gaze, so at least that was good.

"Follow me and serve me faithfully, and greatness will be on your path, Heimdall. Cross me and you'll regret it. This I promise you."

He lowered his head, "I'll keep your words in mind, mistress."

Cless closed her eyes and focused on her [Tremorsense]. She could sense a lot of people going back and forth and her guild still in the kitchen. There were those creatures deep in the catacombs again. Her thoughts went back to the envoy. The fact was unless she did something to that vault people would keep coming for the gold. The envoy was awfully well-informed though.

"Go home, Heimdall. We'll manage the rest of the day without you. Take Kurt with you so he can bring back the key. Come back tomorrow with breakfast."

Cless had to do something, she felt her being brimming with energy and she had to discharge it. She Blinked back and entered her house through the back door.

"I'm going to the bank. You all please stay on your toes. We might be attacked. I'm sending Heimdall home without the keys to the gate. Kurt, go with him and bring back the keys."

She left, running through the backyard and Blinking into the graveyard out of the sight of people visiting the graves. Cless moved to the back of the Church and another Blink put her in a side alley. She joined the traffic hidden by her cloak and made her way to the bank.

After talking to the clerk and proving her identity with the guild charter, she was led to the vaults with the clerk and two bulky guards. They had short swords but those were for show. These bank guards were deadly mercenaries before they were hired by the bank. Worse yet, rumor had it the bank had a special class for them that made them even deadlier inside the premises.

"We received several inquiries regarding the vault in your trust, guild master," The clerk commented. She didn't bother to ask by whom, she knew he wouldn't tell.

She informed him of what he needed to know, and only that. "I'm moving the documents to another vault. This time the trustee should be the Lord himself."

"I'm afraid—" Cless cut him off.

"I know the trustee has to be present so you can confirm their identity, but it is the City Lord we are talking about. I don't think you'll have to confirm his identity. You can even let him withdraw the documents by proxy if you have to. I don't care."

The clerk opened the vault, a small stone room smaller than the closet she lived in when she moved into Karen's inn. A bed wouldn't fit inside. She took the boxes of documents and the ledger with the inventory of the deeds. She left the last crate, the one with all the coins.

"What about the coins, guild master?"

She glared at him. "Did you look inside my vault?"

"Of course not, guild master. Doing that would be against the bank's regulations."

Cless sighed, resigned. She was going to kill another person. "Do you swear on your life that you didn't look inside my vault and also didn't tell anyone what's inside?"

"Yes, of course. If I am lying, may I fall dead right here and now!" He said in a soft voice.

"If you are telling the truth, I will answer your questions. Do you understand the consequences?" She asked, turning her Skill on.

"Absolutely. My lips are sealed."

Those were his last words. His legs' muscles lost their tone and he crumbled down. Cless took a step back and raised her palms in front of her shoulders. "I did nothing."

It was impossible to use magic or a technique inside the vaults stealthily. Skills were an entirely different beast, but there was one special quirk of Skills.

There were no Skills that could directly harm people. All Skills were "beneficial" by design. That is why her enhanced sense of touch or smell didn't overwhelm her with pain or a strong stench. Instead, these Skills granted her a minor resistance to those things.

Without an attack, spell or technique, there was no way anyone would pin his death on her. She didn't even earn Experience from their wager.

One of the guards nudged the clerk's body with his foot. The two men shared a look and nodded. Their jobs was to keep the valuables safe, clients safe, and deal with troublemakers in this order. She just talked. Cless had no doubt these guards wouldn't act against her. She smiled at them and waited for their reaction.

"You are in the clear." The other guard said with a detached tone.

"I want to take the last crate. Then I'll remove my lease on the vault."

"Go ahead."

She went inside and moved the coins to a deeppocket along with the accounting book with the monetary transactions. Clegane was a meticulous man, one that couldn't help but make a paper trail. That's why they had so much confidence in his person. She didn't take the money from Clegane. It wasn't his, to begin with. Not even the Lord's. She was keeping the money from the City coffers, the rightful owner. But every single interaction made her less inclined to give it back. Some shitty official kidnapping her, taking away her materials, not giving her drinks, burning her clothes, getting a bank employee involved, and being jerks in general. The list went on and on.

She wasn't the goody two shoes recluse girl straight out of the church anymore. Past Cless would hand over the gold, no questions asked. Present Cless? She was going to sit on the gold as a pregnant dragon would. Maybe use it to relocate people out of the slums and into her parish. Now that was a good idea. She saw how the non-humans were living in the slums. In her parish, she could give them occupations. A decent house.

Cless shook her head. The thought of getting back at them quenched her anger.

She took the crate and shifted some deeds from the other boxes, placing the ledger on top. Another clerk came while she was inside stashing coins in the dimensional pocket of her clothes and the body of the other Clerk was nowhere to be seen.

"Guild master, I'm sorry you had to witness an employee die from a sudden malady." He bowed to her at a full straight angle.

"These crates are all that was inside my former vault. I want to start another trust vault, with the Lord as a trustee. He is not present, but is that going to be a problem?"

"None at all. We have the Lord's identity method with us. Should I notify the Lord of this change?"

"Of course. I will need a statement with the contents deposited, so we need to go through the documents one by one."

"We can use the same room."

They spent the next two or three hours taking note of all the hundred and seventy-nine deeds. The ledger helped a lot, as the information inside was accurate. Cless took her copy of the vault statement, sealed by the bank. A second copy would be delivered to the Lord and a third was for the bank. With that, she held nothing the town could touch.

Cless moved out, escorted by the guards. Using her Skills, she took note of everyone and their facial expressions. She reached the middle of the bank's lobby and made a U-turn. Her sudden movement allowed her to see who was there to watch her. She glared at them and instead of risking their cover, they moved along. When there were none she could identify, Cless went to one of the standard booths.

The bank teller greeted her with a business smile, "Welcome, miss. How may I help you?"

"I'm guild master Cless of the Blind Eye. I want to make a deposit to my personal account."