Information is power.

After watching the building for a few minutes I could see that from time to time groups of men came and went, possibly making more dirty money deliveries; already near midnight, I began to prowl looking for a good entry point.

The building was surrounded in front and behind by some men, so I decided to enter from above, I retired a few meters and through an alley, I climbed to the roof of another building, then I began to move from ceiling to ceiling very quietly, I finally reached the ceiling of my goal, I peeked through a window and in one room there were two people arguing inside, they were guarding what looked like a safe-deposit box.

Prepare my blowpipe, some darts, a fairly powerful numbing poison, and quickly attack both men, before they realized what was happening they fell unconscious to the ground, the stage was already set, I retrieved the darts and violently opened the safe-deposit box, I quickly took the content and checked out the same way I entered.

That should be enough to shake the hornet's nest, now we just had to wait and see the reaction, after a few minutes someone went up to verify the strange stillness upstairs and it became a scandal, a man who appeared to be the local leader of the thugs looked very upset and scared.

What followed would be a snowball effect, the secondary echelons of an organization are always accountable to the upper echelons, which doesn't change even in a criminal organization, the idea was to create a scandal big enough to be able to find out the location of one of the Dukes.

Finally, the man who seemed to be in charge of the building came out escorted by two other thugs, I guessed from his nervous face that he was going to report on the robbery, after following him through several alleys I finally reached an elegant three-story building located in the commercial district, after knocking on the door several times they were reluctantly greeted by a man wearing a luxurious robe like a merchant and ushered inside.

I went to an alley and climbed on the roof of one of the buildings next door, finally, after a few turns I was able to find a window through which to look, the man and his two escorts waited nervously in a corridor, then suddenly the man dressed as a merchant appeared again but now accompanied by several large and elegantly dressed bodyguards, they quickly took the waiting thugs by force and wrestled them into what appeared to be a warehouse.

"No matter what world one is in, it seems that certain things never change", I whispered to myself, it was obvious what would happen since trust in a criminal organization is very ambiguous when there is a theft or a lack of money or assets of the organization, the first suspect will be the person (s) who were in charge, so these poor devils will probably be tortured into confessing about the theft.

I looked for a new location, the back of the building was a large warehouse with thick walls and a very high ceiling, it was undoubtedly the ideal place to carry out any dirty work with total discretion, there were no windows but there was a large skylight in the middle of the ceiling from which you could see almost the entire interior of the cellar.

The men screamed and trembled, tried to resist but the bodyguards held each of them tightly, finally, after a few minutes of waiting an elegantly dressed man appeared carrying a finely decorated Rapier on his waist, without a doubt, it must be one of the Dukes, he exuded a menacing aura of a crime boss.

The Duke slowly unsheathed his Rapier, his movements were exaggeratedly dramatic, undoubtedly seeks to intimidate those wretches as much as possible, first I stab one of the thugs in the leg leaving him screaming in pain, his other two victims trembled with fear and fell to their knees.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

While the thug who received the leg wound began to lose blood the bodyguards and the man dressed as a merchant began to laugh maliciously, finally, the boss of the thugs couldn't take it anymore and on his knees, he began to beg, so I decided it was time to make my move, quickly rummaging in my backpack and pulling out a small jar of spherical clay.

With the help of alchemy and a bit of runic magic he had created the equivalent of a thunder grenade, he could throw it to explode on contact, or activate the compound rune to make it explode in midair after a short delay, as no one in this world had any idea what a grenade was 《FlashBang》 they were very effective, prepare my weapons, several poisoned darts that I would throw with my hands and check my swords.

A simple spark rune carved into the clay started a chain reaction that caused the mixture to explode after approximately three seconds, inject some magic into the rune, I broke the skylight glass and threw the grenade through the skylight after waiting a second and a half, the noise caused by breaking the glass caught the attention of everyone inside who stared at the small object falling from the ceiling and then there was a huge "BANG!", and a blinding flash, I immediately jumped inside.

Everyone screamed as they were stunned by the roar and blinded by the glare, I went straight to the man armed with the Rapier, quickly stab him in both shoulders and then both thighs, this way I would make sure that I could neither fight nor escape, I threw three darts with paralyzing poison at those who were being held, it would be a problem if they ran away making a scandal, I also wanted to question them thoroughly later, I also threw another dart at the man dressed as a merchant, he would certainly get good information if he interrogated him, I then quickly stabbed the six bodyguards in their throats one after the other while they were still stunned, assuring me that they were fatal injuries, with that everything should be solved.

Or so I thought, I turned around to secure the man armed with the Rapier when the instincts in my head screamed danger, I instantly threw myself to the ground and rolled to the side, two daggers flew past where I was just a moment ago, they were aimed directly at my back, as soon as I finished rolling and jumped back to distance myself from the new threat, I was totally taken by surprise.

The man dressed as a merchant had thrown the daggers with a skill that did not correspond to his appearance, "I CURSE YOU!", he yelled and with a quick movement tore off the luxurious robe he was wearing revealing underneath a gloomy cloth and leather suit that gave him a ninja-like appearance, "You dare attack Orlan the Assassin!", said the man in a threatening tone, "shit I lost my advantage", I whispered to myself, he had not foreseen this, the supposed duke was only a decoy to keep appearances while the real one remained hidden.

Orlan unsheathed what appeared to be two short scimitars from his back and examined me carefully, meanwhile, I took a fighting stance with my two Gladius, it was a bad situation, an opponent with unknown abilities stood in front of me, we looked at each other tensely, Orlan already had a rough idea of my abilities, while I was totally unaware of his, he also seemed to have the ability to hide his aura so he could not accurately determine whether or not he posed a great threat.

"Why doesn't it move", I thought, then Orlan stretched his arms forward and exclaimed, "Oh mighty Twinkle, lay waste to the enemy in front of me!", and two huge balls of electricity appeared in front of him shooting straight at me, although they were not very fast, they were the size of beach balls and also gave off small lightning bolts around their circumference, "SHIT!", I exclaimed and jumped to my right side and rolled on the floor to get away from his path, Orlan immediately lunged at me and attacked me with his swords.

We exchanged several blows with the swords, he had a slight advantage in the length of his blades but all his attacks were cutting, seeing that he couldn't get past my defense, he jumped back quickly while casting another spell, "lightning strike!", he exclaimed and a quick flash of lightning shot out, I had no way of avoiding it at such a short distance, the most I could do was cross my arms in front of me to mitigate the impact, but the magic reacted with the runes carved into my gauntlets and the lightning scattered in a pile of sparks.

Both Orlan and I were shocked by what happened, on the one hand, I was relieved that I had not received the lightning discharge and to find out that I could use the electricity runes on my gauntlets to nullify magic of the same attribute, on the other hand, Orlan was dazed to see that he had failed to incapacitate me, but I also became aware of my disadvantage in front of an experienced high-level warrior, it was very dangerous to be attacked both melees and from a distance.

But the surprise quickly disappeared from Orlan's face, he had realized that he could not cast ranged attack magic, "despite your strength you are an inferior", Orlan said with an evil smile; keeping my distance wouldn't do me any good, my best chance was hand-to-hand combat.