Almost instantly, Alice regretted her decision. They found themselves in a nondescript house, in a nondescript street. None of the souls in her range, Alice could identify, besides those of her comrades. They could be anywhere in the city, and if the duo in front of them decided to just teleport away, they would be stranded with no idea where they were.

As the momentary wave of disorientation ebbed off, Alice regained her focus, realizing that they had more than enough options to find their way back.

The quickest of those was to ask Debby, "Can you tell where our previous position was?"

"Yes," was the answer she got, followed by a series of impressions, giving a rough approximation of their surroundings, followed by their relative locations inside that space, and finally the location they had come from, presumably.

Now calmer, Alice took a look around. They were in a living room on the first floor of an apartment building, at least as far as Alice could tell from the souls around them. The room had two exits, the door to the hallway, and a window on the other side.

Having returned to his hideout, their guide turned away and dropped onto the sofa next to his partner.

"I'm Nathan. That's Jake. You guys wanted to talk with us?" the teleporter, Nathan, introduced the two of them.

Now that she had the chance, Alice took a closer look at the pair. The very first thing she noticed was that the two looked like shit. They had rings under their eyes, and their clothes were bloody and torn in several places, bandages showing through beneath several of them. Their weapons were a sledgehammer standing next to Jake and the crowbar Nathan was holding, and their armor was basically nonexistent, being nothing more than some thick magazines taped to their forearms with gaffa-tape. Alice had her doubts that something like that would even do anything.

"I'm Alice, the leader of this little group. And that is Max," she said, pointing at the man, "Do you mind if he takes a look at you? He is a healer and was a nurse previously."

"We would be in your debt. Please, take care of Jake first. One of those dinosaur bastards got him good in the stomach."

Before he had even answered, Max had already moved over, taking the first-aid pack out of his backpack.

"Your name is Jake? Do you mind lying down on the floor? Oh, and please make your upper body free, so I can get a good look at your wound," Max, who had been constantly nervous until now, suddenly calmed down, now that he was in familiar territory, so to speak.

"Ah! Ehm, could we please do that in the kitchen, or something?"

"Of cour..." Max stopped, giving Alice a quick look. Seeing her nod, he continued, "Of course, can you walk on your own?"

"I... could use some help."

One arm over the other man's shoulder, Jake was soon half carried out of the room by Max.

"Now then. I'm too tired to beat around the bush, so I will get straight to the point if you don't mind?" Alice asked, sitting down on the sofa in front of Nathan, pushing up the visor of her helmet, albeit not taking it off.

"Sure, go ahead," the man agreed immediately.

"I want to know all you can tell me about what's going on in the university camp and why their people are going after the two of you," Alice asked.

"Watch him. If anyone thinks he is lying, tell me immediately."

It may be a sad thing to think about, but they didn't have the time to build trust considering the situation. As such, asking so directly was a test. Depending on how much Nathan was about to tell them, Alice would be able to gauge his will for cooperation. On the other hand, if they caught him lying, there was a good chance that they couldn't trust the two fully.

The biggest advantage Alice had, was the fact that Nathan had no way of knowing how much they actually knew, meaning he couldn't be too brazen if he tried to lie to them. On the other hand, since they actually knew very little, if he did manage to concoct a convincing lie, there was a good chance they wouldn't notice.

At the same time, they didn't have to rely purely on logic to figure him out. Ava was a great conversationalist and surprisingly good at reading people, and Harry was a man with a lot of experience, if nothing else in this case. At the same time, Alice would be watching for any kind of tell from his soul, not that she expected anything to come from that. A lot more trust, however, she was putting in Debby. If there was anyone with a magical capability to read people, it would be their resident telepath, after all.

"Hmm... Where should I start? Okay, as I already told you, my Class is specialized in teleportation and, I guess you could call it space magic. On the other hand, Ja... Jake's Class is Exorcist. His Skills are specialized in dealing with ghosts.

As you probably know, the camp was built around Andy and his Skills.

At first, he gave everyone who wanted to join his group a choice. Either they become a Citizen, and in turn for getting their Stats Taxed, they get protected, or if their Class seemed useful and they were willing to fight for him, they could become Nobles and get a buff in the form of Stats and Mana regeneration.

Considering the rarity of Jake's and my Classes, we both chose to become Nobles and try our best to help."

It was true. One of the first things she had done was to check the duo's souls for the small foreign pieces. She had also warned the rest of her team already.

"Now, that was where the problems started. At first, everything went pretty well, and about half the people that were there joined him. You see, he can't just make you one of his people, but you need to agree to it. In your case, they probably let you go since they wouldn't be able to predict what you are capable of. But at the very beginning, when most people had not figured out what was going on, and Andy's group had both numbers and Elites in the form of Generals with much higher stats, they managed to press the rest of the people into joining Andy's group by force.

Of course, under normal circumstances, none of them would have agreed to something like that. But to those under Andy's Skills, they have a very hard time rejecting commands from those of a higher rank. A Citizen rejecting something Andy himself tells them to do is almost impossible. But that isn't even the end. The much bigger problem is that he also has a Skill that basically turns you into a complete Slave if you do disobey, and he gets his hands on you within a certain timeframe after, which works not just on Citizens, but even Nobles and Generals.

Well, that's pretty much all I know, considering that was pretty much the point after which the two of us got the hell out of there," Nathan finished his explanation.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"So, you are saying that most of the people in the base are there against their will? Persuaded through Skills, the threat of punishment, and made weaker through that Tax?" Alice cleared the slightly disorganized explanation.

"Yes," was Nathans answer.

While Alice couldn't just believe him blindly, that did at least explain the way Sarah was acting. And also Kate, now that she thought about it. If Andy had some kind of way to communicate with his Generals over long distances, then Kate might have met with Sarah before them. In that case, the almost instantaneous refusal and the way she tried to make the conversation as short as possible might have been because she was commanded to do so, to make sure Alice's group got as little information as possible.

"And I assume the reason they didn't turn you into slaves because..."

"Because it's time-limited, at least that's what Jake and I think. But more importantly, Andy has to touch you. I quickly teleported the two of us out of the base, and we were basically safe since he never leaves the base. Although, he can feel where we are at all times," Nathan explained the situation.

"Then why the hell are you even still here? Wouldn't you be safer basically anywhere else?" Alice asked incredulously.

"Two reasons. For one, we want to help and do something about the situation. Basically, we were staying close to get in contact with groups like your own.

The more important reason is, we aren't actually safer somewhere far away. Even if we leave the area considered as Andy's territory, we still keep being Nobles. However, we do lose the buffs that come with that status. And since neither of us has a Class that gives us combat Skills, we need every bit of strength we can get, while closer to the base are also fewer monsters.

And between my teleportation and Jake's detection Skill, they will have a very hard time catching us."

"I see. You know, I've been wondering. How can it be that Andy has so many different Skills? It doesn't make any sense considering how insanely powerful every single one of those seems to be at the same time."

"So, you don't know how absurd that Tax Skill is... Currently, Andy has over two hundred Civilians that are being Taxed. The most important thing is, Civilians aren't allowed to take any Level-up rewards other than primary Stats, and the average level is eight at the moment. What that means is that there are over two hundred Civilians with around a hundred Stats and Mana regeneration of one per hour per person. That totals to over two hundred Mana regeneration per hour, and more than twenty thousand Stats.

Now, try to make a guess how high exactly that damned Tax is," Nathan challenged Alice.

"No idea," Alice answered honestly, however, having a terrible premonition.

"It's twenty-five percent. He has over a thousand levels worth of Stats going around between his Nobles, Generals, and himself. And he said himself that he gets twenty percent of that. Just in terms of pure Stats, he is at over level two hundred, with more than ten Mana per hour," he said, a glimmer of despair in his eyes.

"What the fucking hell? How is that kind of bullshit fair in any way?" Ava complained loudly.

"For fucks sake. We will have to kill him, and quickly," Daniel said, a cold conviction in his voice.

Alice turned to him, looking at him with surprise and worry. It was a lot more radical than what Alice would have expected from him.

"If that's even remotely true, then Andy is far too dangerous," Daniel explained himself, "He has all the reasons and capabilities to force anyone he comes across under his rule. And he will get stronger at an insane rate in the process. If we wait too long, dealing with him might become impossible, at least if we don't want to have to massacre Civilians just to make him weaker.

Think about it. This is the state of things after not even a week. What do you think is the average level of those Civilians going to be in a week, a month, a year? I say we have to take him completely out of the equation now before he gets any Skills that make a direct assassination impossible. If he doesn't have something like that already."

"I will be honest, if you guys hadn't appeared now, the two of us would have probably left in a day or two and gone to find Jake's little sister. The only saving grace is that I don't think Andy can get any combat Skills. Which still isn't too much of a problem for him because his Generals have about half as many Stats as him, but they do have combat Skills."

"But, isn't that going too far? To just... kill him because of that? What gives us the right to make that kind of decision? Can't we, I don't know, put him in prison?" Debby asked, worry clear in her face. Alice could tell how uncomfortable the woman was with the thought. After all, they would be playing judge and executioner in one, jobs that modern society had kept apart from one another for very good reasons.

Reassuringly, Carl put a hand on his wife's shoulder.

"You may think differently, but I think what that guy is doing is deserving of death. It may be because of my circumstances, but I would take death over slavery every day," Daniel declared.

"I have to agree with Daniel. We will have to kill him, albeit for practical reasons. Even if we manage to capture him, we can't know what he is capable of doing to those under his control to get free again. If we can't make him free his citizens, then he will stay a superhuman being who could break out of any modern prison by virtue of punching holes in the walls. Not to mention those Generals who might try and break him out," Harry brought forth his own argument.

"What's that about prison? What are you talking about?" Max asked as he entered back into the living room, Jake coming up behind him.

Quickly, Alice brought him up to date on what Nathan had told them. She noticed the worry in his face when he realized the full capacity Andy possessed and a wince when the option of assassination came up.

"Can't we negotiate with them?" Max asked hopefully.

"We tried that already, didn't we?"

"Well, we only asked them to give us some of their people. We didn't offer them anything in return," Max tried to argue.

"Do you honestly think people like that would be open to negotiation? Besides, what could we offer them in return?" Ava crushed his remaining hope.

"You two," Alice turned to Jake and Nathan, "mind giving us a bit of privacy?"

"Sure, we will wait in the kitchen," Nathan answered, leaving the room together with Jake.

"I would suggest that we hope for the best but prepare for the worst. We should make a plan and prepare for it, but before we set it into motion, we contact home-base and ask for their opinion," Alice decided on their plan going forward. "Time for brainstorming! No matter how stupid it sounds, we need all the ideas we can get."

"Uhm... Ava is an assassin, isn't she?" Debby asked timidly.

"Yeah, nope," Alice immediately rejected the proposal, "We are not going to send her in alone against an opponent practically ten times her level. Even less so against someone with a Domain. That would be straight-up suicide."

"What do you mean with Domain?" Debby asked.

"His Throne room. Domain means basically an assigned area where the 'owner' has some kind of distinctive advantage. You saw the debuffs we got just by entering the Throne room. Rather, I think we are going to need something long-range," Alice explained.

"If he really is that powerful, I doubt my Skills have the firepower to take him out. What about your Skill, Debby?" Daniel asked the woman.

"It can only make someone faint. And it costs more Mana if the opponent has a higher Magic power. With my current Stats, he might not even notice even if I use all of my Mana."

"So, it's up to me then," Harry said, "I haven't tried it that way yet, but I should be able to put different enchantments on different parts of the same gun and even on the bullet. If I also make them more powerful in exchange for working only once, I should be able to produce something pretty powerful."

"How much Mana costs a single enchantment?" Ava asked for more information.

"As much as I want it to."

"Is a single powerful, or several weaker enchantments stronger?"

"I see what you mean. It would take several days to enchant my gun to the maximum, and who knows how much stronger the target gets in that time frame."

"Right about now, I wish I could help others with my Soul absorption," Alice lamented.

"You do remember that you get a lot of Mana when you Level up, do you?" Daniel commented.

"Totally forgot that's a thing! I basically never run out of Mana or Stamina, so I didn't even think about that."

"That's certainly a possibility," Harry agreed.

"So, it's back to grinding again?" Ava half complained.

"Rather, it's power-leveling. We should let Harry get all the final hits, at least if that's something that works," Alice corrected, "Is everyone okay with that?"

"Okay, Debby, can you call the two of them back?" Alice asked after getting agreement from the people around her.

"You know," the woman spoke out loud, "you could just stand up and walk five meters."

"You are right. I could. Or I can keep sitting here, have you do it, and Ava won't be able to steal my place," Alice looked to the side where Ava was standing, "Don't think I didn't notice."

"Tsk!"