“Any response?” Ranarge asked as soon as his subordinate entered the workstation.

“None. They have been waiting there since the data stone was sent but there was been no response.”

“Damn it… We do we do now… Shit…”

Hearing Ranarge’s not-so-quite mumbling, his subordinate asked, “You can’t delay it anymore?”

“I can but them not having replied instantly, especially the Seeker, it seems we can’t depend upon them for this,” Ranarge replied as his chair spun while his finger speedily knocked on the armrest. He racked his mind, trying to find a method by which he could further delay submitting the report.

‘But how,’ he was stuck, and no matter how much he thought nothing came to his mind.

It was already a miracle that they had not been caught up by the system. The sealing technique was developed to focus on increasing the survivability of the harvesters as considerable resources were consumed to train each one of them. These seals, when used, hid the user's presence to such a degree that normal monsters could not sense him. This coupled with the way they had been carried in made it even harder for the system to deduce the identity of the harvesters.

The most important reason was something else. The nobles were unwilling to automate this feature which was rarely put to use and whose cost was greater than the wage Ranarge was paid.

“Others did not suspect anything right?” Ranarge asked about those who had been sent away on various chores so that only those who owed the Seeker remained.

“Of course. You don’t need to worry about our guys. We are not an ungrateful bunch.”

“I know, I know. I will be heading out for some time,” Ranarge said as he jumped out of his chair, “tell Enbos to check the video feeds once again. I can not calm down even still.”

“Check the video feed?” the man said with special emphasis on the first word to which Ranarge just bobbed his head, exiting the workstation.

***

“Can you somehow delay clearing their report, doctor?” Ranarge sat inside a small office, doctor Shedill, donned in a white body suit sat in front of him, focused on her work.

“Not by any significant margin. The most that I can do is stretch it to the previously longest recorded time. You have to understand it is already quite a lot of work to make those healing pods seem full.” She replied not shifting her gaze from the holograms.

“Can you give me an exact time?” Once again Ranarge asked. He was not worried about the Mus-Draik, none would dare to harm those belonging to that great family but Inero-ie was a different case. The nobles had never been able to do anything with Frial-al always being present whenever Inero-ie got back. With the Mus-Darik’s already breathing down their necks, they had never dared to harm a Seeker, especially when said Seeker hailed from the capital.

“A few more days… so.. Hum… 3 days max,” the doctor replied, still not turning away from her work.

“Thank you, I will try to convince him to leave somehow,” Ranarge got up preparing to leave. Though he still had three days which was quite a lot of time in a way, as he thought about Inero-ie, he only got a headache. He did not even know where he was and had to find him and convince him to do something. Both were daunting tasks.

“You do know that he would not agree, right? If he had wanted to return to the capital he would have already done so. Even Fria-al had been unable to change that stubborn mind what do you have? Even more importantly, how are you going to find him?”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Rapid shots were fired at him as he was leaving, each true, each he did not know how to solve. Ranarge knew that. He knew but that did not mean he should not even try.

“I know, but I need to try, at least that way I will have a clear conscience,” was his only reply. As he opened the door to leave, once again he heard a voice from behind.

“Go to the Grave Tower. Maybe you will find him there. But maybe you will not. And don’t rely on Fria-al. She is not in the capital currently.”

“Thank you.”

“No need, rather I should be doing the thanking. You are doing something that I should have done but didn't even try this time.”

“Farewell, doctor,” Ranarge lightly bowed and raced through the crowded corridor.

***

Rozcast.

Core Barrier.

Inside the valley which previously held an external laboratory.

Three armor suits at the front, who at every chance tried to wander away only to be reprimanded by a feminine voice. Fria-al along with Kire was a few steps behind the three kids.

Currently, they were walking through the valley, and to Fria-al, it seemed like a storm of destruction had swept through the valley. Whether it be her own senses or the wireframe model generated by the armor suit, through both she could sense the sorry state of a place that had previously held a state-of-the-art laboratory.

Pits were scattered everywhere, and a massive hole was present where there should have been a laboratory. A testament to the struggle that had taken place, from what the kids had told her, against just two people. Just two had reduced this highly defended place to this.

The assailants had disappeared as quickly as they had appeared but this brief period had been enough for them to cause havoc and the resulting damage had been greater than the damage caused by any of the recent monster waves. Combined. It was a cause of much discussion among those in the know.

Each laboratory was a significant investment. Each was an architectural feat by which small pockets of livable space were created in the cold wastelands of outside, cold to such a degree that just a brush of air outside would freeze a normal human. And as one went further away from the habitable zone, the cold kept increasing in intensity.

This difficulty was the reason why the damage had been so great. A great number of the destroyed laboratories had been in the Mid Barrier and the cost of constructing them was multiple times greater than the labs in the Core Barrier. Then there was the equipment inside each of the labs which had been left open after the people inside were all killed, creating an unimpeded passage for the cold to rush inside making the sensitive equipment useless. These laboratories were then further destroyed by the monsters that arrived sensing the human presence which would usually be thoroughly isolated by the laboratory.

Fria-al had seen the bodies, horrid remnants of the pursuers of knowledge. They, she felt, were the biggest loss the capital had incurred. They were the cream gathered from among the hundred million that inhabited the grand capital called Rozcast.

Passing through the scene of destruction, Kire now leading the way, they arrived in front of a gaping maw, a sinkhole so deep that the sensor she had personally created could not map out its true depth. Though what she needed to see had been mapped out. She could see, both through her senses and the wireframe map, the holes that had been made regularly into the wall, and further down there was a tunnel’s opening in the circular wall of the sinkhole.

She jumped down, thrusters operating at full, slowing down her descent causing her to slowly float down. Kire too followed the suit, jumping down and slowly descending. The kids did not follow them, instead, all of them jumped just a few meters away from the ice wall, and the blades of their armor suits sprang out, stabbing into the hard ice. Gravity would then drag them down and they would retrieve the blade, repeating the process, sometimes falling, sometimes succeeding.

Kire just kept a small portion of his mind focused on them, monitoring them but otherwise letting them do as they pleased.

A few minutes had passed at most and they were walking through the tunnel, Kire leading them. Here, there was almost no sign of any fight other than the sign of the tunnel having been blown, that was until they went further inside. Here, there was a bit pit in the center of the tunnel that had now expanded. On one of the walls was the indentation of something humanoid, but massive. Most likely, an armor suit had crashed into the wall with considerable force.

As her mind was processing and thinking she followed Kire quietly until his voice sounded out from the communication device, breaking her out of the stupor.

“This is where Inero-ie’s aura suddenly disappeared,” Kire told Fria-al.