“The investigation proved them clean, sir. They even voluntarily underwent memory checks, they were clear.” Harlev stood in front of Revensol whose gaze was fixed on the constantly changing data feed. It was changing at such a fast speed that to a normal human, it would look like a blinking light.
“As expected,” Revensol said in reply, his gaze never moving as his eyes quickly took in the data that would have looked no different from rubbish data to a normal person. He saw it all and quickly decoded it to uncover the real data hidden inside before the feed updated again. It kept repeating, as his eyes blinked close, he saw, he decoded, he understood, and then as his eyes blinked open the feed was updated.
This was the data collected by the main system of the settlement, accessible only to the Great families and he had been granted indirect access to the system by Knrama, a show of considerable trust, a trust that he fully intended to fulfill.
“It's the doing of that harvester? The explosion at the Laycore castle should also be his work.”
“It should be.”
“I personally visited lift stations at each Layer but despite our full efforts, we found nothing. There was no sign of unauthorized access to the lifts or any premature opening of the lift columns before the lift arrived. We did find some instances in which he used the lifts but even then there was no abnormality.”
“If it was that easy, he would have been caught by the system long ago and he would not have returned alive after he was sent to place the message in Vissbl’s room.”
“True. But is it worth it to spend so much effort in tracking him down?”
“What do you think?”
“It certainly became straightforward due to his skills but if he is unwilling, he may cause greater damage than benefits.”
“Right. So we have to find something that will make sure he agrees, something that I am working on.” As Revensol said that, he reset the data feed to the moment Harlev had ordered to fire upon the three lords and the holographic feed changed, the sea of data once again starting from the selected instance. He clenched and unclenched due to the building's frustration. It had been a long time since he had encountered such a difficult problem. The last time was when he was trying to develop vehicles that would be able to withstand the environment outside the Grand Formation. Along with the frustration, there was also excitement hidden underneath. It was always pleasurable to solve such difficult problems.
***
“Do not engage them under any circumstances, just keep observing them from a distance.”
“What happened?” Revensol asked Harlev who was sitting in front of him.
“The man in 2nd State who had disappeared was found just now and he is accompanying a girl this time. Acting like a servant for the girl. Just now they entered one of the forges in the 1st Layer and our men inside found them.” Harlev told him.
“How did they remain undetected despite using the lift?”
“Unknown.”
“Interesting. What about the girl? Did you find who she is?”
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“This is her first sighting. I ordered them to start working on it.”
“Infrom all to just keep an eye on them. They cannot, under any circumstances, provoke them. We have nothing to do with them, and they have nothing to do with us.”
“Understood. I will tell everyone.”
“How is the cleaning going?”
“Almost complete. We should be able to get rid of the last of the rats within a few days to a week. Aside from that, what do we do with the saboteurs? Most of them are unwilling to separate from their spouses from the nobility.”
“Let them then. They have done so much for the cause, they can be pardoned about such a little thing. Rather, assign them all to start piecing together the research of the five families. The submission time is not that far away.”
“Understood.”
***
“Do something about them, they are very disturbing,” Cile ordered Orama. Surprisingly many among those working in this place started at them. Some blatantly, others secretly from the corners of their eyes mistakenly thinking they were stealthy in their approach. To Cile, their efforts were as glaring as the pure Qi swirling through the air, Qi which was much denser after the passing of the flood.
“As you wish princess,” Orama replied after which he released a wisp of his aura which caused massive pressure to descend upon everything who was spying on them, making them feel as though they were trapped in the earth, unable to so much as wiggle around. They tried to breathe in the air but were unable to do so. The situation worsened to a greater extent as another type of suffocation also struck them, which was much worse, much more deadly. The Qi flowing through their bodies had also come to a stop. The shadow of death seemed to be ready to take them.
Then it was gone. They took large breaths, a feeling of relief filling them before their eyes rolled and they fell unconscious. Other workers around them panicked as their colleagues suddenly fell, hurriedly rushing to check them, and then called in the emergency services seeing such a large number of them had suddenly become unconscious.
A slight smile, a slight bow towards the few who still could stare at him, and then Orama followed after the princess deeper into the forging sub-sector. In the middle of the sub-sector was a massive glass construction, tens of meters wide, its height the same as the height of the sub-sectors.
Cile squinted her eyes, her Qi molding into a thin Thread that headed inside the glass structure only to be blasted into pieces. Though hers was much worse than Inero-ie’s, much much worse, it allowed her to confirm what was inside the structure. Granular pieces of metal reduced to the size of sand particles being spun at high speed, which resulted them in colliding with one another. On such a large scale, it created enough heat to meet the requirements of the forge. It was one of the more common applications she had seen. With there being no way to directly create fire due to the absence of any material that could be burnt, such indirect approaches were used to generate the required heat and light.
She touched the glass and it felt cold as it should be, as the formations were working to keep the heat isolated inside the glass. Still, due to it being a forging sub-sector, the temperature inside was high enough that people did not bother using the temperature control bracelets.
***
“Why are so many gathered outside?” Revensol asked. As he had been fully focused on sifting through the sea of encoded data, he did not have the time to monitor other operations that had been left under Harlev’s care.
“They oppose your decision regarding the few members of nobility saboteurs who want to save.”
“All of those from this settlement have gotten their revenge, right? From the primary instigators?”
“Yes sir. I personally made sure the people on that list would survive and handed them to the members from this settlement.”
“Good. And they are satisfied, I assume?”
“Yes.”
“They are in this group?”
“No sir. They are currently in the Grave Tower.”
“Good. Tell all of these protesters to gather in a few hours. We will have to set some things right.”
“As you wish.”