Ch 10
Heading to the staging ground for the raid, I walked up to Tywin. Trying to think of a way to keep that suspicious guy by our side in order to keep an eye on him. “Hey, I think that the guy with the scouting ability should stick with us instead of being with that auxiliary group outside,” I told him. “We may have use for a scout despite the plan to go in fast and hit hard.”
“You talking about Arthur? He wanted us all to head in together anyway, so I don’t see a problem with him sticking with us. It doesn’t make sense why he would want to go with that group securing the exterior once it was all planned out,” Tywin told me. “I figured he would want to stick with us on the push inside.”
I looked over to the lanky man in question, who had several knives strapped around his waist and chest and a pair of hefty daggers strapped to his hips. Looking at him again made me realize that his appearance was similar to that of the man from the Golden Tigers who had been watching, and I immediately attacked when I found out a few days ago. Especially his armor and weapon choice. Though that wasn’t indicative of him being a spy for the Company, they could still have supplied his equipment.
“Just keep an eye out when we are down there. Better be safe than sorry,” I told the Titan.
“You don’t need to worry about me down there. I have learned to always be vigilant in my time in this hell,” he said, looking over his shoulder in my direction.
After several minutes of trekking to the staging ground, we met up with the squad of men on watch, keeping an eye out for people around the only exit of the tower enclosed in the massive dune. It was covered over by sandstorm after sandstorm until it was invisible to the eye except one hole three-fourths of the way up the dune.
“So, any movement going on here?” The A-grade man, Kent Migs, who was in charge of the second squad, asked the leader of the watch group.
“Yeah, we had a trio of people try to get back into their base. We didn’t want them to get any more information and help, so we stopped them. Unfortunately, they had a B grade in the group, and we weren’t able to take them down without killing them. We could keep the two other C grades alive if you want to question them,” he replied.
“Well, I suppose it’s time to speak with our unwilling guests,” Kent told the man. “Take us to them.”
“So, Leonidas, how certain are you of the information you got on them with that ability of yours?” he asked.
“Most of it is pretty fuzzy, but there are several things that I am certain of,” I responded.
“OK, so here is the plan. We will use the information you are certain of while asking the questions. Catch them in a lie, and they regret it. We may all have powers, but we are not living in a comic book world where the bad guy gets to live only to come back stronger. These guys had their chance and decided to take it up with those shit stains. They are not leaving today, just like the rest of them. If you have a problem with that, then just give me the information you are sure of, and you don’t have to be a part of this; I can deal with it myself if I have to,” he sentenced them.
As they walked toward the captives, another group member asked, “Are you sure we need to kill all of them?”
Shaking my head, I said, “I know it’s not really up to me, but no, we don’t, not really. But letting people who are complicit in what they have been doing here doesn’t sit right with me. A quick death is all I think we should grant them as compensation.”
“Exactly!” Kent Migs said while pointing at me. “So, you’re in on the plan, Leonidas?”
“Yeah, the plan sounds fine on my side,” I told the water mage.
“Ok, let’s get to it then.”
——-
The pair of men we went to see were hogtied, lying on their stomachs, face down. They were bound by enchanted shackles faintly glowing with azure inscriptions that wrapped around their surface.
One of the men was young and had short black hair that was messy from the fight and rougher treatment from his time while shackled. He was probably in his early twenties with a body that wasn’t well-defined by muscles like a seasoned fighter would be. He was probably a relatively new summon or some sort of mage, but even then, some muscles developed in the hell that was this Layer.
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The other person was an older man, probably in his late 30’s. He seemed resolute, already seeming to know his fate. In contrast to the average build of the first man, he had the look of a battle-hardened veteran with olive-colored skin and a short salt-and-pepper beard.
When the young man noticed the pair of us approaching them, he started acting up, thrashing and yelling obscenities and threats. While the older man remained silent.
As we got close enough for casual conversation, before either Kent or I were able to initiate the conversation, the hardened man spoke first.
“So, are you who will be doing it?” He told us. “I have prepared for this moment for a while. I haven’t been on board with the direction our group has been going for a while now. If only you grant me a quick death, I will hand over everything that I know.”
“Well, that’s easy enough,” Kent said jovially with a look in my direction.
“I have stored all of the information in the storage item built into the front left pocket of my pants.” He told them.
“Hold on,” I said while looking at the man in charge of watching the bound men. “You just let the man, your prisoner, keep his storage items on him while he was just sitting there in custody?” I stared him down while asking. “You know how bad of an idea that is, right?”
All I got from the scout turned prisoner guard was a sheepish look and a wince followed by a slight nod.
“Someone get that man to shut the fuck up,” Kent said, talking about the younger man that hadn’t stopped screaming the whole while and had just been talked over.
With a kick to the side of the head by one of the other scouts who had been watching the prisoners, the man who hadn’t raised his constitution enough was out like a light.
“Ok, what have you got for us?” Kent continued the conversation with the hogtied C grade.
Attention back on the only currently conscious prisoner, the man began talking. “Check my storage pocket that I was telling you about earlier. It is only filled with things that pertain to the investigation, so nobody else knew about it, but it was cheap and only shrinks things to a certain degree for items that fit inside my pocket. There should be dozens of pages detailing statistics on what has been done and to whom if I was able to find out. Then there’s information on the layout of the base and some abilities of the people in the group, as much as I could find out, at least.”
Emptying out the man’s inventory, we found exactly what was detailed in his list. Mainly, the pages consisted of lists of the people taken out by the Tigers that he was aware of, along with a map of the surrounding area and of their base’s general layout. A layered map showed the tower in its broken state, buried under the sand.
With enough information matching what I knew, we were able to hesitantly confirm the man’s words.
One of the men asked, “So, what do we do with him now?” After a pause, the scout said, “He gets to go free, right? Like he helped us with all of that information.”
The man in question interrupted the pleading on his behalf, “No! no.” He almost pleaded back with the man. “Please, I am not innocent; I’ve gone too far; just because they went further doesn’t mean what I have done is worth saving my life. You are just seeing my only good deed. Don’t let it color your view of me. I have already made a deal. The deal says that you will grant me a quick death when I have you the information I had on the Company.”
“Well, for being so cooperative, I will give you a choice of how you die. Personally, I can painlessly drown you. I can have my squamate assist me, and you could be flash frozen; that would be quick.” Kent told the man.
Upon hearing the options prevented, the man started panicking.
Seeing this, I put my hand up to stop Kent from saying any more. “I can finish you in one hit. You won’t even have a chance to acknowledge what happened.” He gave me a nod at my offer. At that, I began spooling up my qui. “Just tell me one last thing, what’s your name?”
"Emmerson Walte-," the man began. But before the man could finish, an ethereal blade created from my weapon mastery and empowered by my lightning qui removed the man’s head without him having a chance to even realize I had summoned the weapon from my own storage ring.
“You did not even let the man finish his damn last words.” said the Water Mage.
“How can you make someone experience something quicker than not knowing when it was coming?” I asked back. “I was just upholding the agreement.”
“Damn, though, taking out a C-grade warrior type with one hit. What even was that incorporeal blade emanating from the axe head? The power within kind of resembled a master-level weapon mastery ability, but I haven’t seen a master tier on a weapon besides a sword. Is that what that was? Plus, your speed, that was impressive. If it wasn’t for my own high perception and being an A grade, that would have been difficult to track when I wasn’t expecting it. Gotta say, just from seeing that alone, you’re more powerful than I expected, honestly,” he told me.
“Thanks,” is all that I gave him in response.
“No answer about the mastery? Well, I guess that I am glad that you are on our side, at least.” Kent said with a small punch to my shoulder.
“Glad to be working with you too, Kent.”
“Well, you’ve done your part here, let me finish up with ‘knocked out’ over there. I am pretty sure I now have everything I need to confirm anything he can tell me as long as it matches up close enough with what we have discovered. You should head back over to Tywin and get ready to head in,” the ice mage gave in response.
Turning around and heading back toward Tywin, I pulled up my interface.
-points gained: 1,126