In the morning, everyone started packing up, and soon the caravan went on its way. While packing, Mark saw that one of the carriages was left for the wounded from yesterday's encounter. There were seven people still recovering. A couple even lost a leg or an arm.
Looking at one of the men, who lost his left arm at the elbow, Mark wondered what would happen with the system. If you lost your arm, was it just nullified? Did it appear somewhere else on the body?
"Donny, what happens when you lose your left arm, is the system gone then?"
Donny looked in the direction of the wounded and didn't even bother to be surprised. He had grown used to his Master's apparent lack of common knowledge.
"Not really, they just lose track of their bodies, which while a little disconcerting, doesn't affect their lives. The healing can be fairly expensive though. They would probably have to spend all their earnings from this job on regrowing their limbs at the church."
That was an important piece of information. He didn't even think to ask this, just assumed that even magical healing wouldn't go this far. Apparently not. With that, he could see why the people in the carriage were this calm, just sitting around and still chatting as if nothing happened.
Soon the caravan was back on the road, all the carts moving towards the City of Gauther. They were already very close.
……………………………………….
On the horizon, a gigantic stone wall appeared, Mark could tell it was at least twenty meters tall, and it was stretching across the horizon. It was thousands of times bigger than Pharia, and Mark could not wait to get his hands on it or, rather, the criminals inside it.
He would not go around killing innocent people for his power, but he had absolutely no scruples when it came to fighting criminal scum. Criminal organizations were truly his favorite not only on Earth but also here. The good thing about them was that they usually all clamped their manpower in one place, making it very easy to eradicate a big chunk of them.
You wouldn't be pulling out the roots, but in this world where killing gave you experience, they were all the more tempting, and another thing that came with the criminal organizations would be the accumulation of wealth. Criminals usually didn't get to create accounts in banks until they truly made it, but then they would be called politicians usually.
And yes, killing humans in this world also gave experience, but… there was an asterisk to that statement. Killing normal civilians does not give experience, but the moment someone commits a heavy crime like murder or rape, the Stars judge that person and brand him with a criminal class like, Murderer or Rapist. Such people could still level up by killing monsters, but most of his venues of improvement were gone.
That is why the true bosses of criminal organizations never dirtied their hands with the grunt work. The Stars seemed to ignore the indirect crimes. Making someone do the murder would brand only the person directly behind the murder and not the one instigating it. It was a truly weird system.
Well, in the end, it doesn't matter. What mattered was that the moment someone was branded with the Criminal Class, they would give experience to anyone who got rid of them, something like a bounty from the Stars. That was Mark's target in Gauther, get rid of as many criminals as possible while taking as much money as he could from them. It was truly killing three birds with one stone.
Soon the caravan arrived at the city gates. Unlike in Pharia, this City was big enough to facilitate the space for the caravan to rest in, so without much inspection, the caravan was waved through inside. The City was not what Mark was expecting after his experiences with Pharia. He knew that the people here advanced in a pretty weird way thanks to magic, but he was still seeing it as a Medieval+ world.
It was not. The most distinct sign of that was the glasswork. The houses were still mostly wood and stone, with some improvements from just generic medieval architecture. The biggest shock were the big floor-to-ceiling windows at the shop fronts on the ground floor of the buildings.
Along the six meters wide road were dozens of different shops, all of them displaying their wares behind the clear and very well-made windows. The panes were of the size normally inaccessible to people of the dark ages. The contrast between the modern windows and old architecture made the City a sight to behold.
He had to stop admiring the architecture soon, though, not even a hundred meters into the City. He could already feel dozens of eyes hidden in different windows around the street, the roofs, or little alleys. Dozens of people were paying too much attention to the caravan, and some of them didn't even try to hide their greedy gazes.
He quickly looked at their faces and memorized as many of those people as possible. Soon enough, he found his target, a person looking from one of the houses. His aura was completely different from the other small fry scattered about. He could tell just from his eyes this guy was not planning on just stealing anything.
"You go with the caravan, set us up in an inn not far from where they stop, and make sure not to lose all the loot. There will be thieves aiming for you for sure. I will see how you managed it later. For now, I have some other business to deal with."
With that, Mark disappeared from the carriage and reappeared in a shady alley not far from the road. The alley was clean and filled with open wooden boxes and crates. He guessed the nearby shops left them here. Someone would probably take them away later, based on the overall cleanliness of the place.
Standing behind one of those crates, he hid in the shadow, observing the house with his target. The man from before was still looking menacingly at the passing caravan, his dark smile widening with each passing carriage. Teleporting to the alley opposite him, he found himself under the house. He quickly located the back doors.
Still Stealth from before, he walked over and listened for any signs of activity. The ground floor held a shopfront, so he assumed this would be the storeroom. Trying the door's handle, it appeared to be closed. Though he wasn't able to find a lockpicking set so far due to the old type of locks in this world, there was another thing he could do.
Peering through the big keyhole, he saw a dark room filled with boxes. The shop seemed to be selling clothes. There were many hanging racks spread along the walls, with different clothes hanging off them.
Finally, he found the perfect place, behind two tall boxes and near a hanging rack, suddenly a shadow appeared. Hmm, he was satisfied. The only condition for the teleportation ability of his cloak was having vision of the place he wanted to teleport to.
One disadvantage of this condition was that he could not teleport if his vision was impaired, but on the other hand, it allowed thighs like, to go through walls. He could already see a multitude of uses for this.
Assessing his situation, he found he was alone in the room. At the very back, he saw a staircase leading up, and on the other end, another door, he guessed, led to the shop proper. Walking up the stairs, he was met with another door, this one just slightly left ajar. He could hear faint voices coming from deeper into the room.
Looking through the gap, the room was also dark, so he assumed whoever was talking didn't have a visual on the door. Pushing it just slightly, as if a small gust of wind blew on them, he flitted through, hiding in another shadow. He found himself in a fairly spacious corridor turning right at the end, making an L shape.
The corridor was filled with little alcoves with vases and small tables with flowers and pictures on them. All in all, it looked like a house of a well-off merchant.
Further ahead, he saw a shaft of light peeking from a gap in the doors ahead. That was also the place where the now clear sound of a conversation was coming from.
"... right, did Yuryi bring the mana-null pendants from the Vipers? We need them if we want to bypass the barrier.
"Yea, we have enough to equip the full first squad, so there should not be any problems. They shouldn't have anyone with a good enough detection ability to see us coming. You could consider them already dead."
"Good, we are not allowed to make a single mistake, not after the last fiasco with the Golden Marchers. HE will not let us go if there is anything wrong now, do you understand?"
"I understand. I will make sure the guys know the consequences."
"Fuck that. You will go oversee the attack personally, understood?"
"Yes, boss."
"Good, now get out of here. Evening is coming."
The door opened, and a figure clad entirely in black and gray clothes marched out with confident steps. Going down the stairs, Mark could hear the lock clang, and the doors outside opened. The figure walked through the town with big strides, unaware of the shadow trailing right behind.
Mark wanted to know if he would go to their hiding place. If so he could enact his plans much faster than initially intended.
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