Character Information - Who is who?

Because I have created quite a variety of characters, I will now create little cheat sheets before a chapter for the characters who will appear in the chapter, but not for those who haven't. Please open the spoiler if you need some reminders. (Be careful. It can be a spoiler for the chapter!)

William (Wind-Djinn)

* Known Position

* Spy and Agent of the refugee camp in Kratikal

* Specialization(-s)

* Socializing, Emotional Manipulation, and Scouting

* Eyecolor

* Green Colored

* Hair Color

* White-Reddish Colored

* Skin Color

* Light-Green Colored

* Miscellaneous

* Antagonistic against the Leonandra household

* Does everything he can to keep his mother alive

(Close-)Retainers

* Klepto (Lover and Henchman)

...

East of the Cold-Snout fief, Bufferzone

"How cute. So tell me, where are the artificers? Your colleagues are, as you can see..." He pointed to the gruesome scene around him, "...not very talkable."

"I hope you drop kkrrrgah..."

He cracked the neck of the last guard, who fell to the ground. William looked around in annoyance at the mess he had created again, "I always hated these prisons. Why do they build them at the buffer zone? Tsk."

William was looking for the imprisoned artificers he was informed about by one of his people. However, the search was at a snail's pace because his manipulation skills failed since the soldiers stationed at the buffer zone had all higher mental fortitude skills than expected, and he couldn't get any information out of them.

The letters they intercepted from the Cold-Snout household implied that he should look for them in the buffer zone, but obviously, it was not specified, so, worst-case, he would need to go through every single prison and look for information on the way.

'I wished we had a better way to collect information.'

Besides buying them, their most reliable way to get information was the interception of the animals who delivered them.

This they could only do because of the night elves they had in the camp. Some of them specialized in a very particular type of hunting, which they inherited through their race-specific skills that let them wander through shadows, making them the perfect assassins or thieves.

But there were unique variations of this skill, and they had a family who had such a variation. Usually, they could jump from shadow to shadow, but this family could do the reverse. They could bring individuals towards their own shadow when they touched it.

This variation had a lot of limits like distance, energy density of the individual, size, etc. It wasn't omnipotent and also needed a lot of stamina. Nonetheless, this night-elf family intercepted the delivery animals like hawks, pigeons, etc., day and night.

With them together were always wind-djinns, who had specific skills in taming so the animal wouldn't get crazy and kill itself.

There were two types of delivery animals. The first type was trained for security. Thus, if caught, it would try everything to commit suicide and take, if possible, the correspondence with it. The second was for speed so fast delivery would be possible. There was also a third type, which had both traits, but they were expensive in these parts of the world.

The nobles on the border had both types, and the camp tried to catch all of them and release them back. If they didn't, the letters would be seen as stolen, and if that happened too often, they would start to get suspicious, and this was something the camp didn't want at all.

They only failed once or twice, so it was within the scope that they wouldn't get suspicious. When they caught and tamed them temporarily, others would quickly copy the letters and send the delivery animals back on their way like nothing had happened.

He came out of his thoughts after looking through a barely manned prison with at most half a dozen prisoners. Every guard was already dead, and he was annoyed beyond belief as he couldn't even find any information in the prison's documents.

Even though he deemed the prison documents useless, he threw them inside his spatial bag, so maybe his people could conclude something from them, "Damn it, three more to go."

The buffer zone wasn't as empty as many believed. It was actually well populated with many camps and fortifications by the guard families and stationed by inexperienced soldiers who were only here to observe. If something came, they would signal it so help could come from bigger camps between multiple guard posts/prisons.

In his opinion, having prisons in the buffer zone was weird but also genius. The prisoners sent here usually worked as servants for some time, assisting the soldiers, and then sent back after some years.

He jumped down from the cheaply made tower, whose only purpose was to house a few soldiers. As he landed, his instincts told him to duck, which he did.

Zing!

Something sharp flew over his head and almost beheaded him. He looked around and saw someone with two short swords slowly walking toward him, 'Is it one of those Cold-Snouts? She looks like a jackal-kin, so she should be, but I need to run. No need for a fight.'

As he was about to turn around and run, the jackal-kin girl flashed toward him, with her energy focused on the blades, "Oh, a cute djinn! Why run away?!"

With some targeted slashes, she went for his neck and limbs. William immediately avoided them, but for some reason, they hit nonetheless. He backed away and concentrated on his [Divine Acclimation] skills; luckily, he was inside the buffer zone, so he was at 150% of his power.

[Divine Acclimation] boosted or reduced one's overall power depending on the territory one was in, and he had one that focused heavily on unlivable environments. In contrast, his power was heavily reduced in forests or other areas full of life.

William looked at his wounds. He had multiple scratches on his arms and a small scratch on his neck, 'She wants to have a go, huh?'

He observed her. It was a relatively young girl, about 1.6m (5.3 ft), with brown hair and golden eyes. Before he could analyze her more, she replied joyfully, "Hehe, call me Alice. I am from the Cold-Snout knightage, and we usually don't like having our people murdered. So, how about you stop resisting and come with me before I get serious?"

William squinted his eyes and tried to examine his opponent. He heard how weird the energy of the knightages around the border was and how they could go toe to toe with higher leveled ones because of their specific [Divinity Line], which was coupled with their specialty.

The Cold-Snout household was famous for their sword arts, while their demonic [Divinity Line] was almost a perfect fit. However, what he needed to do was to fight and run. An altercation was nothing that he wanted.

He got two daggers out of his robe and flashed at her. On the other hand, Alice relaxed her shoulders and felt ecstatic, "Hm, good choice, boy."

When William appeared behind her, she already knew where he was, and he expected it. He used a skill that brought her deepest fears to light.

He saw how she suddenly stood in shock, and her body shivered, 'Let's end it quickly.'

William aimed at her neck, but her eyes became blood red suddenly when the dagger blade was moments before her, and her wild demonic energy exploded.

He immediately avoided it and saw from his peripheral view how it cut the ground meters deep around her. This wasn't something he expected, so he immediately jumped back and tried to attack her from the side.

Yet, he couldn't see how he could come close as she stood still while her energy went wild and attacked everything around her in unpredictable patterns.

He made a decision, 'Perfect time to flee.'

William flashed to the side, but the moment he did, all his instincts alarmed him, and he ducked. A massive amount of energy came flying for his head.

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The next words he heard made his neck hair stand up, "Oh no, kehehehehe, I missed. Now tell me, you little shit, do you think confusing a Cold-Snout who was playing with you is a good idea? Let's see if you actually dare to use that skill again after I cut you into pieces."

After Alice said it, she disappeared and appeared a moment later before William, who smirked at her.

The energy on her weapon made them vibrate, almost breaking them. He, in turn, gambled and used his [Divine Acclimation] skill, which made his energy target her like an arrow, which made Alice redirect her attack towards it.

Boom!

A gigantic explosion occurred, and both flew to opposite sides. However, Alice made a somersault mid-air, concentrated her energy on her swords, and swung. Two slashes of devastating energy flew toward where the explosion occurred, into a gigantic cloud of dust, and hit where she assumed he was.

However, after seconds, nothing happened. The dust cloud cleared up, and she saw that the djinn had fled, "Damn... he was a tough nut... ow!"

She looked to her side where the pain was coming from and saw how part of her muscles degraded, and the smell told her that it was about to start to rot, "Shit, this will mean a month of healing, at least."

Alice readied herself after drinking multiple healing potions and ran as fast as possible to the next military camp to report and get healed. She had not the slightest clue why a djinn wanted to attack some guards inside the buffer zone and even less why he was so strong since their strength increased only inside natural habitats and not zones of pure death like Kratikal.

...

Multiple kilometres ( 1.7 km = 1 mile) away

William stopped and looked around worryingly. After a moment of observing everything around him, he sighed in relief. But his demeanor was quickly broken when the pain in his leg came after the adrenaline rush stopped. When he looked at it, he saw how it had deep cuts which were infected with the wild-demonic energy.

He pulled a dagger and cut the infected flesh out, "Tsk, I hope she dies... this was a gigantic failure."

William thought that he had done the right thing. He wasn't a fighter and specialized in manipulation. He was also an excellent scout, only if it didn't involve fighting. He had some strength, especially inside the wild demonic area, but in a one-on-one confrontation, he would always be overwhelmed by foes of the same level.

After cutting the flesh away, he opened his system window to look for his HP.

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kiruschka/kiruschka.github.io/main/Chapter_60/William_System_new.svg]

The low amount surprised him, and he immediately started checking himself but couldn't find any more injuries; however, he felt terrible, 'Those damn mutts are really dangerous.'

Before the operation started and all the agents went to conduct their tasks, he thought that if he even met one of those guard dogs with their weird energy, he could just go against them easily. Still, it didn't seem that way even though he had the perfect [Divine Acclimation] for this area.

But he knew, after some testing and asking around with his puppet, that the [Divinity Line] from beast-kin was much more dangerous and potent than first thought. They were specialized to an insane degree, and if their race fitted the skill set they received at their legacy, it was even worse.

The jackal-kin who almost got him was the perfect example. Even though she was dangerous enough with the [Sword Arts] and [Divinity Line], she had her racial traits to sniff him out, which made her even more challenging to fight against.

William brought out multiple healing potions to drink and pour on his wound. He sat down to relax briefly and wait until his HPs were half-full. Otherwise, if he ran into danger again, it would spell his death, and with him dying, his nightmare would come true, 'I hope mom is fine.'

She was the only reason he did what he did now and for the last years. Running around and trying to get even one more ally to their side so that when they attacked, they could hold onto a small territory for themselves so his mother could get better. Everything else was not important to him.

Day by day, he wandered through sewers or the unliveable wild to reach even one more grumbling soldier who could become their ally. Be it torture or fornication, he did it with everyone who could even be considered a source of information, but the only thing on his mind was how time was slowly running out.

Every following step he took needed to be more efficient to make the operation more successful. Suppose he could get one more person to help them by the time frame he and his colleagues were given.

His mother never wanted to leave the tribe and was loyal. She always reprimanded him when he suggested going and living in the wild. His anger surged like his energy at the memory of his mother lying half dead in their tent and smiling at him, telling him how important their people were, 'This stupid bitch doesn't know better...'

He calmed quickly down and stood up, even without having half of his HP regenerated. He needed to be faster and look for the imprisoned artificers brought to the buffer zone to die, 'Hm, what would I do with the prisoners who deceived me?'

William closed his eyes and tried to use multiple skills at once while putting himself into the position of a noble. Betrayal, lies, rationality, cold logic, wrath, revenge. He opened his eyes again abruptly, 'The mining area to get the most out of them before they die a dog's death.'

He turned to where the biggest prisoner town was and ran there with all he had.

Prisoner towns were nothing more than where those went who were judged to a death sentence. Usually, nobles didn't kill someone outright for egregious crimes but tried to get the most out of them beforehand. This meant sending them to some area where they would die while laboring in atrocious conditions.

This was also the only thing that was considered slavery to some extent. Still, it was heartily accepted by the populace since the people sent to such areas were murderers, traitors, and saboteurs. They were branded as the worst and, thus, seen as a detriment to the empire by nobles and commoners alike.

...

Days later

It was night when William sneaked through the town, which was nothing more than a giant prison. William's refugee camp initially had the idea to free all of them to seek chaos this way, but it was rejected after finding some things out.

All prisoners had a strong curse, which was very costly to remove. It reduced their attributes by at least 90% while their energy usage was permanently drained away. They could hardly cause chaos if children could kill them with a big stick.

He sneaked into some barracks past some bored guards, 'Who were they again? Dragon-kin and monkey-kin, right? Where are they?'

This was the third night he looked through the place, and he was cautious since he wanted to avoid making more commotion as he had done with the Cold-Snout girl.

William hoped that they would believe that he was someone from the islands from the South and was a fugitive or something of the sort. The last thing he wanted was to put eyes on their camp.

However, he was brought out of his thoughts when he saw some beast-kin lying around, barely breathing and beat up into a bloody pulp.

He looked closer at them, 'Dragon-kin and Monkey-kin, got them.'

They looked pissed and arrogant, which was surprising. William felt with his skills how proudful they were even while sleeping, but this was undermined by their pathetic state: Malnourished, dirty, and cursed with something more potent than what he saw from other death row prisoners, which could be explained by the grudge the Cold-Snout household held against them.

Even though they got the information early on, it was impossible not to notice how three artificer families were dragged to the estate and questioned for weeks. All his informants said it had something to do with them building backdoors into their equipment.

Usually, such things were fine, but not in one case: Military equipment. It was a big taboo since they were under the protection of the Cold-Snouts and even got preferential treatment. William could only frown at their stupidity to do something like this.

The Cold-Snouts avoided a crisis. If their trusted artificers sold a collar to another noble and it was found to be rigged to some degree, then war breaking out was a real possibility. So, the prominent artificers, the leaders of the companies, were thrown away so that others could survive inside the organization, which barely held together after the disaster since the Cold-Snouts cut their deals with them and looked for new ones, 'Three should be sufficient.'

He came closer, knocked them out for good, and dragged them away while they were unconscious.

...

Hours later, somewhere in the buffer zone

"Urgh, what happened?"

"Shut up, you damn lizard, and let me sleep."

"Fuck off, you forsaken ape... wait, where are we?"

A soft, calming voice brought their attention to a man before them, "Good morning, honorable artificers."

William sat on a boulder with three potions in his hand, which had a nightmarish black color - clinking them against each other slightly to put the artificer's attention on them.

The leader of the company that made the anti-mana collars, the dragon-kin lady, was the first to recognize the potions and speak up, "Aren't those curse blockers..." She looked around, "...and where are we?!"

The monkey-kin lady, who made the anti-energy collars, was staring at the potions with greed in her eyes. Going by her next words, it seemed she had already guessed what it was all about, "Tell me, what do you want? You don't need to be a genius to guess what is happening."

The dragon-kin man was the last one to recognize the potions. He had a certain desperation in his eyes and looked the worst of all three. William assumed he wanted them the most but had no strength to say anything, which was perfect for him.

'The more desperate, the better.'

William smiled and knew that he already had them in his hands. Even better was that the potions had only a temporary effect of removing the curse, so they would have no choice but to stay with the camp if they didn't want to end like this again.

He slightly clinked the bottles against each other again, "What is going on? I saved you and want to propose a deal which would give you... well, let me be honest, partial freedom but also what you probably seek the most: Revenge, my honorable artificers."

They stared at him more intensely, and he continued, "You see, I know for a fact who brought you into this situation. I think we can make a deal that would suit us all, don't you think?"

The monkey-kin woman was the first to reply, "You are not from the underworld and even less from Peerless Night since they would never be this stupid to go against the ruler. Tell me first who you are..." After a moment, she suddenly didn't care as rage invaded her when thinking about who found their backdoor, "... never mind, if you give me freedom and my revenge, I will do whatever you want."

The dragon-kin man asked in his raspy and barely audible voice, "Just say what you want and stop pretending to be all altruistic. You have our balls in a clinch, you bastard... hehe... I would rather be part of what you are than die as some miserable death prisoner."

The last one to answer was the dragon-kin woman burning with rage, "Tell me the name of the bastard who put me in this situation, and I will sell you my family!"

William was softly smiling at them on the outside, but inwardly, he was ecstatic, 'It's easier than I thought.'

"Don't worry, as we are only a little rag-tag group of people who want nothing more than freedom, but for this, we need chaos, and the person who found your exploit was none other than the person we also want to disappear. Otherwise, why would we even get you? The enemy of the enemy is my friend, right?"

All three of them distrusted him visibly, but they had no choice. They realized this quickly, and the monkey-kin woman was the first to speak up, "Fine, what do you want exactly?"

He brought the potions forward and smiled genuinely, "First take it, eat something, and then we talk about it while walking back. We have time."