I glanced towards where Fredrick was pointing.

Probably a mile away from us, I could see tiny dots descending into a valley. Hundreds of monsters, trailing down a hill, funneling towards one specific point that was hidden by hills and trees.

It was the one thing we had going for us, in our search. No matter how subtle a town tried to be, it would still draw the attention of the monsters. And most monsters didn’t seem to know the meaning of subtlety.

“We’ll walk the rest of the way,” I said. We were close enough that we needed to be worried about being spotted by anybody in the town. And there were some upgrades that towns could purchase to detect active magic nearby.

We were in a national forest, off any beaten trails, which made the walk somewhat difficult. It was easy enough to blaze a trail, but the trees and bushes provided ample opportunities for various monsters to hide and attack us. Snakes, Saber-Toothed Foxes, and the occasional Giant Ant all tried to surprise us.

Of course, they weren’t very successful, since I had Mana Sensing active the whole time.

But it was a hassle, and it slowed down our progress considerably.

After walking for a while through the underbrush, we eventually crested a small hill, and we could finally see the town that held Petra.

The town was nestled at the foot of several hills, the location clearly chosen with privacy in mind. There were a half dozen men standing in the ramparts of the town’s walls, firing arrows down at the attacking group of monsters.

I estimated there were a few hundred monsters attacking the town’s walls. It didn’t look like the monsters were making any particular progress in damaging the walls.

“Great! Congrats! You found it. Best of luck. I’ll take my money, now, and I’ll be on my way.”

I had been unable to convince Kendra to stick around once we found the town. As she saw it, as soon as I captured the town, I would be able to teleport out. If I was going to do some stealthy maneuvering in order to enter the town, then that would mean Kendra and Fredrick would be left unprotected.

“We were at 50,000 coins to get here. So, that’ll come to 100,000 coins, including the way back. And an additional 50,000 coins for hazard pay because you’re leaving the two of us on our own.”

I gave Kendra her payment without complaining, and watched them teleport out.

I had pressed Uman for some money since I left. Fortunately, he kept some cash on hand, so the payment wasn’t too difficult.

I studied the town in front of me carefully. It was a standard town, on the small size. I could see the rooftops of the familiar buildings: a Town Mayor’s Mansion, homes built in the style of log cabins, and the ever-present Merchant’s Faction Store.

There was no sign of a District Lord among the monsters attacking the town, and there was no indication that the monsters attacking the town were anywhere close to achieving the maximum strain that the Mana Shield was able to take.

The most common monster attacking the town were called Porcuspines.

The Porcuspines were around level 20, and they ranged from the size of a cat to the size of a horse. As they gathered at the town’s walls, they shot their barbed spines towards the mana reinforced wall.

Some of the Porcuspines had clearly been doing this for a while—they were running out of quills.

I was completely confident in my abilities to take down this town. The town was defended by an E-rank shield, and with enough mana put towards Strength, combined with my Igneal Explosives, I could crack the shield myself.

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The catch was that I needed to do this stealthily. The moment I broke the Mana Shield, they would know I was coming for Petra. If I was a second too slow, then they would already be gone, through the Teleportation Circle, before I reached them. Even if I made to the Teleportation Circle before them, then I would still be in a standoff where Petra’s life would be in danger.

So instead of breaking in, I needed a way to sneak in to a town that had its guard up.

Fortunately, Samantha had a plan.

I snuck towards the town with my Invisibility Cloak covering me.

The guards on the town’s walls had no chance of noticing me, between my Invisibility Cloak and my Concealment Runes that were, apparently, formed underneath my skin and incredibly difficult to remove…

That would be a conversation for another time.

I was able to reach the town’s gates with relative ease.

Next came the tricky part.

First, I poured all my floating mana points into Luck.

Since I was at the base of the wall, many Porcuspines were eagerly pressing towards me, trying to reach the wall. I kept an eye peeled on the guards above me. When I thought they weren’t looking, I killed the Porcuspine that was about to accidentally spear me.

I killed it with a quick toss of one of my knives, keeping my arms hidden the whole time under my Invisibility Cloak, so that the only thing the guards above me could see, if they were lucky, would be a quick glint of metal before the Porcuspine in front of me died.

I listened carefully for any signs that the guards were suspicious. But of course they weren’t. Even if they saw something, they would assume it was somebody else’s arrow.

Then I killed the next Porcuspine, and the next one.

It only took a few minutes before the guards above me noticed something.

“Holy shit,” a deep voice from directly above me said.

“What do you see? Another District Lord?” A woman called out in response.

“No, just take a look. Right by the gate. Next to the dead Porcuspines,” the deep voice said.

“Woah. I’ll call the captain.”

“No, I’ll call the captain. And I’ve got first claim on the pickings. I saw it first.”

“No, I killed those three Porcuspines—that loot is mine.”

“Fuck off.”

By now, all the nearby guards had noticed. There were even some other guards that had rushed up to the top of the wall to see what was going on.

Right in front of the gate, next of the corpses of the Porcuspines, was a fairly disproportionate collection of loot, including Mana Beads and several skill books.

“Captain says we have to clear all the Porcuspines before we open the gates. And keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”

It was only natural, of course, that after a long battle, the gates would open and guards would collect the loot.

I was just accelerating the timeline a bit. By significantly increasing my Luck, I dramatically increased the drop rate for the loot of any monsters I killed.

I was curious what kind of skill book a Porcuspine would drop, but I had bigger fish to fry.

Since there were so many eyes focused near where I was, I didn’t kill any more Porcuspines. Instead, I focused on avoiding any arrows that happened my way. Soon enough, I heard the doors to the town opening.

With my floating mana points put towards Agility, I was able to slide through the open gates easily, just a foot away from the excited guards who were rushing towards the pile of loot that I had left them.

I walked unhindered through the main street of the town.

This was where Fredrick would have been useful, again. He could have pointed towards the exact building Petra was held in, if he were here.

Instead, I focused on Mana Sensing. There were several homes that had F-rank Mana Shields around them. I had a feeling Petra wouldn’t be kept in any random house, though.

Petra was most likely kept in a prison. The mana residue of a prison would be pretty clear. Basically, I was looking for individual rooms that were completely surrounded by active Mana Shields.

I walked slowly through the city, checking each of the houses, as I neared the Teleportation Building.

There was only one person in the building that held the Teleportation Circle, and he was roaming back and forth—not my target.

Next, I focused my attention on the Mayor’s Mansion.

I quickly found that the mansion had a basement, reminiscent of the basement I had found in the Veyrier Mines. The basement had walls that were heavily soaked in Mana, and I could see the glimmer of mana in one person who was inside a basement cell. Petra.

I walked directly up to the Mayor’s Mansion, studying the defensive Mana Shield that surrounded the building.

The mana around the building was just as concentrated as the Mana Shield that surrounded the town—another E-rank Mana Shield.

Nobody was entering or exiting the building, which meant I didn’t have an easy opportunity to just sneak inside.

There were a half dozen people moving around the inside of the manor.

As much as it bothered me, I settled down beside the front door of the manor, ready to wait in hopes that the door would open.

I was itching for a fight, itching to free Petra, but patience, I knew, was the best strategy in this case. Just breaking in and blazing a path to Petra did not seem like a good idea.

So I waited, silently, at the front steps to the Mayor’s manor.