A carriage rides on a lonely road extending from Haeru to a mansion in the woods.
As if some sort of treasure is within the mansion, a large wall erects around it, and at four corners are watchtowers. Patches of guards roam the parameter. Inspections are meticulous and strict, not even servants are spared.
I understand Huke's paranoia. He must have gotten information that other buyers of the drug disappeared or died. But his addiction couldn't stop him.
Red is the coachman of the carriage and Kae and I stay behind with the boxes. The guards check our identity and the contents of the box before letting us in. Both Kae and I are wearing face masks.
A male servant, annoyed by his increasing workload, guides us into the mansion and to the storage room behind the mansion. He opens the box and takes a small pinch of the crystal and sniffs it.
"Ahhh...fucking...yeah that hits the spot." He mumbles.
...
"What?" The servant says when he notices our stares. "You want some too? A few specks of these missing won't be noticed."
...
I smile. "Sure."
However, as I distract his attention by walking to the box, Kae hits the servant by his nape and knocks him unconscious.
"Nice," I say as I check the servant's vitals. I then pull his body and lean it against the boxes.
"Let's move," Red says. He cuts some blood from his thumb and drips it on the floor. The blood levitates and seeps under the door of the mansion. The storage room has two doors, one that leads inside and another outside.
"I found him. Three levels above us."
We open the door and sneak past servants and guards, occasionally ducking into rooms or hiding in corners. Red's skills are mostly infiltration, stealth, and information-collecting orientated, making him perfect for this. He covers all three of us with mana to mask our presence and noise.
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The interior is one of a normal mansion, huge and luxurious and at the same time provides us many ways to hide ourselves. Hiding at the tall ceiling and concealing ourselves behind trinkets displays and statues are among many.
We stop before the double birch polished door. Inside, we can hear muttering of some sort.
"Fucking hell...after I get this batch of drugs, I will leave this fucking dumpster. It's bloody obvious that fucking cunt and dipshit Arsto guy caught all of them." mumbles a shrivelled skinny pale man in a yellow-orange coat and long pants. His hair gelled up and is the same colour as his pupils, blue.
"Is that so?" I say.
"What?!" The man jolts. I immediately jump forward with my blade and pierce his abdomen.
"Uck!"
Mana explodes out of his body, spiralling out of control but I calm them down and absorb all the condensed mana. This man right here is Huke Pie.
Huke falls to the ground after I pull the blade out. Blood splatters and spews.
Huke is a level 198 mage. However, his drug addiction took a toll on his body and dulled his senses. A mage's weakness is his energy core stored below the diaphragm. Destroy it and you can easily overpower mages.
"W-Who...How..." Huke glances up, his mouth coughing a little blood.
Kae takes out a vial of potion and shows Huke. Huke can detect a barrier surrounding us.
"W-What do you...want?"
"Tell me about Despair and The Order. Everything." I ask.
Hugo widens his eyes, his mouth shuts close and he shakes his head.
"Why? Because you will lose your life? You are already dying. I might save you if you confess."
"I-I can't...no...I don't... betrayal... Please..." Huke abruptly spits nonsense.
I glance at Kae and Red and both shrug.
Huke's face contorts fear and anxiety. He gazes at me. "S-Save...me..." He wails softly.
"What?" I reply.
!
Suddenly, I detect an intense sharp demonic energy. Both Red and Kae feel it too.
Huke's skin bubbles and turns purple. "H-Help...Ah-"
*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*
A hole is blasted in the wall, sending debris and injuring many as well as alerting anything near. A vicious fire erupts in Huke's room.
"Huff huff..." I lean against a tree not far from the burning mansion. Luckily, Red has teleportation magic and brought all of us to safety. Kae and I pull off our face masks.
"Damn it...we were so close." Red says.
...
"Well, if it was this easy, Despair would have been caught long ago," I reply.
Albeit a merciful end for Huke, this is Karma. The blue powder drug is called Cyro Spores. In the medical field, Cyro Spores are used to treat flame curse ailments and when taken with water incapacitated the patient. Huke exploits that to rape and murder innocents. In addition, small sniffs of Cyro Spores send an icy euphoria to the mind and body creating addiction over time.
"Brother, how about we head for Ela? She is a close mistress of Huke and she might know something. She usually likes to wear red as it goes with her crimson pupil and blonde hair." Red suggests.
I brush the dirt off my coat. "We can consider that, where is she?"
"Clamore. Or at least what I heard from my informant."
Clamore...
In the end, everything connects to this city. I feel uneasy.
"I will be going to Clamore as part of the BOV. I will see if I can contact her."
Kae glance at Red. "I will stay with sir Red, I can protect him, just as a precaution."
...
This guy has forgotten his original purpose is to monitor me; He subconsciously acts as my subordinate.
Nonetheless, there is something I did not mention to Kae and Red. There were two safety spells cast on Huke, one is the explosion and another is "Spy", someone saw us.
The next morning, I meet Melissa outside the dormitory and she guides me to a row of carriages parked. Several officers gather beside the carriage. They stand in attention and bow at Melissa's presence. "Good morning Captain Levia Melissa!" they say in unison.
Melissa greets back and nods.
"Squad one present."
"Squad two present."
"Squad three present."
"Squad four present."
One officer from each cluster of officers shouts their attendance to Melissa. Once everything is prepared and ready, we board the carriages and set off to Clamore.