'Damn, I though the "boss" would be tougher. That was kinda overkill.' Al thought as he headed out of the collapsing, mafia-like headquarters.
His strategy of playing the part of a helpless child, then getting captured and destroying the organization from the inside had worked like a charm.
'In fact, it worked way better than expected. Who would've though they would bring me straight to the big boss? And that he would be so weak?'
It was a pity because Al had blasted the boss with his strongest magical attack and burnt to a crisp his whole room, when he could've looted the place if he just did it silently.
Unfortunately though, the whole building was shaken and Al was forced to destroy the dozens of hooligans that came for him at once, and the had to quickly escape the site of the crime, since he didn't want to raise any undue suspicion. This meant he couldn't loot anything.
'Well, at least the cells were all empty, so I didn't kill any victims. Probably. I would feel pretty bad if I had.'
Al then spent the whole night running through the streets and piercing the chests or necks of any individuals that he was over 90% sure were from that organization, many times confirming it by checking wether or not they had ropes on them.
He didn't bother to burn the corpses, and instead just left their bodies lying on the alleys they had been camping at.
'I probably missed quite a few, but I doubt they'll have the balls to cause any more mischief after what happened to their brothers-in-arms. A new underground organization will probably emerge soon enough and take the place of this one, though. This city seriously needs some kind of police force or something.'
As Al complained inwardly about the poor regulations in the city, he arrived home. He entered quietly, but found Caexiu sitting on a chair in front of the door, her arms crossed. She took a deep breath and asked him
"So, what were you doing outside all night?"
'Ahh man, this is such a cliché situation, though of a completely unrelated genre...'
Cutting his thoughts short, Al put on his best rouge smile and said "You'll probably find out tomorrow~" Then, he put his index finger on his mouth as if to say "please don't snitch on me" as he winked at her. It probably looked pretty ridiculous given his immature voice and appearance, but Al didn't mind it.
Quickly, he went upstairs and into the bed. Baolao had insisted on sleeping on the sofa until the three children were fully healed, and Caexiu slept on the same bed as Yuly for now. Al didn't know if she'd have the gall to go up after what Al said, but he didn't get to find out as he fell asleep immediately.
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As Al had expected, the next day the people were in a craze about the dozens of bodies scattered in alleyways. They were all infamous gangsters, so coupled with the dramatic burn and collapse of the building that was rumoured to be the headquarters of said gangster group, the common people were in a craze about who was the mysterious hero that had rid Duyan City (that was the city's name) of the group that prowled the shadows of all the Northeastern part of the outer city.
The only three people who knew who that supposed 'hero' was were the person himself, Caexiu and Misty who Al knew had overheard their conversation the previous night. Yuly and Koro probably suspected it had been Al too, so he just told them since he didn't want them to think he didn't trust them.
The fact that they were barely surprised confirmed Al's suspicions, and reassured him that telling the, had been the right choice.
Al and the others caught wind of these rumours from Caexiu when she came back from shopping that day, and aver since then she seemed to have become a bit weary of Al.
'Well, I can't judge her. Realising that she's got a mass-murdering toddler at home must have been pretty shocking. At least she already knew I was anything but normal.
Over the next few days the people became much more lively, and a festival was held five days after the incident, full of vendors selling things and lights and decorations. It lasted a full 24 hours, meaning most people had lost their fear of walking the streets when it was dark out.
Al hadn't been idly spending his time however,, and apart from giving mana tom Koro and going on walks with Yuly to get her moving again, he spent his time compiling information about the other gangs in the outer city.
Apparently there were three main gangs when Al came around: the smallest one was the Yinlao gang, that controlled the southeastern part of the outer city. Then there was the gang Al uprooted, the Gulah gang, which controlled the northeastern part. Finally, the biggest one that was almost as powerful as the other two combined was the Mahkon gang, that controlled all the Western outside city, and had especially cruel methods.
They would probably try to take over the territory of the fallen Gulah gang, and Al didn't like that one bit. 'I guess I ended up causing more trouble than I thought I would...'
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Thus, Al continued his night escapades, much to Caexiu's distress. He was able to pinpoint the mane hub of the gang, along with two buildings on the northwestern and southwestern parts of the city respectively, that seemed to serve as subsidiary headquarters or something like that.
After quite a lot of observing, headscratching, and umming and arring, Al had a decent plan for how he would deal with them. It wasn't at all foolproof, and could present a risk to Al, but hey, what's life without some risks?
Using the same strategy as before wouldn't work, since the members of this gang were much more ruthless and would try to knock out Al before bringing him anywhere, or even just try to kill him on the spot. The strategy of striking the head of the organization first would still be the most effective though, so Al knew he had to somehow infiltrate the HQ.
Although Al's element was extremely flashy and not suited for infiltration, his extremely high Dexterity alone would probably give him a leg-up, so he was confident in his plan.
Al had learned that to enter the HQ one had to show the two guards across the door their eyes through a cliché slit and say the password, and he couldn't fake that, so he had decided to instead go through the chimney.
'There's no Santa Claus in this world, nor is there a children's story about three hogs and a wolf, so they probably won't expect anyone to come from there.'
Just in case though, Al slowly and skilfully manouvered his way down. 'This is a tight fit. If I didn't have such a small body, there would be no way for me to go down through here. Fortunately I'm wearing this black cloak with a hoodie, so at least not too much soot will get on me...'
He finally arrived at a dark, empty room. It seemed to be a meeting room of some sort, judging by the big table in the middle with lots of seats.
There didn't seem to be much of interest in this room other than papers, which he had no time or interest for, so he swiftly moved on. He strolled through several rooms, silently killing any guards or sentries by piercing their brains with high-velocity throwable spines.
He had gotten the hang of throwing them fairly well, but even with the skill's aid and his absurdly high Dexterity he did miss the occasional shot. Not entirely, but one time he hit his target on the side of the head, just gracing the skull, and a second time it somehow slipped in between the two halves of the brain and didn't kill the guy.
Al was prepared for that, and immediately used [Impulse] to get to them and stuff their mouths with cloth before they could even scream. Then, ending them was trivial.
Al was getting a meagre amount of exp for killing these humans, but it wasn't nearly enough to push him to level 18. As he passed the barracks he found many people sleeping in them. He made a mental note of that and moved on. Eventually he found himself staring into a relatively large hall, with a couple of entrances and an ornamented door guarded by two people.
Al still wasn't nearly proficient enough at throwing spines to be able to accurately throw two at the same time by using both hands, so he just shot one of them as the other one was yawning and before he opened his eyes, Al shot him too.
Fortunately the first was only wearing leather armor and buckled against the wall when he died so he didn't make much noise, but it wasn't the case with the second one so Al had to use [Impulse] to put himself between the guy's body and the ground and them gingerly prop him down.
Then, he prepared a decently-sized [Palm of the Storm] and opened the door just enough for him to peek through. Inside was a bearded man full of scars and sleeping on his chair behind a desk. 'Really? Well, I won't refuse a free kill.'
Al deactivated [Palm of the Storm] and pumped his [Physical Augmentation] and [Sense Enrichment] with lots of mana, then used [Impulse] while aiming his Squirrelic at the man's chest. When he was about to hit, he used [Flash], and as the man shot his eyes open at the pain of having his heart pierced, he used [Zapper] to electrify the gang head.
His death was silent and instantaneous. 'Well, that was anticlimactic. As expected of Class Skills though, they synergise extremely well. That attack is basically a 1-hit KO if it lands, unless the target has like B+ Toughness or something.' A screen also popped up in front of Al
[Impulse] Skill has reached Mid proficiency. You can now chain [Impulse] in the same direction while going through the air or ground, increasing your speed in diminishing amounts every time.
This was actually really good. Before, he had couldn't use [Impulse] if he was wanted to push himself in a direction he was already going in, since it would create the platform beneath his foot, but he wouldn't be able to push himself off it. He should be able to do it now though, and it would improve his ultimate attack even more.
Al did a quick search of the office and managed to loot quite a few expensive-looking items, some unknown pills, and a...safe. Al tried to open it, but it had some sort of magical lock, that was extremely sturdy. The material itself was also weirdly resilient, much more than normal metals, and toughened with magical inscriptions. It was also too heavy for Al to carry, so he decided to dig a hole for the safe and come for it at a later date.
He went out and kept on killing every wandering gangster, which only left him with the ones at the barracks. In the end he just used a giant [Palm of the Storm] to fry the whole room. A few mana-sensitive individuals woke up from the potent mana fluctuations, but before they could do anything they were consumed by the lightning. It was a bit loud and could be seen from the outside, but Al had made sure there were no gangsters left in the area.
His attack started a few fires, but Al expertly blowed the, out by swinging his cloak at them at an inhuman speed. Al was afraid it would only enlarge the fires, but the speed was so fast it completely made them disappear in seconds.
Al could have just let the building burn, but he didn't do it mainly for one reason. On the back of the building there were four cells. In between the four, 18 women were held. They all seemed to have been beautiful, but they were dirty, their hairs missing patches due to being pulled out. Their faces were full of scratch marks and purple bruises, and their bodies were also battered and malnourished, though none seemed to have injuries needing urgent treatment.
As for their eyes, they were blank and lifeless.
Al made sure to pull his hoodie down all the way as he approached the foul-smelling, dirty cells and said with a cold voice, contrasting it's high pitch "Hello. The Mahkon gang is no more. I don't know what you've been through, but if you can tell me where you live, I will take you home. If not, I'll give you some money, but you will be on your own." Al was no hero, but he had long abandoned his plans of destroying the two subsidiary HQs that night, so he could at least do this.