I step out and watched both sides of the street before moving as silently and fast as I could.
In the sky, the stars were already appearing, and a half-moon was the only light source I had. For a moment I thought about bringing Dante with me because of his sight at night should be better than mine, but I discarded the idea.
The main problem I'm facing right now it's that I'm not sure how I was supposed to find her in less than 8 hours. To start, I was going to try to look for a place not too far from where I found Dana.
I don't remember seeing bodies in the place I fought with the boar, if they were eaten by the beasts there would be dried blood on the floor, but I didn't see that. Therefore, I think that the possibility of them being alive was high and they were kidnapped together with Dana's mom.
Because moving too many people was a nuisance I don't think the guy's hideout is too far away. The second part of the plan is to find a place with either their lights on or where I can see it's warmer than other places. Just like with Hayley coldness, the heat also affects the colors I can see to some extent, so if I'm able to find either the light or a heat source I can send Rose to check inside.
I plan to rely on this strategy at the beginning, but I don't think it will work, thus if after some time it doesn't show any results I will have to buy the tracking skill from the system shop.
I was 2 blocks away from the place when Rose appeared. It took me longer to arrive at the place because I had to be more careful at night. she helped me and asked if I had any plan to find Dana's mother. I explained my idea and we decided to put a limit of 2 hours for it to work out. If till that moment there are no results I was going to buy the skill.
Once in there, I found a bloody spot where the boar died and was ate by the cow later. Even with the little light I had, I was able to found the aftermath of the other battle, burns around and a couple of bullet shells on the floor. There were no guns around. I tried to follow the burns marks but the light wasn't enough to find a trace I could follow.
I looked around, but I didn't find any window with light…not like I expected to find it that easily though.
I went to the highest place I found near and climbed the fire stairs, once I was up there I scanned my surroundings looking for the tiniest clue.
I didn't see anything after looking for a while, so I decided to go towards the center of the city. I had to choose a direction so I made a bet, since I came from the other side and neither on my way here nor in my way back with Dana noticed anything unusual. Besides that to go in the other direction I have to climb down the building.
I jumped down to the next roof and moved carefully on the shadows I could find. When I arrived at the next corner I repeated the process. This was going to take a while…
...….
...….
.....
…After 2 hours without finding any leads I had to go back, to the place I started, I was lucky enough to only encounter a crow while moving… I emptied the magazine on it… it wasn't even a ranked beast, but I'm not taking my chances.
Back in the same I started opened the system store and bought the skill.
[Confirm…Do you wish to buy tracking skill? (Yes/No) Cost 75 system points].
'Yes'.
[Requirement: Wisdom 15 fulfilled…]
[Tracking Skill Lv.1 obtained…New View Mode Unlocked…]
I felt the knowledge and experience fill my brain, for a second I also felt a slight pain in my eyes too, but it stopped right away.
[User's eyes limit reached…Upgrade pending]
I was a little regretful that tracking view wasn't unlocked but it was understandable. Probably my eyes right now are comparable to an E-Rank enhancement when you consider my perks and the effect that the reflexes enhancement had on me. Even without the tracking view now that I have the skill I can look for Dana's mother more efficiently.
I looked around for clues once again this time thanks to my new knowledge I understood what happened earlier, the guy had two accomplices and fought against four people. I followed the traces of the battle, one of the accomplices went to fight at close quarters while the other guy kept his distance.
After that they dragged part group through the roadway, probably they were also carrying some of them. I had no way to know if they were dead or unconscious. I followed the roadway and was surprised to find out that I was right in the overall direction. Finding traces proved to be difficult with just the light of the moon and stars, but I was able to handle it very well.
Since I had to focus on following the trail, it became Rose's job to scout around for beasts and prevent me for encounters. This time I couldn't go through the roofs or use alternative paths to move so it took me a lot of time to move.
My idea that they weren't far from where they took the people was completely wrong. After moving toward the center a couple of blocks I had to move directly to the south which was the reason I couldn't find anything before.
By the time I arrive at the place where they drag the group I had less than 4 hours remaining. I could see a light on an apartment on the third floor and a guy was smoking by the window, the trail was in that direction.
_________________________________________________________________
Somewhere near…
Two men were sitting in front of each other drinking. There was a third one smoking near the window looking outside, he was bald and looked sturdy and about two meters high. A dim light came from a fire on the corner of the room. In the table were two bottles of bourbon, one which was already emptied and another without much left either.
One of the guys on the table was clearly drunk and was rambling about some nonsense barely understandable. The only distinct feature he had was a nose too big for the rest of his face, which because of the alcohol was red and stood out even more than usual. The other was a redhead with freckles, he had his eyes fixed on the drunk man as if waiting for something.
After a few minutes, the drunk man started to snore on top of the table.
"He passed out". The guy in the window said.
"Yes, let's tie him up and throw him with the others"
"Are you sure you still want to do that?". The bald man had an amused face while looking at the redhead.
"Yes… If we count him we need 9 people to pay the entrance fees, right now we have 5, if we throw him with them we can enter tomorrow morning". The man's voice was devoid of any emotion.
"Who would have thought that the guy who used to defend you from me would end like that". The guy took a drag from the cigarette and made a smoke ring with a sarcastic smile on his lips.
"He can just blame his luck for no receiving a power, this is a different world now". The redhead coldly answered.
The bald man finished the cigarette and went to help the redhead tie up the third guy. When he was secured the bald man put him on his shoulder and followed the redhead to a backroom without windows.
When they opened the door 5 people were lying in the floor tied down, between them there was a dark-haired woman with a worried look on her face. They ignored the people on the room and just threw the drunk guy there. The guy probably will never know what happened till he wakes up the next day afternoon.
The redhead left the room without even bothering to look at the one who used to be his friend. the bald guy followed behind.
"I'll go rest, it's going to be annoying to drag them just the two of us if we don't rest". Said the redhead and went back to the place they were before.
"I'll go take a dump first".
"Use another apartment's bathroom, I don't want to smell your sh*t while I sleep". Without waiting for an answer, the redhead left, and the bald man went to another apartment's bathroom.
None of them have any way to notice that there was someone doing some reconnaissance and could saw everything.