"I'm getting tired..." One of the guards patrolling the Aruna Familia's main building complained while yawning.
"Stop complaining. The executives or officers might hear you." His partner replied while also being infected by his yawn.
Lowering his voice, the first one added, "But seriously, what's going on? It has been weeks and the protocol only gets stricter and stricter. Not to mention, most of the executives haven't left the main house, including Aruna-sama."
"You know what's even weirder? Our recent Dungeon activities! While the other Familias are getting stronger fast because of that tower that allows more risks in the deeper levels, our Familia actually pulled back most of our forces from the Dungeon to guard the vicinity! Does that make sense when normally we would be contesting for its ownership or at least benefits!?"
The first guard hurriedly smacked his partner's head, "You idiot! Keep your voice down! You should've already heard of this, but those who voiced out their complaints and tried to go against the directives were called inside, but none of them actually have gone back out yet!"
"Sorry... I lost my calm there." The second guard scratched his head, "The only good thing about this is that we can relax a bit since those who can enter inside seem to always be captured, even the most famous ones, and we even get to have a portion of the ransom for their release."
A few hours before dawn, within the Aruna Familia's main base Zitta, Kuroka was going around using the cover of the darkness. She spent around an hour listening to the guards, but failed to get anything else from them, 'There's nothing new. As expected, it looks like I'll have to enter the 'red zone' to get more information.'
The red zone Kuroka was thinking about is the whole Aruna Familia main building. Before the other infiltrators from other Familias started getting caught in it, Kuroka and the rest were already aware of its existence as some sort of barrier made out of the combined Magic and Divine Power that pinpointed the exact location of anyone within.
Since she didn't want to reveal her existence yet in order to gather more information, Kuroka had so far chosen to hold off on storming in.
But after considering the pros and cons, she finally decided to go in, 'First I have to set an anchor for Teleportation Magic for instantaneous movement.'
Kuroka formed a plan in her head while looking at the blueprint of the mansion she acquired earlier on before establishing contact with Medusa, [Medusa-chan, I'll be entering the red zone, nyaa. I'll send you my current location every two minutes while inside.]
[Understood. I'll move out as soon as five seconds have passed from the time limit. Also, please do be careful. There are traces that a major renovation was done on the mansion's interior.]
[I'll be careful.]
Kuroka finished all of her preparations and immediately entered through one of the windows. As soon as she went through the invisible film-like barrier, she instantly expanded her Ki to scan her surroundings and detected all the people patrolling inside had begun to converge on her position, even though she didn't do anything to reveal her location, 'So it's really like this, nyaa... Hive mind type of connection Magic?'
Kuroka first sent her location to Medusa and immediately got a pingback from her, 'Good. It's working.'
Instead of avoiding the guards, Kuroka covered her real appearance with Illusion Magic and went after a small group that was furthest from everyone else. The moment she met them, Kuroka immediately noticed something strange about them.
"You there! Surrender yourself!" The man leading the group warned.
'They may act normal but I can't feel any emotions from them... Brainwashed?' Kuroka questioned herself and immediately initiated an attack without replying to him.
Kuroka easily dispatched the group and left all but one unconscious, "Y-you... Who are you!?"
Kuroka still didn't answer his question and instead threw him through the nearest window, ejecting him from the mansion and the barrier covering it. The man broke his arm when he landed on the ground but instead of the pain, it seems that he's confused about what's happening. Seeing his reaction had already given Kuroka most of the things she needed to know and immediately left, avoiding the other groups.
'These people aren't important, nyaa. The real point of concern is where my Ki can't penetrate.' Within her detection range, there's a spot where she couldn't feel anything from, 'The basement, huh... According to the blueprint, that shouldn't exist.'
Making her way through, before she reached her target, she came across another group and knocked them out. Among them, she brought one with her on the edge of the barrier that her Ki couldn't penetrate, 'This is... Quite a strong one, isn't it?'
Kuroka touched the barrier that physically blocked her before lowering her body and going into a stance. Covering her arm with Ki, Kuroka threw out a punch with a calculated strength of a Level 8 Adventurer or Mercenary. However, the punch that was enough to shake the whole manor and destroy a portion of it, only created some ripples.
Thinking that it already alerted the people inside the degree of the strength she used, Kuroka refrained from throwing another punch with increased strength, 'It'll only be a disadvantage when they think that someone is roaming around with a strength beyond normal, nyaa.'
Turning around, Kuroka grabbed the unconscious man that he brought and threw him towards the barrier that blocked her. But just as she'd expected, he went through without being obstructed, 'There are no devices that would differentiate him from me so I guess it's something more innate? Since there are traces of Divine Power being used in this barrier, only those with a certain insignia would be allowed in.'
'Any further and I'll be revealing more cards. In any case, this is already a fruitful venture. Just knowing that a Deity's power is involved is already a lot.' With that in mind, Kuroka retreated from the mansion while covering her tracks and destroying several anchors that she placed along the way.
From this outing, she'd figured that it was a lot more troublesome than they'd initially thought, 'If a Deity is really involved personally, not to mention we don't know how many are involved, it'll actually be dangerous for us. Though thinking about it, this is also a good chance for everyone.'
Kuroka too knew about what was going on the other side and honestly felt envious that she, along with everyone, didn't have many chances of getting stronger through a trial by fire. If not for the constraints of world travel and her worries of leaving the girls behind, she would have joined Kisuke in the tournament where she could fight Gods.