"Have you really accomplished all this in such a short time? There's something wrong here."
"No, there's nothing wrong here, Lightning, he's great for this kind of work. If he hadn't been I wouldn't have recruited him into the unit but even then, you still have to confirm the final destination of the two secret passages that lead out of the city tomorrow."
"I will want to do the attack after dark, unfortunately we don't have much time Felix started to react negatively to the massages I sent him. He has already sent orders for the deposit in mine in the forest to be cleaned, he must already be preparing so that the useless group he sent to fetch the materials may not return."
"We're lucky he doesn't know that Akin knows they have a base here, if he knew they would already be packing their bags to flee the city and wouldn't be bringing more materials and people to the base."
"Does that mean there will be more enemies in the underground base and the mansion?"
"No, that's good news, Wolf. This means the base has fewer people over the next four days, Felix appears to have asked some of his men and trusted people to clear out some hiding places that may have been compromised. Unfortunately, we don't know who is absent from the base as I don't trust that idiot, he may seem to have arranged his death, but if he sees a glimmer of hope he could ruin our entire operation."
"Do you think the plague mages might be out of town?"
"Since when are we so lucky?"
"Lightning is right, we're not so lucky it would be great if we were, but we have to believe that both plague mages are still in the underground base and can poison all those in the base."
"Shall we divide the group into how many different units, leader?"
"It depends on how many entrances we have, so it's good that Lobo can find the two entrances outside the city. With so many entrances to use we won't have to risk going through the front door and the chances that one of the groups will be able to locate the plague mage or mage before some of them can make our lives difficult."
The conversation I was having with Mia and Raven was interrupted when we heard the downstairs door opening, there shouldn't be anyone arriving in this building at this hour. Raven and Mia prepared to respond to the invader, but taking a good look around the walls of the house I saw that the visitor was a mid-stage orange-core warrior who had both the shadow element and life at his core.
This fight wouldn't be easy, but to everyone's surprise there was no noise from the floor below us. This means that Volkan and Sean didn't tie the visitor, maybe one of the groups arrived earlier than expected.
I saw Volkan's core coming up the stairs.
"Right red eye has arrived."
Is this new code? Did you forget to inform me again?
"Send him up."
"Looks like the backup group arrived, I didn't think they would send him. The idiot shouldn't be on the other side of the realm"
"You look like you're complaining about his presence, weren't you the one who asked for him specifically?"
"That is beside the point, Lightning."
Our visitor arrived at the door that didn't open by itself, it took him a few seconds to realize that it wasn't going to open. Pity not anyone in this room who would be polite enough to open the end for him, I have nothing against the guy but I won't go between the two of them to open the end for a stranger when neither one of them is doing it or looking at me with a silent order to open the door.
The warrior who entered the room was very different from what I expected, soldiers from units of the same type as ours avoid wearing flashy clothes, cloaks and armor it wouldn't make sense for someone here to have a flashy or striking appearance.
But the man who just walked into the room took the goal of being ordinary, lackluster and looking so boring that no one would remember him after seeing him several times to a new level. Average height, short black hair, brown eyes like the dirt that covers all his clothes in a discreet way to the point that he is not repulsive for being too dirty or that dirt on his body.
His plain, pale leather plow makes him look like an old adventurer, but he's still a rookie in the sense that he's not strong. He looks like those adventurers who don't have the talent to climb their rank and are taking simple quests to have a normal life, because that's still a smaller and freer job than working inside a city.
He is truly a master of disguise, if I couldn't see his core or the amount of mana and elemental energy that his 'ordinary' and 'worn out' clothes have I would believe without a shadow of a doubt that he is a super ordinary adventurer. The only thing about him that isn't a lie or fake is the short, torn, old robe he wears that is a dangerous killer.
"Hi, did I check in time? We had to run a lot to get here."
"Hey, I thought Voice would be unavailable to come help us, did something happen on the other side of the realm?"
"Nothing bad, the information turned out to be false or very wrong I still think that merchant was not lying, Lazy Cat is a good interrogator."
"You're still new to hunting this kind of junk they can be quite slippery, we had good luck this time to be able to locate and have the opportunity to attack such a big and strong target."
"True, I was surprised when I got the message that you needed my help. What kind of monster is this to make you afraid of him?"
"Needed? Fear? I don't know what kind of lie headquarters sent you, I just said you were a good fit to help kill the target. I was hoping they'd send someone with similar abilities and not you, and that cultist trash doesn't scare me, but he's strong enough to be tricky to kill and get out of town before the guards show up."
"Yes, I don't know what kind of madness crossed my mind to think you would need help to complete your mission. The great mighty Raven should be able to complete this mission alone if she didn't have to worry about the diplomatic problem between countries, politics only gets in the way."
"Exactly, now you understand the current situation. The quest is quite simple for you, I stabbed the death knight with your dagger imbued with your life element and the poison I asked to be delivered to you, while he is distracted fighting me and my support. Do you have the poison?"
"Yes, I received a good dose of the poison you asked for. I was impressed when they explained to me what this poison is, I had never heard of the poison before, Revenge of Bresfus, who is Bresfus?"
"An ancient healer is a really old story, basically he was tired of people dying and invented an elemental art of the life element to transform everyone's body into a healthier version. It didn't greatly increase the power but with the help of a life element mage a large number of people could gain a body more resistant to poisons and common diseases, because of his work and so hard for a disease or plague to affect intelligent species like an epidemic as in the past."
"Nowadays we only have to worry about a mad plague mage releasing a plague massively on the population, his work has helped all of us a lot when temples helped to spread the art, but there is always someone trying to gain an advantage. A group of motherfuckers made a change in the art making it an abominable art, instead of using a mage to use their life element to stimulate people's bodies, they used materials, life element magic, parts of elemental warriors' life and blood sacrifices as a source of vital energy to become monsters."
"Are you kidding me?"
"No, this art was branded as a demonic art because the objective of this group was to transform the human, elf, dwarf or beast tribes' body into a superior physique than the demons have, remember that they had the bodily physique with greater raw power of that era. This art became taboo, but Bresfus wanted revenge against those who corrupted his work, he created a poison specially made to target those who cultivated this demonic art."
"One of the important characteristics for us and that the bodies of those who trained in this art is that they had a ridiculous amount of life element energy inside their bodies, Bresfus venom uses that energy to destroy the body and core of its target.
Even though our target doesn't cultivate this kind of demonic art he still has a large amount of life element energy in his body, and as he cannot control it since his real element is the death element the death knight will not be able to resist this poison."
"But since the poison wasn't specifically made for our target, it needs to be absorbed in a very direct way into the target's body. You will have to pierce his body with three simultaneous attacks to inject the venom into his organs and flesh, but don't forget to energize the venom with your life element just before you hit Felix, his life element will feed the venom leaving him fine. aggressive, with all that poison in his body his aura won't be able to help him and they'll fall down incapacitated in no time."
"We will have a great gain neutralizing a target like him, unfortunately the poison will end up killing him, but we will still have very little time to interrogate him. Adding that to the fact that we have to run out of town with him, we have maybe a day or just a few hours to interrogate him in the countryside. We're going to have to try and get as much information out of him as possible while offering a fake cure for the poison that's going to be killing him."
"Nice plan."
"Thanks, before we get into the details of the plan, I have to borrow two assassins from your team to scout, Lobo, he's going to search the mansion while we attack the underground base. If we're lucky, he might get a lot of information or clues about the cultists and their operations."
"Wolf? It would be that weak boy over there. I couldn't believe it when they said you had a gray core warrior in your party, he must really be skilled for you to have caught him and even given a very important quest like this."
"Yes, but as you said yourself, he's not strong. That's why I need two blades to accompany him and kill any danger in the mansion, it would be nice to have someone with an orange core but I think two green core assassins can serve maybe a third if they're left, but I doubt that will happen since we're going make an attack through several entrances to the cultists' base."
"Okay, I'll send competent babysitters to take care of the boy. At the end of the day, I don't want to let your little treasure die on your first mission."
"Let's start going through the mission step by step, today is the last day we have to prepare we will attack tomorrow."
"So fast?"
"The weak boy you just dumped without taking her will finish mapping the secret entrances tomorrow morning. He is actually much better than you in his field."