Apart from the shadow element that Faustos has been hiding there is nothing weird about him, after he left the army building, he works for, he went straight to the house where we found nothing unusual.
During the short drive from the building where he works to his house, I not only followed him but studied every part of his body with my eyes, and to my surprise I didn't find anything unusual apart from the shadow element he has.
He doesn't even carry a magic tool with him or even a wand, does he really walk around unarmed all day? A mage always carries some type of wand or other type of focus that helps boost his magic, but this guy has nothing to do with him, that's abnormal.
Even his clothes are quite normal, they are made of good quality fabric and his sewing is of high quality, but they are just clothes and not a magical cloak. Faustos only behaves and dresses like a normal person and not like a wizard.
It looks like we're going to have to do a much more active investigation into Faustos, but doing that will require breaking into both his house and the place where he works. But before we do something like that, we have to take a look at the rest of the suspects and get Raven's permission to break into the targets' house.
As we made our way back to the inn to meet the rest of the team, I got a good look at my two companions. Volkan is normal, but it's pretty obvious from Little Flame's aura that she's very angry, it looks like this mission is proving to be quite a challenge for her.
Upon arriving at the inn and telling Raven about the first day of surveillance, the rest of the team was ready to begin night operations. Raven has made a surveillance schedule that will keep all team members busy for the next few weeks.
Raven decides that we're going to fully investigate all suspects, start with me and Volkan scouting all the targets' homes and workplaces while the rest of the team splits into pairs to watch their movements from afar. Should any of them break their routine I will be summoned to follow that person from afar with Raven's assistance.
But only after checking all the targets will Raven give me the order to break into the homes of those with low security. Even if she's trapped or bent on finding the cultists, Raven won't risk the safety of team members, which is a very good thing.
In a mission like this it is risky to speed up the investigation or make it take too long, we are in enemy territory and every minute we spend here the chances of being discovered increases, but risking too much would cause our presence to be noticed immediately.
This type of mission is very problematic for the team leader to decide any decisive move, many variables to analyze in hope and decide u create the best option for the current problem, but unfortunately the only force that can really interfere in our favor is luck.
But unfortunately, luck is not something that can be manipulated that easily, so we can only hope and hope our luck is good when we try to make an aggressive move. And I'm sure we'll have to because no matter how good we may be, only by actively investigating will we be able to find the cultists.
After Raven had planned the mission in more detail after having finally confirmed our situation in detail since before, we entered the city a lot of information the team had was not confirmed.
The next week we investigated the other four targets, their number changed because according to Raven some of the suspects were moved to another city because of problems that occurred with the slaves in other camps. Gathering so many slaves is always dangerous, it was really good news that several slaves are starting a revolt in the slave town of Pines.
This really made our job easier, during the week that the news of the troubled slaves of Pines became public around town the guards focused their attention on the fields full of slaves causing lesser places to have their security weakened.
A logistics office like the one Faustos works at or the small warehouse where the warrior Jack Pine and responsible for operations were left with very few guards. Yes, among all the suspects we investigated during the week, only Faustos Mirati and Jack Pine showed signs of withholding important information about them.
I believe that both of them may even be working together, but during the investigation of the house of both we didn't find any proof of this, but both are hiding their shadow element. This cannot be a coincidence, a mage and warrior in the final stage of the gray core hide the fact that they have the shadow element, I believe they are both undercover agents of the cultist who create this slave stealing operation.
But this is nothing more than a suspicion, unfortunately during the search of the house of both we did not find even a hint of a secret operation. Not that I thought we'd find a report saying slaves were missing or a statue of an evil god, but I still thought we'd find some documents with some information that they shouldn't have in their homes but both were completely empty.
Returning to Raven with so many negative results didn't discourage her, in fact our current situation is much better than expected. As I planned my way with Raven to break into Faustos' office, the inn manager who was the liaison for the information network within the kingdom came with wonderful news.
It only took a few more days for the slave revolt in the town near Canos to grow to the point that the entire region began to descend into chaos. Smugglers are always annoyed when slaves misbehave and start complaining to the royal family of their kingdom, this happened even when it wasn't the royal family's fault.
Simply because they are the royal family of the realm, they should be forced to concentrate the mistakes of dumb slavers, but this time the traders really have reason to complain to the royal family.
The decision to use such a large number of slaves was not very popular with slavers in the realm, those with small operations loved it as the royal family would reward them, but those with large operations in the realm are losing money.
Probably they received several promises from the kingdom to take a short-term loss, but they should focus on the lucrative opportunities that would appear after their kingdom wins the war. Obviously, they're going to get screwed no matter what the outcome of the war, because of that not even a slaver is very happy with the royal family.
Now one of the camps hastily set up by the royal family has been turned into a riot by the slaves who were sent there. The hurried reinforcements sent there, ended up failing and now the whole kingdom knows that a rebellion has started, this kind of information is like an extremely virulent and irritating virus for a slave kingdom like Mirue at a difficult time like this.
A rebellion unchecked at this very moment will not only stop the steady flow of slaves onto the battlefield, the news has already completely reached the region and will soon be common knowledge throughout the realm. When slaves hear that a group of slaves in their kingdom are rebelling and surviving the kingdom's attacks, it's a great motivation for them to do the same.
Stories of slaves rebelling and killing their masters and a horrible example for slaves, this is even one of the reasons our kingdom is so problematic for its slaver neighbors. A kingdom founded by a slave who not only killed his masters but conquered the kingdoms is unified into a kingdom that basically banishes slavers.
Obviously, the fact that the founder of the kingdom was the son of a slave is not a person who was born a slave does not matter much, and a minor detail, the fact is that he advocated a policy almost completely opposite to the slave kingdoms and founded a strong kingdom that was able to maintain its borders for many years.
The existence of such a kingdom is already a very negative influence, now that the slave kingdom has even started promising freedom to countless slaves it has caused many idiot and disgruntled slaves to get courage enough to start a rebellion.
They don't realize that no matter how much they rebel, without the help of other realms or an extremely strong figure they will never be free. The founder of the legendary kingdom full of freedom did not rise to power magically, he fled the kingdom and strengthened himself and gathered many allies to begin his revenge against those who killed his family, it took him several decades to be able to succeed in his revenge, but this kind of story does not help in creating a legend.
A rebellion like the one happening now usually ends with a sad ending for the slaves, but that doesn't mean it's a waste of time. With the kingdom's attention focused on the slaves, Mirue's kingdom's power on the battlefield diminishes, and for our team this means that we can complete our mission more easily.
And I'm not referring to the fact that the focus of the realm's forces is on keeping the slaves in order, thanks to a rumor that a group of slaves disappeared in the vicinity of Canos.
This is really the most important information that the inn manager brought to Raven, many think it has to do with the slave rebellion, but for us this is a huge clue about the whereabouts of the cultists. It seems that they were not able to keep their operations on a small scale, their greed was too great and we now have a very solid lead on the cultists' movements.