"So, down this alleyway was the one I have seen the Rat Kid go through, so we're going to check every door here and see where he goes when he drops down here," Lum said, lifting trash bags to check every corner. If I had tracking magic, this could have easily ended. I remembered I hit him with my mana and some residue got on him, but I had no way of tracking that residue.
"Got any leads Anima Kid?" Lum asked me. I shook my head, checking behind a dumpster. Once I pulled it back, I could see a dug-out hole in the wall with torches down the path.
"Well, I do now. Down here." I said, pointing into the hole. Lum peered into it, dropping a pebble down it to see if anything like a trap triggered. I really wasn't thinking to my full capacity, so if a trap would've been down there, I would be instantly killed either way. It was easy saying I needed to think about things like this, but hard to be conscious of so much at one point.
"It's all up to you," I told him. Lum nodded and started to move down the hole. I followed right behind, pulling the dumpster up against the hole again to cover our tracks. Lum went around a corner and I followed right behind.
Lum rose his hand as if he was telling me to stop, so I silently listened to him and watched ahead of us to see two men standing in front of us, talking about something with their backs turned.
"We're going to have to either kill them or incapacitate them. Do you have anything that can do that?" Lum asked me. I shook my head, realizing I left [Yggdrasil's Bone] with Janice.
"Shit, I don't have many skills since some are saved in my staff I left behind. I can heal you and use [Slash], but that's all I have." I told Lum. He nodded, not worried about it at all.
Lum ran from the hole, throwing a rock to the right of the two men. They turned their heads and Lum punched one so hard he hit the wall and fell unconscious, and the other quickly followed after Lum kicked him in the jaw and sent him straight to the dream world. Damn, he was pretty strong.
"Don't forget to check their bodies. Look." I told Lum as I pulled a note out of one of their pockets. I unfolded it, looking for anything of importance.
"This note has the password," I told Lum, opening it up to read it.
"Hey, buddy! I hope you're doing a good job at work, I just wanted to write this message so you remember that the password is Have At It, it's okay to forget, you'll remember it eventually. You're welcome, Tessa." I felt bad reading this note, but it looked like Tessa wrote the note to whoever this person was.
"Have At It. That's the password, we'll remember that." I told Lum. He nodded, helping me check the second body for anything of importance.
We didn't find anything interesting and decided to move forward, looking for any other clues.
"There's an underground network here?" I asked him. Lum shrugged.
"I never had anything to do with this, so this is all new to me. But, it looks like it." He said.
"Do you think somebody with Earth Magic could manipulate the ground like this?" I asked him. Lum nodded.
"Typically with elemental exclusive magic, they can manipulate what they specialize in. Air, water, whatever you could think of. With Earth Magic, however... well, I'm not sure. Not many people specialize in Earth Magic." Lum said.
"So... why do you call it Earth Magic?" I asked him. I just realized as he was saying that this wasn't Earth, yet it was called Earth Magic.
"I don't know, it's not my job to think about such things." He explained.
"Down there. It turns again, but I can see the Rat Kid. What do you want to do?" Lum asked me.
"I kind of want to shoot him with one of my skills, but I know I shouldn't. What is smartest?" I asked him. Before Lum could answer, we both could hear yelling from below us where the Rat Kid was standing.
"This is it?! A measly ticket! What do you guys think? How many lashings does this shithead failure deserve?" Another man asked.
"So...he brings stuff here," Lum mumbled. I continued to watch in silence. I had my suspicions, but this looked really bad. There was an entire organization here.
"Anima... if this gets bad enough, we might have to kill some people, are you ready for that? Mentally?" Lum asked me.
"When you ask me if I'm ready means that you know I didn't do any of the things I was accused of. That gives me the strength to do this." I said to him.
This would be my first duty as a Hero that could jeopardize my life and mean that I have to take the lives of others if that's what's called for. I took a deep breath and leveled my head.
"Let's keep moving." I tilted my head back toward where the two bodies were while Lum spoke.
"Stop moving and be quiet," I demanded from him. He listened and crouched behind a wooden box.
"[ABSORPTION 3]!" I screamed out. Unlike any time before, my slime arm expanded as a slime shield, and a large attack coming straight for Lum and I that would've killed us was instantly turned into blue smoke within the slime arm that expanded. It was almost as if I consumed the mana... and when I did, my mana was completely restored.
"Lum, we have to leave!" I yelled out to him, running toward the box he was at.
"[Smash 11!]" Lum shouted out. Eleven?!
"Run that way! [Slash]!" I shouted out. The people behind us that were migrating into a cluster had to split apart. Lum stayed behind one of the entrances and used his skill on the tunnel, caving it in and giving us some time to breathe as they were stuck behind the fallen rocks.
Lum and I ran out of the tunnel while panting and ran into the middle of the city together. We had dirt on us, which contrasted with other people, and we were asked several questions, but we were more worried about the people underneath us following us up into the town center and causing problems.
"Lum, we need to stay alert and guard that entryway... shit, how many do they have? Would they come up here to wreak havoc because we did that?" I asked him. He shook his head, he didn't know, but he was confident enough to say no. That didn't make a lot of sense, but I didn't care at the moment.