"Miana must have found him by now," I muttered to myself.
I had engraved a few fun programs into Virion's arm. With those programs, Miana wouldn't outright kill him while also finding him valuable enough to keep around. It was the only significant help I was going to leave Virion with.
Whether or not he could thrive with it was no longer my problem. And although there would be a lot of suffering for him in the days to come, at least he was alive and kicking.
"Heh," A chuckle escaped my lips as my gaze pierced through the criminal veil before me.
All that smoke and fog that everyone subconsciously ignored was dubbed the [ Siphoning Grey ], and despite my inability to see through it, I knew what lay behind its curtains. Although it sat there, leeching off of the mana of those who resided within it and tampering with the mana flow of Aelthrie itself, it was a creation that would stand for as long as the city around it would.
After all, where there was light, there was always darkness. The underworld was a necessary component of the great metropolis of Aelthrie. It was where criminals turned to become fuel for the city.
It was a false freedom that Eve had nurtured when she was young. Those who would think that they escaped the grasp of the law through these Underworld Pockets would rarely realise that such a place would also serve as their prison.
They could not leave given the threat of the Valorous Guard and their lives were at the mercy of those above them. They were rats in a rat trap—herded by a conspiracy they could not avoid.
It was quite an amusing place if I could say so myself.
Sending Virion there to live a life he was never destined to live... I found such a prospect pleasurable.
"Are you sure that my sister is in one of Aelthrie's Underworld Pockets?" Rose's inquisitive tone pulled me out of my reveries.
I put a spoonful of ice cream into my mouth. The simple flavour of vanilla and the cold sensation of mint rushed through my tastebuds and chilled my gums. I glanced at King who was busy operating his Mana Communicator.
The man looked up from his device and nodded gravely.
"I'm positive this time. My underlings should have spotted someone matching the description we provided. She's currently on the run. From who or what, I am not sure."
"We'll know when we find her." I chimed in from the side, "It's good that you actually called me for this operation."
King and Rose had been operating on their own for the past month, and they had met with multiple failures. The royals of the north had been pouring in, but there was no sign that Camellia was still alive.
The net that the Information Veil had cast had only caught the trails of incredibly hopeful encounters. None were as concrete as this one, thus they deemed it necessary to call me.
"Have you two familiarised yourselves with your power and newfound talents?" I asked them.
I had left Worthy Adversary to King so that he could rapidly strengthen himself as well as his forces. Perhaps if I had not given him the genie in the prism, they wouldn't have found any traces of Camellia at all. Thus, Rose and King benefitted greatly in more ways than one. A few of their stats had reached the D+ rank.
C rank wouldn't be too far away now.
"We have," King and Rose answered at the same time and I nodded in reply.
This was good. By my estimates, the majority of the northern royals had already arrived. Chaos was just within reach and the brewery of havoc was about to serve its signature drink.
They needed strength to survive what was to come and eliminate the Sullied Seven.
Moreover, I planned to unleash the World's System at the peak of this chaos. With it, I could then climb to greater heights at a rapid pace. If I could find Camellia and keep her safe within all this, then that would be the cherry on top of everything.
"Then let's go," I gestured to the pair whilst keeping a hand on the special brass coin I had within my robes.
I was wearing the simplest, cheapest pieces of clothing I could find. Being targeted by the infamous clothing thieves of the underworld was not something I fancied, after all.
Because of them, flaunting one's wealth was dubbed as one of the dumbest ideas to have here in Aelthrie's Underworld Pockets.
That aside, unlike Virion—who I had dumped in one of the thin streets that connected different Underworld Pockets with each other—King had led me and Rose straight into a bustling hub of criminals. We were heading into one of Aelthrie's central Underworld Pockets—a place where big bosses as strong as King made their presence known.
Peak D rank combatants and even a pair of C rankers were known to be active in this area. With my meagre strength, I was surely going to be crushed if I encountered them.
Despite that, I walked through the invisible barrier that separated the Underworld Pockets from the rest of the world without a care for such a possibility. My vision was instantly filled with smoke and fog, and my lungs were filled with foul essence.
I could not see any further than a few metres ahead. Yet I felt hidden gazes piercing through the fog and scanning our figures. They were deciphering whether or not we were good targets to rob or dangerous porcupines whose spines would pierce them if they extended their grasp.
Their stares were focused on me.
"Here we go," I cursed under my breath.
I was instantly identified as the weakest link.