Emery dashed through the halls of the majestic courthouse. He almost had a few close encounters with Carlos' men. Fighting in this state too often would only put him in more of a bad spot than he already was in. So, he mostly attacked them when they'd gone past or something along those lines.
Direct combat was a no no.
He continued that for several metres until he finally came upon the target.
It was a conspicuously large door guarded by two people wearing light armour that resembled suits. Medieval helmets protected their heads and eyes with visors. Both held different weapons and looked strong.
Emery recognized that look. Those suits were an indication that they were higher up in the ranks compared to the goons he'd seen before. Those two men that showed up with Carlos back then were his two right-hand men. If his guess was correct, then these men were the people below them.
They were also probably far stronger than any of the opponents he'd faced so far. He wasn't going to make the same mistake of attacking without checking them.
So he assessed their statuses immediately. Two wide screens appeared in front of him as he did that.
[Ding!]
[Name: Igor]
[Job: Guard]
[Race: Human]
[Attributes:
STR- Class Nine
AGI- Class Nine
INT- Class Nine
DEF- Class Eight
DEX- Class Nine]
[Skills: Unknown]
[Status: Normal]
The first guard alone was a full-on Class Nine Awakened with the defence of a Class Eight. He would be difficult to deal with and his skills were also unknown. Emery had to play his cards right here. A slight mistake would cost him his entire life.
What about the other guard, though? He hoped that this one would at least leave him some space to breathe.
[Ding!]
[Name: Owain]
[Job: Guard]
[Race: Human]
[Attributes:
STR- Class Nine
AGI- Class Eight
INT- Class Eight
DEF- Class Nine
DEX- Class Nine]
[Skills: Unknown]
[Status: Normal]
This was even worse than the first guard's strength. This dude was borderline Class Eight, in both intelligence and agility. Chances were that he was extremely difficult to deal with. And probably had some powerful skills to top it off.
Should he immediately risk it? Or take a few steps back and go ask for reinforcements.
Clearly, Konnor's plan wasn't going the way they thought it would. A lot of the stronger individuals were still within the bases' vicinity. If things could get even worse, Carlos and his two main goons would also be somewhere around there.
'Oh no, red flag red flag.'
He tried to expel all those thoughts and instead focused on the tasks at hand. The two suited men.
One held a spear and the other a sword. Both weapons were extremely crude, but even a stick could be used to kill if given to a sword master.
Escape routes?
Two. One hallway to the side, and the one where he currently hid in. This one was a few dozen metres away from the door itself, the other was closer. If he used his time wisely, he would have been able to escape from the closer hallway before they could react.
He almost groaned out loud. Everything would be so much simpler if Citro was just here to help. This was doing nothing but complicating matters.
Emery looked through his arsenal once more. For anything at all that would help remedy this situation.
There was something.
The new summon that came with his advancement. A gamble, that was. And if his luck was truly as bad as he thought, then the summon wouldn't help matters at all. It could even perhaps make everything way worse.
Was he ready to risk that?
Well, it didn't seem like he had a lot of options at all.
He moved back several metres into the hallway, about to click accept on the summon just when-
"Eep!"
It was a short, whispery screech, but Emery couldn't forget it anytime soon. The mongoose's jade eyes glowed in the dark as it approached him from behind.
His eyes widened in realization.
"What are you doing here?" he whisper-yelled.
Citro leapt into the air and landed on Emery's arm a second later
"Eep,"
"Konnor allowed you to come. Why?"
"Eep." the mongoose shook his head.
"Okay, I get what you mean. We really don't have enough time to be talking about that. Can you dig into this ground?"
Citro jumped off onto the ground and scraped it a little with his paw. It looked hesitant, but after a while; it nodded.
"Good, 'cause that's what I'm going to need you to do." he nodded. "when you're in there, you need to look for a few items. That's what we need."
"Eep."
Citro's chirp brought Emery back to reality for a brief second.
"Right, those might be a bit too heavy for you to drag around through the earth. I completely forgot about that."
After a while, he decided to ask the system.
[Ding!]
[There is no solution that can be provided to that at the moment]
Useless much.
'OK ok, calm down. Anger won't suddenly change anything for me. I need to figure out a way to get out of this situation in the best state possible.'
Finally, Emery looked back at Citro. He'd thought of something. It was quite risky, but there was nothing else that presently came to mind.
"Ok, I think I have a plan. Don't question. Just do it."
It gave him a questioning gaze, but he ignored that and just began explaining what he had in mind. Expectedly, the mongoose did give him a sceptical glare but said nothing.
"Alright, you can go now."
"Eep!"
A bright yellow appeared around its claws and it shot into the earth a second after.
Emery heaved a sigh of relief and retrieved the fruit knife from the pantry. After checking himself once more, he tapped into the energy and sent it to his arm.
When all that was complete, he sprinted into the open hallway, grinning.
"Let me fucking cook!"