"Alright, if you two are done talking, then we need to figure out what exactly we're doing," Grial stated, glancing between Magnus, Alwen, and Kolten.
"If you're worried about involving civilians, don't be," Kolten replied, as Alwen stepped in to elaborate.
"This entire area is under Jackal control; it's their territory. Since construction stopped, it's mostly abandoned now, but before the city bought out the properties, it used to be a place with all kinds of businesses. The city guards only patrol here enough to keep it from turning into a slum, just in case the City Council decides to restart construction." Alwen gestured toward the crowd outside the bar as he continued.
"Sometimes, local businesses refuse to sell when the city pushes for development. When that happens, you end up with places like this—a bar, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The Jackals saw that as an opportunity and took advantage of that. They bought out the remaining businesses in the area when they went under, using their own members to keep up appearances and fool anyone who comes snooping."
It was a real bar, after all; any citizens who wandered in could grab a drink and leave without suspecting a thing. Likewise, any patrolling guards would see a business just lively enough to avoid suspicion.
"The point is, almost everyone here is a Jackal. So, every face you see enjoying a drink or a meal is ready to turn on us the moment we get close. It simplifies things, but it also makes our job a lot harder," Kolten said to sum things up.
"Good. I'll handle the ones outside first. Once I do, you guys can in after me," Magnus muttered. His words caught the others off guard, but before they could react, Magnus stepped out of the alleyway and headed toward the bar.
"Wait, should he be out in the open like that?" Tola questioned, concern evident in her voice. Alwen rubbed his forehead and let out a short sigh. It was clear Magnus had no intention of keeping things quiet, even with more than a dozen people outside the bar.
"He's already moving, so there's no point in arguing. Let's follow his lead. Kolten, you're with me; we'll lock down the exits inside. The rest of you, clean-up duty. Got it?" Alwen quickly gave orders, and Grial and the other guards didn't hesitate. Although they hadn't caught every detail of what Magnus and them had been talking about, they knew one thing: these two were under orders from the Major General.
That was reason enough for them to follow orders.
"Understood," Grial agreed, turning to the guards behind him to relay directions.
Meanwhile, Magnus had already drawn attention to himself. As he approached the bar, the casual chatter of the people he was walking by gradually died down, every pair of eyes secretly locking onto him.
"Hey, I haven't seen the boss around today; what's going on?" One man asked, taking a swig from his mug. The man across from him, gnawing on a piece of jerky, replied.
"I heard a supervisor in the area to check on operations. The boss is showing them around."
"Really? Wait, you mean that girl he brought in earlier? She looked pretty high-class, so I figured she was just some expensive plaything," the first man speculated, taking another sip.
"Yeah, well, I'd keep that to yourself. Word is, she works directly under Heiman, and you know how he is when-" The man paused, suddenly distracted. He tilted his head, staring past the man he had been talking to and peering down the street.
"Hey, who the hell is that?" Hearing that, the man who had been drinking turned his head, frowning as he spotted a lone figure walking down the street toward them. As Magnus drew closer, more heads turned, the atmosphere slowly changing.
"I don't know. Maybe just some passerby?" The man suggested, finishing his drink.
"No way. No normal person dresses like that in an area like this," the man with the jerky replied. Although they didn't recognize it, Magnus was still wearing his Takerth Academy uniform, which made him stand out like a sore thumb. They may have seemed like a casual group, but they'd been with the Jackals long enough to recognize potential trouble when they saw it.
And the figure approaching them was setting off all sorts of alarms.
"Looks like someone's already on it," the first man observed, watching as two others who had been lounging nearby suddenly straightened up, moving to intercept Magnus. They were both taller and bulkier than him, and their expressions left no doubt that their words carried a threat as they stepped in front of him.
"Hey, kid, it's not safe around here. You should turn around and head-" He was still in the middle of speaking, but before he could say more, Magnus acted. It was so fast that despite the crowd watching, no one saw exactly how Magnus moved. In an instant, he had both men by the throat, lifting them effortlessly off the ground.
With a swift motion, he slammed them into the stone road, their bodies going limp as their heads hit the ground and their eyes rolling back.
"What the-" One of the Jackal members stammered as disbelief spread amongst them.
"Wait..." Another said, trying to process the sudden events.
It took them a few moments to collect their thoughts, as their looks of stupor slowly turned to anger, and then all at once, chaos erupted.
"Who the hell are you!?"
Their weapons appeared from seemingly nowhere—hidden daggers, swords, and clubs drawn from behind pillars, under tables, and from beneath coats. In an instant, Magnus had gone from being in the midst of a fairly normal crowd to being surrounded by armed enemies at all sides. But his expression didn't so much as shift at the sight of that, nor did he bother answering them.
With a thought, the Command Console sprung to life, executing lines of code as over twenty mana spheres that looked no bigger than coins condensed around Magnus before shooting off in every direction, all at once. They were moving too fast for any of the Jackal members to react, with each mana sphere generating a controlled explosion that seemed to knock them out instantly.
One move—that was all it took as bodies fell to the ground around Magnus.
Stepping over the two men lying unconscious at his feet, Magnus made his way to the entrance of the bar. Inside, the bartender, hearing the commotion outside, let out an exasperated groan.
"Dammit, if those idiots broke something again, I swear-" His complaint was abruptly cut off as the front windows shattered. Two figures dashed into the room, moving so fast that no one inside got a clear look at them until they stopped. Cloaked with swords in hand, the two men positioned themselves at the only two exits—one at the back door, the other at the entrance to the storage room.
"Who the hell are you?!" A member of the Jackals shouted, immediately drawing a dagger from his waist. The other members in the bar quickly grabbed their weapons as well in reaction, but before they could make a move, the front door of the bar was kicked open. It flew across the room, smashing into the wall and shattering into fragments.
Magnus stepped inside, his footsteps echoed by the sound of many others as armed guards poured in behind him.
"You're all under arrest! Drop your weapons, and you'll receive a fair trial under the laws of the Batis Kingdom," Grial's voice boomed through the bar.
Seeing armed guards, the bartender cursed as he pulled a sword from beneath the counter. "Shit, it's a raid!"
Ignoring the warning, every member of the Jackals in the bar prepared to fight. From their perspective, the guards had clearly underestimated their numbers. Even counting the two cloaked men and Magnus, the number of enemies didn't even add up to fifteen. Meanwhile, there were over thirty of them armed to the teeth. As long as they could handle them now, they would have the chance to clean up their operation and get away.
"Die!" The bartender, sword in hand, vaulted over the counter and rushed straight for Grial, aiming to take out the leader first.
"Don't say we didn't give you a chance," Grial muttered under his breath. As the bartender's sword arced toward Grial's head, Grial's own blade flashed in a swift, fluid motion. A silver glint crossed the bartender's vision and suddenly he couldn't feel his right hand.
"Huh?" The bartender, bewildered, looked over at his arm, but his hand was gone. Hearing a clatter on the ground, he glanced down to see his severed hand lying there, still gripping the sword, blood pouring out from the now severed artery around it.
"A- Aaagh-" Letting a bloodcurdling scream that echoed through the whole bar, he was cut short as Grial's blade sliced through the air once more. The next second, the bartender's body crumpled to the floor, his head severed cleanly from his neck. The sight of his neck's bone and muscle was exposed for all to see as blood spurted from the wound and his head slowly rolled away.
The Jackal members who had been charging in froze in place, terror gripping them as Grial raised his gaze from the bartender's lifeless body to the rest of them, pointing his sword in their direction.
"Kill them all." On Grial's command, the guards who had been standing by sprang into action, launching an offensive despite being heavily outnumbered. Even Magnus was taken aback as he watched the guards, who he'd often joked around with, transform into a relentless force. Without hesitation, they stabbed and cut down the stunned Jackal members.
Though they weren't knights, these guards were assigned to Takerth Academy—there was no way they would be weak. The initial wave of deaths jolted the remaining Jackals into fighting back, but the guards showed no signs of slowing down.
Standing amidst the chaos, Magnus, who had been silent and focused until now, glanced at the bartender Grial had cut down. He was used to seeing blood now, thanks to the Live Examination—he had spilled enough of his own—but witnessing this still felt different to him. The last time he had seen such a gory scene was when he and Mia were ambushed.
It was a memory that had stuck to his mind like soot and couldn't be washed away. Magnus felt his stomach churn slightly as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Focus, Magnus. Stay focused. Don't let your mind wander. You're here to find Celia; that's your goal right now.
As he steeled his mind, one of the Jackal members, having slipped past Grial and the others, made a dash for the entrance. Spotting Magnus in his path, the Jackal sneered. From his perspective, Magnus didn't look like a guard or a knight—more like a noble's brat sticking his nose where it didn't belong.
With that thought, the Jackal raised a hatchet and swung it at Magnus. But even with his eyes closed, Magnus could hear it—the rhythm of the man's attack.
It's so simple and predictable compared to the melodies I heard in the Live Examination.
Without bothering to open his eyes, Magnus countered, his leg hooking through the air and connecting with the man's jaw. There was a loud crack as the man's jaw broke, hanging loosely and leaving his mouth agape.
"Oaaagh!" The pain was unbearable, and he tried to scream, but his shattered jaw made it impossible. Magnus didn't give him time to focus on the pain. With his leg still raised, he delivered another kick to the side of the man's skull, fracturing it and sending him collapsing to the ground.
"He managed to calm himself down pretty fast," Alwen muttered to himself as he sliced through a Jackal member trying to flee through the back exit he was blocking. There was a reason none of them had tried to check on Magnus up to this point, despite how odd he had been acting. They were trying not to break his mindset.
The simple fact of the matter was that he wasn't like them.
Whether it was Alwen and Kolten, who had served in the military for years, or Grial and the guards, who had taken on all kinds of posts around Arlcliff City, they were used to this—the sounds of a person choking on their own blood, the weight of taking a life, the stench that erupted when a body's stomach was sliced open.
But they knew Magnus was different. Even outside, though he had been rough, he had only knocked those men out. It showed them all exactly where Magnus was, mentally. He was doing his absolute best to stay focused and get Celia, pushing everything he was thinking or feeling aside. He knew he'd have to face it all later, but that was something he would deal with in private.
As the sounds of fighting began to die down, Magnus finally opened his eyes. What greeted him was a scene of carnage—bodies of Jackal members littered the floor, some draped across tables, their faces twisted in terror. The smell of blood hung heavy in the air. Magnus tore his gaze away from the gruesome sight, only to meet Grial's steady stare. Magnus simply nodded in return, his expression hard to read.
"Oh... wow..." Tola's voice trembled from the entrance. She had stayed in the alleyway until it was clear, but the sight inside made her visibly pale. She gagged, covering her mouth, as she tried to avoid looking at the scene around her. If Magnus was suppressing his reactions, Tola's pale face and retching were the unfiltered reflection of what he might have looked like otherwise.
Magnus moved toward Kolten, who was guarding a door at the back of the room. As Kolten stepped aside, Magnus entered, followed by the others. At first glance, it seemed like a typical storage room—shelves lined with dried food and bottles—but at the center of the floor, a set of heavy doors led down to a cellar.
"Open it," Grial ordered, gesturing to a guard. The guard nodded, moving cautiously toward the door while the others remained on alert for anything on the other side. But, as the cellar doors creaked open, a dim light flickered from torches below, casting eerie shadows on the walls below.
"Well, that's not what I expected," Kolten muttered, peering into the darkness. What should have been a short staircase to a basement seemed to descend much deeper. Magnus extended his hand, and a bright orb of mana formed, casting light around them as it hovered above.
Alwen and Kolten took the lead, with Magnus and the others following closely behind. The staircase seemed endless, winding downward into the earth far deeper than any normal cellar.
"Is it just me, or does it look sort of... dug out?" Tola asked, her voice wavering as she eyed the rough, rocky walls enclosing them. Alwen frowned, his face tense as he answered.
"That's because it is. No wonder we've been having trouble tracking their movements—they've dug out a whole fucking network under Arlcliff City."
"Really? But how did no one notice that? And where did they get the manpower?" Grial questioned, his voice thick with disbelief. Arlcliff had a well-maintained sewer system; it seemed impossible that no one had noticed or heard the construction of these tunnels—unless the organization wasn't working alone.
They reached the end of the stairs, stepping into a vast chamber carved from the earth. Magnus brightened his light, pushing back the dimly torchlit darkness that seemed to threaten swallowing them whole. But as the shadows retreated, he almost wished he hadn't. The light revealed the outlines of cages—dozens upon dozens of metal cages, all filled with people.
At first, none of the captives reacted to the sudden light. They lay motionless on the filthy floors of their cages, their bodies curled up like discarded rags. The only sign that they were alive was the shallow rise and fall of their chests. Some let out pitiful whines or groans, their eyes dull and unresponsive to the brightness.
Magnus's light fell on barrels of murky water and slop-like food next to the cages, the stench of decay clinging to the air. The bowls at the base of the barrels were encrusted with filth, clearly having been in use for days, if not weeks.
"Oh my god... ar-are all these people..." Tola's voice broke as she choked on the words, unable to finish. She didn't need to. The sight before them spoke volumes.
"Yeah," Grial's voice was a low growl, barely containing the rage simmering beneath the surface.
"They've been drugged."