Prytaneum
Sitting
Nodding silently, Ryuu led the way towards Rivira—which is to say, Ryuu went first, while Mrs. O'Leary and I hung back a ways with the evident hope being that I wouldn't screw everything up by proximity if I was a thousand feet away. It was a bit awkward, though that was probably just me; I was used to working in a party with Welf and Lili, where we were close and stuck together in the Dungeon, each of us having a specific role to play. We hadn't been part of a team for very long, but we already worked like a well-oiled machine, shifting gears the moment the situation changed, from offense to defense or from advancing to retreating. This whole covert ops super spy thing was cool and all, but it apparently meant a lot of not talking, not drawing attention to ourselves, and not sticking together in the field.
Weird. It looked a lot more fun when James Bond did it.
Mrs. O'Leary turned my way, sniffing at me worriedly with a nose that was larger than my head when she noticed my odd silence.
"Don't worry, girl. You're like the Bond car," I reassured her. "Everyone knows the car's the coolest."
Mrs. O'Leary stared at me with a look of doggy incomprehension, but when I patted her side and jumped onto her back, she started moving. You probably wouldn't think a dog the size of a tank would be able to move subtly, but Hellhounds were fun that way—as long as it was dark enough, they could sneak up on an army of demigods. To say nothing of making noise, I wasn't sure if Mrs. O'Leary even left any footprints or broken sticks behind her; in the shadows, she could vanish like a ninja in more ways than one. Right now, she was focused and on the prowl, several tons of muscle tense in anticipation of the hunt. For my part, I kept a lookout, on the off chance that something managed to escape Mrs. O'Leary's attention. My senses weren't as good as hers, of course, but we focused on different things, so it was always possible.
And like that, we approached the so called 'Dungeon Resort.' I'd learned more about it since last time. I mean, I tried to take the tour on the avalanche down, but it was kind of disappointing and then this big guy started shouting all over the place and just killed the magic. But while I hadn't had much time to review before round one, Eina and Ryuu had been kind enough to fill me in since.
Frankly, the entire place was a mashup of weird and cool and disgusting, which I guess was to be expected of a place built and run by adventurers, away from the laws of Orario. A lot of things followed different rules down here out of sheer necessity—on what people needed this far into the Dungeon, what they had, and what they didn't have. For instance, a lot of people couldn't afford to haul huge sums of money this far, so instead they used their Familia's sigil as a type of check instead. They'd sign it down here and then later meet up with someone on the surface to pay their bill, or else risk being banned from the town. Of course, that required having a sigil, which Hestia Familia didn't. I wonder if anyone would take our money even if we did.
Probably not while I was a gagillion dollars in debt, I decided. Probably for the best, though; from what I'd heard, everything was absurdly overpriced—as in, ten or twenty times the norm, if not more. I guess if you need something in the Middle Floors, you probably really need it, but…I'd just stick with Mrs. O'Leary, I think.
The most powerful man in town seemed to be the guy who ran the Exchange—the guy I'd talked to last time, apparently, Bors. How it worked was that you could bring magic stones and drops to him, same as you could with an Exchange on the surface, and then he'd give you a tiny fraction of what you'd normally get. Then, he'd haul it all up himself later and sell it at the real price, to make a killing. A lot of adventurers couldn't afford to trek up and down the floors every day and didn't have a handy teleporting Hellhound, so they wound up stuck between selling it at a ridiculously low price or throwing away the worse bits of what they brought back.
It was times like these that I realized I was kind of spoiled by Mrs O'Leary and Lili, who basically meant I never had to worry about stuff like that. Doing things the normal way looked like it kind of sucked.
…Speaking of which, I seriously needed to do some hunting while I was down here. I almost wished a Goliath would appear; potential loss of life and limb aside, I could use the cash. Otherwise, I was going to have to take a trip down to the nineteenth or lower or…something. All of a sudden, my expenses had started racking up again—and now I needed to buy a house, too. The eighteenth was a pretty good place for it, too, all things considered; supposedly, even just the crystal gems scattered across the forest and ceiling could be sold. Plus, I'd heard there were special crystals in the forests that produced the water for the rivers and lakes on this floor. I want me some of those.
"Mr. Jackson," Ryuu said, a couple thousand feet away now, inside the town while we stayed on the outskirts.
"Yeah, I was paying attention," I said, hoping Mrs. O'Leary had caught all the important parts. I was ADHD, sue me. Sure enough, Mrs. O'Leary pointed her nose quietly in the direction of a building, letting me copy off her notes, so I scratched her behind the ears. "Is that where Hashana is?"
"It's one of the few hotels in the city," Ryuu replied calmly, either accepting my words at face value or just not caring. "And it would seem there's been a commotion."
Given that there were something like a hundred people gathered outside the building, I couldn't really argue.
"Ugh," I said, making a face as I scratched my head. "I guess the whole subtle approach and investigation plan's not going to work."
"I would seem that the town has already been alerted to Hashana's death," Ryuu replied. "That could both help and hinder us, depending."
"You want me to try going in?" I asked, since unlike Ryuu, I wasn't a wanted criminal and didn't mind drawing attention to myself. Besides, somehow or other, streets tend to become pretty uncongested when I take Mrs. O'Leary for a walk.
However Ryuu just shook her head.
"We should be careful," Ryuu said. "They may have someone watching the scene of the crime. Don't give yourself away just yet. Let's observe the situation first."
"Right," I said and then began to watch the crowd. I had no idea what I was supposed to be looking for at a time like this, but Ryuu moved to an out of the way spot to watch the commotion and I wanted to feel like I was participating.
But after a long and uncomfortable—at least, to me—silence, Ryuu spoke up again.
"Could you track the killer if you got close enough to catch the scent at the scene of the crime?" Ryuu whispered under her breath a thousand feet away, somehow pitching her voice so that it was both beneath the ambient sound of conversation and clearly directed at me. It was kind of awesome. "Or recognize them if you met again?"
I blinked once, considering it before shrugging. I didn't think I could do Ryuu's trick, but she was the only Level 4 in the crowd, so just talking the way I had been was probably enough. She'd hear me better than anyone around her could.
"Depends," I said, wrinkling my nose. "How many people have stomped all over the place since he died? The guys around here don't exactly smell like roses, if you haven't noticed. If ten or twenty people I don't know have come in since he died, sorting out who was who would be pretty difficult. When I tracked you, I tracked you, not one of a dozen random scents. But it doesn't really matter; if they killed someone a few hours ago and have been on the hunt since, I could probably smell it on them regardless. And—one sec."
Deciding that this was as good an opportunity as ever, what with so many people in the city gathered, I drew out one of the flasks of water I'd brought along. I hadn't had much time to practice since reaching Level 2, but I'd already noticed a number of things had become easier to do with my powers; it seems there was a boost to go with the raised level, as well as the increase in my Status. In this case, my Magic had increased enough that I didn't need to be completely submerged to activate my fishy-vision anymore; covering my eyes with water was enough.
Doing so, I took a good look around.
"I don't see any heat signatures anywhere they shouldn't be," I reported. "And no one in the crowd's above Level 2. But there are a lot of powerful people inside; at least five people of Level 5 or higher. I think they might be Loki Familia. When Fels had said they were 'on their way', I hadn't realized he meant 'they were there twenty minutes ago…'"
I saw Ryuu look my way and blink slowly.
"What?" I asked.
"You can sense things that precisely?" She asked. "Including Levels?"
"More or less," I said. "It's not quite that simple, but I can manage okay."
Although, in truth, it was actually pretty hard. Imagine looking at a painting, like the Mona Lisa. Now imagine it was in nothing but shades of black or imagine if the colors shifted like a kaleidoscope as the temperature changed and air currents shifted and you could understand it just fine, but then you have to explain it? Then, imagine it wasn't just your eyes; what if you could feel the electricity around someone humming against your brain or smell them with your skin or if you could feel something's vibrations like you had a lateral line.
Now imagine that a lot of those senses didn't apply or were distorted if used outside of water. I could sense things like a fish or a shark or any number of other sea creatures--but said creatures were usually in the sea. I could feel the vibrations through water. I could detect traces of electricity in water. I could smell a drop of blood in a million drops of water.
If I was underwater, it was like I had all the pieces of the puzzle and everything just fit together in my head; I could look at it every which way, so that the patch of moving, displaced water connected to the electrical signals and the bizarre patch of color and the smell of blood. But you take a fish out of water and what you get is…a fish out of water. I thought I could probably rely on my thermography, but after a certain point, a crowd started to just look like a giant blob of colors.
"Will you be able to find Hashana's killer that way?" Ryuu asked. "By sensing their Level?"
"That's the idea," I said. "I haven't found them yet, though…"
"What's the range at which you can sense such a thing?" She asked.
"I dunno," I answer honestly, nearly asking her if she kept track of the range of her senses--because with Ryuu, well, who knows. "I'll sense it when I sense it."
"Can your senses be hidden from?"
"Probably?" I said. "I mean, assuming no one could possibly fool me seems like a pretty good way to get fooled. But I don't know how they'd do it and I don't know why they'd do it—you guys can't sense levels, right?"
Ryuu tilted her head and frowned slightly, probably wondering what I meant by 'you guys.' Actually, now that I thought about it, who did I mean? At first I meant 'adventurers,' but maybe it was more like 'mortals' or even just 'people who weren't me.' I was kind of a solitary freak of nature, even among demigods.
"Would you be able to examine the entire town if you circled it?" She asked.
"Maybe?" I answered unhelpfully. Either I would or I wouldn't. I wasn't sure how much distance or walls affected my senses or how much they'd improved since I came to Orario. When Ryuu turned to give me a stare of quiet judgement, I made a guess. "I might need to go inside the city to sense parts of it."
"When we return to the surface, we should continue your training quickly," She said. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and translated that as 'we should figure out how your super cool fish powers work, Percy' and not 'I want to beat you up for being stupid, Percy.' Stoic as she might be, Ryuu was pretty nice, so it was probably the former. "For the time being, come here."
"What happened to me hanging back?" I asked. "And, you know, not bringing down monsters on the town?"
"If the Loki Familia has already arrived, the safety of this town is all but guaranteed, even should an attack occur," Ryuu replied. "Or rather, if that was not the case, then being on the outskirts of town or within it would make no difference; if the enemy has brought monsters that could defeat even the strongest members of the Loki Familia, then they would simply wipe slaughter the two of us, along with everyone else here. Either way, keeping you away from the town itself no longer has any point; we should instead focus on finding the killer as quickly as possible."
I couldn't really argue with that. I already knew where I stood relative to someone like Aiz; if something was around that could beat her and four of her friends, it would chew me up like a piece of bubblegum. Being bait doesn't have much purpose when I'd just get slaughtered before I could do anything. And if they could handle it, things…should be alright? But there was still a high-level murderer running around and I had the best chance of finding her before anyone else got hurt.
"'Kay," I said, hopping off Mrs. O'Leary's back. "Bark if there's trouble, okay girl? It's okay if you get the attention of the whole town."
Glancing at Mrs. O'Leary once as she sat down and looked around watchfully, I walked into the town, actually taking a look around now that a giant monster wasn't preparing to rampage through it. All throughout the city, there were stalls and shops manned by armed warriors--but more dangerous than their sounds were their prices. I mean, a hundred thousand valis for a Hi-Potion? That vial better be made out of fucking diamonds.
"So what's the plan?" I asked Ryuu, deferring to her expertise in the art of being a tights-wearing superhero vigilante.
"We'll change roles," She said flatly. "You will lead and I will follow. Should you detect someone of great power, note their presence as best you can without drawing attention to yourself and walk past; if possible, avoid looking at them in anything but your periphery. Then, signal me once you believe you are far enough away to avoid attention and we will decide on a course of action then."
"Got it," I said before nodding towards to building. "But since we're hunting an extremely dangerous murderer, how about we ask our friends for help, too?"
Ryuu's lips twitched very slightly, as if her life as a secret agent assassin elf had left her unprepared for just asking authority figures for help. To be fair, it was pretty out there for me, too.
"I suppose," She said, voice touched by reluctant uncertainty. "Though there is the matter of explaining my presence. Finn Deimne and Riviria Ljos Alf are both very intelligent individuals and could easily remember me from my time as an adventurer."
"I'll just tell them you're a friend of mine," I said with a shrug. "I asked you to watch my back and that's why you're here. But if you're worried they might do something, you can stick with Mrs. O'Leary?"
She fell silent, apparently trying to decide what to do before pursing her lips.
"Before that, do you happen to have any other magical powers that might be of relevance in this matter, Mr. Jackson?" Ryuu asked, voice calm but pointed.
"Uh…" I said, before scratching my head. "…Maybe?"
"It was a yes or no question, Mr. Jackson," She stated sternly.
"But it's just…it's kind of a long list?" I said. "I've got a lot of magical powers. You never know when being able to talk to fish or control a boat or something might come in handy, so…"
Ryuu closed her eyes for a fraction of a second too long for it to be a blink before nodding.
"Very well, then," She said. "Please inform me should a situation arise that is covered by your abilities or wherein they might prove help, such that I might be able to plan around them in the future."
"Will do," I said embarrassedly. "I'll get you the list later, I swear."
Ryuu exhaled slowly through her nose and then drew away slightly.
"I will be close," She said. "Call for me should you need my aid."
"Got it," I said, walking towards the hotel.
Now…how was I going to explain this one?