"I still have a question, Captain . " Orders or not, Lith had no intention of charging blindly . Whatever was happening inside the building was of no relevance to him and so were the people in the basement .
He was there for the Code of Practice course, the only things that mattered to him were his own safety and the points .
"Just be quick, White . " Captain Yerna snorted . "Red, keep me posted if anything else happens . "
"Since the mission has changed, what are the new conditions to consider it a success?"
"Kid, do you think this is some kind of game? People are dying in there!" Lith could understand Khran's righteous outrage, yet he found it annoying anyway . The Sergeant was a commoner, probably of humble origins just like him .
Unlike Lith, he had dedicated his life to protect the weak .
'What an irritating guy, always preaching his own ideas . I had hoped for having left this kind of zealots on Earth . ' Lith thought .
"So what?" Lith replied . "I took no oath, I'm no policeman nor hero . I'm interested in the mission, not in some nondescript ideal . "
Captain Yerna grabbed Khran by the shoulder to prevent another outburst .
"We only need to get in and check the condition of those in the basement . If they are hostages releasing them takes priority . If they are soldiers, we can just blow them into oblivion before moving on the rest of the guards . Is it clear, everybody?"
The unit nodded in unison .
"Okay, then let's move . We need to be fast . There is no way to get to the back door unnoticed, so prepare for a warm welcome . "
"Actually, there is . " Lith waved his hands in the only fake magic he really used . He opened a Warp Steps leading straight into the alley, in the last covered spot before their destination .
Many people flinched in amazement . For non mages, dimensional magic was something straight out of a fairy tale .
"Today's our lucky day, people . " Captain Yerna was grinning from ear to ear .
"Change of plans . My team and Khran's will take point and assault from the back . The rest of you will remain on standby until we check on the prisoners . On my command, surround the building . Red, with me . "
The others followed her through the Steps . Each unit was comprised of five people, leaving ten officers in the warehouse to close the perimeter or act as backup in case of need .
"You really are a d*ck . " Khran stopped for a second before stepping through the dimensional corridor .
"Yet the gods know how much I'd like to have one like you on every mission . "
Once on the other side, the Sergeant conjured a shroud of silence around them before asking Red for an update .
"Another life force disappeared . Now there's only one person on the third floor . "
"Damn!" Captain Yerna cursed . She had hoped it was some kind of internal strife, but three deaths in such a short time frame didn't fit the scenario .
"What about the guards on the ground floor?"
Red focused for a second, checking twice just to be sure .
"There are none right now, but someone is coming down from the second floor . One person . "
"Arrays?" Lith asked .
Red handed to the nearest officer a red mana crystal he was using as a focus . Without it, casting another spell would cause him to lose control of the Life Detecting array .
"I can sense something on the ground floor . It's inactive at the moment . " The unit inwardly cursed as one while Lith pondered on Red's words .
'This means that neither Life Vision nor Solus can detect latent arrays . I need to learn the array detecting spell as soon as possible . '
"What does it do?" The Captain asked .
"No clue . " Red shrugged . "Never seen anything like this . "
"Great . Let's finish this before we have to find out . "
Yerna took out from her dimensional ring what looked like a clump of clay, sticking it to the wall near the door . It created a thin air dome, silencing the area within a ten meters radius .
The team entered the building, activating a new clump each time they neared the end of the air dome, generating a corridor of silence . It allowed them to speak and move while remaining undetected by the inhabitants of the building .
"At least the layout of this place is as we know it . " Khran cursed . Maybe it was because he knew they were potentially stepping on a minefield, but since they had entered the house the Sergeant had an eerie feeling in his gut .
"The door to the basement should be on our right after the next corner . What about the person you mentioned earlier?"
"It's closing in slowly . It should come from there . " Red was pointing to the left branch of the t-shaped corridor .
The Sergeant put a clump of silence clay on his hand while three members of the units aimed their wands in the direction from which they were expecting the enemy .
"Shoot only after I do!" Khran instructed .
The figure of a woman popped out of the corner . She was dressed in a brown sweater and cargo pants . Lith noticed she was young, couldn't be more than twenty years old . She was walking while spinning some odd handcuffs on her index finger .
Sergeant Khran generated a powerful gust of wind from his hand, propelling the clay towards the girl's face . Despite the surprise attack, she managed to dodge it by rolling on the ground, taking out a wand from the back of her pants .
She screamed for help, but the clay was never meant to do damage . Lith could see her lips moving without emitting any sound, like watching an old silent movie . The same happened when streams of lightning made her slam against the wall in a seizure .
Khan objective was a silent kill all along .
"Hren, take care of the body and clean the scene . Red, stay with him and warn Hren if anyone else moves . " Captain Yerna tapped on her ear to remind him of the communication earpiece in case he needed to contact her .
The unit moved forward until the door to the basement .
"White?"
"Locked and enchanted . " Lith replied using Invigoration to study it . It was a very crude pseudo core with only two mana pathways . Not strong enough to block someone determined to open it, but enough to slow them down .
"Seriously, what do you usually do when you don't have a forgemaster?"
"We mourn . " Khran's reply didn't sound like a joke .
"Klaatu Barada Nikto . " Lith's fake magic word generated several tendrils of darkness that made short work of the pathways . Without something to contain its energies, the pseudo core faded away with a crackling sound .
Lith took point to search for more traps, but there were none . The wooden stairway led them to a cellar six meters wide and ten meters long . Contrary to the run down look of the rest of the building, the room was clean .
Behind a simple steel grille there were over twenty people of different gender and age, laying either on the ground or against the walls . They were all shabbily dressed, their appearance suggested they had spent most of their lives on the streets .
Yet they appeared to be well fed and in good health . There was no trace of dirt in their clothes . The weirdness of the scene didn't end there .
Note : Please download the sponsor's game to support us!
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login