Chapter 288 - This Can't Be A Coincidence.

When it came to the middle-rank gangs in Calton city, The Creed was considered to be in the top 3. Those below the top 3 didn't dare meddle with them, while those within the top 3 feared them. It wasn't only because of their manpower and resources, but it was mostly because of their leader Slade.

When compared to the other gang leaders, Slade was no doubt considered to be the strongest and smartest. Not only did he have a lot more artifacts than the other gang leaders, his skills as a geomancer were over the roofs. This made a lot of people in the underworld compare him to adventurer association guild master, Walden, only that he was in the hero realm.

Rumors had it that Slade wasn't a citizen of the Synder empire, he had come from the Kaldron empire and had somehow made it past the Malock desert.

The only reason the Creed wasn't at the top was that they were a relatively new gang compared to the other 2, but still, Slade made it up with his strategic abilities when it came to raids and gang wars.

"Could you give us a detailed description of the entrance and locations of the underground hideout in the sewers?" At first, Ashely was still skeptical about the info they gave her, but with the sighting of Slade, she had to take it seriously because his bounty was too high to be ignored.

"Yes of course." Blake stood up from his seat and walked to the planning table, activating it and pulling up a map of the eastern part of the middle region.

For commission reasons, the ash corps had given the adventurer association the map of the entire city, including that of the sewers. Blake began pointing out the 4 different parts of the sewers where the grey light had gone into the ground.

When the 4 areas had been highlighted, the rest of the sewer was cropped out and that was when they realized how big the hideout was.

"That is surely the main hideout!" Although the info Blake was giving hadn't been confirmed, Ashely was getting more shocked the more they revealed.

This was because it had been years since they had a clue of Slade's location. Every time they had gathered Intel to raid his suspected location, either he ran away before the ash corps arrived or it turned out to be an entirely fake location.

"What about the location of the entrance? Are there any security measures we should know of?" Ashely asked as she brought up the layout of the factory on the planning desk.

'If we had this before the mission it would have been a thousand times easier.' Blake sighed.

He zoomed in on the storage room and marked the location of the hidden Slade walked out from. When he got to the part of the security measures in the factory, the system began telling him of everything he detected on their journey to the storage room.

'That's a lot of arrays for a factory! How did a C-rank adventurer party manage to cross them all? Most importantly, how were they able to detect all the arrays they came across in one day?!' Ashely couldn't help but think as Blake was explaining using the map of the factory.

She hadn't read of the power description of their party, if not and she had no clue

"That should be enough information. The factory and sewers around it will be inspected today before your team will be rewarded." Ashely stated to them after Blake was done giving all info they got.

"I have a question." Blake got a nod from Ashely for him to continue. "When we are on commissions, can we request for a layout of a particular building being suspected?"

"Nope…" Ashely shook her head. "The reason the ash corps has the layout of every building in the city is for approval, inspection, and investigation purposes. This can't be given to the other parties, because it might get into the wrong hands which may lead to a lot of crimes."

'Just like I thought.' Blake thanked her and they left the room and headed back to the magic school.

…

Once the communication link was cut, Ashely immediately handed the report over to Commander Darius for approval of inspection.

Since the approval would take some time, Ashely returned to her desk to find out about the adventurer party called Order of chaos.

"Seems I now know how they were able to bypass all the security arrays." At first sight of checking their profile, Ashely's attention was drawn by Castiel's elements.

"But why is he not the leader?" Ashely couldn't help but ask because someone with such a rare element was naturally meant to be the leader. So she went to Blake's achievements to see what made him special.

"His solo career is very impressive especially as a beginner, but their major achievements are together making him nothing special." Ashely said to herself, but that was when she noticed something.

The one investigating most of their missions was the commander of the ash corps himself. From the battle between demigods that occurred in the slums to the discovery of Azkelwart's base, and all their gang wipeouts.

"What the hell is going on?" Ashely was quite confused. It could be considered a coincidence when it came to the very serious events that happened, but she couldn't understand why the commander would investigate 2 low-level gang wipeouts.

That was when she received a call from Command Darius, asking her to come to his office.

"Sir, you called for me." Ashely saluted Darius who had his signature smile on his face.

"I called to inform you that there is no need for the approval. Since this is an important case, I will be the one going to investigate the info given to us." Darius said with an unchanging expression.

'Since we are understaffed at the moment, he really is the best option for the mission. At least this time Slade wouldn't be alerted.' Ashely was praising Darius' decision, but this was when she remembered the adventurer party that has supplied them with the info.

'This can't be a coincidence.'