Chapter 167 - Parkour

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The town guards seemed to be actively inspecting everyone who was coming and going from the slums for some yet unknown reason. Merlin quickly turned around and made his way towards a different street that led away from the slums.

Merlin slipped through various side streets until he found one that didn't seem to have any traffic, he managed to slip into a small alcove before turning towards his stream.

"Hey guys, we'll be taking a short break from the stream," Merlin announced, "I'll see you all then."

"System stream, pause," He chanted, causing the floating eyeball to vanish, although the stream chat screen was still active.

He quickly took another look around to make sure that he wasn't being watched before pulling out the fancy cloak he had swapped out before entering the town and the owl mask.

"I'm going to need the extra boost of stealth," He sighed while taking his old cloak off and throwing it back into his inventory.

He equipped the mask and cloak before reaching into his inventory and grabbing out his dagger, and while it was still rather cold to the touch, fortunately, it had lost the excess energy that froze everything around it.

"Up we go," Merlin sighed to himself while stepping out of the alcove.

Vines suddenly shot out from underneath the cloak, grabbing onto any details on the surrounding walls such as balconies, plumbing or other overhanging designs, and Merlin's body was gracefully lifted into the air. The vines continued travelling upwards until Merlin found himself standing on a tiled roof.

"I haven't done this in a while," He laughed to himself while staring at the other rooftops around him. "If we can't go through them we might as well go over them."

Fortunately, Macedonia was rather compact for a town, all the buildings were close together, and although it made the town feel rather claustrophobic at times, it was rather fortunate when someone needed to jump from roof to roof.

"Now as long as I don't kick any tiles loose we shouldn't have a problem," He muttered to himself while staring down at the street below. 

He unsheathed Ghostsaw's blade, tightening his grip before chanting the skill name "Phantom step."

His body quickly faded away as almost his entire mana pool vanished in an instant.

Vines slipped out from underneath Merlin's cloak once more as he sprinted along the unstable sloped surface towards a sudden drop. Before his body was thrown over the street below, he leapt while using his vines to gift him additional thrust.

The vines hitting the tiles was somewhat audible, but it didn't seem as though anybody below had heard it.

Merlin stuck the landing, fortunately not shattering any tiles as he landed, and while his invisibility was still in effect he sprinted towards the next gap.

This continued several times as Merlin leapt from groups of buildings to other groups of buildings on the other side of a street, and he eventually leapt over the main road.

The gap on the main road was somewhat larger than the side streets, so Merlin was forced to send his vines out to grab hold of a couple of chimneys as he landed, and unfortunately this time his landing was so rough that he did manage to shatter a couple of tiles, earning himself a small karma reduction in the process.

It seemed as though his invisibility was coming to an end, so he leapt onto another group of buildings and ran towards the slums.

He saw groups of town guards wandering the streets beneath him, although he was quite high up so he couldn't hear much of the conversation anybody was having. He began wandering over to the thieves guild building, making sure he knew that where he was stepping was stable as the buildings in this region of town were in several different states of disrepair.

The last thing he wanted was for his foot to fall through a roof and alert all the guards to his position.

He was making use of his vines to stealthily bridge the smaller gaps rather than leap from building to building. Stealth was his main priority now, as he didn't have to worry about the time limit for invisibility. As long as nobody saw him it didn't matter how long it took.

He took notice of a larger group of guards beneath him, which all seemed to be gathering around a single corpse.

The corpse was adorned with clothing that seemed to have been made from expensive fabrics, so it was clearly the corpse of a noble, albeit much older looking than most of the nobles who were seen around causing trouble in the slums.

Merlin could barely make out the conversation the guards seemed to be having, so he began somewhat hiding his presence before lowering himself onto a balcony and listening in.

From some of the information he gathered, it seemed a few higher-ups of the guards were fed up with this new trend of nobles picking on those in the slums, which was why the entrances of the slums had such strong guards taking note of everyone who entered.

The noble corpse the guards were all gathered around seemed to be the sole heir of a wealthy family that had been recently drained of all that it had.

And although spoken in hushed whispers, Merlin heard that the noble had copious amounts of the new drug on his person at the time of his death and he himself was showing symptoms of drug use. Merlin continued listening in and heard a few of the key symptoms of overuse, namely bloodshot eyes and skin that had lost almost all its moisture, leaving dry, wrinkled and cracked skin that made the user look like a husk compared to their former selves.

Once Merlin was satisfied with the information he received, he quickly climbed back on the roof and continued making his way towards the thieves guild, but once he reached where the building was, he found that it was crawling with guards.

"What the hell do ya mean there's no hideout?" One of the guards shouted at another, it was rather loud so even Merlin could hear him clearly from the roof.

"It's just a shitty tavern, there's nothing here besides cheap alcohol. We searched everywhere, including the cellar," the other guard said, "Perhaps the informant was wrong, or this is the wrong tavern."

'Oh, well it seemed they moved locations already,' Merlin thought to himself. 'Now how am I supposed to find the guild.'

"Useless, search again, make sure there's nothing you're missing," The guard shouted, 'My promotion is reliant on us catching those murderers."

Merlin made his way further into the slums, but the sheer amount of guards patrolling the place was incredible.

'Did they put the entire force into catching the thieves guild? What the hell.' Merlin thought.

He continued wandering around until he saw a familiar-looking small boy being interrogated by guards. Unlike the nicer looking clothing he usually saw Bell wearing, he was wearing tattered commoner clothing and his face and hair was caked in a layer of dust. He fit in with the other residents of the slum quite well.

"Oi, do you not know how to speak?" One of the guards seemed to be shouting at him. "If you can't understand humans, how are you any different from livestock?"

"Cool it, he's just a kid." The other guard beside him seemed to take Bell's side. "Why are you even interrogating him anyway, what is a kid going to know about a gang of murderers?"

The two guards seemed to get into an argument, which allowed Bell to slip out of sight and make his way down a side street. Merlin started following Bell, who was slipping between groups of guards with great skill. It was rather difficult for even Merlin to follow him, but it seemed as though Bell realised he was being watched.

Merlin followed Bell until he wandered down an alleyway and turned around, waiting for his pursuer to appear before him. He clearly felt himself being watched, but nobody appeared around the corner which seemed to make him uncomfortable.

Something must have eventually clicked in his mind as he looked up and saw Merlin staring down at him. Merlin gave him a friendly wave before sending a vine down, which seemed to relieve Bell of his caution as he had seen these vines before.

Bell grabbed hold of the vine while avoiding the thorns before he was pulled up onto the roof.

Merlin watched Bell's expression suddenly brighten as he stared down at the streets below, although he wasn't able to audibly express his excitement of being up so high, it was clear for Merlin to see.

"Hey Bell," Merlin said as he took off his mask, revealing his face and some of his and some of his long white hair that slipped out from under his cloak hood. "I take it the base moved, would you be able to lead me to the new location?"

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