Chapter 143 - Stronghold

Three days later, Mia could be seen standing in front of the familiar restaurant while looking around, searching for the person she was supposed to meet in the crowd of people. Because she had arrived fifteen minutes early than the supposed meeting time, she had been waiting since then while sometimes looking around, thinking that she might see Sheila in the crowd as the meeting time slowly close in.

She had been doing that for a while now as the time for the meeting has long passed for a whole five minutes yet, she had not seen the familiar figure among the crowd walking toward her at all. Rather, there had been a few guys trying to talk to her but she simply ignored them while imagining them as cabbage on the street. Since it was a place where there were many kinds of people around, the guys couldn't do anything more and simply left while cursing under their breath.

"Sorry for the wait!"

After five more minutes of waiting, Mia looked up and saw a red-haired girl walking toward her. It wasn't Angelica but more of a stranger yet somehow, she feels like she knows girl for some unknown reason. But that is strange in itself as she didn't know anyone other than Angelica who is also a red-haired. Judging by the fact that the girl's eyes were locked onto her and, that she was also walking straight toward her seemed to indicate that the girl definitely knows her.

"Umm, who are you?"

When the red-haired girl finally arrived in front of her, Mia couldn't help but ask the question due to curiosity. The red-haired girl just smiled at her before creeping closer to her ears and whispering something shocking that caused her to widen her eyes and look at the girl with pure shock and admiration when the latter stepped back afterward. 

"Shall we get going?"

Mia could only nod her head in response before she started following right behind Sheila toward another location. Yes, Sheila had been using disguise instead of appearing with her normal appearance. When Mia had told her how the process of leaving the Mage Association was smooth, Sheila was worried that they might send someone to investigate the reason behind why Mia decided to drop out of the association so suddenly. That was why she had been using disguise as another person, and when she walks away with Mia from the meeting place, she could tell that there's another person sneakily followed behind them at an appropriate distance from her detection skill.

Good thing I was prepared, thought Sheila. Although she didn't know who was the presence following right behind her, she could at least tell that the person must be a mage considering it has that familiar special aura. Sheila concluded that her guess was right on the mark and immediately use the formation before commanding one of the four mythical beasts with as simple as a thought, easily knocking out the mage without the latter being able to resist in response. 

When the man finally woke up an hour later, Sheila and Mia had already long disappeared from his detection. He had no choice but to return and report back what he had just experienced, everything in full detail and gets punished due to the failure on his part. He actually owns a protective charm and always brought it together with him whenever he went out to do the mission given to him, it has always been protecting him by alerting him of the danger way ahead so he could retreat immediately and report his finding. 

But this time, he didn't receive any response from the protective charm and was taken care of before he knows it. Thankfully for him, Sheila didn't go for the kill as she still didn't have enough understanding for the Mage Association and was expecting for Mia to tell her later on. She didn't want to cause trouble before fully understood everything about the opposite party.

With the mage taken care of, Sheila brought Mia to a desolate place somewhere near the mountain instead of her house. For clarification, the reason why her house was mentioned because she had nowhere else to chose for a place without any human presence around. The only places she knows was an Arcade game shop and Cyber Internet Cafe, after all. The mountain is considered safe so long one didn't dive deeper into it or they will be killed by the Earth Dragon due to trespassing into its territory. 

But when the duo arrived near the location, they were stopped by the scene not far away from them. It hasn't been long since she saved Angelica from the Earth Dragon, so she didn't expect to see a couple of buildings near the entry path of the mountain. It wasn't just that as there are people who seemed to be soldiers taking posts around the building with a serious expression on their faces. It won't be wrong for the two to assume that the mountain had become a restricted zone for the government military.

That was exactly how things turn out when the government finds out that there was a scary unknown lifeform lives deep in the mountain. They had tried probing a couple of times and all ended up in failure with only a couple of survivors that managed to bring them the information, it was clear that the other that were left behind have been killed by the monster. They didn't know where the monster came from but one thing that they know is that, if one trespassed over a line that marks as its territory, they would be dealt with by unexpected earthquake that appeared out of nowhere.

So the government already knows about this and since I didn't hear any news about it anywhere in social media, that must mean that they wanted to keep it a secret from the public, typically what one would expects from a government, though Sheila while she was watching them with Mia at a certain distance so that they won't be noticed by them. 

"What a tricky problem, I guess I have no choice. Let's go to another place."

Muttered Sheila and Mia nodded in response, she didn't ask why the former brought her here for and just quietly followed along. While Sheila was leading Mia to her house, she also appeared to be deep in thought as silence ensure since none of them spoke on the way there.

I really need to find a place where I could make it my secret stronghold. If I have such a place, I won't need to bring this girl to my house, endanger my parents and others living there. I'm sure that the girl won't attack them for simply no reason but there are still risk as everything could happen from countless possibilities. It's even more important since my goal was to create an organization, without a stronghold, the plan couldn't step forward. 

It is possible to make a stronghold within the first floor of the Trial Tower after countless experiments I had done in my spare time. To bring the material for building a stronghold is not a problem with the inventory but that doesn't mean I know HOW to build one in the first place. At most, I only know how to build a single hut from researching on the internet. Yes, I know that I could find a building blueprint if I research a bit harder on the internet as all knowledge was stored in the digital world, after all. Knowing it is one thing, but building it with only on my own is another story.

What? Just buy a building, you say? You must be fun at parties, as wherein the oblivion world could I get enough money for that? Let say I somehow acquired enough money for it, but would people from real estate agent believes and listen to my side before the purchase could even ensure? And how would I know if I'm not getting trick by them? There are a lot of problems with this. If only I had an a.d.u.l.t on my side,  thought Sheila. 

When she came to her senses and looked up, they were already right in front of the gate of her house. A random thought suddenly entered her mind when her gaze locked onto her house before vanishing completely from her mind, but Sheila definitely didn't forget what it was as she fell into deep contemplation and stopped on her track. Mia didn't know why she suddenly stopped in front of the gate but didn't question the latter and just wait quietly at the side. A few seconds passed, a mysterious smile appeared on Sheila's face before she opened the gate and stepped into the house with Mia.

Since I didn't know about such a thing, I can just find someone else who is expertise in it. And fortunately, I had exactly such a person in mind that would definitely help me if I explain to them properly. But that's where the problem arises...