Chapter 548 The Game Plan

"So what's our game plan?" Lee Seng asked. He continued to munch on his food as he looked at Lisa. She had zipped up the backpack and let it fall in front of her. She thought for a moment before giving him an answer.

"I think we should continue on with the job. From experience, it's better to just do the job and then find David later. Sometimes he'll just show back at the Estate without much noise." Lisa suggested. "But, where are we going exactly? I managed to sneak my way in here, but there's load of enemies. What're you doing here?"

"There's a fortress with the Hell horses nearby. 51st and North." Lee Seng replied. "We need to infiltrate that place and break the horses out. Once we do that, we have to get out. It was honestly a pop in, pop out ordeal, but David's gone so who knows how anything's going to go."

"51st and North… I think I passed North street on the way here." Lisa glanced off into space. A moment later, she was nodding. "Yup. North is that way." Lee Seng watched as she pointed off to her right. "It's heavily guarded. I'll show you." She tapped her earring and a red foggy aura began to form in front of her.

"This is the current map I have of the city. 51st is right here." Lisa pointed. She dragged her finger to the right and the fog map moved quite a bit until she stopped. "This is North street. These were all of the people I managed to spot." White dots started to appear all over the map.

"That isn't good." Lee Seng shook his head. The area they needed to get into was jam packed with guards everywhere.

"The inside isn't so great, either." Lisa zoomed the map in on a specific building and Lee Seng watched as more white dots filled the screen. It was almost entirely white in this area. "I haven't done enough scouting to know if there's an easy way in, but this is the path I roughly took to get to you." She pulled the map out and moved up a bit. She stopped and the path highlighted itself as a green path among the red.

"The way we came in was way back here." The fog shifted all the way back to the original point. She circled it and then started to pull the fog back towards 51st street. "It was following a bunch of the main roads and going through alleyways, but I eventually got to 81st and I went through the sewers." The fog zoomed in, showing the path of the sewers. It eventually came to a stop and the green line went up.

Lisa zoomed it out and it appeared back at the sudden starting point within the city. Lee Seng followed the path until it eventually got to a blinking red and gray dot.

"We're right here." Lisa pointed. "So we'd have to go back that way a bit."

"Did you ever explore other paths in the sewers?" Lee Seng asked.

"I deviated a bit early on to check where I was…" Lisa moved the fog back, pulling in to show the tunnels. "I did a lot of searching here and here." She motioned at the few areas mapped out.

"Did you ever come across the fortress?"

"Not from what I could see."

"If we're linked together through some GPS tracking you don't have to deviate so much…" Lee Seng whispered. He set the container of mostly eaten food down to the side and stared at the fog map for a while. "So with that in mind, we could possibly find the closest area and go from there."

"There's too much foot traffic from what I saw, though. We would have to enter from a couple streets back to match the direct line up of the fortress." Lisa moved the map to hover over the fortress.

"Then that's what we'll do." Lee Seng nodded. He picked up what was left of his food and ate it as Lisa stared at the red fog. She was worried they would get caught, but she was more worried they might come across David.

"One more thing." Lisa quietly said after a pause. Lee Seng looked up at her from his food. She curled his lips and licked them. "If we ever come across David… It'd be better if you just tried to leave him alone."

"Huh? But won't he just attack anything?" Lee Seng asked.

"He will, but—" Lisa turned away. "But we all must walk our paths." Lee Seng nodded, finishing his food.

After Lee Seng was finished refueling himself, he packed away his things into the backpack and took it upon himself to carry it.

"You don't have to. I can do it just fine." Lisa told him. Lee Seng slung the backpack onto his back and smiled at her.

"It's fine. I can take care of it. This is nothing to me. I've been carrying a backpack since I was five." Lee Seng told her. He started towards the exit as Lisa turned and watched him leave.

With the path in her hand, Lisa guided them to one of the many sewer entrances she came across. Lee Seng pulled the cover off and let Lisa down. Once she was safely down, he leapt into it, pulling the cover back in place as he quietly landed.

"So how exactly are we going to know we're at the right spot?" Lisa asked. "I know we could use the map but comparing back and forth takes a lot of time."

"Vibration mapping." Lee Seng replied, standing next to her.

"What? Is it like echolocation?"

"Yeah. Also called seismic sense. Creating a vibration through the earth powerful enough to show me what's around us but not powerful enough to literally bring the whole area down with us."

"Co-cool. Such a nifty trick." Lisa complimented. She walked with Lee Seng as they traversed the old sewer system.

"The structure holds well. I guess it only gets better with time." Lee Seng commented.

"Are you into this sort of stuff?" Lisa inquired.

"Nah." Lee Seng shook his head. "My brother is, though. He wanted to become an architect, but ended up becoming a CEO of a company."

"Wow. That's really different."

"I know, right?" Lee Seng chuckled. "I don't even know how he has time to run a Guild business and still do missions."

"Is he like some adventurer or something? I remember some Biohumans mentioning something about this. I still don't quite get it."

"He runs a Guild, but you could say he does adventurer stuff. Like, there's the normal adventuring and then imagine private adventuring for one person." Lee Seng summarized.

"Ah, so he's like a Number or whatever." Lisa commented.

"Yeah. He's a Number." Lee Seng nodded. "I'm surprised you know that."

"The other Biohumans throw those terms around a lot. They seem to have very hot or cold opinions about them."

"Yeah, that's how it usually is." Lee Seng nodded. The sewer path didn't deviate as much. The two moved in a straight line as Lee Seng used seismic sense to know what was above them.

"So, if you're brother is a Number then what are you? Are you one?" Lisa asked.

"Yes and no." Lee Seng replied. "I'm the son of the guy who created the Numbers." Lisa was surprised by that comment. She stopped in her tracks, turning Lee Seng as she starred at him in disbelief. Lee Seng chuckled and nodded. "I know, it's a lot."

"You're willingly sharing this with me? Why?" Lisa asked. "Shouldn't secrets be kept close?"

"It's not a secret if everyone in the whole world knows it. I'm the son of the Creator."

"And you're a Number?"

"Complicated." Lee Seng turned and continued walking. Lisa jogged to catch up to him, slowing to a walk as he let another blip out. "Enough about me, how about you? How're you holding up against that… Whole thing?" He glanced at Lisa. She quietly thought for awhile before she finally answered.

"It's hard. I don't really know how I'm going to get a grip on getting control of my Sin form…" Lisa quietly responded.

"One day you'll figure it out. When that day comes, it'll make a little more sense… At least that's what I'm told, haha." Lee Seng rubbed the back of his head. "All things will make sense with time and understanding."

"Are you telling me this or yourself?"

Lee Seng didn't answer for a while.

"I guess both of us." Lee Seng awkwardly chuckled. He took another step forward and then stopped. His head turned to the right and looked up. "What's… That?" He pointed to the ceiling. Lisa's eyes landed on a large egg sack.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Click. Click. Click.

Large legs pulled out of the shadows, debris falling from the wall as many small eyes looked at Lee Seng and Lisa. A dark liquid poured out of its mouth as they studied their next prey.