098. Establishment - 42

098. Establishment - 42

A potential blockade was a scenario we were prepared for. The employees went to the storage, rapidly pulled the premade palisade walls, and started to turn our territory into a small fortress. I had already made them run drills for this exact purpose, and it would only take fifteen minutes to complete.

However, I didn't stay to watch them, but changed my disguise before slipping away.

What I had just done was a declaration of war. Even though I hadn't killed anyone, I had disrespected the Night Blades, and did it very publicly.

Only the fact that the Greens didn't want to escalate the situation yet because their mysterious objectives completely prevented it from escalating into an instant battle.

Pointing at one of their agents and blaming him for arranging an assassination was a good start but ultimately, it was just a start. Greens could easily conceal their relationship with him, and paint him as a lone operator trying to get revenge.

Assassinating him and blaming it on me was also a smart option.

I had no intention of allowing them to cover it up.

That was why, I was going through the outer town, ignoring the rapid mobilization of the Night Blades and instead looking for familiar faces of Greens. Since they targeted my organization to create some smoke screens, it was only fair for me to repeat the favor.New novel chapters are published on

With the secret dungeon entrance about to open, I wouldn't say no to everyone paying attention to other stuff and ignore the location of Jertann and the rest.

As I searched for the Greens, I wasn't running around randomly. I wasn't an amateur, and I hadn't wasted all my time in the town for nothing. I had already identified several safe houses belonging to different groups, my Memory enough to guide me toward the ones that had been frequented by the people I remembered belonging to the Greens from the camp.

The silent ones that did nothing but observe

I went through several of them, for once not restricting my usage of Speed, hoping that Concealment would be enough to at least prevent the others from recognizing me as I rushed.

I was trying to see which of those safe houses had the most movement. As it happened, the town was showing signs of increased movement, but no clashes yet.

I needed to find a sensitive location for the Greens to trigger some fighting, or the Night Blades would start targeting us.

Five minutes later, I reached one of the safe houses I had identified before, just to a couple familiar faces rushing in silently, their expression stony, yet not panicking. Hopefully, it was an important location.

As they entered through the door, I moved toward the window. I put my hand on the glass, radiated off my mana, and felt the presence of a rune connected to the latch. It was small and weak, so I didn't expect it to be a trap. Probably just an alarm, I thought as I reached and broke the rune.

Whoever crafted it didn't expect to keep away a thief capable of magic.

The moment I entered, I started hearing several voices, arguing loudly. Clearly, the alarm rune wasn't the only magical attribute of the building. They also had a silencing barrier up which was good, as it increased the likelihood of the building being important.

" I don't care if it's too early. The Night Blades have already started poking around, trying to catch our agents. We need to do something."

Using the same path, I left the building, and started searching. Soon, I came across a large Night Blades patrol. "Sir, I just heard a few people talking about blowing the city in revenge," I said as I stood in front of them, churning my Charisma to the max to look trustworthy.

"Are you sure?" their leader asked immediately.

"Yes, they said it's their revenge for getting caught," I responded, this time adding a sense of urgency. Their state was already confused after getting several conflicting orders the Night Blades didn't look particularly ready for an emergency and the Charisma push was all they needed to rush toward the safe house.

I chuckled as I slipped into the building once more, already pulling one of the smoke pellets from my pouch. I waited until they smashed against the door.

"What's going on?" one of them asked.

"It's the guards. Nitka, you have the highest official rank. Go and stop them," another voice said.

The door opened, and an armored figure, dressed as a guard commander outfit of the inner town rushed out, no doubt to use his rank to stop the issue. Pity I had no intention of allowing that. I followed him through the corridor, Concealment helping me to avoid his attention.

And, just as they were about to meet with the Night Blades, I broke the smoke pellet and rushed forward, decapitating him.

Considering he was part of the group that already admitted to arranging my assassination, with clear intent to repeat it, I wasn't feeling particularly merciful.

Then, I kicked him toward the entrance, for the guards to find him. "They killed Commander Nitka. Kill all the traitors," I shouted.

"Kill them all," the guards shouted as they rushed into the smoke, with more courage than sense.

"Stop," a voice shouted from the meeting room, enhanced by Charisma to calm the guards. It would have worked as well, too bad I was there.

"Kill them all, they are traitors to Night Blades," I shouted from behind them, using my own Charisma.

Just like that, the ethereal presence of our Charisma clashed, the impact enough to make me shudder for a moment. It felt like a mental duel, pushing forward. He was not weak, his Charisma was easily in his forties.

Too bad he was facing me. In a direct confrontation, I was easily able to push his cloud away. I could feel that, while that conflict was going on, I couldn't affect the guards at the same time. It might have been if the difference was greater, but the relative weights of our pressure were close enough to prevent that.

Luckily, after the 'assassination' of their commander, they were already bloodthirsty enough to rush toward their secret meeting spot and attack them. With a chuckle, I rushed toward the basement, where I saw the door, and rapidly breaking the magical protections that kept the basement safe.

I felt a magical flare, which was likely an alarm, but I ignored that as I arrived at a nice treasury, several magical weapons, gold, and mana stones. They were rich enough.

"Someone is in the basement. Catch them," they shouted, but it was too late. I grabbed as much as I could carry which was a lot under the circumstances, and rushed out. It made a spectacular sight, but I didn't care, directly rushing out of the town, moving fast enough not to be caught.

Leaving the mysterious Greens to their fight with the Night Blades.