The group found themselves in front of another mansion that looked like it was owned by a botanist. The entire place was covered in plants, with many plants looking rather exotic and dangerous.
"Seeing as there are a lot of plants and bushes, surely this works in our favour as it will be impossible to see the shadow." Elysia did not like the look of some of the plants and would rather sit it out than get all tangled up.
"Well I doubt they can sense mana so we should be able to get through the garden rather easily." Shaman was rather doubtful that plants could affect her so she figured it should be fine.
"We just have to take the path to the door, it isn't like we are going through the garden." Clara also thought there was no need to worry about the plants as they were completely avoidable.
"True, let's not waste anymore time then." Shaman grabbed Elysia and Clara's hands pulling them into [Shadow walk] while Wolfy used his own.
As expected they got past the gate with no alarms and were now on the main path to the front door.
'So far so good, but something doesn't feel right.' Shaman felt a little uneasy so she proceeded to move slowly towards the front door.
Even as Shaman got closer to the door, the uneasy feeling would not go away.
'Why am I feeling like this now.' Shaman trusted her abilities to keep her hidden, especially after being able to not get murdered by the pope.
Shaman got closer to the door, when she noticed the world around her started to spin.
'Oh fuck.' Realising that they were being affected by a sort of drug, Shaman tried to move back.
'I thought we were not affected by the outside, but I guess we wouldn't be able to breathe if my skills were to cut off oxygen.' Shaman didn't expect nature to be their worst enemy. Too late she realised [Shadow walk] was only effective against mana based elements, and was therefore useless against chemicals and other natural phenomena.
'Wish I knew that sooner-.' Shaman felt light headed and ended up passing out releasing [Shadow walk].
Shaman, Clara and Elysia appeared on the main path passed out from the gas.
Wolfy who lagged behind freaked out as he was unsure what the hell happened. He was about to come out of the ground until he saw a noble with a snake's head opening the front door.
"My, my some sneaky vixens and a demon girl this time, how many thieves do they have to send before they understand it is almost impossible to steal my plants." The half snake walked up to the girls with half snake guards in suits following behind her. The guards picked up the girls and started to drag them inside.
"Make sure to get as much information out of them, they have been sending a lot of low levels lately so standard chains should be fine." The half snake gave orders as they walked back inside.
Wolfy wanted to follow them in but he was still unsure if he would end up knocked out as well.
'Damn it what do I dooooo.' Wolfy was freaking out. Since he was always following Shaman's lead, he wasn't the most battle savvy.
'There must be another way in.' Wolfy looked around, but the only path led to the front door as everything else was just a massive garden.
'Lets try getting behind the building.' Wolfy backtracked making his way behind the building to find a way in.
**
Shaman suddenly woke up as she felt cold water be splashed on her face. She found herself handcuffed, but from the sudden jolt of being woken up she broke them.
Shaman wiped her face while getting up from the ground, breaking the shackles which bound her feet in the process. This time Shaman noticed and looked at the floor to see the broken pair of shackles.
'Wait, where am I?' Shaman looked around, noticing Elysia and Clara who were also cuffed to the ground, as well as a bunch of guards looking at Shaman dumbfounded.
The guards snapped out of it and pulled out their weapons, getting ready to restrain Shaman again.
"Oh, how nice of you to welcome me." Shaman summoned Kotetsu and unsheathed it.
The guards were surprised to see the sword appear out of nowhere, which finally made them realise that the fox girl in front of them was a lot stronger than they thought.
Shaman inspected all the guards finding they were the same tier and level as the guards in the lion's mansion.
'I may be just barely stronger in level, but I shouldn't underestimate them.' Shaman was up against at least 4 guards, which was rather daunting. Not knowing if they use an element added another layer of danger.
'I should just try to be as quick as possible. They don't know how strong I am guessing from their reaction, so I better take advantage of that.' wanting to reduce the numbers, Shaman made the first move.
Shaman used her spatial rift to appear behind one of the guards in an instant decapitating the half snake's head.
Shaman used her other hand to create an ice spear and threw it towards another guard, who was able to just redirect the spear, only getting clipped in the shoulder. Shaman went back into the rift this time appearing in between the guards.
Shaman covered her sword in flames and spun around spreading her fire across the room. Shaman made sure to not spew any flames towards Elysia or Clara by putting up a water wall in their direction. Whenever an ember hit the water wall it would fizzle out, becoming harmless.
The fire did not kill any of them, but it was good enough a distraction to allow Shaman to kill another guard. Shaman ran up to a guard who was using his own water element to put out the fire. Covering her sword in wind, she created a chainsaw effect, which moved with enough intensity to be visible to the naked eye.
This also amplified any flames near the blade making it harder to put out.
Shaman sliced the guard in half with ease and jumped into her rift once again.
Just as she jumped into the rift, one of the guards summoned an earth spike right under where she stood. Knowing she might appear behind them, he also preemptively created a spike behind him and the other remaining guard.
However, to their surprise she did not instantly appear again. The guards assumed Shaman was using some kind of instant teleportation skill, not a dimensional shift, and therefore were surprised when they failed to locate her.
"Shit where is she?" The guard looked around the room, but was unable to see her.
"Maybe she ran?" It wasn't uncommon for them to see a foe that was unaffected by the sleeping agent to run away.
"Maybe she could be above you?" Shaman wanted to have a little fun as these guards were doing a poor job at fighting.
"Good point, wait who said that?" The guard looked up and saw a pair of fox ears vanish into the shadows.
"Shit she is in the walls!" The guard then started manipulating the walls and roof to try to pull her out, not knowing it was pointless.
The other guard, being unable to do anything, pushed his back against the other guard's back to make sure they had little to no blind spots.
Shaman who had changed to using [Shadow walk] went underneath the guards, poking out her black dyed fox ears again.
Shaman then poked up with her sword, which was covered in fire, stabbing the guard in the ass and setting him on fire. Shaman quickly pulled her sword back and moved away from the ground.
"AHHH!" the guard screamed while patting his ass to try and put out the flames.
The screams woke up Clara, who was still being protected by the water wall Shaman left up.
Waking up in a bit of a daze broke the weak handcuffs without even trying.
"Who the fuck is making all that noise." Clara did not appreciate being woken up in such a way so she became rather grumpy.
After looking around she realised that she wasn't in her room and was actually in some sort of dungeon with cobblestone walls.
"No wonder my back hurts." Clara got up from the ground stretching. She saw that Elysia was still asleep and that there were 2 guards fighting for their life.
'Looks like Shaman is toying with them.' Clara saw that one of them was running around with their ass on fire.
"Oi Shaman let me have a shot." Clara knew Shaman was probably in the room somewhere and just as she assumed Shaman's head poked out of the wall next to Clara.
"Sure, I had my fun, they are rather weak despite having a high level, which makes me think they boosted their level." Shaman was rather disappointed in the lack of a challenge, but was also grateful.
"Perfect, well lets hope it stays that way. Still, this doesn't excuse the fact that we were caught. We really need to be careful next time, otherwise we won't be so lucky." Clara was glad it was easy but they could have been killed on the spot.
"You're right, next time let's be more careful and not be so reliant on me and Wolfy's shadow skills. Now go have your fun, they will soon realise you are awake." Shaman disappeared back into the wall to watch.
Clara smiled and pulled out her blade whips from her inventory, slowly approaching the guards.