Chapter 99

“I will look into this room, you go down to the basement. Remember the core is small so look in every corner!” One of the intruders said to his friend as they split up. The other nodded before rushing downstairs with silent steps.

“What core?” A voice asked from behind him. “The dungeon core if Ourals mine idiot, we talked about this before!” The intruder replied without thinking, he quickly realized he didn’t recognize the voice who was behind him.

“Who’s there…?” He took a quick step and turned around brandishing his dagger.

Clunk! A sharp pain ran through his body as he was stabbed through his armor, standing in front of him was a dark-cloaked figure.

“That’s my woman’s room.” Daraku sliced upward with his dagger reaching up to the man’s chest. After making sure the intruder was dead, Daraku entered Miko’s room where she was sleeping soundly.

“Wake up, we’re under attack!”

…

Down in the maid quarter on one of the couches, an intruder found a bunch of maids stacked together and reeking of alcohol. “Ah!” He wanted to pinch his nose but had to take one of them to interrogate.

‘That one isn’t wearing a maid outfit, she also is stacked…’ He approached a woman that was sitting on the couch with a glass bottle in her hand.

“Mdmdmmm!” He heard a faint mumble from her, “What?” He approached to listen.

[Sleep] Yamauba knocked him out with a single step. She slowly stood up holding her aching head, “Let me sleep in peace…” She mumbled.

…

Cain and Gracie rushed toward Alice’s room, quickly arriving there as it was close. Clank! Cain opened the door immediately as he accounted that an intruder might be already inside. Luckily He only found Alice and Sofia inside discussing something.

“Cain?” Sofia gasped as the door suddenly opened, “Do you need something?” Alice added with a smile.

“Intruders, get ready…” Seeing Alice’s face twist stopped him, “Gracie!” She screamed and Cain turned around, a black hooded individual was holding a knife to Gracie’s throat.

“Don’t more or I will slice her throat, now hand me the dungeon core!” He threatened.

‘Dungeon core?’ That pearl-shaped thing that was on the dungeon gate. Cain did take it with him to use as prof later, it wasn’t glowing so it had no value to sell. What are other uses for dungeon core? Why would this man need that thing?

“Master, am I allowed to kill him?” Gracie said without batting an eye. Cain looked at her thinking about what she just said, remembering how she sliced Spindle’s nose.

“Do it!” It was Alice who shouted If Gracie was approved by her stepmother. There was only one thing she could have meant.

Gracie lifted her leg high up as, Click! A small blade emerged from her heel. Swinging that leg down, she jammed the knife in between the intruder’s legs.

“GRAAAAAAAAAAA!” The man squealed like a pig. Cain closed his eyes and looked away, just seeing it made him feel the pain.

Gracie didn’t stop there as she swung another back kick at the man’s face. “Stop!” Sofia’s order stopped her before she could finish him.

Cain quickly made his way toward them as he rubbed his jewels to subdue the imaginary pain. “Gracie we talk about this later, you bastard who sent you?” Cain shouted at the twitching intruder, the man seemed to have already passed out from blood loss.

“Tch!” There was no way for Cain to wake him up immediately. “Gracie the knife!” Cain asked her extending his hand, he expected her to hand him her shoe. Without much change to her face, Gracie pulled a second knife from her sleeves.

“I’m sure we left this in my room!” Cain commented as he took the kitchen knife from her, “It’s the second one!” Gracie replied as if it was a normal thing.

Cain quickly finished the intruder with that knife, he had other ways of extracting information.

“Gracie, was it stepmother who taught you?” Alice asked as she approached her, Gracie nodded.

“Care to explain, I don’t feel like I’m following the conversation that well!” Cain asked as he stood between them. Gracie droll worked as an aphrodisiac before and she showed as human in his appraisal so he thought she had succubus blood. This means that one of her ancestors was a succubus, she isn’t a true one, not even a half, just has a trace of their blood in her.

Now having her fight like this isn’t making that much sense, what is Lisa’s role in all of this?

“Stepmother Lisa was an assassin sent to kill father, for some reason she ended up abandoning her mission thought and father doesn’t want to talk about the reason!” Alice quickly put on her priest clothes and the light chain mail she had.

“Have you killed before?” Sofia asked but Gracie shook her head, “I merely trained under her.”

[Animate dead] Cain raised the dead intruder, “Why are you here? Who sent you?” Asked directly, raised people aren’t known to understand long sentences.

“D-dungeon Co-Co-Core, O-ourals loooord.” The intruder’s mouth tripled as he forced the words out of his mouth, even though he just died, the sight of a corpse talking like that made Sofia throw up in the corner.

“This is probably as much as I’m to get from a corpse.” Cain sighed as the zombie stayed silent. “Go kill all of the people you came with, don’t attack anyone else, and protect them!” Cain ordered his zombie who stumbled outside like a drunk old man.

“Sofia are you alright?” Cain asked and she just gave him a thumb up, “I will get used to it, let’s move on!” She replied as she hardly stood, she did see a moving corpse before when Cain turned that party’s healer into one. But having one speak like that with his eyes almost popping out was a bit too much for her who had a full stomach.

“I don’t have that much MP left as Alice did suck me dry and I don’t feel like my body can handle much movement so let’s proceed with caution!” Cain said as he approached the door.

To his surprise, Gracie called him back, “Master, I have a dagger so would you like to have it?”

“Why not, if you have it we better use it,” Cain replied and Gracie pulled a dagger from under her skirt.

Cain wanted to ask how many weapons she is hiding and where but that was a question for another time. The most important thing was to clear the intruder and capture some alive for interrogation.

After going downstairs, BANG! They heard a loud crashing noise as if something hard got slammed into the wall.

After a few moments they saw Takeshi walk out of the bathroom with his fist drenched in blood, He quickly spotted Cain and the girls.

“Ah, Cain. Sorry, I seem to have cracked your wall.” Takeshi laughed, “Girls don’t look inside, and it’s pretty bad!” Seeing Takeshi’s stat Cain sneaked a look inside the bathroom. One of the intruders had his skull crushed on the wall while the other torso was twisted like paper.

“You left a mess!” Cain gave him wry smile, “Cleaning after this is going to be a pain.”

Takeshi slammed his blooded fist on his chest “Don’t worry, I will help. By the way, do you know who they are?” Takeshi didn’t seem that nervous and was taking this satiation with a big smile.

“Assassin sent by the lord of Ourals, they seem to be after the dungeon core I got in the mine!” Cain told him, Takeshi looked at him with a wide smile.

“They remind me of ninjas, we have those in our homeland. They are quite the problem and always attacked us at night!”

“What did you do in your homeland to be this used to this kind of situation?” Cain asked as looked around the corner.

“I worked as a guard protecting the local governor, we were called samurai!” Cain has heard of them before, he was getting more interested but he had a lot to think of at the time.

After looking around, it seemed like the situation have already started to calm down. Selena had already killed four outside, Takeshi took two, and Cain and the girls killed one. Daraku has hunted three, Sebas had killed one (He had guard training and could hold himself) and Yamauba has put four to sleep.

Some maids that have encountered the intruders have ended up with bruises and superficial wounds as they were asked to lead them to the master room. Luckily nothing that the combined effort of Miko and Alice couldn’t fix.

As she healed the maid, Alice had a troubled face. “This is going to spark a war, I’m sure my father won’t keep quiet” Cain slowly walked to her side, “Don’t worry, I’m sure we can convince him against it!” Alice’s father was old, at least too old to fight in a war. She simply couldn’t bear the thought of losing him, the last of her parent.

“It’s useless, they are already on the move!” As Alice said that the shadowy figure of a woman stood at the window.

“Thank god you’re safe, William would have snapped!” The voice was familiar, Cain quickly recognized her even though her face was covered.

Lisa was there, accompanied by the whole cleaning squat that works for the city lord.