Chapter 94: Wanted

Chapter 94: Wanted

The first main conflict in the game, 'Downfall From Grace', is that one noble suddenly goes on a power trip and starts abusing it beyond the unspoken rules and also begins to kill commoners. This caused quite a bit of tension to form between the noble and common class, which was one of the sparks that started most of the chaos.

Naturally, the most logical thing to do with that information was to nip all of that in the bud.

Though, it was a tad bit more complicated for various reasons. From how events have already been out of order, I already doubted that it would actually fix anything, but it was worth a shot.

I narrowed my eyes ever so slightly and turned to Nathan.

"Say, I've found out where that guy's place is."

Nathan turned to me with a weird look.

"Didn't you just ask for his name? How did you even look him up?"

I raised a finger as a self-righteous expression formed on my face.

"It's for the dramatic effect. Like, they do that in movies, right?"

Nathan's face twitched.

"...Whatever, just lead the way there."

With that, we climbed down the wall before making our way through the slums once more. Though I couldn't help but notice... that some people were looking at us. However, other than taking a peek, they didn't do anything.

Well, other than rushing into their houses.

We definitely were a bit bloody and roughed up, but still, it was probably a bit too much to have that kind of reaction considering they weren't all that scared the first time we passed by.

Nathan didn't seem to notice this, and I didn't think it was that big of a deal so I didn't bring it up.

As we made our way through the Common District, the glares became rather obvious though. And unlike how it was like in the slums, people began running away, as they intended on doing something.

Then as if it couldn't be any more obvious, we saw wanted posters with drawings of us in our disguise. Apparently, our titles were rouge lesser mages. Though, I must say it was drawn pretty poorly. The reward said ten gold coins would be awarded for our capture.

...I couldn't help but feel a bit slighted for how low the reward was, but I suppose I couldn't complain. We only killed a few people, after all.

Huh? What do you mean? Of course, that's a small deal.

I put one hand on my mask to adjust it.

"It looks like we're going to have company soon."

Nathan clicked his tongue.

"So much for being undercover."

A chuckle escaped me.

"As long as they don't figure out who we are, then we're pretty much still undercover."

Nathan took a brief scan of our surroundings before calling out.

"Follow me."

I simply raised an eyebrow.

"We're running away?"

Nathan responded seriously.

"If all the commoners are in on it too, then this isn't just some bandit group behind the scenes. Someone bigger is at play here, and right now isn't the time to stir up trouble with them."

Honestly, I didn't really understand what he was so concerned about, but like most of the time, I just decided to trust him.

"Fair enough."

Nathan ducked into an alley between two houses. From there, he began leading us down another street before ducking into another alleyway. The entire time, his head was on a swivel, paying attention to everything around him. Though, I noticed that he paid attention to the people more than the ways we could go themselves.

Before long, we went into another alleyway, but after he took a quick peek outside, he stopped. I raised an eyebrow seeing this.

"So we aren't running?"

Nathan shook his head.

"No, we just have to use their informants against them. We should switch our clothes out for now and continue running but pretend we are searching for something."

He immediately took off his cloak and mask and bundled them up. We did bring along a backpack for the sake of carrying our supplies, but it didn't really fit properly inside. Still, it was passable.

A bitter smile formed on my face.

"Won't my clothes be a little bit too high quality though?"

Nathan clicked his tongue.

"The clothes you wore were plain as hell anyway. After it got roughed up this much, it will look no different from mine."

Hearing that, I took off the cloak and realized that Nathan was indeed right. There were quite a few tears in my clothes already, which definitely didn't exactly radiate 'high-class'. Nathan pointed to my chest though.

"Get that golden thing off though, it looks ugly and will also give us away."

There was a brooch affixed to these clothes that he was pointing to. After a bit of struggle, I ripped it off. After taking a look at it, the corner of my lip twitched.

"Oh... it has a latch so that it can come off normally."

Nathan looked at me like I was an idiot.

"Why wouldn't it?" nOve/lb)In

After stuffing it in my backpack I coughed.

"So what's the plan?"

Nathan waved his hand dismissively.

"Same as always, just follow me."

He ran towards the way we came, before taking a sharp left. As he did so, his head was looking back and forth rather quickly. I decided to follow his example. The streets also had a few people here and there mirroring our actions.

A man ended up running next to us with a smile. While still huffing, he spoke to us.

"Hey! If we work together to find him, why don't we split the bounty?"

I promptly shook my head.

"Hell no! We can find them ourselves easily! The bounty is ours, and ours alone!"

Apparently, these guys cared so much about a few gold coins, but I decided not to think about it that much. Maybe it was the chase they cared about or something.

The man looked disappointed in my answer, but didn't press further to negotiate, he simply continued running.

We basically blended in with the crowd perfectly and were eventually able to make our way into the Trade District. Here, there were still a few people running around aimlessly, but most of them were just walking around and looking at the wares people had to offer.

Eventually, when few people were nearby, Nathan signaled to me and started walking around casually. It seemed a bit hard to blend in with the others with how we looked, but I decided to follow along and looked at everything around us as though in awe of it.

As we got closer to the Noble District, there were fewer people, and the kinds of people looked far more wealthy. Eventually, one of the more boorish-looking ones frowned at us and waved toward us like we were a bad smell.

"What are vagrants doing here? Stop dirtying these streets, you pests."

I gave a forced smile and scratched the back of my head awkwardly.

"A-Ah, sorry sir!"

Nathan kept his head down and grabbed my arm before dragging me aside. We soon reached an alleyway, though it was honestly quite hard to find around these parts. At this point, Nathan set down his bag with a sigh.

"Alright, let's put on the usual now."

Soon enough, we were back in our disguises. It wasn't too hard to sneak by once more and reach the Noble District. You'd think there would be more security, but then again commoners would go there semi-frequently, even if we just count the ones going to school.

It seemed that most people didn't recognize our disguises here. Other than strange looks, nobody had any overt reactions. I wasn't the best at directions, so I took a wrong turn once, but we were able to get back on track soon enough and reach his place.

"That looks like how it would in game, right?"

Nathan blinked a few times.

"It's close enough. Let me double-check."

There was a fairly large manor, though it paled in comparison to the ones other nobles had, or even the one I was in. The place itself was probably the size of two average houses.

However, there was a gate barred around the place, as though trying to say that this land still belonged to them, even if the house wasn't that big. Two guards were standing at the entrance.

Nathan walked up to one of the guards and spoke bluntly.

"Is this Elijah's place?"

The guard looked at him with a bit of confusion.

"Um... yes. What business do you have with him?"

I stepped up and cleared my throat.

"We are here to bring him a message. However, we would need to do it directly considering that it contains more sensitive matters."

The guard turned to me but didn't look like he was going to relent any time soon.

"I was not informed of this. Please go back."

Hm. Well, I had a feeling that this wouldn't work out so easily.

"This is rather urgent. I was given proof, but I'm not sure if you would recognize it. However, if you take it to Elijah himself, he will know."

I took out the brooch that I had ripped off from my backpack and showed it to them. Other than being a bit dirty, it was still in fairly good condition. The guard took a closer look.

"...I will still confirm. Please wait here."

I handed him the brooch, which he took before marching off.

One of the guards ended up leaving, while the other one remained. Nathan looked at me as though asking me what the hell was I doing. However, I simply smiled.

I already thought of how we were going to do this.

After all, in the first place, the Elijah we were trying to kill wasn't exactly Elijah.