Chapter 483: Breaking In The Warehouse



"—That's all I know so far."

"I see. Here."

"Thank you for your patronage. I'll let you know if I gather more."

One sunny afternoon, along a dark alley in one of the streets in the Imperial Capital, Sergei just handed a few silver coins to an information broker as payment for providing him with the information Sergei needed. After their transaction, Sergei got out of the alley and blended in with the crowd by the street.

Sergei had been fulfilling the mission that Raphael tasked to him several days ago. Though not that much, he had progress and gathered some information through listening to rumors and asking locals and information brokers.

(If what he said was true, I need to go to that place to investigate.)

Aside from the words regarding the current situation of Edith Felsvorder, Sergei had been gathering information that might relate to the case.

Just now, the broker told him that there was a significant increase in security around the warehouse sector. He also mentioned that the most guard building was owned by the House of Aethel. Sergei knew that the Archduchy was involved with Edith's issues.

It could mean that there was something else going on there. Sergei could not just guess what was up there, so he decided on planning to go there later, and then he would report what he could find to Raphael.

◆◇◆◇◆◇

At night, past midnight, when most of the citizens were already resting, Sergei was in the warehouse sector of the Imperial Capital, silently walking between the tall warehouses to investigate.

A number of warehouses had guards roaming their vicinity; some did not. Although his Concealment was not making him fully invisible, Sergei activated it to increase his chances of not getting detected.

As his source said, Sergei confirmed that the number of people guarding the warehouse owned by the Aethel family was suspiciously large. Not only the numbers, but the individual strength of the guards was not to be taken lightly.

Sergei would be having a hard time passing them without getting noticed. If he were to be caught, he surely did not stand a chance against them.

Thankfully, knowing that Sergei would initiate an infiltration somewhere, Raphael kindly provided him a few data crystals containing some useful abilities. Sergei took a crystal from his trouser pocket and shattered it between his fingers, immediately activating the Perfect Concealment. Find your next read at m_v l|e-novelhall.net

Shatter.

"Hm? I think I heard something over there." A guard's ear jolted before he muttered in a direction.

Due to its effectiveness in the war, the karabiner easily replaced the muskets as the Astley's standard military weapon. Many nations took interest in them, and Rick's company had been making the karabiners commercially available.

Our queendom had a good relationship with Rick, so we were able to buy them in bulk and distribute them to our military. The empire was also importing the karabiner and had been slowly replacing the muskets.

The production could not keep up with the demand, so the empire had limited stock of them, and the government had permission to purchase them. That raised the question of how the Aethel Archduchy had their hands on them.

"You said that there were crates of these in the warehouse?"

"Yes," Sergei affirmed. "I think there are also boxes of its ammunition."

"But how was the archduchy able to get them?" Iris asked. "Are they smuggling them?"

"I don't think so."

"How can you tell, Raphael?"

To prove my point, I grabbed the karabiner and unclipped the magazine.

"Look. This is not a product of Sir Rick as all. It's an imitation. The powder inside these cartridges is not smokeless powder. I'll give it a shot and hear it."

After clipping back the magazine, I deployed an Anti-Physical Barrier on the wall before I aimed the muzzle at it and then pulled the trigger. A deafening, loud sound rang out, and a flattened bullet dropped to the floor after being stopped by the barrier.

"Oh, this firearm indeed produces more smoke than an actual karabiner, and the bullet was flying slower and was less powerful. The smoke is better than what a gunpowder produces, so I could say they somewhat developed a better weapon than a musket, but never to the level of the karabiner."

"Nice observation, Sister. They can be copying the structure of the gun with minimal issues, but they could not figure out how to make the smokeless powder."

"Yeah. But what is the archduchy going to do with all of those weapons?"

"I don't know, Sister. But I am sure they are plotting something. Let's see what they will do. For now... Sergei."

"Yes, sir."

"They knew that someone broke into the warehouse, so refrain yourself from going out much in the meantime."

"I understand."