Zev faintly realized that his return might truly have been a mistake. Perhaps the organization's actions of spending money to bail him out had given him a shred of unrealistic hope.
Yet, from beginning to end, the organization had never wanted to bail him out. They only wanted the things he possessed. As for Zev himself, from the very moment he set foot in Langard, he had already ceased to have any value.
...
Bang!
The door to the room slowly closed.
Silabein sneered as he glanced at the shut door.
“What a useless fool after all...”
With that, Silabein picked up a "cargo" manifest from his desk.
However, the moment he opened the manifest, before he could even look at it, his eyes suddenly narrowed. He swiftly glanced toward a corner of the room, his right hand instinctively resting on his hilt.
For a moment, a tense silence fell over the room.
Only the faint sound of Silabein's own heartbeat seemed to echo in the space.
After a long while.
“...An illusion? Am I just being too sensitive during this critical period...?”
Silabein frowned. He sheathed the sword he had partially drawn, shook his head, and went back to reviewing the manifest.
Not long after, he called a few men inside.
Slapping several lists onto the desk, he spoke to them with a grim expression. “This batch of cargo, they will be coming to inspect and accept it in a few days! Hurry it up. Bribe whoever needs to be bribed, and get the cargo shipped in immediately! Remember, this is our organization's top priority right now. Everything else can be put on hold.”
“Recall all the men we've dispersed over these past few days as well. The volume of cargo is massive, and we can't afford any slipups due to a lack of manpower! Pay extra attention to the docks these next few days too. If you spot anyone suspicious, eliminate them on sight!”
“Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Boss!!!”
After arranging these matters, Silabein did not linger in his room either. He left the underground stronghold immediately, boarded a luxury carriage parked near the warehouse building, and headed off in the direction of the Midtown area...
Some time after Silabein left the docks.
Gurgle, gurgle...
In the corner of the room, a mass of shadow surged up from the floor and rose into a standing figure.
“...Was I a bit too careless?”
Glancing toward the door of the room, Shulim self-reflected.
The keenness of this underground organization leader's perception was somewhat beyond Shulim's expectations. It was her first time encountering someone with senses of this caliber.
Fortunately, Nature Magic had a miraculous effect against those with highly sharp senses.
Instead of dispelling her magic, Shulim remained merged with the shadow, gliding over to the only desk in the room.
She stared at the documents on the desk but did not touch them. Someone as sharp as Silabein would definitely realize if they had been disturbed.
Though she could not take direct action, Shulim was still able to gather some intelligence from the papers scattered across the desk's surface.
The contents were mostly information regarding the cargo—and that cargo was slaves, or more precisely, "illegal slaves"!
People who had been forcibly captured through various illicit means such as abduction and kidnapping.
While this might only be the tip of the iceberg, she could still deduce from this intelligence that the underground organization's primary business was the illegal slave trade.
No wonder they were active all across the empire.
“...And there is no easier way to procure slaves than using bandit groups.”
Having gathered all the information she could from the room, Shulim sank back into the shadow once more, starting her sweep of the entire underground stronghold.
Compared to Silabein, the leader of the underground organization, the ordinary members in the stronghold had far weaker perceptive abilities. Even when a mass of shadow slid right under their feet, they failed to notice—though this was also thanks to the perpetual dimness of the underground space.
...
On the night two days later.
In a street not far from the docks, a pool of shadow surged up from the ground.
Shulim then deactivated her magic.
Due to her mana consumption, she could not easily investigate the entire organization's situation all in one go. Thus, Shulim had to emerge multiple times to recover her mana before returning to the underground stronghold to continue her investigation.
Now, after two days, she had a general grasp of the underground organization's circumstances.
Aside from the headquarters at the docks, there were likely three other strongholds within the city. The headquarters had more than twenty armed personnel stationed permanently. Combined with those scattered throughout the city, the number should be close to forty, though this did not include members who were not currently in Langard.
Their strength... was formidable!
Aside from a few responsible for intelligence gathering, almost everyone else was C-Class!
This level of military force was already equivalent to a company of the Knights. The chances of winning a direct, frontal assault were zero.
“Will I have to find another way...?”
...
Shulim stopped spending all her time digging up information on this underground organization. She merely checked in every day to see if there were any anomalies, dedicating the majority of her time to another matter...
A certain inn in Midtown, Langard.
Inside a room with tightly shut doors and windows, Shulim was buried in taking notes.
“...Let's see. The required materials: Mist-veiled Petals, Marsh Snake Slime, Flame Thorn Weed Ash, Blind Night-Spider Bone Powder... and finally, Dragon's Dream Fruit Juice and Hadra Stygian Fish Scales.”
Looking at the list of materials she had compiled, Shulim found it a bit troublesome.
Considering the enemy's combat power, ordinary medicine certainly wouldn't do. It had to be something that took effect silently, could be dispersed within a certain area, acted rapidly to prevent the enemy from reacting, and possessed sufficient potency.
After filtering through the various potions she knew, Shulim ultimately chose a potion called Dragon's Dream Incense.
As the name suggested, even a dragon would fall into a deep slumber upon breathing this potion.
However, while she had selected the right potion, the recipe presented a challenge.
Some of the ingredients required for this potion were extremely hard to find. For instance, the Dragon's Dream Fruit in the recipe was the core ingredient and absolutely indispensable, yet it happened to be exceedingly rare.
Furthermore, the Hadra Stygian Fish was also a rare creature that was exceptionally difficult to catch. The crucial point was that its scales were the key to making the potion colorless and odorless.
While she could find substitutes for some of the other ingredients, these two were absolutely irreplaceable.
Shulim was a bit worried. Among the knowledge Semilis had imparted to her, Dragon's Dream Incense was currently the most suitable. The others all had various issues, and given the sense of crisis ingrained in people who lived in the underworld year-round, even the slightest flaw would be detected immediately.
“...I should try looking for them first.”
Shulim planned to give it a shot.
As one of the world's leading metropolises, Langard might actually have these rare ingredients, despite their scarcity.
...
The results of her search for the materials were a mixed bag.
The variety of goods available in Langard was indeed staggering. She easily found most of the ingredients for Dragon's Dream Incense, and even managed to purchase a proper set of brewing tools.
However, there was still no trace of the most critical elements: the Dragon's Dream Fruit and the Hadra Stygian Fish. Shulim spent an entire day searching through Midtown, visiting about ten different apothecary shops, and not a single one carried either of these two ingredients. In fact, when Shulim inquired, some of the shopkeepers simply looked utterly bewildered, having never even heard of them...
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