Chương 170: 4.37 Sweat

The Light was different from his Flame when applied to magic. Easier to use without collateral damage, for one. Irwyn had intended it to be piercing - and that was reflected in the extraordinary sharpness of anything physical he tried to create - wich was far less troublesome. Unlike the sheer heat of his other Concept, it did not cut everything in a radius around him. To manifest that offensive propensity, something needed to actually be hit.

That meant he did not have to actively fight against the Concept's nature to not harm everyone around him, though there were still some side effects. At Alice's suggestion, he had tried to empower his sight with the Concept, suddenly able to see with perfect clarity essentially all the way to the horizon… only his gaze was very piercing in doing so. To the point that everyone, including even Waylan, were able to feel prickling behind their neck at a mere glance.

If he looked too long, Desir even confirmed the start of pain and actual, if small, damage happening after a full minute of exposition. Thankfully, Irwyn quickly found a workaround. Just like with his Flame, he could suppress the nature of his Light at the cost of doubling the requirements on mana and his focus. Which was problematic for pushing the limits of offensive magic but actually unobstructive for relatively simple optic enhancement.

Irwyn expected he would usually prefer to not make it painfully obvious he was using sight magic to everything he beheld, but the opposite option was at least worth keeping in mind. The feeling of his unsuppressed Concept was apparently close enough to 'menacing' or 'dreadful', which might be worth something for intimidation. Irwyn kept playing around with his new Concept as they travelled but made no unexpected discoveries - no combat testing yet – by the time they reached their destination.

Azalea, a town that perhaps unsurprisingly shared a name with its ruling family. It seemed prosperous enough at a glance, many horse-drawn carriages entering through the major roads as there were no gates nor walls. The technology within the kingdom seemed to be similar to what he had been used to his whole life in Ebon Respite rather than the strangeness of the Republic, and Irwyn wouldn't complain about that. They didn't directly enter, though.

"So, how much are we going to mess with these people?" Desir asked.

"Is that why we are here?" Irwyn questioned.

"We are here to answer some curiosity and see if Elizabeth's distant relatives are bearable company," Desir smiled.

"Which, from what I understand of this country, is unlikely. This is basically a vacation. Stress relief. Bamboozling bumpkins is very good for that."

"What does our expert suggest then?" Waylan chuckled, already onboard. Alice, by the mischievous glimmer in her eyes, was too.

"That comes down to the noble Lady herself," Desir turned to Elizabeth, who was observing the conversation with some bemusement.

"Do we come honestly as incomprehensible visitors? Do we make them think we are actually here to usurp their noble lands? Or maybe as strangers, dancing around these games with our great power, then gradually dropping ingenious hints that will only make sense after we reveal our origins right before leaving? Or anything else that comes to mind, really."

"I think I am partial to making them sweat a little, if they are anything like my mother," Elizabeth said thoughtfully.

"Say we are just passing through… but make them think it is an excuse to try and take over with more subtle actions. Does that sound feasible?"

"Fantastic choice, though we will definitely have to deal with assassins then," Desir nodded, still grinning.

"I can take night watch every two days out of three if you want me to. With Life magic I need a lot less sleep."

"The Concept has done the same to me," Elizabeth nodded.

"And likely to Irwyn as well, though that is yet untested. We can afford a rotating double watch between us three."

"And just bait them to send people to their deaths?" Waylan said with disapproval, suddenly far less enthusiastic.

"I will not lose sleep over assassins," Alice argued back.

"You know, some people would say the same about thieves," the sneak pointed out ruefully.

"These ones would be explicitly coming after us, breaking hospitality," Elizabeth added her own point.

"There is a way to send a sufficiently harsh message without actual killing," Desir offered a compromise.

"What do you think would happend if un-indoctrinate any that they send after us? Which will actually be much worse for the sender than just shredding their 'gifts'."

"And how would we do that?" Elizabeth questioned.

"I don't believe for a moment that whatever methods of control they use around these parts can stand up to what we have available," Desir shrugged.

"I could unwind anything Life based. If it's a binding curse, Irwyn can probably forcefully burn the conceptual fetters, even if they are Soul based. And we do have a Void mage to erase contracts down to their last letter. Sure, most of them will be too deep to actually break rank even without magical bindings, but that just means they could turn in the future instead."

"That is a possibility?" Irwyn asked with some surprise.

"Not easy and heavily frowned upon in the Federation," Elizabeth nodded.

"But there is a reason it's called voiding an agreement. Words can be reduced to naught if there is insufficient power backing them. It's just that no one would want to sign another with a person who is known for such things."

"Why are we assuming any killers on hand are not just hired?" Alice asked.

"Venen is notorious for having as many assassin traditions as they have noble families," Desir explained.

"And no real known 'guild' of them, surprisingly enough. They don't want their trained killers off the leash. So, I think it could become a thorn proportional to how much effort they put into trying to kill us."

"So assasins ain't an issue," Waylan slowly nodded.

"What do we do now."

"Oh, I have a wonderful idea. Several," Desir smiled as his features began to visibly shift. Within moments, his face was shifting into something else. Less striking if still mildly handsome but also visibly less confident. His tone of voice also changed, becoming meeker with every following sentence.

"We should do it like this…" It was a day like any other for the lookout, sitting behind the window of an apartment with a clear view of one of the main roads leading into the city. Just linger there all day long and count. How many carriages came in or out? Note down any bearing heraldry and at what time they passed. Remember the merchants and maybe their moods if those were apparent, with luck spot someone who doesn't want to be noticed. Bring to attention anything unusual happening, of course. Simple work.

Nothing glorious, but any real information network was built upon wheat stalks like him. One would be worth nothing, but cultivate a whole field and receive the harvest. Surprisingly safe too - if someone killed them, it would just bring attention to the why. And they would need to make sure that there were not one or two other blokes just like them sitting a few windows over as fail saves. The most secure people were always those who were not worth the murder.

Not to mention the lookout was working for the big man himself, hiding under the aegis of an aging patriarch. If he was in one of the last two factions vying for succession, they might kill him just to mess with their rivals, but the family head's people were mostly safe from that. The lookout actually considered his job safer than most craftsmen, as those were always at risk of meeting some highborn on a bad day. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere.

Support the author by seeking out the original. And then a damn flying carriage descended from the skies. It was darker than moonless midnight, swallowing the day's light like a drunkard on his first round. The sun itself seemed to dim as the coach began to descend from its altitude above most buildings, rejoining the traffic on the paved road the nobility maintained. Notwithstanding that said road traffic had, understandably, stopped as every merchant and traveler froze in place, waiting to see what would happen.

The smarter ones hid their faces and hunkered down out of sight. When it touched the ground, it continued rolling, uncaring for the lack of horses. Magical, if that hadn't been obvious before. The lookout managed to stop staring long enough to note down the time from their old-but-reliable wristwatch, not bothering to write down what the asterisk next to it meant because there was no forgetting that sight.

He did grasp the little communication stone next to him though, making it vibrate in his accomplice's pocket downstairs to signal that a runner would be needed soon. Then, the lookout spotted the young man glancing out of the carriage's window as it slowly rolled into the city. For a moment, their eyes met, and the lookout lost sight of everything else. All they witnessed was the brilliant, terrible, all-consuming gold of that glare. In the distance, the lookout heard the specter of a sound.

A fake one, but unmistakable, even in its absence. It was the chill that went up the spine as knives were sharpened and dipped in venom. Then the moment faded as the riding young man uncaringly glanced away, the midnight carriage continuing on its way. They sweated as a drawhorse while the feeling receded. There was a knock on the door, which actually took a moment to register. Then, the lookout stood up and had a change of plans.

Instead of getting a message delivered, perhaps it would be better to relay the events personally. Almar dodged the thrown knife, then tossed it right back, rolling his eyes.

"Painfully slow."

"You always say that," Alara grinned, catching the blade by the flying edge, then she returned it right at him with a flick of her wrist.

"But you lost the last five times."

"My arm was broken, in case you have forgotten," Almar snorted as the game continued, the weapon flying back and forth as fast as they could make it.

"The score doesn't care about your excuses!" Alara exclaimed, throwing a second knife she had poorly hidden in her sleeve. She tried to time it with the first so that they would be harder to both catch but Almar had too much practice with such tricks.

"What is your excuse for losing more often than not then, even uninjured?" he smiled, easily catching both in a fluid motion before delivering them directly back.

"Sisters get away with that kind of thing, obviously," she snorted, adding a third blade into the mix.

"I am afraid you might have gotten too comfortable going for numbers," he exclaimed, sneaking in forth as he threw the three back. Then, just as they were in the air, he used his leg to toss the fifth that he had hidden in his shoe hours earlier. They were not meant for that and he had to break them in the process but that was a small sacrifice to make. His sister failed to catch that and barely dodged out of a direct hit, the knife thus scoring a long cut across her cheek.

Before Alara could recover, Almar tackled her to the ground. For a bit she struggled before he managed to get her hands beneath the torso, then held them there with both his own arm as well as their combined bodyweights.

"I don't like it when you let me win," he glared at her as they lay prone on the ground.

"So, what are you going to do about it?" Alara stared right back, grinning.

"Let's see…" he leaned in, putting a bit more force on one of her arms behind her back as to twist it a bit, then licked the shallow wound. It was already healing, so he instead bit to reopen it, earning a mildly startled yelp." You Venen-damn brats," a yell startled them out of the moment.

"What is it?" Alara called back with annoyance matching the new figure standing in the doorway. A familiar one in the outfit of a maid which both siblings instantly recognized. A very known silhouette, given no one else would have survived berating them as such.

"You killed the fucking maid again!"

"You said she would be good," the brother exclaimed, remembering his disappointment.

"And I also told you that you had to go easy during the first week with this one," the head maid glared even harder at the unrepentant duo.

"She could have lasted a year if you two didn't have the self-control of shit-eating toddlers well into their third cake."

"Isn't that your fault?" Almar pointed out wisely. She had basically raised them, after all.

"Just get another," Alara shrugged dismissively at the entire argument.

"I don't have the next one lined up yet, and if whatever replacement I find doesn't last you at least six months, it will result in the revocation of your waitstaff privileges."

"You wouldn't," Almar grasped his heart in mock horror, grin still on his face. Then he finally moved away from Alara's prone form and sat on the floor, visage turning serious.

"Alright, what is actually happening?"

"Unknown magical carriage entering the city from the skies, blindsiding all our intelligence." The maid got to the point immediately when actually asked.

"Headed straight for the palace, likely there by now. This could be time-sensitive."

"Well, then we should not spare any time waiting," he nodded.

"The whore has been quiet recently. Let's disrupt whatever this gambit is supposed to be. She likely thinks I am still injured."

"I will go grab the good knives and be right behind you," Alara wisely added. Angela watched the procession from the side as they entered her father's palace. The body double was doing an excellent job acting aloof and in control atop the elevated balcony - even though everyone had been seemingly blindsided by whatever was happening. Everyone, except whoever had actually arranged it without being noticed and was just playing dumb.

The heiress needed to know more, so she descended the stairs and approached under the protection of secrecy. A good schemer might suspect a maid working at the palace could be compromised, but they would never guess one to be as capable as her. A difference in philosophy, as while others reveled in their hard-won luxuries, Angela knew that there was no safety to be had in the limelight. Assassins would always find an angle eventually. So, she let them.

Angela had gotten past three 'successful' murders of her person so far, and played them off well enough to make her rivals – both former and still living – think she wielded some kind of limited resurrection rather than disguises and meticulously prepared doppelgangers. Angela got downstairs just in time to see the four of them entering through the front door, unafraid of any retaliation… that should have already come by then.

She thus projected her mind outwards, and found that the hidden assassins on duty were not within their secret alcoves. Dead then, with no one noticing anything. But the intruders were maintaining a veil of politeness, so she analyzed the situation instead of panicking. The woman at the front was the clear leader, by the clothes and by her presence. A peerless beauty hiding a part of her face and nose behind a half mask, which purposefully only left more to the imagination.

Angela felt a deep, almost primordial, surge of envy, so she turned away as the actual palace staff rushed to welcome them in. Either the patriarch knew what was happening or just decided to pretend to. She moved on to the two apparent bodyguards. The man who stood closer, with terrifying gloving eyes and unreadable expression. Angela immediately discarded that one as a target - that was too close to the lady for anyone who could be bribed or deceived.

The other maybe bodyguard was a bored seeming young woman who was walking easily even with her eyes literally closed. Some kind of perception specialist, perhaps. Those were usually hard to crack yet possible. But there would be no need to. Her perfect target was the last member of the group. A young butler in a perfectly fitting suit and yet looking out of place despite being clothed to par.

It was the nervousness, the uncertain jittering of someone unsure of what to do as their Lady was invited further inside and carelessly left him behind. A navel exposed to the wolves.

"Excuse me!" so she approached said young man, who turned and flinched slightly in the same moment.

"There might have been some miscommunication, and we received no foreword. Does your lady intend to stay the night?"

"Ah, yes, of course," he turned to her, eyes immediately wandering across her uniform in all the ways that had been intended by the seamstress. And Angela went to great lengths to look far more youthful than she actually was. Everyone in that group was so very young for whatever reason. Inexperienced of all the dangers of the world. That was an easy weakness for her to exploit. Almost too easy. Angela carefully reached into the jittery man's mind, sifting through the surface thoughts in search of a scheme or trap.

What she found there was instead only the mix between honest nervousness and thriving imagination that the butler was trying and failing to contain. At that, she could only smile. Men were so very susceptible to suggestion when they got exactly what they wanted. Decades have taught her that much. Be it spoken or implanted. One of them was not aware that the play between prey and predator had already begun. Both smiled.