Chương 206: The Purging Station

A cloaked figure wearing a wooden mask representing what seemed to be a goblin with exaggerated features stopped in front of the huge doors to the Purging Station. The building loomed over him in the darkness of the night–Standing before it made the dark somehow darker, as though it cast a shadow without light.

Regardless, the masked one showed no signs of fear or hesitation as he silently cast a simple spell upon a rope wrapped around his right arm, causing the inanimate object to hiss like a snake and move as if it were alive, moving upward in the air and against the tall steel doors. It crept through the thin cracks to unlatch the locks, soon allowing the caster entry as he recalled the rope-snake, cancelling his spell and returning the item to its normal state.

The figure cracked his fingers one by one before pushing one of the doors open just enough for him to enter, closing it behind him before grabbing a lantern strapped to his waist, and with another spell, it gained butterfly-like wings and began to fly up, illuminating the surrounding with a bright yellow light.

"Alright… Where the hell is this thing, exactly?" The figure was evidently a man with a croaky voice. He was not familiar with this place in the least. This was his first time inside of Randlac, as a matter of fact. He was only here to perform a job, but it came with the issue that there would be a need for him to actually look around to find what he was after. … Namely, one of the enchanted devices inside the Purging Station. Which was easier said than done.

The devices used here were fully original and had yet to be duplicated elsewhere, and he had not been given much information other than a verbal description of what it should look like. Indeed, he had been sent in blind… He did not mind it, however. He knew that this was a complicated and arduous mission to complete, due to the status of the person whose reputation he was meant to hurt. Only a wretch like him could be sent on such a mission.

Failure was only acceptable if the cost was someone like him–He did not resent it despite understanding his poor standing in the eyes of his lord. If anything, he was thankful for being a wretch. For being viewed as a disposable agent. It meant that he could take on difficult missions, and if he succeeded and came back… Then he would be rewarded. Family members and publicly associated agents could not benefit from such arduous missions as often as filth like him.

As such, he paradoxically had more opportunities to rise and build a solid reputation than a direct descendant of the family–He felt most fortunate.

"This is annoying…" Unfortunately, he felt that he might fail this mission by purely getting lost and having to retreat once the sun rose and the workers of the Purging Station came to work. The building was vast and filled with large constructs made out of enchanted items, runes, glyphs, and whatever else was carved upon them, and all of those caused disturbances in one's mana sense.

He couldn't rely on it to find what he was looking for, and worse, he had to rely on his normal senses to make sure someone wasn't around. Tonight should be in the clear, but he stayed vigilant in case a night watcher was present, and went against the intel he had been fed… Also, these complicated constructs emitted a loud hum and booms all the time.

The building was meant to prevent such noise from seeping out, but it resulted in the noise staying inside and just bouncing against the wall, creating an utterly awful cacophony. Thus, he was pretty much deaf, and his way of seeing made him extremely noticeable to anyone else who could be inside the Purging Station. The conditions were absolutely not ideal.

"If only I were able to manage that dark vision spell…" This job was an awful one, but the intruder felt determined–He was filled with hatred for Leou Palf and her bodyguard. Not only had the snow leopard most likely participated in the death of his lord's nephew, but her filthy bodyguard had dared to actually act against his lord directly… It was an unforgivable offence that could not be allowed to stand. Alas… His mission was clear, and he wasn't allowed to take action against anyone.

He was only here to sabotage one of these magical constructs in particular to harm the feline's reputation, but the masked man was unable to restrain his anger. Especially since he felt like he was walking in circles inside this place, when he managed to make the incessant noises fade into the back of his mind, he was only left with his own thoughts of wrath. His lord might view him as disposable and lesser, but it did not change the fact that he was only alive thanks to his lord.

If not for him, he would have starved in the darkness of an alley and become the meal of rats and insects. He had survived once against all odds, and he had survived twice by becoming an agent of his lord. A grunt escaped his throat. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Why is this damned place so big? I can't find any doors" He knew that the constructs he was seeking should be apart from the rest, in an area where the smaller and more maintenance-heavy constructs were gathered… But he just wasn't finding his way at all. This building was a labyrinth–A noisy labyrinth. There was no alternative for completing this mission. Either he sabotaged the specific machine, or he failed. He couldn't sabotage anything else in any other way.

The point was to harm Leou Palf's reputation, and an obvious act of outside intervention wouldn't cut it. The people overwhelmingly liked her, and it would only make them feel empathetic for her that someone would be willing to damage the Purging Station that she had created. Such an outcome was the complete opposite of the goal here.

He needed to do something specific to cause the sewers to overflow and create a mess of untold filth that would presumably last for a while, as everyone would literally be flooded with faeces and foul waters. This… This was definitely a much better way to harm her reputation. No one liked to see their waste rise back up to say hello. … But it wouldn't happen if he were unable to figure out where his objective was!

"I can't fail my lord. Damn it!" He cursed underneath his mask, taking a look over his shoulder as he had been doing from the start, only to catch sight of what looked like a shoe slithering back into the darkness. Without a shred of hesitation, the agent caused his flying lantern to brighten, ready to cast several mana bullets with one hand as the other had already unsheathed a dagger–But there was nothing to be seen.

The masked man knew that his eyes worked just fine, so he rushed over to where he had seen the shoe. Looking in the gaps between magical constructs, he searched everywhere, but was unable to find even a trace of the person he had seen. A shiver travelled along his spine. It wasn't fear, it was sheer discomfort. Someone was here. He hadn't imagined it, but it was someone who could vanish without a trace or sound, despite his swift reaction time. This was no night watcher, and even if it was…

A normal night watcher would have alerted authorities and such instead of getting so close. No… This person had just tried to sneak up on his back and presumably kill him. Unless Leou Palf had hired a maniac to watch over this place, there was another intruder here, and they did not view his presence with a good eye.

"Hey, I saw you just now. Can you hear me? If you're here to cause damage to the snow leopard, we are on the same page, alright? We could cooperate, or at least stay out of each other's way" There was no response. His grip on his dagger tightened.

"... If you insist on getting in my way, then don't waste my time and come out right now. Let's kill each other and get this over with" There was still no response. Nothing. The masked man channelled mana throughout his body, focusing on enhancing his five senses, but he couldn't catch anything indicative of someone else's presence. A sense of unease spread throughout his body. Whoever it was that roamed this place in the dark, they worried him.

He had dealt with assassins, hitmen, mercenaries, a few nutjobs, and even other agents like him working for other lords, but none of them had been able to make him feel this way. Of course, the environment helped in this regard, but he could feel it… Eyes. There were eyes on him, and he wasn't able to pinpoint exactly where they were looking at him from. It was as though they were constantly on the move… And they moved fast.

"Listen. I know you're here, I saw your freaking foot. Your damned black shoe! I won't drop my guard and allow you to get one over me. So come out, or go fuck yourself already!" His tone had become more forceful, and as though detecting his unease, he heard a distant laugh amidst the humming of the constructs.

With pinpoint accuracy, he fired a mana bullet toward the source of the laugh, but it touched nothing, and his mana bullet was dispelled faster than usual due to the activity of mana caused by the constructs all around him. The man clicked his tongue. It was a woman's laugh he had heard, which made sense in hindsight. It had been a rather small shoe he had seen back then… But it only made him more uncomfortable. Psychos, he could deal with, but female psychos? He had seen one once, and he had yet to recover.

They were rarer, but way worse than their male counterparts… And he wasn't talking about psychos in general. He meant the kind that he was most likely to encounter in his line of work. The genuinely unhinged ones whose goals and desires seemed incomprehensible to a healthy mind. The last madwoman he had met like this had been a spiderfolk that was way more spider than person. He had been the only survivor of this encounter.

She had bitten the heads of each of his fellow agents, leaving them as headless bodies strung up in her massive web… He had managed to kill and burn everything to the ground for good measure before ending up comatose for several months because of her venom. … The spider had been one to laugh in the darkness as well… Safe to say, he wasn't too thrilled about this, and if he didn't feel compelled to fulfil his mission, he would have taken off running without an ounce of shame already.

He gritted his teeth and continued searching, maintaining his lantern as bright as possible, and also brought it closer to him, being rather worried that this mysterious prowler would target his light source. She seemed quite comfortable in the dark, after all…

"By the grace of the gods, why did this have to happen to me?" The intruder pushed onward, even as he felt like eyes were drilling into him. Abnormal activities were rapidly increasing around him. He could sometimes hear someone sprinting nearby. Steel banged against steel in a way that definitely wasn't normal, and he would often feel as though he was about to run out of breath for no discernible reason.

"Am I being attacked? I can't feel any spell targeting me… Fuck this, I need to hurry and get out before I get myself killed and fail the mission on top of that!" He turned around and swung his dagger, slicing only air despite the fact that he could have sworn someone was standing directly behind him.

"This damned Purging Station will make me crazy…"