Should I just break it down? I asked, again.

After waiting for an hour, I was ready to move. It was incredibly difficult, waiting in one place, motionless, jumping at every passing guard, hoping that someone would enter the Mayor’s Mansion. Adrenaline was rushing through my body, and it was hard to suppress the urge to fight.

But nobody entered the mansion, and nobody left.

Under Samantha’s guidance, I took a dozen Igneal Ingots inscribed with Explosive Rune Patterns, and then I planted them around the manor.

After my earlier disastrous entrance into the house in Redson Town, I was not particularly enthused about the idea of breaking into a house through the front door. For all I knew, there could be more slow-motion bombs out set up right outside the doors and windows.

I had initially been a bit leery about setting up so many bombs right above a prison. But Samantha had pointed out that the jail underneath the mansion actually had its own ward scheme. Just taking down the mansion’s Mana Shield wasn’t enough—I would also have to break through the prison’s ward scheme as well, or find a key and open the doors and locks the Schema-approved way.

Since the prison wards were powered separately, I didn’t need to worry about any collateral damage affecting the inmates. Samantha assured me that the with the placement of my bombs, I wouldn’t deal sufficient damage to the underground prison’s Mana Shield.

There was an important difference between Rune Patterns that were fixed in a single location—Wards—and Rune Patterns that were portable, like the Personal Mana Shield Amulet I was currently wearing. Pretty much every city or building that had a Mana Shield would be powered by wards, which were much more efficient at drawing in ambient mana, and recycling mana that was gathered but unused by the wards.

The consequence was that, while a single one of my explosives would be sufficient to overpower an E-rank Personal Mana Shield, it would take a dozen Igneal Ingot Explosives to take down this building’s Mana Shield.

One way of looking at it was this way: The effect of placing rune patterns all around a house, on windows, walls, and doors, was much greater than putting the runes in a tiny amulet.

Thinking back to when Abelino destroyed Fayette City’s Mana Shield, this made that moment far more impressive. Breaking an E-rank Personal Mana Shield was easy. It would just take one Igneal Ingot Explosive. This manor would require 10, with two more for good measure.

Abelino’s skill that combined his strikes to overpower Fayette City’s Mana Shield had at least the combined power of 100 Igneal Ingot explosives.

Once I had placed the dozen mana bombs, I waited, counting down in my head, for the explosion I knew was coming soon.

The explosion was deafening.

Along with the wave of heat and debris, I heard the familiar crack of the mansion’s mana shield.

I poured about sixty points of mana into Agility, and then I rushed in through one of the holes in the wall that my bombs had made.

The explosive rune patterns that I carved on Igneal Ingots were targeted towards highly localized explosions. A lot of force, in a very small, concentrated area.

As a result there were several gaping holes in the mansion, but the mansion wasn’t at risk of collapse.

The moment I entered the mansion, I could tell that the inhabitants were waiting for me—no surprise there, given my luck.

Five people, each with an active personal Mana Shield, were standing in the room I appeared in.

The room was filled with a light red mist the color of blood.

This was one of the weaknesses of the Personal Mana Shield that I had active around me. It was already incredibly difficult forming all the tiny runes necessary on the amulet I wore around my neck. It would have been incredibly difficult to include rune patterns that were capable of filtering out the air around me. Most Personal Mana Shields wouldn’t have an air filtration system—but cities and towns would. It wouldn’t do to have a Region or Zone Lord kill all the inhabitants with a single breath of poisonous air.

Presumably, the guards inside the manor had access to some kind of antidote, since they were not at all worried about the mist around them.

Three of the guards were standing directly in the hallway that I needed to pass through in order to get to the basement.

I rushed towards the guards in the hallway. Since I was under the effects of an invisibility cloak, they were unlikely to be able to pose any danger to me.

As I moved, I felt my exposed skin—my neck and my face, mainly, burn on contact with the red mist around me.

Samantha didn’t mention putting any points into Physical Defense, so I ignored the pain, focusing on my goal: Freeing Petra.

I wasn’t worried about my inability to breathe. It wouldn’t be too much of a problem, since I wasn’t planning on spending too long inside the manor. I’d grown accustomed to keeping my battles short, anyway.

As I rushed towards the hallway, I realized that Samantha’s Combat shadow had me doing little zig-zags through the living room.

It wasn’t until a fireball almost singed my eyebrows that I realized that I was making an impression in the mist around me.

The mist was gathering at its densest around me, as if it was trying to follow me, but I was moving quickly enough that it was leaving a trail in my wake—a trail that also showed the guards my own path.

I continued my rush towards the three guards blocking the hallway.

It was a fairly long hallway, with only enough space for two people to walk down, side-by-side. The three guards were about ten feet in. There was a swordsman and a rogue lined up first, with a sorcerer chanting from a spellbook behind them.

The hallway had a plush, thick carpet, but it sort of shimmered, and I could see that the carpet itself was loaded with mana.

Samantha said.

Samantha had me run just a few feet down the hallway and then, with twenty points added to Strength, I leapt, jumping over the not-carpet.

I saw the swordsman and the rogue’s eyes widen.

The swordsman swung his glowing blade. A sword-like projection of mana launched forward out of the blade, directly towards me, but Samantha was ready.

I contorted my body even as I flew towards them in the air.

The mana blade narrowly missed me.

My shoulder collided with the swordsman, and with a few quick slices of my Vampiric Blade, I cracked his Personal Mana Shield and slit his throat him.

The rogue dropped his weapons and backed up against the wall, with his hands up.

The sorcerer followed suit, dropping his ancient tome and pausing his chant.

The moment he stopped chanting, the ground behind me changed. The carpet vanished, revealing an unoccupied prison cell underneath.

I could just imagine what almost happened.

If I had fallen into the prison cell, they would immediately have activated the Mana Shield to cover the ceiling of the cell again, and then I would have had to break out of a warded prison cell.

I didn’t have time to waste for the rogue or sorcerer, so I just shoved them into the prison cell below me, and kept running.

There had been six people moving about the manor—six people who were not prisoners. I had already seen five people.

It was the final person that I was most worried about.

The person closest to the prison, who would quickly realize exactly what was happening.

I rushed down a spiral staircase, and found myself blocked by a heavy wooden door shining with mana.

I still had 20 mana put towards Strength, so I just added 20 more, and I started hacking at the door.

It only took a few strikes before the door’s Mana Shield cracked, and then kicked the door down, entering a hallway lit by glowstones.

Just ten feet down the hallway, I saw the exact scene I had been fearing this whole time.

A man in a full suit of armor, helmet and visor down, with a personal Mana Shield around him, held Petra in front of him.

The man held Petra’s wrists tightly together behind her back with one hand. In his other hand, he held a knife that was pressing deeply enough against Petra’s neck that I could already see a light pool of blood gathering on Petra’s shirt.

“Don’t take another step,” the man said, his voice raspy and deep. “Or she dies.”