Even though the mansion was slightly less than twenty meters wide, it was surprisingly deep. It was hard to tell exactly how deep it was since we kept making turns along the hallway, but it seemed to be at least 45 meters. It took almost two minutes of walking to reach the restroom.

"Don't even think about doing any shenanigans. I've got my eyes on you."

"You're going to stare at me while I use the toilet? That sounds disgusting."

"What? No! I'm just going to keep an eye on this restroom stall."

The two soldiers took me to a moderate-sized restroom that had a urinal and a toilet inside a stall. I only actually needed to pee, but since I didn't specify what I needed to go to the restroom for, the soldiers allowed me to use the stall when I made a motion towards it with my head. It seems like they were bothered by my remark just now, so they let me have some privacy inside the stall while the two kept guard outside: one was standing in front of the stall door, while the other was standing in front of the restroom door.

I began chanting an obscure spell while occasionally banging on the stall's wall with my body to disguise it as some random mumbling.

"What's with all that ruckus?"

I continued chanting for another two seconds while banging on the wall before answering.

"I need help!"

"What?"

"I can't take off my underpants!"

"Why the hell can't you do something that simple?!"

"Your friends tied my hands behind my back, remember?"

"…"

"So are you going to help me pull my underpants down or not?"

"No way! Just pee on it!"

"But it's going to leak and run down my legs, and it'll smell bad!"

"You're going to get killed once we take you back anyways, why do you even care about that?"

"Don't you remember how lieutenant general Tuha wouldn't like it if I left a stain his carpet? And what if I smeared all the filth on my legs all over you later?"

"You…"

"Oh, I might need help with wiping, too. I can't really do that with my hands tied, after all."

After a brief moment of silence, the soldier then shouted out to his comrade waiting outside.

"Oi, get in here!"

"…Yes? What's up?"

"Go in that stall and pull down that idiot's pants."

"Huh?"

"He says he can't do it with his hands tied."

"That's it? You needed help with something that simple?"

"While you're at it, make sure you help him wipe his rear later."

"What the heck? Why would I do that?"

"Well, would he rather he smeared everything on him all over you?"

"No, but why should I do it? You're the one who chose to kept close watch over him, so he should your responsibility!"

"I'm higher in ranking than you, so as your superior, I command you to help him!"

"You're pulling rank now? No way am I doing something that disgusting!"

"That's insubordination! Do you want to get executed?!"

"No, but…"

"Then get in there!"

"But, I…"

"Just shut up and go already!"

After determining the two soldiers were sufficiently confused over what they should be doing in this situation, I decided to chime in.

"Can I suggest something?"

"What do you want now?!"

"You two don't want to help with pulling my pants down now and wiping me later, right?"

"Why the hell else would we be arguing out here?!"

"Well, I have a solution to this."

"What is it?"

"Just untie my arms."

"Do you think we're that stupid?"

"But I'm not even armed. And you know too well I can't hide anything under my clothes since I'm only wearing a sleeveless shirt and underpants, so it's not like I can take out a hidden blade or anything to attack you."

"Hm…"

"And you can just tie my wrists up again when I'm done."

"That's true…"

It sounded as though the two soldiers were now seriously thinking about my suggestion.

"You think we should just untie him for a while?"

"What if he fights us?"

"Isn't he rumored to be some weak mage?"

"He was tied against that Yequa guy, though, and that guy's known to have high endurance."

"Yeah, but his strength is pitiful."

"That's true. He didn't have any bruises when we last saw him, so it doesn't seem like the two had a fistfight, which means this guy most likely doesn't have any strength either."

"Right, so this idiot here is probably unable to harm us."

A small part of me died when I heard them look down on me that much, but what they were saying about my physical strength wasn't wrong. After all, I was unable to take down an assailant that even a frail-looking girl, namely Amber, could easily knock out…

"But what if he blasts us with magic?"

"I can't really do that when I'm unarmed, you know."

"I suppose it'll be fine to untie him for now…"

"Are you sure?"

"He's clearly unarmed, so if he does try to use magic, his mana will be so dispersed that it won't be harmful."

"Is that how it works?"

"That's what I heard from the Yequa guy, anyways. Apparently they need staves or wands to properly focus their mana and launch it in one direction."

The part about having my magic power dispersed isn't wrong. It's like trying to carry water in your hands instead of with a tool such as a bottle or bucket in the sense that it still works, but is horribly ineffective. However, just like how one could carry water inside so many different objects, one didn't necessarily need a staff or wand to use magic effectively. Any staff-like object would have worked, such as their spears. However, those kinds of objects would probably explode after a couple uses since they weren't crafted for the purpose of casting spells, just like the time I tried to fight a dragon with a laundry pole.

"What sort of business did you have with him to know this kind of stuff?"

"Oh, he kept complaining about having a low budget for research, which led to a lack of results."

"And how did that lead to the stuff about magic?"

"Well, it's because of his lack of results that he has a low salary, and he tried to resist when I came with a few other soldiers to collect his rent."

"You fought him?"

"No, he didn't fight us. We found out that he really didn't have enough money for rent, so we just took away some of his belongings. He kept wailing about how he wouldn't be able use his magic well if we took away all his staves. Of course, as soon as he said that, we had even more of a reason to take it away, since we didn't want him to potentially be able to fight back against us."

"Ah. So that's how you know all this stuff about magic."

"Yeah. But then he cried out about how there was a risk of getting mauled by his research subjects, so we had to leave him a basic wand to defend himself."

"Good thing he didn't try to fight you with it."

"Yeah, it was a good thing indeed."

I lightly knocked on the restroom stall door with my head to get the soldiers' attention.

"Sorry to interrupt, but can you untie me now? I've been holding stuff in my body for too long already, I might just burst any moment now."

"Yeah, yeah, fine."

The soldiers opened the stall door, and I turned my back against it so that my tied up wrists would be facing them.

"Hey, hey. Stop that."

"Keep it still."

I couldn't really see where they were, so I kept moving my arms up and down to make contact with theirs as much as possible.

"The hell are you doing?"

"I'm trying to make it easier by bringing it to the same level as your arms."

"Are you some special kind of idiot? Stop moving!"

"But why?"

"Why are you even asking that? We can't untie you if you don't let us take hold of the rope!"

"Then hold onto my arms, at least. They've been in a really uncomfortable position, so my arms feel quite sore right now."

"Fine, now hold still."

One of the soldiers gripped my arms in his hands while the other soldier untied the rope around my wrists. He let go after the rope was untied, while I waved my arms a little bit.

"I'm just going to check real quick to see if I can still feel my hands."

"What the hell is wrong with you? We only tied your wrists, you can't lose control of your hands."

"He's said so many dumb things already, let's just not pay attention to what he's doing. He'll probably shut up if we don't talk to him…"

I brushed my hands on the two soldiers' arms a couple of times while they looked in confusion, then calmly closed the stall door and sat down on the toilet seat so as to make as little noise as possible while peeing. I didn't want them to know the fact that I was already done with my business, after all.

The soldiers allowed me to channel a lot of mana during their back and forth responsibility shoving earlier that I was quite confident my magic would work. To lower the chance of it being detected, I didn't release most of my channeled mana in one instance, but did it in small bursts during each of the half dozen times I came in contact with the soldiers. Who even needs weapons to shoot a curse spell when one could just transfer it through direct contact?

In any case, it was only a matter of time until my magic took effect, so I hummed for a while, then chanted magic in a low enough voice to make it seem like I was just singing on the toilet. About two minutes later, I heard the sound of a spear fall on the floor in front of my stall door. It seemed as if one of the soldiers leaned his spear against the wall, but it lost its balance and fell over.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"Using the urinal, what else?"

"Let me use it first!"

"No, I'm closer, so I'll use it first!"

"Come on, I'm your superior, just let me use it already!"

"Alright, alright, fine. Make it quick."

The spell I activated was none other than the one from that weird book of curses that made the victim feel the urge to pee. However, because it only gives one the feeling they needed to empty their tank, it is difficult for the victim to actually let out any water unless they truly needed to do so.

"What's taking you so long?"

"There's nothing coming out!"

"Did your constipation spread to other parts of the body? Hurry up!"

"I'm trying to! Stop shouting at me!"

Just then, the sound of another spear hitting the ground rang out not far from the first one. Under the assumption that the two soldiers were now distracted enough to not care about their surroundings, I quietly unlocked the stall door and slowly opened it.

"If you can't pee, then just let me go first!"

"No, if I didn't need to, then I wouldn't have felt the need! Just wait for your turn!"

"If you needed to pee, then something should have already come out! Stop hogging that urinal!"

"Just wait for half a minute, dammit!"

"I can't just idly stand here and watch you do nothing like that, I need to use the urinal too!"

"Stop rushing me, it'll come out when it comes out!"

It seemed like the two were so focused on staring at the urinal to notice me sticking my head out.

I picked up the two spears lying on the floor, then crept to a position where the two of them were in a straight line. I aimed the spears at their kneecaps, then quickly channeled my mana into them. One of the two soldiers noticed an anomaly in the atmosphere and turned towards where I was standing, but it was too late for him to react.

"Burning Spear!"

A large spear of fire shot out of the spears, piercing through the two soldiers' knees, then continued flying towards the wall. It broke the restroom window before finally disappearing a few meters away. Since the spears would most likely explode from being overloaded with mana, I thrusted the spears forward while channeling more mana into them to ensure that they would definitely get destroyed and become unusable. The spears exploded while flying through the air, and the force of the explosion was strong enough to knock the injured soldiers off balance. They fell onto the floor, unable to stand back up because of the gaping holes in their knees. Luckily, the explosion didn't seem to have caused a loud enough sound to alert anyone outside.

It was kind of amusing to see them squirm around the floor, holding onto their crotches because they still badly felt the urge to pee. One of the soldiers eventually managed to turn his body towards me and tried to say something.

"You're going to-ack!"

"Sorry, I'm not that interested in hearing what you have to say."

I did consider the possibility of the soldiers calling for help, so I stuffed their mouths full of toilet paper as soon as they tried to say something. Afterwards, I crouched down and put my hands on their torsos while delivering a threat to the two.

"I may not have a weapon now, but even a dispersed intermediate level fire-type spell should still be enough to burn you two alive."

"Hngh!"

"So, will you surrender?"

The two soldiers quietly nodded, so I took my hands off of them and stood back up. I considered lifting the bizarre curse I put on them, but figured it would probably be a good idea to keep them busy for a little while longer. The curse would automatically wear out in half an hour if I didn't do anything about it, anyways. Now that the restroom was essentially silent again, I decided to think carefully about what to do next.

I could try to escape on foot through the broken window, but there's a high chance I'd run into a patrolling soldier who didn't know who I was since I didn't know how to navigate around this city, and likely get arrested for wandering around the streets at half past two at night while wearing nothing but underwear. Not only that, my life would also be in danger if I ran into any of lieutenant general Tuha's loyal subordinates.

I could instead try to assist general Denato in fighting back lieutenant general Tuha and his two remaining lackeys in the office, but I didn't really have a weapon right now, so it would put our side at a severe disadvantage. In addition to that, a large scale fight would likely attract the attention of any guards and patrolmen near this mansion, which is a big risk since I had no idea who they were loyal to.

If I stayed in this restroom for too long, then lieutenant general Tuha would eventually grow suspicious, and he might send even more soldiers over here to check up on the situation, so I definitely can't stay put.

What should I do now, I wonder…

Just then, I heard a familiar voice come out from the broken restroom window.

"Blaze! Are you there?"

"Huh? Lica? Is that you?"

To my surprise, Lica's face popped up at the window.

"What's going on? Why are you here?"

"Well, I picked up your scent from the inn, so Amber and I decided to bring your stuff over."

I approached the window as Lica pointed behind her and saw Amber standing a few meters away. In her hands was something that looked like a folded robe, pants, and with my staff lying on top.

"Wow, your nose is that good? You managed to track me down from so far away!"

"What are you talking about? The inn's over there."

I stuck my head out of the window in the direction where Lica pointed and saw a moderately large building with two floors whose silhouette resembled our inn about 100 meters away. It was hard to believe that the people who designed the layout of this city would leave such a long wide back alley with no obstructions around. However, if one were to consider how this mansion was guarded, and how general Denato had an office in here, it seemed quite likely that this was the governor's mansion. Thus, an alternative escape path like this long alley would be necessary in case of emergency. Still, I found it somewhat odd how the front of the mansion was guarded, but nobody was keeping watch of this back side.

"How is that even possible? I thought I traveled five minutes by horse carriage to get here."

If I remember correctly, we traveled for about two minutes from the inn, then took a left turn. From there, we moved straight for slightly less than one minute, then took another left turn. The carriage moved for about two minutes and arrived at this large mansion, which was on the left side of the road. This building was at least fifteen meters away from the gate, and I had already estimated the place to be at least 45 meters deep, so I was effectively at least 60 meters from the street… Oh.

No wonder why Lica could pick up my scent. We essentially moved in a full circle.

"Thanks for bringing my clothes over."

I received my stuff from Amber, then once again thought about what to do next.