Mornings are nice. I can’t say I am a morning person, really, but I am usually fine in the mornings, I really loved the birds chirping, the cool morning breeze and that warmth from the sun that’s just enough. Just lovely.

Today’s plan was actually the most leisurely, as I had nothing to do. Besides scouting the castle of course, but I couldn’t get anything from the outside and the owners wouldn’t be that nice to let me inside, so the whole thing would probably take less than 10 minutes.

Anyway, I realized that I was really dirty. And stinky. So, like a normal person, I went and took a shower in the huge bathtub that was offered by this lovely establishment.

Now all prim and proper, with a new robe almost identical to the previous one - just that the predominant color was gray - I set out to discover the marvels of this new wonderful destination. Which was mostly shopping and having fun at random shops.

First, I went to a restaurant and got some really nice eggs with sausages, then to a store and bought all kinds of snacks, including some crackers that supposedly had the taste of trees. Spoiler alert: they didn’t.

Next was a store for adventuring items, where I bought five pairs of really expensive gloves. They were as thin as surgeon gloves, and came with an enchantment that cleaned themselves when Mana was injected, making them easy to use. These were used for dissecting, butchering and skinning Beasts that were hunted, thus saving time for the adventurers. Surgeon gloves had this weird charm to them, leading me to buy the same thing, just magical.

Next I went to a cafe higher up the mountain, overlooking the small city, where I got a really nice huge coffee and admired the scenery. Also, I don’t know who was stupid enough to put the damn castle lower than a fucking cafe, since I could basically see the layout from here. Good for me, I guess.

Thanks to my high view, I could see several soldiers coming out of the castle and the various military buildings, scrambling to the walls and out the gates. They either got notice of the wave coming, or they panicked since there was no word from the two sons and co. but I’m guessing it was both.

Slurping the last bits of coffee and high-fiving the waiter, thus paying for my drink, I went down those awful stairs back to the main part of the city, particularly to the castle. I did a few circles around and gawked at it like an idiot, then went away after ten minutes, having found nothing of importance.

From what I’d heard, castles in big cities had runes and Formations scribbled all around, but something like this in the middle of nowhere in a shitty small city? I was doubtful. Still, just in case, I needed insurance.

So, as a normal, law-abiding citizen I bought bombs. A lot of them. You’d be surprised how many you can buy on the Dark Web. Right off the front page, even.

A forum on the same section said that no matter how good the Formation, enough physical force is enough to blast anything, magical or not. Paranoid as I was, I did not fully trust that, so I bought some magical boom-boom as well.

Also, while I was thinking I thought I might as well buy a fast humidifier. Like something resembling a gun, with a cylinder on the bottom where you would put the liquid and, pulling the trigger it would turn anything into steam really fast. Don’t ask me how it worked, but they said it wasn’t magical.

Besides that I didn’t know what else to buy, so I was basically ready. I did integrate a few new toxins to my system, the same I did with the purple one before, but it didn’t really give any edge. And raising my magic level to the next one would’ve taken too much.

I vaguely remembered the news saying that the attack happened in the night, so I was ready to stay awake and browse the internet for useless posts. At midnight I started hearing shouts and yells, so, knowing that I didn't have a lot longer to wait, I went out and hid in a back alley, continuing my scrolling. Additionally, it was a pretty warm night so I was fine, except for the excitement, nervousness, and my back hurting from sitting on a shitty chair in a back alley. Oh, and it stank, I was pretty sure someone took a dump somewhere in there.

Lo and behold, at 2 AM, a red message appeared in my vision.

[Attention! A Beast Wave had been spotted in Hont Barony! Please seek shelter as soon as possible! All Mages are requested to aid in the defense of the city! Attention!]

‘There it is,’ I smiled.

I could hear yelling from all the buildings around me, windows and doors opening, and Mages running towards the gate.

I, on the other hand hid between a trash can and some pipes, careful not to get spotted and raise suspicions.

When I saw that the wave of people was pretty much over, I walked to the opposite direction, right towards the center of the city. It took about 10 minutes to get to the castle walls, a period in which I got a lot of glances. I acted like I was scared and just wanted to run to the Baron for protection, since there were a few idiots like that every time.

Now getting to the castle gate, I had to get rid of the few guards that were still left. If I came sooner there would’ve been too many of them, and later they would’ve been gone with the treasury. There was no perfect moment.

I did have a knife sharp enough to pierce through that armor, but even if I took one guard out the battle with the other one would’ve taken more than I wanted.

Talking out the humidifier gun thingy, I took a small bottle that I filled with my blood out of the inventory and poured it into the cylinder. Using my cool muscles I climbed on a balcony to the side of the castle and leaned on the railing pulling the trigger and waiting. The description definitely said it had enough power for the fog to quite a distance, so I wasn’t worried. If the reviews were true, of course.

Two minutes later, the guards started gripping their spears harder, arranging their armor and raising their heads high, ready for any attacks, trying to show they were doing their job properly. A minute later they were dead asleep on the floor.

‘Don’t mind if I do.’

Slitting their throats, I took their bodies and left the inventory for later. Actually, I forgot to check what my earlier victims had. Whatever.

Sadly, the System didn’t let you loot someone’s inventory even if they were unconscious, so if you wanted it you had to kill. Not that I would’ve left alive anyway, what if they woke up? Unlikely, but who knows?

Realizing that the gate was closed and needed a key, I quickly searched their inventories and found a huge key, just the size of the hole in the gate.

Turning it and hearing a click, I opened it just enough to stick my head in and take a look. Seeing nobody and nothing unusual, I tiptoed in through the corridor, past the big door that was probably the main hall, and right to the garden, where I hid in a bush for a couple minutes and glanced around.

Finding it okay, I went to one of the towers. You see, the castle had a wall separating the outside from the actual castle building. This wall had a tower in each corner, something that definitely didn’t contain the treasury. The building itself, on the other hand, had six towers, four in corners and two on the west and east side, right in the middle. I read on the same forum that talked about the bombs that treasuries were usually under towers.

Now which one was it?

I started from the closest ones to the main gate, starting with the left. Five minutes later, after going through all those fucking winding corridors, I got to the tower and of course it just went up. Maybe, just maybe, this family had enough money to buy a Concealing Formation, so I tossed a small grenade that sent mana pulses, something that should’ve revealed something if there was anything there. Nothing. Awesome

Sighing, I climbed the stairs just in case, since I would’ve punched myself if it was there and I hadn’t searched. Nothing, it was basically an apartment. Next one, this one taking only three minutes to get to, was the same.

Disappointed, I went to the one on the middle of the east side and found that it did go down, but it was only some kind of workshop, so no.

Now the next one though, the one on the west side, also went down. Here I found something so kinky that I would like to never remember it so forgive me if we just go over it.

Most of the doors were left open, probably since the occupants left in a hurry, either to defend or to run. So, as any normal person would do, I stole everything I could. There was this really expensive-looking office at some point, probably the Baron’s. I didn’t try opening anything in it, as it might have defenses that would either blow up in my face, send him a message, or just not open at all, which I didn’t have any time for. In the end all of it went into my storage.

Normally cheaper rings wouldn’t be able to hold anything with Formations on it or anything volatile, but mine were a gift from a really nice rich lady.

This stupid castle made you go through the garden if you wanted to get to another side, so that was where I went. Ready to go to the last two towers, I set on, only to see something interesting.

“Oh, hello there”

Right in the middle of a flower field, with a path leading to it, stood a statue, entitled “Henry Hont, founder of Hont family” which was cool and all, but it was weird. The spot behind it was devoid of flowers, different from the other sides. What was more, it was too short. Trust me, I know quite a lot about sculpting and this thing was just too short.

The whole statue was just a head and a torso, but the platform that it basically stood on was barely enough, making the whole thing barely reach my shoulders. Yeah, I was tall, but it still made no sense.

So I probed around, got a little touchy with the statue, and… aha! Found it. Right on the inside of his ear, Henry had a small button, no bigger than a fingernail. Pushing it, there was a small rumble and the statue started rising, eventually getting taller than me before sliding back on the patch devoid of flowers.

‘I knew it,’ I smiled.

Right under, there was a spiral staircase, with torches on the walls, contrary to the interior of the castle that had electric lights. Knowing this was the place, I got serious, crouched down, and slowly crept in.

The stair went on for quite a while, time in which I made plans for anything that might happen. Obviously, I thought about it before but now it was different. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest.

A few minutes later, (I was too nervous to look at the clock) I finally got to a horizontal corridor. Too scared to look around the corner in case there was anyone there, I took out a small mirror I bought the day before and turned it around the corner, making sure to keep it as close to the ground as possible - not that it would help.

I could see someone, in full armor, sitting down, legs crossed and eyes closed, in front of a metal double-door. While he couldn’t compare to the gorilla-guards in the prison, this guy was still really big. Like, a walking muscle mountain, ready to punch you into the abyss.

Which wasn’t really good for me, was it now?

I went up the stairs again to get ready since he didn’t see me anyway. Taking out the cylinder from the humidifier gun, I put a lighter under and started heating. You see, the corridor itself was barely enough for the big guy to freely move around, meaning there was about a meter between his head and the ceiling.

My poor knowledge in physics told me that warm air goes higher up, so heating the liquid kind of made sense. I really hoped so, since humidifying usually means heating the liquid to turn it into steam but whatever. Time was ticking and I needed to take this guy out fast - the rest of the family would be back any minute now.

So I mixed some of the other stuff in, just for good measure.

Going back and this time standing higher up the stairs, I took out the gun and pulled the trigger. Then I stood there like an idiot for a few minutes, waiting for the murder-mist to spread out. I banked on this guy keeping his eyes closed and not seeing the red fucking fog spreading around… but he just had to wake up. Goddamn.

“Come out!” he bellowed.

I stuck my head out around the corner just enough to see him, and he wasn’t happy.

“You dare step in this holy place?!”

“That’s kind of cringe, really. It’s a shitty basement in a shitty castle in a shitty region in a shitty country,” I gave him a look of contempt “Want me to go on?”

He didn’t reply, instead dashing in my direction, inhaling the really nice air and tripping on some of my new creations.

BOOM

I was thrown back up the stairs and straight at the wall. He was too fast for me to get back before he tripped on the booby-traps connected to my new boom-babies. I downed a Recovery Potion and got back up, waiting for the dust to clear.

As expected, he wasn’t dead but a good chunk of his face was missing, along with a hand and a part of his leg, showing the bone. The armor, on the other hand, was long gone. Poof.

So, I got scared, and did what any reasonable person would do. I jumped on his big, strong, wide shoulders, right behind the head, took my face close to him like we were about to have a moment, and while he was about to scream, probably about my ancestors and my mom, I uh… I spit in his mouth…

Hey, don’t judge, you do what you gotta do.

Remember earlier when I said I integrated a few more toxins in my ‘system’, not blood? Oh yeah, I learned how to make my fucking spit poisonous, baby.

Don’t make me spit on you.

The hematic poison I mixed in among other things made this guy gush out like a waterfall, coating the entirety of the floor.

I jumped down as fast as I could and watched the gargantuan man struggle to walk my way, stumbling around and supporting himself on the walls. Fortunately, he didn’t get far, as two steps later, just as my back was right towards the door, he collapsed.

Standing glued to the door a little longer, I studied him, after which I slowly approached. When he didn’t do anything I checked his pulse, and bam! He was dead.

The inventory did confirm it, yes.

Now, treasures! After blowing stuff up, of course. Obviously, the door was closed, he had no key, and the magical saw I used was making sparks like crazy, so definitely magic defenses. Like the maniac that I was, I quickly put every bomb I had for something like this, along with the magical ones, set the timer for a minute and dashed out, all the way to the statue at the beginning.

Not even ten seconds later, I heard a rumble, followed by an earthquake and a billowing flame coming from the tunnel and blowing me five meters back. Getting back up as fast as possible, I ran back in and in record time I was at the door.

I didn’t even take the time to admire the pile of Crystals, or the neat books on the shelves, or the weapons and armor, not even the coins. Oh, and the rings. There were quite a few on their own pedestals. I just grabbed everything and ran.

If the ones defending the city hadn’t heard or seen all that then I was Jesus.

On the way out, this time through the back door and gate, I ran across an opened door again, and when I looked inside I found something really beautiful. A library! Did I mention I love books? So of course I took them all. And the tables. Did I also mention that I stole every fancy furniture I came across? And my inventory wasn’t even half full! That was all done in not even a minute.

Then I got out, through the back gate and into the dark wilderness.