Author: had some time and decided to push for a second chapter today

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It turns out we couldn’t leave the city fast enough.

Before us was a large contingency of 100 armed men with the rat from before and some guy who seems to be more annoyed to be standing next to said rat than the fact he is here. I could see some similarities between the two so he may be one of the brother’s with a higher standing.

“Is this the brat that dared to shame our house?” (Rat’s Brother)

“Yes brother that's him, and those are the toys that are rightfully mine.” (Rat)

*Slap* “Shut up, for making me come out here you don't get anything.” His gaze narrowed as he evaluating the three in front of him. “At least you have decent taste, guards hurry up and seize them.” (Rat’s Brother)

“B-but…” (Rat)

“Do I have to repeat myself *glare*?” (Rat’s Brother)

“N-no brother.” Rat clenched his teeth as the words fell from his mouth. Even if he could no longer intervene his eyes screamed how unwilling he was to do so.

As the guards moved in on us an arrow already pierced our horse. We had to move quickly, the things in the cart were in the end replaceable, so abandoning it for our lives was obvious. Exiting the city was impossible now so the only way to get out of this would be to hide within and avoid capture. Going back to the guild was not an option but there are a lot of places to hide.

All the arrows were directed at me as we fled. Two managed to hit my back, but I couldn’t stop or we will be captured. We have all trained in our ability to flee, Puerial had the most trouble at first, but at least for a short while she can barely keep up as long as we help her. The only fortune we had at this moment was that they didn’t completely block us off in time.

I don’t know how they knew which gate we were using to leave, but these thoughts were pushed aside. My main focus was making sure we get out of this.

The city was obviously a shadow of it’s original design with the layout always changing. The whole thing feels more like a maze on the surface with countless twists and turns that you can't really comprehend when your first enter. When looking at the hill shape of the town it would always seem unnatural. This was because whole streets and buildings would be paved over to cover whatever unsightly structure the town Lord's deemed unfit to see the sun. Whatever reason they had for doing this will forever be a mystery.

As time passed the whole thing ended up as one huge labyrinth beneath the main town. The weight of the structure at one point caused everything to sink below the earth so not many know how far below the whole thing goes.

It was this layout that allowed us to slip away from sight. Due to my paranoia, I scoped out many possible safe houses on the surface. We headed toward the nearest one to check my wounds and move to the next. Staying here for too long would be foolish with my blood leading them to us.

The girls were visibly worried but my injuries didn’t hit anything vital. If it was more to the left though…

After patching up the injury and using my mana to heal up we continued moving. Running would be a large indicator so we walked around cloaked trying to avoid detection. The hunt went on for hours before things settled down enough to gather information. As expected we have wanted posters and there are guards posted at all four exits. If it was a few of the usual weak guards, we would be able to force our way through. But these guards are trained and number at least 15 per gate.

It seems if we want to continue our journey, our overall strength needs to overcome these guys.

I looked at my current stats and sighed trying to figure out a way around having to fight so many people at once...If it’s like this than we will need to use tactics to whittle their moral or make a big enough distraction to escape.

Since we couldn’t leave, me and Shiro decided to do the things we excelled at growing up while Puerial continued her magic training. Having her as powered up as possible will make a difference.

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It’s been a month since we have been trapped in the city, our bounties have increased with all the sabotage we have committed against the Lord. Most of it was ambushes, traps, rigging transports to fall apart, etc.

The worst one was when an important guest came to visit the Lord and we laced his food shipment, that was especially brought over using his transports for this event, with my homemade laxative. I wanted to use actual poison to kill them outright but they have testers for that so this would be more likely to go undetected. The magnesium and such wasn't hard to get and the finished product was very hard to notice when placed in food and water. The alchemists in this world need a new job.

It was tricky but we did manage to spike his food without incident. Unfortunately for that Lord...that banquet they held turned out to be pretty shitty. That special guest left cursing the house and spewing large amounts of threats pertaining to ending contracts for this humiliation. He didn’t even wait long enough to get himself cleaned up as he and the rest of his group left with unsightly behinds.

Ahh, seeing the Lord's family so distraught over this was priceless. I think that special guest also brought a daughter that one of the son’s fancied. That relationship will most likely end after this.

We hoped that by doing this they would see us as ‘not worth the trouble’. It was a slim hope since these guys are prideful to all hell. So we also did this to plunder their stuff and make them regret. The more we act against them the more they will focus on us.

This will help us set up for something on the side to seriously fuck this Lord’s standing up.

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We managed to meet up secretly with Tammy, Khan, and Beth a few times. Beth actually quit being a guard captain saying she was tired of all the lies deceit and harassment. She is actually working with the guild now as a private adventurer that handles guild problems. I gave my congratulations for her promotion which was awarded with a laugh and punch on the shoulder.

Tammy and Khan were worried about whether we will be okay in this situation but I had my paranoia at max at all times. We ran out of safe rooms on the surface, but we can still hold out for at least another month using the labyrinth like underground.

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The Lord’s men were slowly encroaching on our location, and things were getting seriously bad. Thankfully the main plan was almost completed just a few more things and all hell will break lose.

Tammy, Khan, and Beth have long since moved to the next city my group would have went to. After telling them my plan they agreed that it would be better to transfer to a more stable area than risk being here to see it happen. Most of the damage will fall toward the Lord but with the plan the way it is...I can’t guarantee no one else will get hurt. Most families live in herded communities on the opposite side of the town away from the Lord so they should be fine.

I was mostly the one doing the more dangerous activities while Shiro would help with ambushed and gathering the needed supplies.

My success lies with my [Stealth] substat. I used 19 CP to forcefully break the first substat bottleneck that I noticed when they stopped increasing at 19. It seems the have a threshold every 20 points.

This break gave me a new skill:

Stealth StepsPassive SkillUncommonDescription:The shadows shroud your steps, and hide your presence.Effects:Detection while walking in dark places -30%

Detection while hiding in dark corners -70%

This is the type of skill that can’t be improved and is at a fixed state. It’s use in this situation was invaluable, of course if they look right at me this skill won’t save me. It just makes it easier to creep around and hide which was a big help. Although I wonder what other skills I can get when my substats get past a bottleneck.

A lot of my CP was focused on [Speed], [Agility], [Strength], and [Light] affinity. The increase in affinities is similar to substats but doubled, so increasing an affinity normally than with CP early on would be ideal. However I needed to ensure my ability to survive and [Light] affinity improves my regenerative ability the most. With me always getting assignments pertaining to what I’m doing as a bonus, I still have some CP to spare.

I still don’t have a real healing skill yet but my ability to heal normally has greatly improved.

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As I finally finished the last of my objectives to end this, I was met with a tragic scene when I went back to the building we were temporarily holed up in on the surface while we worked. The place Shiro and Puerial were in was discovered and surrounded. Some grandiose carriage was descending toward the building and I can see Shiro peeking just enough to see the situation.

With these numbers if nothing is done the two will be apprehended.

I really wish that rat never showed up in the guild that day. As I was stuck trying to figure out how to get out of this mess things got worse. The one exiting the carriage was the Lord and he was pissed. He made an exaggerated speech about how we lost and that our futures were over. I think he figured out we were the cause of the shitty banquet since I could see the veins on his head from here.

The only good thing is that they are all facing away from me and looking at the building. I’ve always been sure to make whatever I thought was possible with the things I found laying around. A lot of things had to go through trial and error but one of the things I made I called [Mana Grenade] to keep things simple. This item took me 2 years of trial and error to make when I managed to get the needed materials to make it possible.

Monsters in this world can sometimes carry a core that naturally holds mana. Alchemists usually use this as a catalyst for their products. Since mana is a type of energy in this world I tried to see if I can turn these cores into an explosive. It took a lot of failures to produce any results with how tricky the core is.

The [Mana Grenade] is my finished product that can rival the effects of a concussive grenade from earth but with a high chance of causing severe injury or death when detonated in close proximity. Shiro and Puerial are fully aware of it’s danger and never mess with them since their development was finished. They are activated by simply filling it with mana to cause it to become unstable. Mastering this thing was tricky and almost got me killed.

It was this grenade that I threw at the fucking Lord.

Everyone was left stunned seeing the Lord sustain such sudden damage, from what I can tell he was still alive. In order to salvage the situation I called out “Get the Lord to safety!” It seemed to work as most of the Guards charged over with pale faces to protect the Lord and carry him to safety.

The rest still guarded the safe house but these numbers were more manageable. When the other guards and the Lord were out of sight I made my move to help Shiro and Puerial.

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A/N: Made a few changes. to make things make sense.