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Ch191-See A Man About A Dog

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The area around the Schlagen mountains was divided into small districts.

At least, that’s what Sylver assumed, given the small flags that every building had on the top left of their door, and that the patrolling guards had an identical symbol on their armor.

To get to Fobur, Sylver and company walked through 4 districts.

And even if someone somehow missed the small flags near the doors, it was impossible to miss the giant line in the road, with one flag symbol on one side, and a different flag symbol on the other. Sylver also noted that the districts weren’t the same size, some were bigger, some were smaller, all in all, it was a miniaturized version of country borders.

Which in Sylver’s opinion was fantastic.

Because that meant that if he wanted to attack a certain region, all he needed to do was figure out who their allies and enemies were, and then he could attack them without any consequences! He just needed to make sure no one seriously strong was allied with the region he wanted to attack.

With Spring’s help, Sylver was able to take a route that avoided the majority of the guards. It did mean he had to stop and wait for a few minutes for a patrol to pass, but it also prevented them from being bothered. Aside from the guards, the streets were completely empty.

By the time they arrived at the location Lola’s notes said Fobur should be at, it was pitch black outside. Faust was awake but seemed to be having trouble moving his limbs, so Sylver kept him up on Mora, who moved him around like a puppet to make him seem more alive. He needed a safe place to meditate, but that wasn’t possible at the moment.

As a general rule, Sylver didn’t believe in luck.

But as he stared at the broken-down door, and tried to figure out if Fobur was dead by looking at the blood splatters, he struggled to rationalize his bad luck away.

The likely answer was that talking to Lola, or Salgok, was what had fucked the man up, but it did raise the question…

Why did they wait until now? The blood was so fresh it was almost liquid. It’s been at most 5 hours since the man had been killed or kidnapped. The fact that none of the other houses nearby looked disturbed suggested that it wasn’t random.

Thanks to his shades, Sylver was informed of a hole dug underneath one of the wooden floorboards that held some kind of box not that long ago. Sylver entered the house and walked into the room in question, and discovered a giant shelf standing in the middle of the room. By the scratches in the polished wood, he got a clearer picture of what had occurred.

A group of thieves entered Fobur’s home, forced him to tell them the location of his safe hidden underneath the giant shelf, and then stole the contents, along with Fobur.

But why would the thieves leave the door broken down? It would take less than 5 seconds to put it back in place, no one would even notice it was broken until they tried to open it.

And why would thieves attack just before nighttime? Wouldn’t they want to use the cover of darkness to escape? They attacked about 2 hours before it was dark enough to be considered night.

More curious was the lack of resistance. The way the blood was splattered around the room seemed to imply Fobur just stood there and took it. He got punched in the face, they broke his arm until the bone came out, and a knife was forced into his knee, and then twisted.

But the height of the blood implied he was standing upright when they did this, he wasn’t tied down to a chair, and his arms didn’t seem to be bound. Did they have someone else as a hostage?

Due to [Advanced Earth Manipulation] Sylver felt something very strange inside one of the walls. As he placed his hand as close to the trace amounts of earth inside the wall, he found a compartment. After a couple of failed attempts to fiddle the lock open, Sylver simply pressed his hand against the wooden wall until he heard a crack.

“Ria, there’s a mechanism inside, would you mind opening it for me please?” Sylver whispered, as he kept his hand on the wall to keep the crack open. The golden part of Ria slithered up his arm and sent a tendril down the tiny crack Sylver had made.

After a couple of seconds, Sylver heard a click up from the lamp on the ceiling, then another near the bed in the corner, and a final click from somewhere near the cupboard near the door, before the compartment opened. Ria slithered back into Sylver’s sleeve, as Sylver swung the small door open, and looked at the inside of it.

There were small pieces of lead strategically placed throughout the gear-filled mechanism, along with a very small glass flask that presumably held an explosive or acid of some kind. Very gently, Sylver removed the tightly bound notebook, along with several sealed letters.

“It’s a simple diary,” Sylver said out loud as if trying to persuade the notebook in question.

He opened it up, and as he had expected, it appeared to be utter nonsense.

Because it was written in fancy fucking code.

“It’s just his super-secret family recipe,” Sylver said to no one in particular, as he flipped through the notebook and didn’t bother stopping at several maps, and a couple house blueprints.

“A family recipe so secret that he had a decoy hiding spot made?” Ria asked without a hint of sarcasm, as Sylver rolled his eyes and didn’t even bother trying to open the letters because he could hear a strange powder moving around inside.

There was probably a special way of opening them, or possibly they needed to be soaked in something first, and would otherwise explode.

“And didn’t give up even under torture. See that blood splatter inside that hole?” Sylver asked as he pointed towards the hole in the ground where Fobur’s safe had supposedly been.

“It’s on the inside… They kept torturing him for information even after they got it open,” Ria said as Sylver nodded and gently closed the door to the secret compartment inside the wall.

He was even able to use [Chloromancy] to repair the crack he had made.

Sylver felt the book he had moved down towards his left pocket move up his side and then watched as Ria’s tendril pulled it out into the open and all but shoved the map inside the notebook into Sylver’s face.

“There are 4 marked houses on this. We should start with the biggest,” Ria suggested, as Sylver used his hand to move the book a little bit away from his face.

“Or we can find a homeless person, and have him tell us all the local knowledge we need to know,” Sylver countered and could feel Ria freeze up.

“But what about Fobur?” Ria asked as Sylver reached out with his hand to shut the book and map.

“What about him?” Sylver asked, as he pushed the book and Ria’s tendril into his robe, and moved it back where he had put it the first time.

“Aren’t we going to rescue him?” Ria asked, as Sylver shook his head and did his best not to sound condescending.

“Why are we here Ria? We’re not sightseeing, we’re not on vacation, we aren’t here to compete in a pie-eating contest, why are we here?” Sylver asked, and failed to make his question not sound condescending.

Even Spring thought he was being a dick. But Ria didn’t seem to think so, she either ignored it, or Sylver didn’t sound condescending enough for her to understand that was what he was doing.

“To find Edmund?” Ria asked as Sylver nodded.

“Will rescuing Fobur help or hinder us in finding Edmund?” Sylver asked.

Ria paused to think it over, as Sylver inspected a few other aspects of the house, but didn’t find anything of interest.

“It would hinder us... It’s hard to say how much he knows or would be able to help, but given that he’s weak enough to be kidnapped in such a way suggests he isn’t all that well connected. Then you have whatever the coded notebook and letters are about. Tracking him would be easy using his blood, but then what do we do if he was kidnapped by someone powerful?” Ria thought out loud, and a smile crept onto Sylver’s face as she did as he had tried to teach her and used her head.

“Yes. For all we know the king of a powerful district kidnapped him, and by pissing him off with our rescue, we could turn the rest of the districts against us. I’ll gather his blood, just in case we do need him, but for now, we’re going to wait for Spring to find us a homeless gentleman to talk to,” Sylver explained, as he did as he said, and made several blood splatters float up into the air and gathered them into a sphere.

He moved the sphere of blood into a flask and hid it inside his robe.

“What if they kill him? Ah, no, never mind, the only way to stop that is to rescue him, which you have already decided isn’t worth the effort,” Ria said, as Sylver stepped out of the house and then walked around it just to make sure he hadn’t missed something.

“You said that in a strange tone. “Isn’t worth the effort.” I’ve been open and honest with you Ria, and while I’m not going to force you, I don’t believe I’ve done anything that would make you believe I will punish you for disagreeing with me. If you have something to say, please do,” Sylver said, as he finished his walk and returned to Mora.

Ria was silent while Sylver and his mighty steed walked down the dark road, while Spring was busy searching for someone sleeping on the street, or in a makeshift tent. Sylver was fine with anyone, as long as they were in a bad position that would take little effort to solve. He wasn’t sure how much value gold coins held in this area, but he didn’t think it would be worthless.

“I can’t think of a good word, but this feels like… We’re abandoning him,” Ria said, while Sylver and company stopped to let a group of guards pass.

They were always in at least a group of 3, Sylver hadn’t seen a guard alone even once since coming in here.

“Abandoning implies we had a duty to help him. If I told Ruslana’s dark elves to go pound sand after bringing them here, that would be abandoning. This is called keeping your priorities in order… I feel like we’ve already had this conversation… Yes, we did, when we first met. You said it “felt cruel.” Does it still feel cruel, even though you understand why I’m doing this?” Sylver asked, and could feel a nod from Ria.

“Just because it makes sense, doesn’t make it right,” Ria offered, and the sincerity with which she said it made Sylver take her seriously and not roll his eyes.

“Being “right” and “good” is a privilege reserved for the strong. Edmund is a “good” person because he doesn’t have to sacrifice anything, he doesn’t have to compromise, he’s strong enough that he can do things “the right way.” If I was powerful enough to win every fight I fought, there wouldn’t be any reason for me to do the things I do,” Sylver said and had a sudden reminder of that ever so brief moment when he thought about turning over a new leaf.

Back when he was inside one of Tulli’s blood vessels and was hesitating to use a mask made out of a dead man’s face. Except unlike the last time, there was no warm feeling associated with the thought, just an acrid burning deep inside his chest.

“I recognize that the rules of this world are different from the ones in my world. But that doesn’t mean I have to agree with them,” Ria said, as Sylver shook his head.

“I never said you did. But I’ll repeat what I’m sure you already know. I don’t care about how I get what I want, so long as I get it. I’d burn this whole haystack of a city to fine ash if it meant finding the Edmund needle. Now, I’m speaking metaphorically here, but I do mean it. In my eyes, this whole city, in exchange for Edmund, is a very fair trade,” Sylver explained, as Ria’s soul began to emit an emotion he couldn’t quite put into words.

“A whole city worth of people, in exchange for 1 man,” Ria said.

Sylver shook his head.

“A whole city worth of people, in exchange for the brother I love more than anything in this world. But you shouldn’t be upset about it because I love you too. But as you might have noticed, the problem with loving someone is that you have to be prepared to annihilate everything trying to harm them.

“Because if you’re not, that means you don’t love them enough to kill, slaughter, or torture to protect them. And I love my people Ria. With all three of my hearts. I love them so much I’m ready and willing to do whatever is necessary to keep them safe,” Sylver explained and had to cut the conversation short as Spring found someone sleeping in a patch of bushes.

Sylver didn’t even need to guide Mora as to where to go, because she knew instinctively through their connection.

He could feel that there was a question Ria was afraid of asking because she already knew the answer.

If Sylver had to choose between her and Edmund, who would he choose?

The answer Ria assumed was that Sylver would discard her with the same casualness he left Fobur to his fate.

But the real answer is that Sylver would never need to do that.

Because if Ria paid attention she would have noticed that Sylver’s companions were an unkillable shade, an unkillable horse, an unkillable man, and an unkillable golem thing. All of which could get hurt, even torn apart, but at the exact same time could very easily be brought back to life.

The most vulnerable one in the group was Ria.

Because if she lost a piece of her liquid gold body, Sylver had no idea what to do to get it back. Ria had explained that she had a way of converting a combination of metals into more of herself, but the process required a huge amount of energy, which Sylver didn’t have anywhere near enough.

Once Edmund was safe, Sylver had it on his to-do list to figure out a way to get Ria to make more of herself. Lola was already looking for the metals Ria requested, but there was a simple issue of supply, regardless of how much money was thrown at the problem.