“And this is the end of our tour,” the guide said as he approached a door with another pair of guards in front of it, “Beyond here we have the cells, and the labs making the actual experiment with the Spirits.”

“Can’t we go there? I need to make a thorough inspection. Especially in the most important part of the facility,” Romeo replied.

The guide shook her head, “Not without the proper permission. I’m sorry. The rules about what goes on down there are much stricter.”

“Ah, I understand, you don’t have access to that area either. There is no shame in admitting that. We all must play our part,” Romeo nodded with a smile.

“Oh no. I can go there. I just can’t take you. Sorry, Mr. Ballester,” the guide smiled back.

“I see. It is a shame,” the former chairman glanced back, confirming that no one else was in the corridor. In a quick motion, Romeo slammed the palm of his hand on the guard’s chin, making her head flip backwards, exposing her now broken spine to the air.

“What the..” Before the two guards could even process what just happened, they felt their armor being pulled towards the red-haired fighter, who grabbed both their heads and made their helmets squeeze in an instant, breaking their skulls.

“Romeo! What the fuck!?” Blade gasped in a whisper.

“We got too far to go back. Help me get their bodies to that janitor’s closet on the side,” he pointed to a door a few meters back that the guide mentioned was full of cleaning supplies.

“We still don’t have a way to open the door! And I thought we were not killing the guards, just knocking them out,” Blade protested.

“Blade, we really don’t have time for this. You didn’t want to kill the guards. I made no such promise. And to open that door,” Romeo finished, ripping the guide’s head out and tossed it to Blade. He followed that up by doing the same with her left hand, and pulling the mana crystal that was around a necklace, “Here you can open with that.”

He quickly shoved the bodies inside the janitor’s closet and used a spell to control metal to clean the blood out of the hallway, by making the red liquid move by itself. Blade didn’t say anything, but she used the keys to the door to open it. To make matters worse, the blow Romeo delivered made the guide’s eye roll inside their sockets. Which, in turn, forced Blade to dig out the eye in order to use it.

When the door opened, there was a single guard on the other side. Not waiting for Romeo to come back, Blade rushed over to the guard and decapitated them in a single clean move, already cauterizing the wound with a skill that super-heated her sword. They might be deep into enemy lines, but both of them were above level 70. Very few people should pose a treat to them. Especially if they were caught off guard. Romeo rushed over, pushing a janitor’s cart.

“What are you doing?” Blade asked.

“We are going to need someone else to open the door when we leave, so,” he ripped the hand of the decapitated guard from its arm and tossed both the head and the hand inside the cart, where one would put the trash, “Put that body in the closet back there,” without waiting for Blade, he opened a thermos and spilled the coffee that was inside all over the floor. He made sure to be far enough away from the door so that it wouldn’t seem weird.

When Blade returned, the former chairman was placing a ‘wet floor’ sign together with a small plaque that read ‘went for supplies’ on the ground near the spilling.

“This is your great idea?!” Blade gasped in a shouted whisper.

“This is not just about getting in. We need to get out, too. So unless you want to hunt down someone as we are running away, this is the best idea I got. Also, here. Keep those bags in a safe place,” Romeo pulled a pair of zip-lock bags. Each had one eye, one finger, and a mana crystal inside. One eye was in good condition, but the attack had deformed the other, “Those are from the guards. I don’t know if the second eye will work, but the first one should be fine.“

“What the fuck? What the fuck!?” Blades gasped.

“We are going to need to leave here. So yeah, we are doing this. Now stop freaking out. You’ll have time for it later. Let’s go!” he moved back to close the door. Leaving it open would be too big of a sign that there was something wrong. A missing guard would be nothing strange in most places, “Also. Don’t run, pretend that we belong.”

Blade followed along, still shell-shocked by the situation. She was familiar with killing, but taking out people’s heads or eyes to use them for something else felt awful. The two continued walking at a brisk pace when they could, but at every turn, they would slow down as if they were taking a stroll. Without a guide, the biggest problem became to find the things they were looking for.

Still, despite being focused on fighting, the two still had skills to help them navigate labyrinths. In less than 5 minutes, they found the stairs. And, for the first time since getting inside the facility, it was a staircase that went down more than one level. The cells were in the next level below, but ignored that floor. As harsh as it sounded, they had no way of helping those inside there. Not right now.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Even when they were able to continue searching for the Grimoire, they didn’t see anyone. A fact that started to gnaw on Blade’s nerves.

“There is something wrong. Why is this so empty? I think it’s a trap,” she said.

“Even if that’s the case. We don’t have other options now. Let’s just keep going.”

“But it was too easy to get inside!”

“They are probably used to that kind of thing happening. Morgan had the habit of never telling people what he would do. I lost count how many times people suddenly appeared in front of me saying Morgan had scheduled a meeting between us when I was the chairman,” Romeo turned a corner and noticed a large door at the end of the hallway. One that didn’t look reinforced enough to be protecting anything dangerous, but had enough decorations to make it seem important.

“That is stupid. This would just make more trouble for you. Why did he do that?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. I used to think it was a test. A way to train me to deal with unexpected situations. Now? My best guess is that he thought everyone was beneath him and unworthy of knowing his plan. That or he did that as a power play. To show that he has that much power over you and that your only option is going along. It’s probably both, but more towards the latter than the former.”

They arrived in front of the door, but it was locked. They still had two ways to pass those sensors, three if counting with the deformed eye. But using it now meant they would even more to leave this place. After a brief moment of internal deliberation, Blade stepped forward.

“Fuck it. They probably already know we are here. We are not leaving without a fight. We kill someone upstairs and get their head to open the door to the outside,” she used the head of the last guard they killed to open the door.

Inside the Grimoire there was a single large pillar in the center of the room. Lights blinked from everywhere and holographic books floated around.

“Oh… the Grimoire is not just a data center. It’s a supercomputer,” Romeo gasped, “This design… I’ve seen it before, but it was called Codex.”

“Their naming sense sucks. Codex? Really?”

“Prototypes never get a marketable name. It’s always something grandiose that sounds fancy. Only then the marketing team would come up with something decent,” Romeo shrugged and pointed to a small pedestal in front of the pillar, “That should be the interface. Do you have the copy drive?”

“Yeah. It’s right here,” the two rushed over to the pedestal and placed the small rectangular device over the screen.

There was a pause before the device started to work. Downloading all the information inside that computer at an incredible speed. However, it still felt like it was going at a snail’s pace. Romeo and Blade were too focused on the pedestal to realize that little by little, the holographic books stopped moving. When the last of them froze in the air, all the lights of the room turned red, and an alarm started blaring.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Blade gasped. They looked back and saw the entrance starting to close.

Romeo rushed over and held the door open. It wasn’t that heavy, especially for someone like him, who already held an entire building above his head. Still, he needed both hands to stop the mechanism from closing. The now red floating books came to life once more, but this time being enveloped in elemental energy and started flying towards the invaders at high speed. Blade noticed the incoming attacks and dodged a few, only to realize that they were also targeting the copy device. Which forced her to block some of the books with her sword. Roman wasn’t as lucky. He couldn’t move his arms, so every strike was a clean hit on his body. The only good part of all of it was one of his passive skills that reduced the damage he would take from any attacks.

After an agonizing 3 minutes, which would mean a staggering amount of data, the copy device was finally done. Blade didn’t struggle much, but Romeo was hurt. It was clear that the defenses were more powerful than the guards protecting the place. The various attacks ended up burning, freezing, and covering parts of his skin and armor in acid. Yet, he endured.

“Are you ok?” Blade asked as they left the Grimoire. The books still following them.

“I’m fine,” Romeo pulled a potion and downed in a single gulp, “We have what we need. Let’s get out of here.”

Somewhere else in the facility, a door was flung open as the alarm continued to ring, revealing an office with an array of screens. All the security cameras that covered the entire lab.

“Sir!” the two guards who were inside the room stood up.

“Where are they? Show me!” the man’s voice resonated in the entire room, making even the chairs vibrate.

“We found them here. In the lower levels. This image is from 10 minutes ago. Beyond this point we don’t have any cameras,” the guard pulled an image showing a man with red hair and someone in black heavy armor killing a three guards. The man first broke the neck of one guard, then crushed the heads of the other two. There was a small argument that couldn’t be heard since the camera was video only before they opened the door to the lower labs, and the armored person killed yet another guard. The red-haired man then came pushing a janitor’s cart, and the two left the screen.

“Romeo… it seems I expected too much from you. Even after all I’ve done.”

“We already called the rest of the guards, sir. Including the elite team. They should arrive in 13 minutes. We are ready to deploy the anti magic net,” the guard replied.

“Don’t. Tell the lab to prepare subject Alpha and Beta for activation. We wanted to make some tests, a perfect guinea pig just walked inside. Send all the guards to that door. I don’t want anyone leaving the lower labs. Also, tell them not to go inside. I don’t want anyone interfering with the results of the experiment. Have the science team meet me in the lower lab control room. I want their help to analyze the results.”

“Mr. Waaberi?” the guard asked, “Are you going there yourself?”

“Of course I am. My old protégé decides to come on the same day I’m here. I wouldn’t be polite to ignore that,” a cruel smile formed on Morgan’s face. He started to leave but stopped before crossing the door, “When I’m done with this minor issue. I will want to know why it took 10 minutes for them to be detected.”

With that, he left the security room, leaving the guards behind in a cold sweat.