'What's even stranger is that everything has been properly recorded and documented.' Solus pondered while looking at the signatures at the end of each document.
'Not only did the City Lord and the nobles know everything, but they also didn't take a dime for themselves. It's as if they paid Quaron, but for what? Not protection since he's not here.'
'We'll ask them later. We have still more rooms to visit.' Lith replied.
Moving unnoticed was easy whereas using the pocket dimension took a heavy toll on him. Even though Solus shared as much of the burden as she could, Lith had to do most of the heavy lifting.
If she spent too much energy, she would either become incapable of assuming human form or be too weak to be more than a punching ball. To make matters worse, she needed much longer than Lith to recover due to the gap in their mana cores and her cracked life force.
The rest of the rooms belonged to other administrative departments and from them, Lith discovered only that aside from the money, everything else was in order. There had been no stockpile of food or weapons during the past few months as if Zeska had never planned for any kind of war.
'This is weird. They knew that the Kingdom would try and recapture the Nestrar region as soon as their rebellion was discovered yet they didn't prepare in advance.' Solus said.
'Agreed. Enough with the paperwork, it's time to pay the Armoury a visit.' Lith stood up, feeling his knees weak and his head dizzy due to the life force consumption.
'Dammit, I need to rest. On top of that, I've left the camp for a while and I have no clue if something has happened in my absence.'
'We can leave at any time you want. Now that we know the spatial coordinates of this place, we can use Spirit Magic to Warp straight to the City Hall.' Solus examined his condition with Abyssal Gaze.
The cracks in his life force were fine, but he couldn't afford to use the pocket dimension or Origin Flames any longer.
'There's no time for that. If upon my return Rudra has discovered Quaron's location, I would have no excuse to delay the chase. Besides, three days are way shorter than you think.
'If that bastard shows his face, I want to know what his endgame is and what he is capable of.' Lith replied while gulping down tonics.
'Good point. Use Demon Grasp to refine your core while you rest. I'll stand guard.' Solus replied.
He nodded, using his breathing skill to split the world energy into its elemental components before absorbing it through his seven eyes instead of his body like a human Awakened would.
The emerald eye absorbed Mogar's energy signature and replaced it with Lith's so that the pure elemental energies would turn into his own mana the moment they seeped through his life force.
This way, the mana core would offer no resistance to the new energy and assimilate it more quickly than with a regular breathing technique. The seventh component of the world energy, Mogar's essence, nurtured his body, making it grow stronger and hastening his recovery.
The use of Demon Grasp, however, required Lith's full focus, leaving him helpless.
Solus's stone ring left his finger and assumed the form of a small spider that slid under the door to patrol the nearby corridors.
'I wish I could do this in my human form and stretch my legs, but I can't afford to waste precious energy.' She thought while moving as far as she could without losing sight of the room Lith was in.
They were now on the third floor of the City Hall where the offices of Zeska's upper echelons were located. It was the worst place to take a break since even during the siege powerful people might come and go from there.
Lith would have visited it first instead of last if he had the blueprints of the building, but requesting them from the army would raise questions he couldn't answer.
Solus heard steps coming closer and weaved a Warp Steps on the fly to move Lith to a safer location.
"What rotten luck!" The voice belonged to a woman and it sounded annoyed rather than worried or scared. "Just a few more days and we'd be done with this cesspool."
Luckily, they were headed for the office of the City Lord that was far from Lith. The woman opened the door with a silver key that turned off the defensive spells of the lock on contact.
"I got that the first dozen times you said that." The man who answered her sounded even more annoyed. "Just shut up and take those damn documents. I want to go home and-"
The moment the iron-studded door closed behind them, the soundproof spell of the room cut their voices short. Solus cursed the paranoia of Zeska's mages before realizing how hypocritical it was for a kettle to call a pot black.
The stone spider scurried on the floor and turned into a liquid to pass under the doorframe unnoticed. Solus also had to keep mana sense active to make sure that no one would find Lith, further draining her energy reserves, but she hoped it would be worth it.
"I've got everything we need." The woman said, making Solus curse.
She looked to be in her mid-forties, about 1.61 meters (5'3") tall, with curly blonde hair framing her round face. She wore a silk day dress more suitable for a social event than a day in the office.
"Double check that you haven't forgotten anything." The man replied, making her smug grin disappear. "We need to be quick and efficient. We need to deactivate the arrays for the meeting and the longer it lasts the higher the risk of getting invaded by an army of mages when we are so close to our goal."
He looked to be in his early forties, about 1.85 meters (6'1") tall, with short black hair and mustaches with a few grey strands. He wore a tight-fitting white shirt and blue pants that revealed a lean but muscular build.
In a way, the couple reminded Solus of Jirni and Orion, but neither could match the original in any way.
'What goal?' Solus thought. 'Keep the juicy stuff coming.'
"I did double-check! How stingy must a god be to care more about numbers than faith? I feel more like an accountant than a believer." The woman replied with a scoff.
'God? What are they talking about?' The more Solus heard the less she understood.
"You say that like it's a bad thing." The man shrugged. "I much prefer a god with goals that I can understand and with interests that can align with my own instead of some mystical bullshit. Let's go."
The woman nodded and followed him, leaving Solus with lots of unanswered questions.
'Let's go where? By my Mom, why isn't this like one of those movies where the bad guys explain their plan in detail for the hero to conveniently learn everything they need to foil it?' She inwardly groaned.
'I can capture them on my own and then interrogate them with Lith, but they are clearly in a rush.. The moment the other nobles notice their absence, they will sound the alarm and our mission will be compromised.'
