"Now what the fuck did you two dipshits just say to my dear pupil?"
Making his presence known standing right behind the pair of guards he had internally nicknamed Poor Stooge #1 & #2, Tom kept them from fleeing by nearly shattering both their collarbones with a light squeeze.
"ARH!-"
Wincing in pain, one of the young guards dropped his sword, and so Tom disarmed the other one by kicking his sword before dragging the two of them into the alleyway by their necks.
"Now, now children, there's no need for screaming. That'll come later."
Tossing the guards to the feet of the other adventurers, Tom extended out an arm to Lisa who hurriedly ran to his side, acting perfectly like the scared and traumatised beginner adventurer.
"T-they wanted t-to!-"
"No need to miss, we heard most of it."
Taking over for Lisa, a particularly grizzled older adventurer separated from the group to explain things to Tom as the rest quickly worked to restrain the two guards.
"Why don't you head into the bar and have something to drink, we'll handle the rest."
Looking genuinely concerned for Lisa, the adventurer gestured Lisa into the bar he and the others had been lazing around inside of when they overheard the beginning of the attack.
"O-okay."
Figuring Tom had a hand on things from now on, Lisa gracefully stepped aside and let him use the opening she had provided.
"... Now then, what are we going to do with these shitstains?"
Cracking his knuckles, Tom's eyes turned cold as he addressed the group of adventures.
"I say we teach them a harsh lesson."
Finding himself in agreement with the rest of the adventurers, Tom acted instantly and grabbed the first guard by the back of his neck and forced his face into the ground.
"Remember when I told you about screaming?"
"AAAAARGH!"
Before the young guard could process what Tom told him, a sharp pain shot through his leg.
"Come on now, that was only the first kneecap, this isn't even the worst thing I've got in store for you."
Pausing for a second, Tom brough himself right down next to the guard for that personal, traumatising touch.
"You're going to remember this day for the rest of your pathetic little life."
After an hour of 'talking', the two guards were left without functioning knees and severely bruised kidneys, livers and bladders… In other words, they would remember this day every time they took a piss, or as Tom put it, for the rest of their lives.
"What the hell did you do with them?"
With Tom joining her inside the bar where she had waited for a while now, Lisa asked about the source behind the screams she had been hearing from the past while.
"They'll never be able to walk again, and will be in constant pain."
"Then, what are we doing now?"
Figuring that if this wasn't part of one of his plans that Tom would've just killed the guards, Lisa asked what their next steps were.
"We're getting out of here, warning those nice aunties you talked to earlier that shit is going down, then hit our main objective when the sun sets."
Hitting the main points fast, Tom quickly explained what the current plan was as they got moving as the other adventures had already cleared out.
"Sure."
Hitting the streets, Tom filled Lisa in on more of the details as they moved back towards their hideout. Apparently, the young guard (who was now missing his knees) was connected to the guard captain.
"... Man, he's going to flip shit when they find them."
"Yeah, he's going to flip shit, start rounding up every single adventurer in town, the adventurers being tired of the guard's shit will then also throw a fit and then we'll have the distraction we need to hit the slave market."
Having pulled the plan together on the fly, Tom had no way of predicting the fallout so he was playing things relatively safe. Getting back to the fruit seller, Lisa ran over to her and didn't waste any time.
"Ma'am, you need to pack up and get inside immediately."
"Lisa dear, what's all this about?"
Seeing Lisa panicking more than when she was accosted by the young guards, the fruit seller realised it wasn't time for dotting or praise.
"Those guards tried to assault me… I'm fine, but the guards aren't so you should probably pack up and head inside."
Understanding what she was saying and the implications behind it, the fruit seller's expression turned sullen.
"Oh no."
The fruit seller knew about the ongoing tension between the guards and the adventurers, so she knew that a young guard being caught and punished for trying to assault would be the spark needed for the current tensions turning into a full scale uprising. Worse yet, Lisa being the cause of all of this would mean she would hang if she was ever captured.
"You need to leave the city. Immediately."
"I can't as I have things I need to do. But don't worry about me for now, worry about yourself and your nabors."
"But!-"
For some reason, the fruit seller was more worried about Lisa and started panicking. So Lisa did something that made Tom draw his pistol. Grabbing the fruit seller's hands, Lisa placed them on her own cheeks so the seller's finger brushed up against her ears.
"Wha?"
Feeling Lisa's real ears hiding underneath her camouflage spell, the fruit seller realised she was talking with an elver.
"I need to save my people, get inside and stay inside."
"... Okay, good luck."
With the seller finally packing up and leaving together with her friends, Tom holstered his pistol and didn't say anything for the moment; although he really wanted to.
Arriving back at the safehouse just as a patrol of guards found the two young guards, Lisa started explaining her reasons.
"I trust her."
"... If she blows this, you're going to end her."
While Tom saw sincerely in Lisa's eyes, he was also under an intense time pressure, and so Lisa creating unnecessary risks didn't really sit well with him.
"You're being a dick."
"And you're being unreasonable."
Even if Tom was being a dick (as usual) he did have a somewhat valid reason for once.
"Fine, but I trust her."
"Okay then."
Seeing Lisa completely set in her ways, Tom had no choice to accept things as they were for the moment and leave things be.
"While you were busy walking around I also gathered some information. The perp this time is a prominent merchant shitbag and member of a ring that's holding an auction here in town soon; hence the time limit of our current mission."
Although it had taken a few lowlifes and information brookers, Tom had nailed down where the slaves were held and what kind of opposition they should expect to run into.
"The scumbag is bribing the guards and local lord to get increased security around his mansion, but other than that there are around 20 former guards and adventurers acting as his private security force."
"That's very light protection…"
While having a private security force of just 20 people might have worked in Tom's old world with CCTV, drones and automated turrets, in this world it was far from enough to protect a mansion at all times without the support of outside forces.
"Yeah, buddy got way too confident that he could just pay the city guard to do everything for him… We'll strike when the guards get pulled away from the area."
There was a difference between overconfidence and sheer incompetence, although this merchant seemed to have found the magical Venn diagram section between the two.
"Wow, how unfair."
"Well you know what I say; fair fights are for losers."
-
As the sun slowly set, the city of Delth was lit up by the numerous fires raging within the town. While some of these fires were lit due to normal activities, most of them were made out of furniture set ablaze by adventurers to act as ramparts as they fought against the city guard in an open riot.
While most of Delth's entertainment districts were in open rebellion due to the adventures, the noble district in the centre of town was wrapped in a quiet and slightly uneasy slumber as guards were pulled away from the area to deal with the current unrest.
[Remember, at least two to the head and avoid plate armour.]
Instead of responding audibly to Tom's radio message, Lisa just tapped the radio receiver as she crept into the shadow behind a stack of crates. Equipped with a knife and her very own MPX-11A2, Lisa waited and watched the approaching light with cold determination. As the light, a guard's lantern, slowly crept closer to Lisa, she silently flipped the fire selector on her pistol from safe to its two round burst before slowly raising it to eye level.
"Boo."
"Wha!-"
With a single press of the trigger, Lisa placed two suppressed shots in the guard's face as she grabbed his chest piece to keep the corpse from making too much noise as it fell over.
(Ew.)
Having shot the guard from basically point blank range, Lisa couldn't avoid a little high velocity blood spatter as the subsonic bullets passed into the guard's skull, bounced around but didn't leave. Still, Lisa wasn't really that concerned about it, even though this was the first time she took the life of another person. Extinguishing the lantern after hiding the guard in a quiet corner of the warehouse, Lisa was about to move on when she heard approaching footsteps.
"Hey Will! We're increasing patrols so you need to return! Will! I know you're in here!"
(... Of course.)
Disappearing back into the shadows as she complained about the arrival of a second guard, Lisa wasn't aware that she used magic to blend in with the shadows, but it nevertheless helped her hide.
"Will! You better not be sleeping again!"
Figuring his buddy might have snuck off to sleep again, the guard became seriously annoyed as he started searching the warehouse. The warehouse, used to store feed of such low quality that it was only used for slaves, was well kept, but the feed itself still wasn't pleasant to be around.
"I swear to god Will…"
The guard's buddy, Will, had grown up around livestock so he had no trouble with the smell and often used this to his advantage so he could slack off.
"Damn, why does it have to stink so fucking much…"
Walking around still without much of a care, the guard raised his lantern when he saw something out of the corner of his eye.
"Boo."
"Eh-"
(2… 1… Goodbye.)
Casually counting down as he saw the life drain out of the guard he had just stabbed in the throat, Tom slowly set the guard's corpse down and wiped off the blood spatter covering his eyes so he could see again.
"Hmm."
Hearing the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps, Tom drew his pistol and started moving. There was no time to hide the corpse or clean up the blood spatter, so he needed to create even more.
"Wha!-"
"Fuck!"
With both of the guards alerted they tried to draw their swords at the same time, but Tom was faster. Placing a two round burst in the head of the furthest guard, Tom charged the closest and placed a few shots in his chest.
"Gha!-"
Although it was a two round, armour piercing burst the MPX-11A2 had specifically designed to execute, it was firing subsonic ammunition through a suppressor, so the two bullets only partially penetrated the guard's plate and chainmail armour.
Still, it created enough of a gap for Tom to exploit.
(Goodnight.)
Slicing clean though the guard's windpipe and even part of his spine, Tom almost severed his head outright so he didn't bother grabbing him when he fell.
"Outer cordon cleared, move to secure VIP's, I'll deal with the HVT's, objective charlie and omega. 1-1-2 deployment, ROE and doctrine still stands; stay sharp."
[Roger.]