"We're clear."
Finally breathing a sigh of relief as the guards left, Tom lowered his pistol as he spoke up to Lisa and the beastkin.
"What did you do just now?"
Understanding that the explosions from before was her teacher's doing, Lisa wanted to know what had just happened as it could spell more trouble for them down the line.
"I detonated all remaining buried Wasp's and their caches. Its standard USIE doctrine to 'clean up' when leaving an operations area so leftover munitions and equipment doesn't fall into the hands of the enemy."
Like he said, the multiple detonations had come from the countless launch sites Lisa and Tom had set up before infiltrating the city of Delth, along with a few IDEs they could have used to cover a potentially hot exfiltration.
"The guards will be whipped into an even greater frenzy as they'll be forced to do even more overtime than they're already doing, and our antagonist will realise we've already left this city."
Tom hoped the increased stress and feint that he already skipped town would lead to the blockade of Delth being lifted so he could finally get the freed beastkin out and continue north to the capital and Lisa's mother.
-
"Good evening gent's, what's the current pot up to?"
Inside a smoke-filled lounge furnished in leather and mahogany furniture, a suit-clad young man with a cocky smile stepped up to a gambling table far above his stature.
"I don't think so, get lost kiddo."
(Not even a chance, huh… These are some tough customers.)
Inspecting the fat lords with their greedy smiles, the young man quickly figured out what their buttons were, and how he could repeatedly and easily press them to get what he wanted.
"Now, now~ Don't be like that~"
Taking a seat even though he had been denied, the young, smiling man was about to get kicked out of the establishment by a pair of rapidly approaching guards when he pulled out a bag of gold coins and placed it on the table.
"Guys, I just wanna play a few rounds, I won't ask any questions or be rude like that~"
Immediately seeing the lord's eyes glaze over with greed, the young suit-wearing man's smile became almost fox-like, but he quickly made sure to hide it as he started playing, purposely losing a large part of his coin at the start as he got the lords slowly drunk over the next few hours of drinks, smoke and disgusting small talk.
"So this fucking hoe continued screaming while I'm having the time of my life, but then when I lit a candle she was fucking bleeding all over the place! Any it turns out I-"
Doing his best to suppress any more of that story from registering in his head, the young man poured the double-chinned lord another drink as he laughed along with him and his buddies. By this time, the young man had won back a bit more than the coin he had started with and was on a roll apparent to anyone other than the lords he was drinking and laughing along with. As the night continued, the lords playing with the young man were slowly getting robbed blind without realising, although the surrounding tables and the dealer had long since noticed, none of them cared as the young man with the fox-like smile had already bribed them.
At the end of the night, the smiling young man went back to one of the lord's mansions to continue drinking and sampling some other 'delights' of the night. The mansion in question was 'just' a summer house in the capital as the lord's fief was far to the west, still it was still a 5 story estate with a full service staff and private guards.
"Welcome to my humble abode!~... Now, let's get some more to drink!"
Getting situated in the fourth floor lounge surrounded by extremely nervous looking maids and a few private guards, the young man and the fat lord continued to drink, laugh and talk for another hour until the lord suddenly seemed to sober up as a disgusting smile spread across his face.
"Well, it has been a great night Mister Samuel, please allow me to offer you some hospitality~"
Picking up a bell as a chill went through the maids, the fat lord rang the bell with a perverted smile on his face.
(... Are you fucking serious?)
As the maids lined up in front of the young man and the lord, some of them started visibly shaking, while others seemed to hold back tears.
"Please feel free to spend the night here~ Oh, and since I'm in such a generous mood I'll allow you first pick."
(... He is serious… Fuck.)
Figuring out what was going on, the young man struggled for a second not to let his real expression show as he hid it behind his usual fox-like smile.
"Well~ Since you're offering…. I'll take those two~"
Picking the two youngest look maids with an unbecoming smile on his face and cold eyes, the young man got yet another laugh from the fat lord.
"Two!? Ah, to be young again!~ Well then, I'll take you."
While the two maids the young man had picked were slightly shaking, the one the fat lord picked out started silently crying as she offered a curtsy and tried not to shake.
"Now then~ enjoy your night."
After the fat lord left with his victim for the night, the other maids seemed visibly relieved (save for the other two who had been picked) and quickly left, leaving just the young man, the pair of young maids and a few private guards.
(... Now for the hard part.)
Having already started to sober up, the young man still acted quite sloshed as he grabbed both of the remaining maids by their waists and shouted at one of the guards.
"Oi, show me to my fucking room already!"
"Yes, sir."
Getting led to his room by a single guard, the young man made sure to appear as disgusting as possible by grabbing the maids where you shouldn't grab someone you just met, smelling their necks along with other lowlife, ungentlemanly behaviour.
"Enjoy your night, just don't break the merchandise."
Bowing as he opened the door to the guest room, the guard left the young man to his business. The guest room was nearly fit for royalty, a king sized bed, immaculate furniture and a mana powered chandelier that illuminated it all. As soon as the door was closed, the young maids started undressing as they also couldn't keep it together anymore and silently started crying.
(Fuck… This'll get me killed some day.)
Seeing the maids were clearly forced into working like this, the young man finally let his mask slip as he focused his senses and made sure no one was listening nearby.
"Get to bed already."
"R-right."
"O-o-okay."
Hurrying the two maids onto the bed, he looked the two of them in their eyes for a few seconds before they collapsed and fell asleep.
"Hmm."
Stepping over next to the bed without making a single sound as his face turned completely cold, the young man stared at the two maids for about a minute to make sure they were sleeping deeply.
(Okay then…)
Covering the two sleeping maids with the duvet, the young man went back to the door and locked it before he took off his suit jacket and shut off the light. Still without making a single sound, he dug into the suit jacket's lining to reveal a hidden pocket. Extracting a thin, flexible piece of metal, the man took off his shoes and used the metal piece as a key to access a hidden compartment in the raised soles, finally extracting a pair of short knives with no guard and bare handles.
(The office must be on the fifth floor…)
Wrapping the bare knives in linen from another hidden pocket in his jacket, the young man left his jacket and shoes behind next to the bed with the sleeping maids as he went over to one of the 4 windows and tried to open it.
(Locked… Of course it is, because this job always fucking sucks.)
Finding the locking mechanism, the young man extracted a lockpick from the handle of one of his knives and quickly unlocked the window.
(There we go, I'm still the best there is~)
Making sure there were no guards outside to notice him opening the window, the young man climbed out of the window onto the exterior casing and located a gap in the outside brick wall that he stuck one of his knives into. Climbing onto the knife and reaching the fifth floor window, the young man retrieved his knife by grabbing it with his toes like he had done a million times before tossing it into the air. Watching the knife arch and glint as it reflected the moonlight while spinning, the young man caught it by the blade with his still somehow perfect teeth as he started picking open the window with his other knife. Once inside, he tried his best to ignore the screams of pain and anguish coming from next door in concert with lashes of a whip.
(That's not my job, that's not my job, that's my job-)
Drowning out the sounds coming from next door, the young man examined the unused bedroom he was inside, but didn't find any of the documents he was looking for.
(shit.)
Closing in on the door to the hallway, the young man listened for activity for a few minutes before he entered the hallway, breaking into a sprint down it without making a single sound.
(Office, office, office… There we are.)
Finding a locked pair of double doors, the young man easily picked the lock on the door open and entered silently.
(Jackpot.)
Finding the office already in disarray with documents spread all over the lord's desk, the young man started quickly scanning through them, finding no difficulty in reading the small font in the near pitch black.
(Hmm? What the hell is up with these troop movements?)
Finding something strange almost immediately, the young man stumbled on a report of troop movements. According to this, a significant number of border guards of the west fringe were being resigned to guard interior cities in the south.
(What the hell are they doing?... Guard duty and manhunt? They're pulling over 40.000 troops just for that?)
Finding answers to his initial questions, the young man was only more confused finding that all those troops were apparently being reassigned to protect the south against only a handful of rebels.
(Well I guess that's good news for me, slipping back across the border will be easy…)
Continuing to go through the documents related to the massive amount of troop assignments, the young man eventually found a name he recognised.
(... The fucking suppression unit!? What the fuck are they doing?)
Just reading the name of this genocidal unit which had long run rampant in his country, the young man felt his blood start to boil as he continued reading the report. Although it didn't state why, it seemed that a handful of rebels had infiltrated the kingdom from the south and were heading towards the capital, for some reason this warranted the reassignment of nearly 100.000 troops towards the south, as well as direct involvement of the suppression unit… All seemingly to stop only a handful of rebels.
(This doesn't make any sense… But it's still very useful for us.)
With significantly less troops moving around in the west, the young man and his acquaintances' movements would become significantly easier. Perhaps they could finally launch that rescue operation the old farts had been protesting against for so long.
(It might be worth it to find out exactly who these rebels are… After all; the enemy of my enemy might be my friend.)
Shelving that idea for the moment, the young man finished going through all relevant documents, even taking a few with him as his presence seemed to evaporate. The young man known as Samuel disappeared in the morning sunlight as that identity had served its purpose.