There's only a certain amount of things you can get from a place after seven months.
Unfortunately the same goes for the place you come to six months too late.
After walking about a third of the city in a circle, we found ourselves at a ruined building.
It's rather hard to call an empty space with a few fallen off boards nearby a ruined building.
A mud golem appeared directly inside, luckily there was no one in the building, and after the first incident it was dealt with pretty quickly.
Small signs of destruction on the street nearby, but all the parts that made up the golem had already been taken away.
The last place was a small square with a fountain decorated with an impressive statue from which water was supposed to flow. Now only half of it remained.
Like most of the benches that were now upside down or broken in half.
There are still traces of spilled blood on the white pavement.
It was a two-headed wolf.
Rather remarkably compared to the first place, all of the following beasts were not as much of a threat.
I wouldn't even say they were much different from normal beasts, yes the aether made them a little faster and more dangerous, but that was it.
Even the average person could handle them under the right conditions.
So what's the point of all of this?
And why of all the places in the city, exactly these three?
What would I do if I ever needed to do something like this?
If I did decide to use one of those old relics despite the drawback that it causes. And they always have a drawback unlike today's artifacts.
There was a relic that fell into the hands of a certain nobleman that allowed one to see a day into the future in exchange for the eyes of the beholder. It's not hard to guess what happened next.
But watching afterward dozens of people without sight was utterly harrowing.
But I heard that this nobleman eventually got what he deserved, for the wrong reason but still, before he died, he saw all the things that would happen to him in the next twenty-four hours and went mad.
The relic was destroyed, which took some time. After all, it's not all that simple here either, there is only one correct way to destroy a relic without causing a backlash.
That all goes with the assumption that there is still a relic involved here, with a minor drawback and a lot of restrictions.
Some of which, is only being able to use once a month, and having to use three times before being able to break through to the next layer of defense.
And it looks like I'll still end up with migraine constantly crossing borders, ordinary people wouldn't feel anything doing so, they wouldn't feel slight change in aether, but I train myself to notice such things in exchange for a small side effect in the form of a slight headache every time I move into an area with any measures of control in the aether.
When people put up a sign dividing the city into circles it's more annoying than helpful.
But back to the main point, I was given a relic and for some reason forced with its help to go all the way to the towers, and this is after the one and only time when in the past when things had changed in a similar way, and because of those changes followed a catastrophic failure with the attempt to capture target alive.
For one, I wouldn't be anywhere near all the commotion, just one person bumping into you would be enough to ruin everything, and with all the open space even for a shadow, there's too much chance of you being spotted accidentally.
I'm not allowed to use a single drop of aether, so I can't be traced.
I've also managed to piss off all the strong individuals that are currently in the city, and yet I'm not strong enough to deal with them on my own or to make myself noticeable enough, so I need a strong enough support that will provide all the resources and capabilities to survive the consequences of something like this.
This is more suited to the work of a group of people than a single person.
And even so, night hangings don't really fit in here, assuming it's the work of the same people.
And that's if it's even made by humans with a little help, rather than the old ruins under the city that are now slowly flooding it with beasts.
If that's the case, then in any scenario independent of anything else, it will always come down to the need to get into the city and sneak a relic inside.
And remain inside undetected for the whole time.
And that's where it's impossible not to leave traces, the only thing you can do is know where to leave them and control where they will lead.
Anyway, full-fledged investigation is not my strongest point, but finding a small group of people in a city of millions is going to be noticeably easier.
I should probably start by visiting at least a couple of the people who run the underside of this city tonight.
Otherwise, it's all getting too much like extremely creepy sightseeing.
In all that time of intense thinking and while we were walking from one place to another, it was already evening.
Right now, Aphelia is standing in a fountain that's completely out of water, and I'm lying on one of the few remaining benches, basking in the rays of the setting sun.
With my eyes closed and my hands under my head, it was an extremely calming process.
Until the unpleasant thoughts began to appear, like how did I get to this point? The surface part is pretty clear: all those hours spent sitting motionless in the branches of trees with a bow in my hand were destined to change my judgment of an enjoyable pastime.
The deeper part of the question made me look back on a not-so-pleasant fourteen years I spent in this world.
However, if I take them all into account, I have no other choice but to admit that my current condition is close to the ideal I could ever hope for.
And this line of thought was interrupted by the sound of footsteps in my direction, surprisingly, but contrary to my expectations, she didn't seem at all annoyed by the lack of any visible help from me.
That smile on her face is starting to scare me a little, though.
"I think that's all we can look over for the day, it's time to go back."
Even if she did say that, the path we're on now doesn't look much like the road to the hotel.
In fact, I get the feeling she's purposely choosing the most remote alleys, but to what end?
"Local help would be extremely appropriate." Aphelia said. "But as we walked through all these places all day, the only people we encountered immediately turned the other direction."
I know where this is going.
Aphelia continued. "So I thought a little help from the less well behaved part would do the job too." She turned to me with a smile. "Right now, I'm an absolutely charming and noticeably rich lady walking through the quiet remote alleys of the outer circle in the evening. Someone is clearly bound to show up."
Even if it was all true.
"You forgot to add that you're also strong enough to kill anyone here with the snap of a finger. People here have enough self-preservation instincts to not risk their lives for some phantom profit."
What a terrible time I chose to say that.
Her smile grew wider.
Judging by the shadows, there are fourteen people coming our way, six in the back and eight in the front.
Aphelia simply walked over and leaned her back against the wall with the same unfading smile.
I might as well follow her lead. It'll be about thirty seconds before they get here.
The first to step forward was the burly man at the front, strutting around the center like a peacock and tapping a rusty pipe against his palm.
"Well, well, well, I see some rich folks got lost in our decent neighborhood." A grin appeared on his face as all of his henchmen came out from different directions. "You may not have heard, but it's customary for us to pay to pass through this street, say, give all you have and no one gets hurt."
It took all my willpower not to laugh at that.
Aphelia was not so composed, as soon as he finished his sentence her melodious laughter could be heard throughout the alley.
After a second, tears came out of her eyes.
"What's so funny?" The thug's face took on a more tense look, as did all of his lackeys present.
Aphelia wiping tears from her eyes said. "You see, I've always wondered what it was like to be robbed, but let's better talk about what happened here around six months ago."
Saying this she ran her finger in a straight line and the leader had a wound formed under his eye from which blood flowed.
He held up two fingers, then brought them up to his eyes.
Ugh, I hate running.
"RUNN!!"
It didn't take a second for them all to scatter in different directions.
It won't be much of a problem catching up to the leader, but still.
To my delight, Aphelia, still overwhelmed with joy, simply raised her hand. "There's no need for that, I won't have any trouble determining where their hideout is by the blood he leaves behind."
She led me through the interwoven maze of streets with a calm pace.
That's actually one of the reasons why shadows are so feared. The only reason why she was able to inflict such a wound was because the other side didn't have a core and aether to protect himself, but even if he did, in my case I would still be able to control his shadow. Aether can only protect the body, soul and mind. Nothing more, nothing less.