“Are there any injured?” Lisa asked while jumping inside, looking around to see if anyone looked injured.
“Nothing that healing magic couldn’t deal with. How did you know we were under attack?” Cain asked as he didn’t want them to keep him under surveillance, if it seems that they are, he will immediately abandon the mansion as carrying his experiments will be dangerous.
“We spotted them as they entered the city, we were lucky to be scouting this night,” Lisa replied, Cain, lifted an eyebrow at her as he smelled something fishy. As far as he knows, Luck isn’t something people like her should account for.
“Let’s get a room so we can speak freely, It seemed that we caught four of them alive.” Lisa smiled at his words, she couldn’t ask for more than that.
They quickly headed to Yamauba who were guarding the three sleeping assassins. “Ara, another one?” She said pointing her staff at Lisa.
“Please don’t joke like that, you know she isn’t one of them!” Cain said as he pushed Yamauba’s staff down with his left hand.
“Three men and a woman, those are our prisoners. I will be taking them for interrogation.” Lisa said as she signaled to her men to carry them away.
“Can’t let you do that.” Cain held her hand, “They stay here…” Cain was still very sore, his body can’t handle severe movement and even his MP was almost drained to 0 by Alice before, he even used what little he regenerated to cast [Animate dead] which he disabled when the fight ended. 25/720
Seeing how unsteady his breathing was and that the mage in her squad didn’t warn her about him (They couldn’t sense that high pressure he was emitting the last time he was in the lord mansion which suggested he was weaker now) “Can you even fight in your condition?” Lisa asked as she pulled her silver dagger, it glowed like the moonlight coming from the window reflect on its surface.
Cain can’t let them treat him like that, what he wants is to be seen as an equal at least. They can’t just come later like that and then take all the evidence. If Ourals lord wants the dungeon core that badly it means there was something bigger on the move as dungeon cores had only three purposes. MP source to fuel magic items. Level up dungeons that haven’t broken yet, and spawn a new one of an ample amount of Dungeon cores were collected.
Cain needs to be involved as he is having a bad feeling about this whole thing.
Enchanting only works on non-living objects, the simpler effects were cheap and could only consume as low as 2 MP. He might not be able to fight but should be able to bluff at least.
“Can’t be sure about that!” [Enchanting: Light] Cain enchanted the parts inside him that were killed by the curse. Every dead tissue inside him glowed brightly causing his body to glow red from the inside. 15/720
Lisa quickly backed down as she could see Cain’s bones from under his flesh, “Seventh-tier magic: Light judgment. Your skill or my magic, let’s see who will die first!” Cain said with faked confidence. ‘Please fall for it, Please fall for it!’
“Can you two please stop?” Alice screamed as she got in between them.
Lisa simply looked at her, thinking about what she should do.
“Ma’am. We should probably retreat.” One of the assassins whispered to Lisa, as she followed his eyesight she could see two glowing golden eyes prowl in the darkness. A faint growl was heard.
Yamauba was just sitting there watching, she could tell that Cain was bluffing. She could tell how weak the magic he was using, the inexperienced assassins couldn’t tell if he was weak or just hiding his power.
Finally, she put her dagger back, Lisa was ready to negotiate as it was stupid to fight against her stepdaughter’s husband when there is no real reason for that.
“Let’s divide them, I will take two and leave two for you,” Lisa suggested expecting that Cain will want to take them all.
Clap! Cain clapped his hands as he turned off his magic, “Deal!” He smiled, all he needed was one of them but having two won’t hurt.
Lisa blinked rapidly trying to understand what Cain just said, he was okay with her taking half of them? Alice’s face also relaxed when he released his magic so he must have been serious about his threat.
Alice was relieved that Cain isn’t going to push himself more than he should, as she was a devil contracted to him, she could feel his MP Almost drained to 0 and was worried he might collapse again.
“I will take care of clearing the corpses, do you have a problem with that?” Lisa suggested looking at Cain.
“Is killing like that Ok, I’m pretty sure it should be a problem,” Cain asked another important question. You can’t just kill someone who entered your house, especially if they belonged to someone like a city lord.
“In a normal case, you will be questioned and interrogated to know the reasons for the attack. But… Alice is involved.” Lisa covered her face with her hand as she thought about how William will react to this. “William would have killed them just for the fact they entered his daughter’s house, there shouldn’t have a problem with you for killing them, and on the contrary, he might start to like you even more.”
Each lord seems to have an assassin squad that he uses for collecting information and killing rival nobles, mostly doing the dirty work for them to keep the public image clean. Lisa was the leader of William’s squad.
They didn’t have a name, some lords call them assassins, some call them cleaners, and some even put them as a special force. Cain was sure of one thing, they were efficient cleaners as it only took them an hour to clean all the mess and leave with two prisoners.
Cain stared at the two left there, Lisa took two men and left him with the other two. His body was starting to feel weak and light so he sat on the couch.
“What do you intend to do with them?” Yamauba asked as she felt her spell almost end.
“I’m exhausted now, please throw them in the basement until tomorrow.” He could feel his eyes closing on their own, now that he relaxed everything came crashing back.
“Cain?…CAIN!” Alice screamed as she saw him faint on the couch.
…
Yamauba stood in shock as she saw Cain’s head tilted to the side. Alice who was there also came rushing to check on him. His temperature was rising again, Yamauba quickly checked his vitals before he became too hot and they were stable, he was just asleep.
“Takeshi, Carry those two and throw them in the basement, Daraku you also go with him and make sure they are well tied!” Yamauba shouted as she took Cain’s shirt off.
“You call the maids back, I don’t care if they are traumatized by what just happened. If they can move then have them cool him again.” Yamauba did have a hunch about what was happening inside Cain’s body. The curse weakened him to the point he can’t contain both his MP and MP regeneration so his temperature will rise when his MP is full and when he is asleep and regenerating it.
“We need to make sure he is out of MP or at least keep it low!” She told Alice who quickly went to grab the maids, they were a bit terrified but it wasn’t something that Gracie couldn’t convince them to forget.
“Move!” That was the only word Gracie said to them. Alice and Sofia who were carrying him back to his room thought that wouldn’t be enough until one of the maids stood up and said something strange.
“We’re counting on you covering for us in the future.” To her words, Gracie just nodded. Seeing her response the maids got excited and rushed back to work.
The night got long as the maids scrambled to keep Cain’s temperature low, they were stuck in a never-ending cycle between him regenerating MP and heating up when it start getting high.
In the morning, Cain woke up to a strange scene, He was lying naked in a wooden bathtub in his room with Sofia asleep by his side. Selena was asleep on the bed with the room being a total mess.
Cain slowly got out of the water, he could barely stand with his shaking knees so he checked his stats. His strength has dropped to 6 and his constitution has dropped to 7. This was his last day of being able to move normally.
The door suddenly opened and Gracie entered, it was the first time her face showed any change. She had black marks under her eyes and her hair was messy, even her head hung a bit low as she could barely keep her eyes open anymore.
What had happened last night?