Walker seemed to be quite cautious when creating people around him.
Isabel was a young child.
If someone were to take her and interrogate her about herself, she would likely spill everything without a lie in mind.
Ayla judged that if Walker had been this thorough, the likelihood of him belonging to any organization was low.
“To catch the one who ran away, we’ll eventually have to track again….”
In that moment, Ayla looked at me.
“Ririan, you saw Walker’s appearance clearly earlier, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then you can use it? Tracking.”
At those words, I gasped in surprise.
Tracking magic had one condition.
A face known only from a photo was of no help, and I needed to see the person I was trying to find with my own eyes.
Additionally, excluding the sharing of vision through tracking magic was necessary.
With nothing to lose, I decided to give the tracking magic a try.
“That won’t work.”
“What? Why not?”
“I’ve set up interference magic.”
If Ronan employed wizards to track him, his location would surely be exposed.
It wouldn’t be possible that he hadn’t met someone capable of using magic while working in the palace.
Walker must have been desperately looking for a way to evade tracking magic.
At that moment, he likely realized Isabel had magical abilities and utilized that.
“Can’t you dispel it?”
“No, I can’t. I set it to wear off after a while.”
“How long until it wears off?”
“About a month.”
There was no guarantee that Walker would stay in Sevilla for a month.
Since he had already been discovered by us, he might have left the city.
“In a month’s time, wouldn’t he find another wizard and get another interference magic?”
“That’s possible.”
Ayla suggested that we should visit Roxi.
This time, we went directly to Roxi’s house, not to a tavern.
Since it was daytime, Roxi was still asleep.
When Ayla woke her up, Roxi buried her face in Ayla’s chest with a drowsy expression.
“Get off!”
“I just fell asleep….”
Roxi yawned widely and came out to the living room, lazily sitting in front of the table.
We sat opposite her and began our conversation.
“This request is impossible to solve. It’s taking too long.”
“Excuse me?”
We told Roxi about our encounter with Walker.
“It was indeed too much to handle alone.”
“If she hadn’t run away, we would have caught her.”
“You know how to use magic, right?”
Ayla could certainly handle mana.
But she had never used her magic, claiming there were issues with it.
“It’s practically useless anyway. In any case, I don’t think this request can be handled individually.”
“That’s right. Captain Python was also planning to assemble a small elite team.”
In the end, they had given us a request that was impossible to complete alone from the very beginning.
“They’re probably forming a team by now.”
“You guys, don’t tell me….”
“But we’ve provided a sufficient case.”
I never imagined that the money given to us on the day we first met had that significance.
Python used Ayla as bait to draw Walker out.
People around him had their faces known to Walker and couldn’t be used as bait.
I didn’t know how far he had thought ahead, but he must have prepared for the eventuality of a failure on Ayla’s part.
And now that eventuality had occurred, and they were already moving.
“Have you been watching us?”
“Yes. I observed for a while.”
“What will happen to Walker now?”
“Although Captain Python wasn’t pleased, it seems the case will be handed over to the Intelligence Department.”
Having already failed a tracking attempt, it seemed Python had decided to leave the job to the Intelligence Department despite his pride.
“But you missed him yesterday, how will you track now?”
“To be honest, I don’t know. An agent from the Intelligence Department came to see me last night.”
They got to Roxi before us, gathering general information about Walker.
It was a mystery how the Intelligence Department even knew to come for her.
“I’ve personally done a bit of investigation on the Intelligence Department.”
“Did you find out something?”
“Just a few things.”
Roxi shared with us what she had learned about the Intelligence Department.
Listening to her, it seemed the Department held power much greater than expected.
The most surprising aspect was that they could investigate even the Emperor.
Of course, the Emperor had the right to refuse that investigation.
In other words, it meant they could investigate everyone except the Emperor if necessary.
“And surprisingly, the number of people in the Intelligence Department isn’t that large.”
“A small number?”
“No, it’s an organization after all. But compared to other organizations, it seems fewer in number.”
Roxi added that this was merely her speculation.
The exact scale or number of personnel was something Roxi couldn’t uncover on her own.
Since it was a secretive organization operating within Ronan, many people were unaware of its existence.
Their power alone seemed capable of changing the Emperor.
Yet, they silently continued to handle their own affairs.
“Isn’t the Emperor running the Intelligence Department?”
“Rather, the Emperor seems to want to know more about its true nature.”
What was certain is that it was not an organization that could be commanded like the Emperor’s personal henchmen.
“Well, either way, it’s not inconsiderable.”
Although a secretive organization hidden behind all sorts of mysteries, it was not an enemy but an ally.
For us, it was a very reassuring ally.
“So, Walker’s dead now.”
“That’s likely. The Intelligence Department is also scattered throughout Latnia.”
This meant the request had effectively come to an end.
Leaving Roxi’s house and heading back to our lodgings.
“In the end, we played the role of bait.”
“Well, at least we received payment.”
Having concluded the discussion with Python, Roxi handed us the reward for the request.
The hefty pouch was filled with gold coins.
“What shall we do about that child now?”
“We have no more information to extract, so we should just let her go.”
Upon reaching our lodgings, we found a crowd gathered around.
Bang!
With an explosion sound, part of the lodging had been severely damaged.
The one who had come flying out of the building was none other than Isabel.
She was fighting against several masked assailants who had their faces covered.
The assailants wielded their weapons without caring about the bystanders around them.
As a result, onlookers fled in panic.
“Did the master send you?”
“Master? Ah, our captain? Right. Now you’re useless.”
Isabel gazed at the assailants with an unchanged expression.
“If you all want to die, go ahead and do it.”
“Can’t you see this?”
An assailant pulled out a gun and aimed it at Isabel.
“Does it hurt a lot if it hits? Ah, have you already felt it a couple of times?”
“Shut, get lost.”
“Sorry, but that’s not possible.”
Isabel’s entire body began to tremble like a aspen tree.
“I’ll make it easy for you to die, so put down the knife and come over here.”
Clatter!
Isabel dropped her sword with immense ease.
“Good, that’s right.”
“Stop!”
Unable to hold back, Ayla and I shouted at the assailants.
“Oh ho. Today is my lucky day. The targets have all gathered in one place.”
The gun-wielding assailant smiled and gestured to his companions surrounding him.
“Kill them. If you take their heads, you’ll receive a huge bounty.”
The mana around the assailants’ weapons began to condense.
“Are they all mana swordsmen?”
In the mix, there were also those wielding spears instead of swords.
What was clear was that they were well-trained elites.
Whoosh!
I dodged the attacks of the assailants charging with drawn swords.
Against an opponent who could handle mana, magic wouldn’t be much of a threat.
I learned through Isabel that once one reaches the level of mana swordsman, a certain resistance to magic develops.
I threw a dagger aiming for the gun-wielding assailant.
He easily parried my dagger, but the dagger had a thread of mana attached.
When it bounced back towards him, the assailant, surprised, threw himself to dodge the dagger.
“Damn.”
They each intertwined flames and water around their weapons, attempting their attacks.
Every time they swung their swords, flames shot out, and sharp currents of water flew menacingly.
Even Ayla was having quite the difficulty against their magic-infused attacks.
With a flash of light, she struck down lightning on the assailants.
One of them screamed in agony and fell, seemingly hit hard.
“Got one.”
“A sorceress who uses lightning magic?”
One of the assailants shrank back, surprised.
No matter how different their training was, when it came to magic, it wouldn’t differ greatly.
Fire and ice type spells were the most basic of the basics.
Though their power wasn’t to be underestimated, the difficulty of manipulation was indeed much higher with lightning.
“Don’t be scared! Lightning is no big deal!”
“Really?”
I hadn’t even used my full power with magic yet.
Dropping proper lightning on the writhing enemy on the ground.
Crack! Boom!
“So, who’s next?”
“Uwaaaaa!”
An assailant wielding a spear charged with a shriek.
“Web.”
The assailant’s spear completely froze in front of my forehead.
“What, what’s happening!”
“Stab each other!”
Manipulating the spear, I aimed it at one of the assailants.
If I released it from my hand, he would be freed, but the assailant stubbornly held on to his spear, ultimately stabbing his own companion.
The assailant, caught in the web of mana I had spread around, seemed to faint from the mental shock.
“Who the hell is she!”
I tried to connect mana to the bodies of the assailants to strangle them instantly, but for some reason, it didn’t work well.
Some resisted, while others simply fainted.
The techniques I learned from Alium didn’t seem to work on them.
It was surprising that those who could resist the technique that would instantly kill demons, but at least I managed to take care of all the assailants.
The only one left was the gun-wielding assailant.
“D-Don’t come near! I’ll shoot!”
“I’m not going. I’ll shoot too.”
I drew a gun from my waist and aimed it at him.
“T-That….”
“Good night. We’ll see each other again when you wake up.”
The shot rang out, and Ayla and I collected Isabel and escaped from the scene.
“So, you came here?”
“The lodging was destroyed.”
In this city, the only person we knew was Roxi.
We could leave the city immediately, but we had been attacked.
“Gather some people.”
“What are you going to do?”
Ayla replied with an expression filled with rage.
“I’m going to get rid of them.”
“Calm down. Don’t you have mana swordsmen as subordinates?”
Roxi started to calmly persuade Ayla.
“How many are going to go in and what do you plan to do? Are you going to go around exposing that you’re a beastkin?”
Hiding her ears and tail to conceal her identity would reduce Ayla’s combat ability somewhat.
Even if the opponent was a mana swordsman, Ayla could certainly compete in combat mode, but there was a problem.
If she was discovered, it could lead to quite the troublesome situation.
Being undercover in Latnia and going around openly was like asking to be caught.
