A New Star Chapter 72 (Patreon)

"So, go over this again for me,” I said, setting down some papers and looking at the other three. Lester had brought the twins and met me at the Count’s house, where I was using his parlor to go over my business.

“Your actions in cleaning up the gang that was handling the necrotic artifacts and had the lich controlling the capital operations really sent shock waves through the underground,” Lester explained. “A lot of criminal organizations went to ground and more move operations to more remote areas or other cities until the heat died down. The whole thing being wrapped up in the assassination attempt on the prince didn’t help anything at all, either. What we’ve seen over the last six months is a dramatic uptick in crime and movements by criminal elements in the capital.”

“The rats always come running back to the biggest cheese,” I said with a snort. “There’s no way to keep them away from such a prosperous city. I take it that’s starting to take away the competitive edge we had for a time?”

“That’s exactly right,” Lester said, nodding strongly. “Robin was able to practically take over part of the warehouse district for her smuggling operations and the goods and products coming in from Pietr were selling as fast as they could be transported. Robin operated much more stealthily than the others that had been occupying the area and many of the guards were happy to glance a different direction for a few silver coins. That’s all changing now as other groups start to ramp up their activities.”

“So, we’re not always being directly threatened, but the increased activity is starting to indirectly bite us in the ass as enforcement becomes stricter?” I said, framing it as a slight question.

“Basically got it,” Lester said. “You set back the group that was using the lich by quite a bit, and it looks like they haven’t been able to reset since then, but they’re certainly not entirely gone. We’ve found traces of their activities in the last few months, though they’re laying very low. We know, from the little we had access to of the investigation, that they were being run by a group outside of the capital, likely based in the eastern empire, and that their operation here was smaller than what they have elsewhere.”

“An assassination attempt that caused chaos in the streets was small?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“In the grand scheme of things,” Lester said, nodding in affirmation. “The amount of product they were moving wasn’t all that great, despite its…questionable nature, and they made sure to keep things carefully contained. Well, maybe not careful enough once you were involved, but they really did operate in a low-key manner up until that point. Even the assassination attempt was only a small thing, the guards around the prince easily taking care of it. Even for something that caused at big stir on the streets, it wasn’t all that great, as the regular city guard and common adventurers mopped that up in just a handful of minutes.”

“I see,” I said, reading through what they had provided. “Okay, very well, let’s do this then; I want you to recruit five more people. I want quality over quantity; if they haven’t reached G-rank, I’m not interested, not unless they are somehow the very best of the best. Ranks can be raised, but I don’t want an army. I want a small, elite, powerful team of focused warriors and mages that are able to do reconnaissance and surveillance without getting caught. Further, I’m looking to put together a team that can keep up with me, whether that means running around the Settled Lands doing dungeons and taking care of problems, or exploring the Untamed Wilds, including extremely dangerous locations. Skill, knowledge, grit, and tenacity are all important.”

“There are a few avenues I can look into,” Lester said, blinking a bit as he registered everything I had said.

“The Untamed Wilds will draw more interest than anything else,” said Kat, one of the two twins. I was able to tell them apart fairly well, but Lester had admitted to me that he sometimes grew confused if they weren’t using their affinities. The two were tall, thin, with elven features, though they lacked the longer, pointed ears of elven kind. Their background was a bit of a mystery, but Lester had gone through an extensive checking process and vouched for them. Besides, they displayed that rare quality that was most sought after everywhere: competence.

“That’s right,” said Cat. Even their names were confusing, though one was Katie and one was Catherine. “People are always interested in exploring the Wilds.”

“Then why aren’t they?” I challenged with a raised brow.

“Time, money, danger,” Kat listed off. “People want to do it, but it’s just a dream. They’re not strong enough to deal with the dangers and pitfalls that expeditions always run into. It also takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money to set up an expedition, and if it doesn’t do well, then you can be out on the street.”

It was always amusing for me to hear about the Untamed Wilds from other people. I had explored more of that place than a vast majority of adventurers and fighters living in the Settled Lands, and the way they spoke of it in hushed tones was amusing. It also was always strange that everyone was so focused on expeditions; I suppose safety in numbers was a thing, and most wouldn’t have the kind of affinities I had that allowed me to easily bypass or escape many dangers with little effort, but I always thought the place was mythologized a bit too much. Anybody could head up and explore at least the outer fringes, and there were plenty of rewards for doing so. It came down to safety, in the end, and perceived ideas of safety. People didn’t want to risk it, not when the Settled Lands had so much to offer, including many dungeons and special instances that, while dangerous, were much more well-known than the randomness of the Untamed Wilds.

“That’s fine,” I said, “but we’re not going to just take anybody off the street. People can get excited about the Wilds and try to join with us, but they still have to demonstrate competence and skill to even be considered. Loyalty is also important, and that’s not something that comes easily or quickly; we will have to be careful in these decisions.”

I gave Lester a look, as this was also a slight hint to him, considering he had already recruited two people into the operation. He seemed to get the signals I was blasting him with with my eyes and gave me a very subtle nod, enough that I don’t know that the twins caught it. Well, it was going to be Lester working with this people for now, and even into the future, and he was also the one who would conceivably be in danger. A sleeper agent that was immensely powerful was always a worry, something I had had to contend with a few times in my last life, but they were less a problem than most people thought. They were just too obvious, no matter how they tried to disguise themselves, and the damage they did was often very limited, even in targeting command structures. Also, not to toot my own horn here, but I wasn’t in that much danger overall. These girls were currently F-rank, below what I had just set as my minimum, though they were Lester’s responsibility; I wasn’t going to cut them loose just based on that one requirement. Still, them fighting against me, not even including the literal godly relic I had hovering around me in a separate space at all times, was a bit like a sparrow fighting an elephant; not an even match.

That was likely how things were to go for a while, so I left the thoughts and discussion of recruiting to the side for now. I inquired a bit more about the gang and criminal activity in the capital, verifying the report Lester had delivered, cleaned of any references to our own activities. If anyone got their hands on his documents, it would just look like an investigation into crime in the capital done by someone with a professional interest, in the manner that a private investigator or an investigator with the city guard might do. I wanted to make sure there was as little of a paper trail as possible for our activities with Robin; what she documented and how, I couldn’t really control, but we did have any paperwork we sent them or put our names to. Anything they had were things they wrote down and only they attested to, which would be much weaker evidence than if we had produced anything and given to them. Even receipts and bills of lading were done by them or relayed simply by discussion; a paper trail in this day and age would be a killer, but without papers with our writing our signatures on, it would be much, much harder for the authorities to do anything to us if Robin or Pietr got taken down. Not that I was all that worried about Pietr; no, our weak link was Robin, who moved between cities and worked out of cities I didn’t have control over. Pietr work only in and around Umberton and I could cover for him there; people still remembered me pinning Robert to the tree in the center of the square and the mayor’s death, though rumor had exaggerated the second event to be of the same level as the first, with me storming the mayor’s office and skewering then and there.

“That’s all for now,” I said, dismissing them. “I will want to speak with you after this dungeon delve, but I don’t need anything today or tomorrow.”

“Dungeon delve?” asked Kat.

“Yes,” I replied with a heavy sigh. “I agreed, for reasons I can’t even fathom, to go babysit a bunch of academy graduates on a fresh dungeon delve. It will be immensely tedious, I am sure, but I agreed to it and I will stick by my word. Continue to investigate the activities and pay particular attention to the group that had the lich. I am quite sure we haven’t seen the last of them.”

“Understood,” Lester said, rising and bowing before shooing the other two out of the room.

I organized the papers Lester had brought me, skimming them again quickly before taking them up and putting them in a drawer in my room in the Count’s manor. I was borrowing a guest room on the third floor this time, and I proceeded to bath and change before getting ready for bed. I had an early appointment tomorrow, as well as some other business I needed to take care of before this dungeon delve got underway and I wanted to be well rested.

Such hopes were in vain, however, as it seemed the capital always had something terrible and yet droll cooked up for when I was here. About an hour after I hand shut off the mana powered lights in the room and gone to bed when I woke again with a slight start, though I didn’t move or even change my breathing pattern. I continued the slow, steady breathing of sleep while focusing all my attention on the space around me in the room. Others might have missed the subtle signs, but I knew someone had breached the space, rather impressive considering the Count did have wards on the building. They weren’t quite as good as I was, especially considering they had had to briefly open the window to enter the room, but they were still damned good. I waited, tracking their movements by their heartbeat and the very faint sound of their breathing; whoever this was, if I didn’t have a tier seven body that enhanced my senses far beyond that of other people, they would have been entirely undetectable. They didn’t seek to attack me immediately, but instead moved around the room, scanning and checking things, including making sure the door was locked. I had no idea how that was going to help; if they didn’t kill me with the first strike, which they wouldn’t, a locked door wasn’t going to stop the Count or the Silver Lady from entering the room. A concrete wall with wards on wouldn’t even slow either of them down, so why the door being locked mattered was rather puzzling.

After whatever this fool was up to, taking far too long, they finally decided to make their move. I waited patiently, or as patiently as I could; seriously, this clown would have gotten caught if they went on a night raid in any other estate and took this long. The Count had far fewer wards and internal security than most places, and no guards to speak of; after all, why would he? Who would attack a Y-ranker in his own home? Any other manor or estate of a wealthy, powerful, well-connected noble or rich merchant would have so much security, not to mention powerful guards, that this doofus would have been tagged, bagged, and off to a shallow grave five minutes ago. They had been being overly cautious and, while I could commend a cautious air in an assassin, this was a bit ridiculous; just thank the heavens that they decided to finally go in for the strike.

And what a strike it was! So sloppy I had to actually restrain myself from laughing before I defended myself; the rube had spent all that time and preparation and then they paused beside the bed and raise a knife—a regular knife, can one even believe it?—over their head and thrust down with what must have seemed a fast and powerful blow. I had intended to activate many affinities and make great use of my tier seven body to explode with power, but I threw all that out the window on witnessing this strike. Instead, I timed it so that as the knife came within a few millimeters of hitting me, I slid back into The Dark, falling away from the blow and through the bed. I could move however I wished in The Dark and did so, looping around where the assassin stood and springing up behind them, reappearing in the room after only a fraction of a second had passed. I grabbed the would-be assassin in a sleeper hold and choked them out, assisted by only a little burst of lightning sent directly into their brain. I was no neurosurgeon, of course, but I knew enough about the brain and its functions to be able to knock someone a bit loopy with the proper dose of electricity. It helped that magic was, well, magical in nature and could do things a little outside the regular laws of physics; the blast should have scrambled their brains like beaten eggs, but instead just helped me take them down with very minimal muss and fuss.

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