Godfather's System 230

The discovery of the potential hidden base threw into the mix another detail that needed to be considered, but coming to a decision was easy. Was trying to infiltrate their base without risk? No. But then, what I was trying to do was infiltration at a national espionage level. At this stage, nothing was without its risks.

And, I would prefer to infiltrate their real base rather than try to make contact with a potentially hostile asset under their direct control while they were trying to bait me.

Trying to use a disguise to sneak into town was tempting, but I would be willing to bet everything that they had at least a dozen agents whose sole task was to record any new arrivals. It was an obvious measure in a secret base established under a town in the middle of nowhere.

No. I needed to smuggle myself in.

The outer defenses of the town were negligible, which was likely by design. Such a town wouldn’t need — and couldn’t afford — any strong defenses. They had nothing other than a weak detection ward and a bunch of old guards patrolling lazily.

Most of the guards were actually as weak as they looked, reinforcing my conclusion that the town in general had no idea about the secrets hidden in its depths. But that didn’t make them any less dangerous, even when discounting the seasoned and high-level professionals mixed in their numbers.

For an infiltrator, idle gossip was just as deadly as deliberate observation.

I decided to target one of the carts the farmers had been pulling inside. The secrecy of the town was both their greatest advantage, and their most exploitable weakness. They couldn’t check every delivery obsessively without revealing that they were keeping some kind of secret.

I hid myself among the crates filled with food, and set up a small yet effective isolation ward that would trick almost all of the passive mana detection methods. It was impossible to sneak into a city with the same method, as the ward itself would have glowed like Christmas lights to their detection.

It was good to see my enemies struggle due to the drawbacks of anonymity.

The cart rolled into the town without any problem, until it got pulled next to a warehouse, which turned into my next hiding spot. A nice spot to hide and watch the heartbeat of the town like a ghost, memorizing patrols, marking which guards were ordinary people, and which were hidden agents.

Distinguishing them was easy, as it was hard for them to hide their predatory grace from my gaze. No matter what, there was a quiet intensity to their movement. I watched, silent and uncompromising, trying to discover where the entrance of their security lay.

It was near the broken dungeon. Well, what was supposed to be the broken dungeon. I didn’t need to check its structure to guess that they had created a secret floor in order to farm master skills, just like what we had back in Town Yoentia. Once I realized how easy it was to generate higher-quality skills, it was an easy connection to make.

With that, came a side mission. I wondered if I could get some more master skills to increase the variety of what we could generate.

As the day wore on, I did nothing but observe as the bored citizens of the dead town moved around idly, unaware of the secret hidden in their town…

Once I identified the general location of the base entrance, which was around the dungeon, I moved. It was a slow crawl, using roofs, abandoned alleys, and many other impediments to stay out of the view of the agents.

It was easier than it should have been, mostly because the agents that were mixed with the guards were not alert. Their attitude made it clear that it was not seen as an important mission, their successful concealment making it easy.

Their attitude itself was a valuable source of information. It was the boredom of a veteran who had been patrolling the same area for years, with nothing dangerous ever happening. Meaning, that the base had been here longer than what could be measured in mere months.

I wondered whether it had been years or decades. It wasn’t important for my current mission, but it might have important implications for the future.

However, once I reached the dungeon, I hit an unexpected snag. No matter how much I expanded my senses, I failed to find the entrance. The result didn’t change even when I took the risk cast a few spells, and failed to come up with anything.

“I need to cast a stronger detection spell,” I muttered, still in the warehouse. I had some suspicions that would make doing so dangerous, but a complicated spell was required. The problem wasn’t the spell itself, as not only were detection spells one of the aspects I had worked hard to develop, but also I had to discuss it with Zolast to further optimize it for the objective.

Unfortunately, no matter how much we worked, it was impossible to reduce the mana flare to below a certain point. No matter what, when I cast that spell, I would alert them.

Then, my gaze fell on a few people, carrying a crate full of mana crystals out of the dungeon, and I started planning an “accident”. The mana from my spell might be impossible to hide, but that didn’t necessarily mean it would be noticed. I could combust the mana crystals the guild members were carrying, and hide the spell in its flare.

Not entirely without risk, but it was better than returning empty-handed.

If I hadn’t been afraid of someone with an extremely high Perception watching the city from somewhere I couldn’t see, I would have easily created such a commotion, but I didn’t dare to step out. I stayed in the grain warehouse, waiting for an opportunity.

One that came in the form of the sticky fingers of a thief, who decided that a guild member with his hands full with a crate full of mana crystals was a good target. Admittedly, he was, but once I intervened with a subtle blast of Charisma to freeze him just as he pulled the money pouch, his actions were noticed.

I followed that with two other blasts of emotional manipulation. Pure panic for the thief, and righteous anger for the guild member. The thief ran away, and the victim chased angrily, throwing his mana crystal crate to the side.

The crate opened before it even landed, looking like a freak accident. And, once they spilled, one of the weaker crystals destabilized, and turned into pure mana, triggering the others. Even combined, the explosion wasn’t much, merely enough to leave a mark on the cobblestones.

A few people stood and watched, as if it was an entertaining accident, like someone breaking several bottles in a supermarket. For me, it was far more valuable. The cloud of mana allowed me to cast one detection spell, enough to find their secret base.

However, there was none I could detect. There was only the dungeon.

“Daring,” I muttered. It wasn’t that I hadn’t considered using a dungeon as a base. It had certain advantages, like being near-impossible to infiltrate and observe, but ultimately, I decided against it. Dungeons might be near-impossible to infiltrate, but they were very easy to sabotage.

I liked my workplace having a more stable footing.

Of course, just because our dungeons were fragile, that didn’t mean that theirs were as well. Just the number of master skills they could produce showed that their ability to manipulate dungeons was above ours. Maybe theirs was also more stable than our barely-tethered astral structures.

Either way, I had received the answer I had been seeking. The base was here, but it wasn’t in a form that I could infiltrate.

Still, I didn’t leave the warehouse at the first opportunity, instead observing the incident area, and waiting for the inevitable check-up. The organization I was trying to infiltrate was clearly old enough, and every organization above a certain size would have certain procedures.

Procedures that turned into a chore.

Inevitably, two undercover guards arrived soon after, their attitude marking them as high-ranking members, muttering about graveyard shifts and pointless reports that needed to be written. They had a silencing ward around themselves as they spoke, but penetrating it hadn’t been too hard. I listened to their idle discussion, which was mostly filled with useless gossip even under the subtle encouragement of my Charisma that made them even more bored and chatty, but one part had been interesting.

Not a long snippet, merely a dozen sentences, yet it made all the time I had spent worth it.

“… I can’t believe that we’re wasting our time here, even those madmen are trying to bring the calamity forward,” one guard said. “We should be at the forefront, hunting those crazies.”

“Don’t underestimate the Unbound Collective,” the other guard said. “They are crazy, but they are also dangerous.” His voice dipped. “I was at the Planet Entrimanta two years ago, and it was a nightmare. Four Calamity Beasts at the same time…”

“R-really? Do you think it’ll be that dangerous? I thought calamity missions should have been a safe way to accumulate contribution.”

“Don’t worry too much. It was my misfortune. Ultimately, Planet Entrimanta was merely a planet out of a thousand. We’re the Divine Everlasting. The strongest servants of the gods. We will win. Just don’t underestimate them.”

So many implications…