Godfather's System 225

“Let’s see what we will find inside,” I muttered even as I looked at the entrance of the tunnel that led toward the sub-base, properly concealed and camouflaged.

Infiltrating the base was not a challenge, but it had nothing to do with the competence of the supervisor. The equation was simple, and similar to that of a radar signature. Just like the bigger planes were easier to detect, the active security measures were strong enough to stop a dedicated infiltrator could be detected from patrolling flying castles.

This meant anyone who discovered the location of the base would have an easier time infiltrating it, but it was an inevitable weakness. No security system was truly perfect, and trade-offs were inevitable.

They were smart, so they tried to compensate for it. I had passed four different patrols, two disguised as hunters, one hidden in a bunker, and one actually wearing the armor of a local noble. They acted well, but a careful examination showed that they were far stronger than their roles would have implied.

None of them were even aware of my presence.

I took a deep breath before stepping into the tunnel, stretching my senses to the limit so as not to trigger any traps. There were three trap wires at the entrance, two physical and one made of mana, which I bypassed. The tunnel was very dark, making it difficult to walk even with my Perception, but I didn’t create any light.

It would have been too suspicious.

There were several other detection wards in the tunnel, some good enough to catch an ordinary assassin, but once again, their craftsmanship was nowhere near enough to deal with the sheer advantage of my stats, overwhelming enough to be termed as cheating.

And, once again, I had no problem with it.

Despite the darkness, I navigated the tunnel easily, and finally came across a reinforced stone gate. It had some kind of drawing on it, but it was hard to see even with my Perception. The tunnel was too dark at this point, forcing me to rely on my other senses more than my sight.

I found a shadowy nook, and started waiting. I could push it open or break it, but I could feel the presence of multiple guards.

I used the time to coordinate with the rest of the Party, getting status updates, and occasionally giving orders.

From Zolast, I received a pure status update. He was still busy with the superior dungeon we were building for the princess, trying to find a reason to create some small construction accidents. Normally, it would have been perfectly in my area of expertise, but, unfortunately, this time was different. The accidents needed to happen in very specific ways based on mana theory to convince the other mages.

Moreover, we needed to have accidents in some very specific ways that increased the cost without delaying the construction, as the completion of that dungeon was still as vital for us as it was vital for the princess.

It was the perfect location to train an elite company for the Shadow Guard, our new army with an unnecessarily edgy name.

What made it more challenging was that, ironically, we were embezzling from ourselves. The princess had won a huge victory, but that victory, together with our willingness to sell her more and more weapons, stretched her coffers thin, making us finance more of the dungeon construction.

Technically, the princess borrowed the money from us, but it was meaningless. She had already owed us so much that she couldn’t pay back without bankrupting herself. At one point, financial debt lost its usefulness as a political leverage.

Especially when the debtor had their own army.

No, the accidents had nothing to do with swindling money out of the princess. We just needed an excuse to purchase a variety of exotic materials to solve those ‘issues’, which Zolast needed to conduct his experiments in an effort to automate the acquisition of the master skills.

He was invested in its success even more than usual, since at the time, he was the only one capable of repairing the faulty master skills that the Maell dungeon was capable of producing. A vital, yet extremely boring task he couldn’t wait to get rid of.

He was properly motivated.

The challenge for the others had been more ordinary.

I wasn’t able to chat for long with Dahmut, as he was busy trying to integrate himself as a low-level spy of the Somaton ring while cultivating an independent ring of its own.

Mahruss and Takis were busy handling the further recruitment and expansion of the Shadow Guard, which had been growing steadily both in terms of levels and numbers, allowing my experience intake to grow even more as they kept on clearing out the mountains.

As an added benefit, they were silently assessing the Heroic Party candidates for the eventual expansion.

Meanwhile, Launara and Limenta handled the construction of the underground settlements across the mountains, which was going well, both in terms of setting up villages and mines, and in terms of discovering and securing the underground breaches.

I spent the most time talking with the trio, particularly Karak.

Silas, Terma, and Karak continued as an elite beast-hunting team. They had been working as a team for years. It took a while for them to get used to the incredible improvement of their abilities, but, after a brief adaptation period, they were even more adaptive than before.

I was proud of Terma. Despite his youth, he was taking his increased responsibilities well. He was still snappy and cheerful, but the absence of his brother was taking a toll. The only reason he wasn’t taking it any worse was the trust he had in me, but as time went on, it would wear off.

I wanted to search Jertann even more than him, but unfortunately, the situation was too complicated for me to walk around like a sledgehammer and smash things. There was little I could do before finding a clue about the organization, and it was slow going.

Setting up a spy ring wasn’t easy even with all my advantages.

However, his potential emotional fragility aside, he was doing excellently during the hunt, holding multiple roles at the same time. The first one was transportation. He carried Silas and Karak by pulling a floating cart imbued with mana, which was not as fragile as a flying cart. That allowed the team to move between the hunting spots of Lord Beasts easily. That, and he brought back the carcasses to several warded spots for pickup, freeing them from the task of carrying them back.

However, he was more than a glorified porter. With his Speed and Agility, he was particularly effective against ordinary large beasts and smaller critters that often attacked to defend the Lord Beast, allowing Silas and Karak to engage with the beast freely. Not to mention, he was strong enough to keep back a retreating Lord Beast until Silas or Karak could catch up and deliver a killing blow.

Relatively, Silas’ contribution was far more one-dimensional. She engaged the beast in melee, and used her incredible Strength to deal with the beast. Of course, one-dimensional didn’t make it worthless. The most common way of hunting a Lord Beast was to constantly harass it with attacks until their incredible vitality had been completely drained.

That method had two drawbacks. With their Vitality spent, the carcass was much less useful for crafting. And, slowly weakening the beasts took too long, ranging between several minutes to several hours depending on the hunting team and the beast.

For Silas, once the beast was properly pinned down, it was measured in seconds.

However, it was Karak who managed to surprise me. All of the youngsters impressed me, but I had a particular fondness for Karak. All the others had managed to get a special class, and he had to keep up with them with an ordinary class and just one arm. No one, including me, would have blamed him if he pulled back and just limited himself to finding Lord Beasts and leaving fighting to Silas and Terma. It was an important job, one he could do well with with his Awakened Perception.

Yet, he insisted on fighting, and managed to do so in a shockingly positive manner. When he started, he always stayed in the back, using precise strikes to harass the beast, keeping it from counterattacking Silas, but recently, both Takis and Limenta informed me that Karak was taking more and more of an active role in battle, focusing on the sensory organs of the beasts to limit them even further.

His improvement defied the limits of even Awakened Perception.

I knew those things, because I asked Limenta to occasionally spy on them, because I had been worried that, in his aim to prove he could still help, he would actually risk the lives of the other two.

It was technically spying, but I didn’t care. As much as I liked Karak, I wouldn’t have allowed him to risk other people just to prove himself. I had seen that kind of attitude kill too many men to be accepting of it.

I was glad that Karak continued to prove himself. So, instead of giving him the difficult order to leave the hunting group, I was talking with him through the connection as we shared the best way to use Perception during battle. It helped him, but it helped me as well. I had many different methods in a battle, so Perception was more of a support. It was Karak’s only reliance, which allowed him to come up with some interesting tricks…

Though, I had to conclude our conversation before I would have liked.

After it kept me waiting for an hour, the undergoing gate was finally open.