Chapter 465: Someone Is Faking His Sleep
"Shelia, Graham, defeat everyone."
As we approached the hallway to the locked door, I ordered my two familiars to defeat everyone.
Killing the enemies is fine, but it's better if they could be captured. But in this place, it's difficult to hold back when the enemies are attacking.
And it's also useful for training my two familiars as well.
Graham is an archangel. He can fly and has wings on his back. So, he's only used in fighting outdoor. As for indoor, his wings make it difficult for him to move in an enclosed space. Though he can make his wings disappear and fight only using his spear and light magic. And if he does that, he won't be able to fly and his movement will be really limited in this place. That's why he needs training.
As for Shelia, she's also only used in fighting outside in the wild. But she's much better in fighting with her instinct. She learns faster than Graham in fighting inside.
The two started fighting the resisting enemies, while I need to stop the researchers from destroying the evidences. Some of them have entered the rooms on the side of the hallway, and grabbing the documents.
Seems like even if their lives are on the line, some of them still chooses to guard their researches before their lives. I respected that if they are not from the cult. But these people are those who are willingly join the cult.
If only they didn't dedicate themselves to the cult, they would have helped Marie a lot in her research.
Well, it's not time for regret. Let's stop them before they destroyed the documents.
While the hallway is busy from the fight, I jumped over them all and entered the room where some researchers are grabbing the documents. Those things must be important.
I knock them out quickly with the butt of my spear, and put the collar on them quickly. For this mission, we were given a lot of magic restriction collars. Albert got a lot of them from many nobles who own slaves illegally. Just how many of them are there?
I heard that there are many cities in Tatrama which has the people in charge changed after Albert visited them. He must have been really busy.
That's what a king should be. Busy. Though I think he has a lot of people helping him, like the Prime Minister, the former Prime Minister, and me. There must be some others, but they are not important for me to know.
"Hey! Someone entered this room!"
One of the mages who was supposed to be busy with Graham and Shelia, saw me entered the room and told the others.
It's quite smart of them to cast magic from outside the door, but they are too slow as I stabbed them all with Reizpear. They shouldn't have stood in line in front of the door.
Well, let's go to the next room. Graham and Shelia still look fine.
"Hey, mages! Ignore them! It's better if they didn't find any documents of our researches! Destroy every room in this floor instead!"
One of the researchers who was knocking on the locked door at the end of the hallway, shouted.
Oh, no. Now, I need to take care of everyone.
I doubt all of them are expert level mages. Let's use sleeping gas on everyone here. Good thing I have casted air magic on Shelia and Graham, so they won't be able to breathe in the gas I produced while still breathing normally. This magic lasted for three hours, and I have casted it on our allies.
Some of the enemies who were about to destroy the rooms, along with all researchers, fall asleep soon after I spread the sleeping gas. As expected, once I'm fighting in a closed space, I'm unbeatable!
Well, not really. My magic work less on expert level mages, and even less on master level mages. Though I can eliminate the weaker enemies, while identifying the strong enemies. If there are strong enemies in the group, I can decide if I should run away or fight after everyone has already sleeping.
Just like right now.
I thought that since all researchers and weak enemies have fallen asleep, I don't have to worry about anything. But, there's one researcher who is pretending to be sleeping.
My sleeping gas doesn't work on him. And I can tell that his reaction was quite later than the others who are affected. He's just acting like he got affected by my gas. I can see his inner organ working as usual.
If he's an average expert level mage, he should be affected by my gas a little. If he's an artificial master level mage, there's no need to act like this since he should be able to recognize that the strength that we are showing is not that powerful compared to an artificial master level mage.
My guess is that he's an air mage, but he has another element of which has reached expert level mage while still working as a researcher. The worst part is that he's thinking with his brain to escape from this situation.
That's why even though I should be taking care of the other expert level mages along with Graham and Shelia, I approached the researcher instead to put the collar on him. He's the most dangerous enemy here so far.
For now, I put the collar on the researchers around him. And when it's time to put the collar on him, he finally reacted.
As I was about to reach my hand to him, he quickly raises his body and pointed his wind magic at me. But he's too late. I'm much faster than him and more prepared.
Before he points out his hand toward me, I already removed that hand from the shoulder.
"AAAH!"
"That's a pretty good acting. But I can see through you," I said.
"How did you know!?" the man asked while groaning in pain.
"Doesn't matter. Seems like you have quite the status since you're both a researcher and quite a powerful mage looking from your magic. I'll capture you for interrogation along with everyone here. Only those who didn't die though."
I put the collar on him and then knock him out. This time, he's not acting. He's really lying on the ground out cold.
I start looking around again to see that Graham and Shelia almost finished everyone.
They both are wounded, but it's not a problem for them. Shelia has her self-recovery ability, while Graham can use healing magic. Those wounds will be healed soon.
It's also an easy fight because the enemies can't use their strongest attack since they would just kill everyone. Though if they do that, it's better for the cult since this place will be destroyed. I guess none of them thought that way.
"Graham, Shelia, don't rest yet. We need to transport those who are still alive. As for those who died and killed themselves using explosion, we will leave them be."
There are some headless corpses among the enemies we fought. They must be devout members of the cult. Unlike most of the researchers here.
I see some documents have been destroyed before we reach here. But at least we managed to save some documents. I guess mission is half-complete after reaching this far. Now, there's only the big door in front of us left. One which I can't see through clearly after dozens of meters.
"Good. Let's take a rest here for a while. Or if you want, you can help Candy and the others investigate this place," I said to my two familiars.
"I'll stay here. Fighting indoor is harder than I thought," Graham replied.
"Me too. Next time, please have a spar with me in an enclosed place like this," Shelia said.
"Sure. I'll tell Sonia to inform the others that I'm coming to them."
I looked above me and see that the three girls, Candy, Wendy, and Celestine, are still on the third basement floor. I can see that they have a lot of things to carry. Let's quickly help them transport all those things with portal.
As for why I didn't use portal to go to them right away, it's so that I can save my mana. There's a huge possibility that we will fight a really powerful enemy after entering that door.
"Did you find something?"
After meeting up with Candy and the others, I asked them if they discover something important.
"A lot. Please transport them all," Candy said as she dumped a lot of document in front of me.
"Whoa! If it's just me, I wouldn't think of getting this much. I might be able to find something hidden in the upper floor, so I'll go there first. Wait for me with Graham and Shelia. They are resting at the moment," I said to the three.
Candy and Wendy are expert agents. They are good at finding something hidden. But that doesn't mean they can find everything. What if there's another writing under the bed? They can't see that, but I can.. That's why I need to check everything else before meeting up with them again later.