Salisbury
Milena Trace.
Perfume Mage.
The day had been completely ordinary.
Nothing had hinted at trouble, apart from a rumor that a mage from the “Fairies” had arrived in the city.
The bribed guards would keep him occupied for a long time, and if they couldn’t handle him, they’d warn the guild that he had arrived.
So there was no reason to worry.
She could simply continue her usual work, gutting rich idiots.
Like that solitary young man in the expensive cloak…
Hmm.
The material and tailoring were excellent, worth at least two hundred thousand jewels.
Someone dressed like that definitely had money, and he was sitting in a perfect position.
It looked like today’s catch would be excellent.
At first, everything went as usual.
The young man showed a little resistance, the kind sometimes displayed by mages and warriors, but he quickly succumbed to her seductive charms.
Not surprising.
Even A-rank mages had fallen at her feet.
What chance did some rich boy, even one who might know a few tricks, have?
But then events began to unfold very differently from the usual script.
The young man was far tougher than he looked.
“A pair of poisoners.
How boring,” came a cold, bored voice that sounded nothing like the polite tone he’d used only minutes earlier.
“From the guild?
Though I suppose that’s obvious.
Nobody in this city could operate without the local thieves knowing about it.”
Her partner continued choking in the failed victim’s grip.
Only now did Milena notice that he was being held completely off the ground with one outstretched hand.
What kind of strength did this man have?
The young man looked at the mage, then at the struggling man in his hand…
and simply tightened his grip.
There was a crack.
The body stopped moving.
Horror filled the girl’s face as her partner’s corpse collapsed onto the cobblestones.
There was no doubt it was a corpse.
Nobody survived a crushed throat.
Milena met the killer’s eyes again, and that was when she truly became afraid.
There was nothing in them.
No regret.
No satisfaction, which would at least have been understandable.
Only boredom and an icy detachment.
Fear kept her from moving, even from screaming.
The killer approached her with an almost imperceptible movement.
One moment he was ten meters away.
The next, she could feel his breath against her skin.
“Do you want to live?” The same indifferent voice.
Milena nodded frantically.
“Then you’re going to have to use that tongue of yours.” The boy’s expression remained utterly emotionless, almost bored.
Combined with the sentence and the knowledge that this monster had been breathing in a mixture of pheromones, the scene was more than terrifying to the young witch.
She couldn’t take it anymore and fainted.
Sephiroth.
Also Lansher.
Yeah.
I might have overdone it.
Still, the test of the demon mask had to be considered a success.
The state itself was strange.
It strongly resembled my combat mode, but it wasn’t nearly as mechanical.
I’d call it something between my combat mode and the meditation I used to master absorbed knowledge.
My mind worked brilliantly in this state.
The concepts of pity and mercy, however, also seemed to disappear somewhere into the distance.
Still, that was a small price to pay for the ability to conduct negotiations or non-scientific, non-combat actions with efficiency approaching that of combat mode.
Though I definitely shouldn’t let fellow guild members see me like this.
In any case, I brought the girl around and extracted everything she knew about the thieves’ guild: its composition, location, and tactics.
They were called the Night Shadows, and I had to admit the name suited them.
They had twenty mages, ranging from C to B rank, with an A-rank shadow mage as their leader.
Apparently, I’d stumbled across the older brother of our friend Kageyama, if not by blood, then certainly by magical school.
It would be interesting to test an Absorption ritual on someone like that.
The guild itself actually earned my respect.
These people really knew how to use the most important weapon possessed by both mages and ordinary humans: their brains.
Milena didn’t know everything, of course, but even from the information she possessed, a very interesting picture emerged.
The guild master, Hokage, followed the best traditions of his namesake, even if that was merely a title in the other case.
He had bribed the guards, placed agents in merchant offices to inform him about large caravans carrying valuable goods, and had informants on the railway as well as among beggars and street children.
In short, not a single sneeze in the city escaped Hokage’s attention.
The network was very well organized, even if it wasn’t especially large.
Too bad I couldn’t take it over for myself.
I didn’t have the resources, the time, or, honestly, much desire to do it.
The most valuable information she possessed was the location of several secret passages and side tunnels.
I’d bet the list of passages that weren’t marked on any map was much longer, but only Hokage knew all of them.
I didn’t believe the prisoner had lied to me.
If there was one thing I could easily detect through close contact, it was a lie.
As for her magic, there wasn’t much use there either.
C-rank, and entirely dependent on manipulating body chemistry.
If anything, I might have been able to teach her something.
There was no more useful information to get from her.
So what should I do with her?
I didn’t need witnesses.
I hadn’t promised to let her live.
But killing the girl for no reason?
If I were in combat mode or wearing the “mask,” perhaps.
But not now.
Still, I couldn’t simply let her go.
Fine.
I’d give her a chance.
I was still inexperienced at working with brains, so I might accidentally drive her insane…
but if everything went well, she’d simply forget this day, or perhaps the entire week.
After all, breaking something is much easier than building it.
One hour later.
Hmm.
It seemed to have gone well.
At the very least, her mind was intact.
Good.
My conscience could continue sleeping peacefully.
The mage would sleep for another day, but I didn’t have that much time.
I didn’t think someone like the leader of the Night Shadows would ignore the sudden disappearance of one of his work teams, especially with a mage from a guild dedicated to destroying organizations like his arriving in the city.
That meant I had to move quickly.
First, I needed to neutralize Hokage himself.
Otherwise, he’d disappear and I’d have to start from scratch.
Fine.
The man wasn’t going to stab himself, so I had to go see what their hideout looked like.
Why were most dark guilds practically magnetized toward underground locations?
At least I didn’t have to reach this one through the sewers.
My nose wouldn’t have survived that.
I decided to infiltrate the Night Shadows through one of the secret passages the girl had told me about.
I had to return to my real appearance as Sephiroth.
My trip through the city’s seedier districts would have to be postponed indefinitely, but this way, if anything went wrong, I had the excuse of an official guild contract.
I wondered if Gray was still sitting in the local jail or had already gotten out and was now looking for me.
Something told me I’d have to spend a long time explaining what he’d missed and how exactly I’d wiped out a dark guild.
Hmm…
Although I could probably raise my official rank afterward.
I wasn’t sure I actually needed to, though.
Enough dreaming about the distant future.
First I had to clean out this guild.
And finally, I found myself standing inside the headquarters of the dark guild.
What could I say about the place?
These guys had made themselves very comfortable.
Mahogany tables, sandalwood wall panels, carpets and animal hides covering the floors.
There was also an impressive collection of traps and hidden passages concealed behind those same panels and hides.
Even the tables could probably withstand a sword strike if necessary.
Most of the dark guild members were currently out in the city, gathering information or material wealth.
Their master, however, was right here in the hideout.
And he was already waiting for me.
“Well, well.
What guests.
I’m flattered.
An entire mage has come after me!” Hokage mocked me.
The man matched his description.
He was short, with a mass of dark blue hair tied into two tails that intertwined into a strange structure.
“I have to admit, your distraction with that idiot stripper worked.
You even somehow found the entrance to my humble home.
I’m afraid, however, that your journey ends here.
Do me a favor and stand still.
I’ll kill you very gently.
Promise.”