“…making me an errand boy, who does he think he is?”

Luckily, the best-case scenario happened and only one scholar entered the archives – a rather annoyed balding man with blue hair who grumbled to himself while walking to the leftmost cabinet.

He rummaged through it for a second before taking out a thin stack of papers and leaving the archives without closing the door.

“…”

It was a problem for the girl, she wanted to curse at the slovenly man but she stopped herself.

Making noise at that moment would be plain stupid, it was far better to wait things out.

“Here.”

The voice of the blue-haired man reached the ears of the cautious girl.

“Than… what the hell is this? I told you to get me the report about implanting the sun’s thorn into a peasant!”

“And?”

Another man said and his tone turned hostile to which the annoyed man scoffed.

“And? Can’t you read? You brought me a contract with the head of the Derizno family, you dimwit!”

“!!!”

“Oh no! I guess if you want something done, you have to do it yourself.”

Another man said angrily, causing the girl to flinch and stare wide-eyed toward the door before the blue-haired man snickered mockingly in response.

Was it luck or misfortune?

The one piece of evidence that she wanted ended up getting pinpointed to her, but it ended up out of her reach…

…for a moment at least…

“…tsk…! I wondered why you didn’t even lock the door! I was put in charge by lord Lutroan whether you like it or not, so you better stop pulling ** like that if you don’t want to get dealt with!”

The other man clicked his tongue and scolded the annoyed man but got no response.

“…”

The girl hiding behind the creepy device heard footsteps of someone entering the archives again – that person moved to the same cabinet that the first man, so she leaned to the side just a bit to catch a glimpse of where exactly the contract she was interested in would go.

*THUMP*

“?!?!”

A gold-haired man was searching through the file cabinet, putting back the documents involving the Derizno family and taking out whatever other report he needed – but when he was walking back to the experiment room the whole complex shook because of some faraway explosion.

“What the hell was that?!”

Other voices called out and allowed the hiding girl to figure out that there were at least a dozen other people there besides the two she already saw.

“Relax. Even if the whole mansion will collapse, we will be fine.”

The gold-haired man standing at the door to the archives breathed out and called to the others while fanning himself with the documents in one hand.

“We got devices that produce air, the device that produces water – on an off chance that we got buried here we also have enough intellect and all the materials and equipment so that we will be able to create a device that would get us out of here.”

The man assured the others, it seemed that him being the person in charge wasn’t just empty talk.

“And in case of an actual attack, we’re even safer.”

The gold-haired man added proudly reaching out his hand as if he was showing off the facility.

“Two-feet-thick walls reinforced with mana crystals buried deep underground, we can literally have a war rage above our heads without ever being in danger. And as for the entry…”𝑶𝗏𝗅xt.𝗰𝑶𝓶

The man smirked confidently and pointed ahead at the massive gate with large magic stones of various attributes embedded in a metal frame and inscribed with runes so thick that they looked beaten up.

“Not even a dozen of transcended earth magicians beating on it for half a year would even make a dent in this amazing work of…!”

*CRUNCH* *SCREECH* *WHAM*

As the scholar was boasting about the durability of the gate, the gate itself cracked into a cobweb pattern and bent out of shape as if it was a thin fabric that someone was pulling on – and not even a second later the ing of the gate broke out of its hinges and the whole thing got ripped apart as if it was cardboard.

The next moment a gust of wind blew through both rooms and the girl hiding behind the creepy device could swear that the air that entered carried whisks of silver mist.

What’s more, she noticed that the blood bracelets on her wrists could barely keep their thickness as only the thinnest layer was able to retain the mana that she put into it.

|What is going on?! The facility is getting attacked?! Today of all days?! I’ve spent a whole year planning and infiltrating the mansion and someone breaks in today?! Wait..!|

The girl bit her lips in anger before suddenly flinching in realization.

|Wait, that’s so much better!|

She gasped and prepared herself to use the chance when the real chaos erupted so she could take what she wanted and sneak out!

“…tsk…!”

The girl instantly glanced at the gold-haired man still frozen in place from shock and focused to make the blood on her arms form a long needle that she would use to deal with him in necessary, but ended up clicking her tongue once she realized that the moment her blood lost contact with her skin it also lost all mana and therefore was out of her control.

“…why are they all so silent…?”

Giving up on the plan to attack the gold-haired man, the girl realized that there was something wrong.

No matter how shocked the scholars were, at least one of them should already say something, panicking or trying to attack the intrude…

“?!?!?!”

The moment her gaze stumbled to the black-haired young man walking through the massive hole where the reinforced gate was, the girl instantly understood why no one was making a sound – the sole suffocating oppressive pressure that the man was releasing voided her head from any thought except the nauseating feeling of fear.

“All of you will pay for what you did to Roiso.”

The black-haired man announced in an ice-cold voice, but no one was able to even budge regardless.

“…”

*CRUNCH* *THUMP*

“!!!”

It seemed like the black-haired man did not like the lack of response and he merely raised his hand – causing the nearest scholar to be launched by a gust of wind right into the ceiling, snapping his neck, spine, and a couple of other bones as an overkill before the unlucky fellow slammed to the floor.

“Zo-mi…! Calm down, you are not acting like yourself!”

A new voice resounded through the secret facility and a middle-aged red-haired man ran up to the black-haired youngster, calling out to him in a worried voice.

“Aspy, do not call me like that when you are using that trash’s body. Which ones?”

The young man didn’t look back at his red-haired comrade and merely spoke to him in a cold voice.

“…”

The red-haired man made a miserable face but ended up looking down and raising his left hand.

*WHOO* x6

As he did, small whisks of red flames appeared in front of half a dozen scholars still unable to move, marking them for…

*CRUNCH* x6

The black-haired young man twisted his wrist and those six people got enveloped in a thin layer of silver mist that condensed out of thin air… before their bodies twisted as if an invisible giant was wringing them like a dirty rag which resulted in their bones being broken and their intestines getting shredded.

“Goodbye, and hello.”

The red-haired man sighed and all seven corpses created the black-haired young man got shrouded in the gray mist before said mist got reabsorbed in them.

“…haaa…”

*WHOO* x3

The red-haired man signed in disappointment and red whisks appeared in front of additional people…

*CRUNCH* x3

…who faced the same fate as all the previous ones…

“Congratulations, the five of you are under arrest and will face the trial for treason.”

The black-haired young man scoffed at the four remaining scholars and they all felt that the pressure of his presence decreased.

They still couldn’t move, but at least they could speak now.

“…five…?”

The blue-haired man that the girl hiding in the archives saw first gulped down his saliva, hurriedly looking between his colleagues. The math simply didn’t match…

“Yeah. The four of you here and that one hiding in the other r…”

“…?!”

“!!!”

The black-haired young man said with a dismissive shrug, but then he closed his mouth seeing the confusion of the blue-haired scholar – that caused the girl hiding in the archives to panic, but she could not move, just like all the scholars she was completely immobilized the moment she laid her eyes upon the intruder.

“Curious… if you are not with them, say what are you doing here.”

The young man raised his brow and called out.

The girl shivered, that guy already knew that she was there…!

But… since he was clearly not an ally of the mansion owner, the girl figured out that she still had a chance.

“I infiltrated the Lutroan mansion and snuck in here to get my hands on evidence connecting one of the Lutroan family patrons to the assassination of my parents!”

“Who the hell…?!”

The amaranth-haired girl called out, causing the gold-haired scholar in the door to flinch and gasp in shock. The man even attempted to look over his shoulder but because of the barely visible restraints of thin silver mist, he ended up only fidgetting in place.

“I will get the out of here and teleport them back to the royal castle, I will leave a few of my puppets by the exit… make sure this place will not blow up.”

The red-haired tugged on the black-haired youth’s sleeve and said before turning around and leaving.

As he did…

*SQUELCH* *CRUNCH*