Epic Of The Demonic Sage

Having heard Lucius's exploitation, Kiana was shocked. She looked at the Blanket and saw that it was a dark grey color. If someone laid and covered themselves with it, they would look like a rock from the distance.

"He couldn't have really been able to target someone from this distance could he?" Kiana asked, finding it to be a bit too much.

"Who knows? With his gift that can enhance arrows, it might be possible. We saw how his arrow was able to pierce through Doyle's defenses. This shows that his gift can enhance or improve his arrows." Lucius replied.

Kiana thought over it and indeed found it to be making sense. While she was thinking this, Lucius found something else nearby.

"Look, the imprint on the grass." Lucius pointed.

Kiana saw it and saw the grass being pressed into the ground, forming the shape of a man laying down.

"He really was here spying on them…" Kiana muttered.

"Indeed, though the question is since when," Lucius spoke.

"If he was here with all this preparation, he must be here for someone important. And that only leaves a few options; it's either one of the higher ranking officers of the outpost or none other than Count Gabriel himself." Kiana analyzed.

"Hmmm... When was the last time father came here?" Lucius asked.

"I… don't think he has come here this entire week. He has mostly been busy in the city itself or at the other barracks." Kiana answered.

"Hmm… if we combine that with the amount of food there is in his bag, then… I estimate he has been here for at least five days now." Lucius stated.

"Five days? That's a long time to hide here. This part of the forest also has more rune beasts and there is a great chance of them attacking people." Kiana spoke.

"That's true. But I reckon, if this man truly was a spy and an assassin, a rune beast might not really be a problem for him. Perhaps even a D rank rune beast might not pose many problems to him if he could take them down from the distance without actually needing a head-on conflict." Lucius said in a calm tone.

Kiana finally realized how serious this situation was. An act like this was of the highest concern and needed to be rectified soon.

"We need to tell the count!" Kiana urged.

"We will, but we can't tell him how we found this man. Or how he was killed. I think it would be better to just tell him that we got a tip from one of the many criminals we had apprehended and this lead to this man being found. Plus, it would prevent the others from finding out more about it and keep the actions calm.

If we directly tell father, it might cause him to act vastly different than normal which might alarm whoever is behind the attack. We can assume that they have been observing father for a while now to be able to do this." Lucius suggested.

Kiana thought over it and found Lucius's reasoning to be fine. While it was a bit iffy in terms of the explanation that they would need to give the Count, she reckoned that the count may not question Asher if he was the one who told him this.

Besides, they were merely going to tell him to be more cautious, so it shouldn't really cause any problems.

"Alright, I'll inform the count in the morning." Kiana agreed.

Lucius nodded his head and picked up the quiver and the bag along with the blanket. 

"Best not leave any clues behind." Lucius said before calling Doyle over.

"You actually did well this time. May have saved us from a lot of trouble in the long term." Lucius said to Doyle.

"Eng!" While Doyle could not fully understand what he had done, he could tell that Lucius was pleased with his actions.

"Now then, let's head back. We got a lot more work to do." Lucius said.

He and Kiana climbed back onto Doyle's back, who then carried them back to the place where they had left the spy's corpse. Getting off from his back there, Lucius went to check up on the corpse of the spy and found it to be safely hidden below the hollowed-out trunk.

"At least this is fine," Lucius said before taking a look around to ensure that there was no one there.

"Pick this corpse up and carry it with you Doyle, we are heading back." Lucius ordered.

"HNG!" Doyle grunted and did as he was told.

The three of them then headed back to the city wall and climbed over. This time, with Doyle helping them, their task was made even easier. From there on, they only needed to sneak past the streets and return to the re-education center.

It actually took them a bit longer than before since a new shift of guards was on patrol, but with Doyle carting them over the roofs of the buildings, they eventually managed to reach the back entrance of the basement.

Lucius had locked it back when they left and it wasn't like anyone was going to enter this alley, anyway. This area was known as a guard storage previously and thus not many people dared to come here anyway, lest they be caught by the guards and punished.

~DENG~

~clang~

The gates were locked behind them once they entered the basement, and they walked to the lab.

"Place the corpse on the table, Doyle." Lucius ordered.

~thud~

Doyle did as was asked and placed the corpse with a thud onto the metal table. Lucius, meanwhile placed the quiver and bow on another table along with the other bag and started to study the objects in detail.

"What are you doing?" Kiana questioned.

"Since we can't directly find out where this man came from, these objects might provide us a hint to his origin." Lucius answered.

"This is what I'm the most curious about though," Lucius said, pointing to the arrows.