The two mages immediately recognized he was not one of theirs. They stiffened as he approached and looked at him warily, instead of causing a scene as he had expected, which made him reassess them slightly.

“Gentlemen,” Nick said with a relaxed grin as he took a seat on the only available sofa.

There was no flash of recognition in their eyes, but he’d expected that. Judging by their well-developed mana signatures, they were Tower mages, but their choice to live in the docks and start their own criminal gang suggested they weren’t particularly talented. No one with a clear path to the top would be caught dead here.

But they were here, and hadn’t been shut down, which meant he couldn’t underestimate them.

“Good evening,” one of the mages replied, a redhead with a scraggly beard who couldn’t have been more than twenty but clearly thought highly of himself, judging by the luxurious robes and accessories he wore. He patted the girl hanging off his arm on the thigh, and she stood up and silently left, quickly joined by the other two, leaving Nick alone with the three men.

“I do not remember you among our associates,” the other mage said, staring at Nick from beneath his blonde fringe. He had long hair, enough so that he could have braided it, but there was something in his eyes that spoke of wildness, which put Nick on edge.

This was someone who loved living life on the edge, chasing highs and avoiding lows. If a fight broke out, he could count on this man to go for the jugular right away.

“That’s because I’m not,” he replied, still maintaining his mild smile.

“Then who the hell are you?” The warrior grunted. He was older than the other two by at least a decade and clearly less patient, but also seasoned, judging by the scars that ran down his face into his chest.

“A friend, I hope,” Nick said, keeping his eyes fixed on the blonde mage, knowing he was the most dangerous of the trio. Still, that didn’t mean he hadn’t noticed the movements coming from upstairs as word of his presence spread through the building.

Just in case, I should set up, he thought, and quietly began carving a few sigils in unobtrusive places.

“Well, friend, what can we do for you?” The redhead asked, leaning on his elbows with an amused smile. He clearly knew Nick was a mage, but still thought he had the upper hand.

“I have two questions to ask, and if I like the answer, I’ll reward you handsomely,” he said, and he was even being honest. He didn’t think this night would end without a fight of some kind, but that didn’t mean people couldn’t surprise him.

He had gained a lot of gold by selling thunderhoofs, and his income kept increasing the longer Alluria went without a new supply line.

And that was without unloading the most valuable pieces he had in his ring, the matriarchs. I’ll need to do that soon. If this can be settled between today and tomorrow, I’ll visit Mr. Bloom and arrange a VIP meat auction for those who can afford the best pieces.

The three men exchanged glances, and while their body language relaxed as if they were shifting gears now that they were talking business, Nick could see bloodlust grow in their souls.

He had admitted to having enough money to pay them. If he didn’t handle himself well, they’d jump him and take everything he had, at least in their minds. The reality would be quite different.

“What do you want to know?”

Nick smiled as gullibly as he could. “I have heard that you guys are involved in most businesses, especially in bringing in merchandise, and smuggling things out, sometimes even people. I was wondering if you knew anything about a scout named Anthony. He’s the son of my favorite clothing merchant, you see, and he’s gone and disappeared after a night of heavy drinking. Since it wasn’t the other gangs who took him, I believe you might at least know something.”

The moment he mentioned who he was interested in, the three stiffened, and what had been light amusement at a kid wandering in and acting self-important became concern.

“Who sent you?” The warrior growled.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Nobody sent me. Now answer my question,” Nick replied, baring his teeth. That reaction was enough to tell him they had some information, even if they weren’t directly involved.

It would be incredibly foolish for them to team up with someone like Changer, whose goal is to spread chaos in Alluria. But then again, they probably aren’t all that smart either, are they? They would be back in the Tower, living as favored apprentices if that were true.

His original suspicion that these men might have chosen to live like kings among peasants, rather than servants among kings, was turning out to be more accurate than he expected.

Before things could escalate into violence, the blonde mage— the one Nick had labeled as the most volatile— raised a hand, stopping the other two. “We might know something,” he admitted, his lips curling into a smirk, “but the price is high for that sort of information. The Duke is currently desperate for any scrap, you know? Why should we tell you this when we could get so much more by going to him?”

And that was the core of the question, wasn’t it? The fact that these mages were left alone despite likely knowing something meant they had to have some strong backing.

If Nick hadn’t been able to sense the quick movements all around him as people were pulled out of the room and the other two mages set up to strike him from a blind spot, he might have been inclined to continue that line of questioning.

But he could see in their soul that they had no real intention of answering him. This was just a delaying tactic, so he wouldn’t humor them now that he was done with his battle prep.

The first man who fell didn’t even realize that things had changed. He was one of the four mages, whose presence seemed somewhat obscured in the ether, and who, despite having the smallest reserves among the four, felt very dangerous because of the shadow magic he was about to cast.

He collapsed as a [Spirit Blast] struck him at the back of his head, full of enough resentment and spite to paralyze him for a solid hour.

The second hidden mage realized something had gone wrong, but also couldn’t do much about it. He’d been halfway through powering up a ward that felt like binding magic, and Nick wasn’t interested in fighting with his body tied up, even if he was somewhat confident he could still win.

The security guard who had welcomed him drew his sword, but his limbs froze and his consciousness faded soon after, as he stepped on an [Emakimono] Nick had prepared in advance.

A moment of silence passed, during which the trio he’d been talking with waited for their teammates to strike. When nothing happened, their eyes widened in realization, and they launched the attack on their own.

The warrior didn’t waste time, pulling a warhammer from subspace and swinging it directly at his head, hitting the golden shield of [Crest of the Thunderbird] like a gong, causing the man to reel as electrical currents made his muscles convulse.

The two mages jumped back, each unleashing their own spells, but whatever their intentions had been, they simply lacked the power to overcome Nick’s defenses, and their attacks fizzled out upon contact.

Nick raised his hand toward the blonde, relishing a little too much in the dawning realization that they were outmatched, before his vision was overtaken by fire, as the redhead moved faster than he would have expected.

It howled and raged for several seconds, hot enough to have turned him into a charred mess if he hadn’t been protected by a superior defensive spell.

Any hesitation he might have had about using force vanished into the ether as he endured its roaring anger, until it finally faded, and Nick launched his counterattack.

A [Jet Stream] suddenly formed, crashing into the hastily constructed barrier the redheaded mage had set up and shattering it like glass. Another one followed, then a third, which pierced through and lodged itself in its target, knocking him into the far wall.

In the meantime, the warrior had recovered enough to resume his attack. Now wielding a skill-enhanced weapon, he didn’t need to fear backlash, but he was still too slow to reach Nick before Nick reached him.

A [Thunderbolt] rumbled through the room, shaking the windows and smashing him through the central island in a shower of liquor and wood.

“Oops,” Nick chuckled before being pulled back into the fight as the blonde mage finished whatever spell he was casting and unleashed it.

Given their lack of inventiveness so far, Nick expected another elemental attack. Instead, the floor rippled from underneath him, suddenly pulling back to reveal a hole in the ground that led to a spike-filled trap.

That hadn’t been there before, which only confirmed Nick’s impression of the blonde as the most dangerous of the group. If he could cast a complex transmutation so quickly, he’d surely be able to handle most novice mages. Eona might be able to tank the damage thanks to her light armor, and Bellamy could have overwhelmed his control of the bedrock, but everyone else in his class would have died there.

Nick, on the other hand, stayed exactly where he was. Sustained true flight might have been a bit too expensive for long trips, but he could easily levitate himself in place without needing to stop his other spells.

The enemy mage clearly hadn’t expected that, as his eyes bugged out, but he twisted his hands, turning the stationary spikes into javelins and launching them upward with enough force to go through stone.

[Crest of the Thunderbird] barely budged, giving Nick time to unleash a barrage of [Spirit Blasts] on the man, and then on all the others for good measure.

The fight probably didn't last more than a minute or two, but it was extremely intense and left the reception room in disarray. Nick was briefly tempted to fix it up before deciding he couldn’t waste more time.

The women and their non-magical followers have escaped, so word of this fight will spread soon. I should take what I can from them before someone powerful starts poking around.

Walking up to the twitching form of the blonde mage, Nick prepared a specific mix of emotions for his next [Spirit Blast].

Considering how many times he’d already been hit, there wasn’t much resistance to worry about, but he wasn’t interested in parsing through half-truths and hidden meanings, so he put as much submissiveness, pliancy, and trust into the spell as he could summon and released it directly into the man’s head.

“Now then, what were we saying?” He asked as his victim trembled and shook from the onslaught of foreign emotions, fighting a losing battle, until he finally loosened and his eyes went glassy.

“I told you that I knew something,” the mage muttered back in a sluggish voice.

“Yes, you did,” Nick grinned. “Go on, what do you know about Anthony the scout?”

He might have ten or twenty minutes at most before too much attention was drawn to the townhouse for him to stay, especially since the Duke’s guards would have noticed something was wrong, even with the distance they kept from the building, but that just meant he had to make the most of it.

“The kid was marked from the start. He’d gotten into debt with several gangs and came to us offering to work as a go-between for protection,” his prisoner said, and the more he kept talking, the wider Nick’s eyes became.

Oh, damn.