Nick waited to see if the big guy would join his fellow guards in chasing down the shadow thief, but unfortunately, this one seemed skilled at his job and ignored anything that would pull him away from his post.

Should I go back outside and enter through the window? No, it’s heavily defended, and I’m not sure I could break through its protections without being noticed. I’ll go through this one instead.

The first thing Nick did was subtly expand [Territory], weakening several nasty trigger-wards enough that they couldn't activate, but without causing them to fail and attract the diviner’s attention to him.

Secondly, he took a plunge in the ether and searched for something he was sure this place had plenty of.

Is sleepiness an emotion? The fact that I can find it here alongside a good deal of laziness and boredom suggests it is, but then again, spiritual magic is much more complex than mere empathy.

If this guard had been equal to those standing outside, Nick wouldn’t have hesitated to overwhelm him with a [Spirit Blast] made of those emotions and send him into the best nap he’d probably ever had.

But he was considerably more powerful, and the decent mana signature he emitted despite being a martial class meant he would resist a low-powered spell like that.

Instead, Nick capitalized on his stealthy position to intertwine the emotions with the existing [Territory], allowing a small, curated part of the ether to manifest into the physical world.

It was difficult work, and it took him more than fifteen minutes before he felt sure it would hold without his constant attention, but eventually, he managed to taint the mana he’d projected with enough emotions to work as a steady, low-level drain.

The guard yawned and muttered to himself about not being able to join the fun, then closed his eyes.

Nick didn’t move. Ten minutes went by, and by then, the guards outside had finished beating the tar out of the thief and handed him over to the authorities.

Another yawn, this time followed by rubbing his eyes and more sighs, until finally, after half an hour since he started his plan, the guard fell asleep, although he remained standing out of pure habit.

Huffing out a breath of annoyance at having wasted so much time, but knowing it was better to be safe than sorry, Nick ghosted out of his hiding spot and slipped past the guard, pushing the door open with just mild trepidation.

His preparations proved sufficient, however, as the trigger-wards, which should have immobilized, shocked, and poisoned him while alerting everyone to an intrusion, failed to activate, allowing him to take the new space in.

The study wasn’t as impressive as he might have expected, probably because it was an actual workspace, while the public office where important guests were received was on the other side of the townhouse.

It was sparsely decorated, with solid wooden furniture, a few decorations aside from a couple of portraits, and most importantly, a safe embedded in the wall large enough for him to walk into, which he suspected contained a good portion of the cash for the consortium’s daily operations.

It was enchanted, as he’d expected, but he wasn’t very worried about overcoming the locks, since he’d been training under Tholm to handle everything short of true masterworks, which this was not.

Yet, even as he gradually weakened the spells, he couldn’t open the door, no matter how much he tugged at it telekinetically, and was starting to get nervous because people around the building were returning to work now that the emergency was over, and it was only a matter of time before someone walking by noticed the sleeping guard.

Letting the owl figurine flutter around the room, he was able to see despite the restriction imposed by the [Ring of Unknowingness], which easily allowed him to spot what his mystical senses were failing to find.

Physical puzzle-locks. How quaint.

A series of perfectly smooth tassels fit into the safe's locking mechanism, made from some non-reactive metal-like element similar to ghostgrass in how mana slid off it, which had completely gone unnoticed by him until then.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

There were a dozen of them, and they had to be put back into the exact sequence to finally unlock the damn thing.

Now, Nick wasn’t exactly a mathematician, but even he knew that factorial numbers grew very large very quickly, and to solve this puzzle by brute force, he’d have to spend years working on it, which wasn’t going to be possible.

Should I just go for it and crack it open? I would need a couple of minutes, but I have the necessary power, and I can keep the sound contained within the room.

It was a thought born more from frustration than seriousness, but one that was becoming more tempting given how pressed for time he was.

That was, until he noticed something. The puzzle pieces were not reactive to mana, so he couldn’t divine their proper location even if he had such a spell handy. But their magic resistance also made them quite unwieldy to move around, and over time, they had carved grooves behind.

From the outside, these grooves were entirely hidden, since the pieces concealed them, but to Nick, they were clearly visible now that he knew where to look.

Suppressing an incredulous laugh at the lucky find, he quickly moved the pieces around, following the deeper grooves where they fit better, and soon enough, a click echoed in the silent room.

This time, he faced no resistance when he pulled the safe open, and the shine of gold briefly blinded him as sunlight reflected off its contents.

Oh yeah, baby. That’s what I’m talking about.

As he’d expected, there were no magical items or rare treasures inside, as those were probably stored within the noble manses, where even more security layers could protect them. But he wasn’t after any of those, though he’d have loved to find any.

No, he was after cold, hard gold, and he had found it.

A hundred, three hundred, five… There could be a thousand gold coins if I include all the silver piles.

It was a ludicrous amount of money, enough to establish a new noble house. Hell, the town of Floria as a whole brought in less than that in a whole year in taxes! But considering that this was a business owned by a noble, and a Viscount at that, it shouldn’t have been too shocking that they were keeping enough cash on hand to buy multiple townhouses.

Just because they have this much here doesn't mean it’s all they possess. Instead, the fact that there's this much here indicates they must have much more.

Maybe it was an unfair rationalization, but Nick wasn’t really worried about House Marney going broke. He decided to steal from them precisely because they had a strong trade network, so he didn’t doubt they’d be able to take the hit on the chin and keep going, especially given their shady dealings.

In the blink of an eye, the vault was empty, and Nick’s ring was fuller of wealth than ever before.

It was considerably more than he’d expected. He would have been satisfied with a third of that, and delighted with half. A full thousand gold coins, even if some were in smaller denominations, made him much wealthier than he could have imagined when he first set out for Alluria.

It almost makes me think all the effort in selling the thunderhoofs wasn’t worth it, but that’s not true. I need a legitimate source of wealth, as everyone knows, House Crowley isn’t exactly swimming in gold, especially since Dad had to take so many supplies and men north.

Having sold the matriarchs to the Duke would put an end to any speculation about where his gold might have come from. It would raise more questions about his exact relationship with the city's most powerful man, but those questions would be far less damaging than accusations of theft.

Slinking out of the study once the safe was closed and the puzzle scrambled again, Nick pulled [Territory] back into himself, allowing the guard’s natural resistance to start working through the spiritual mana he was affected by, and he legged it.

Perhaps the man wouldn’t even notice anything, or he might raise the alarm right away, but whatever happened next, it had nothing to do with him, as he was already blending into the crowd, walking without hurry to his next order of business.

“To Wolfram Manor!” He nodded to himself, wielding a grilled meat skewer like a fearsome sword, then broke into giggles.

“Yes, of course we told her,” Devon said with a raised eyebrow, wiping the sweat from his brow now that their training session was over.

Nick shrugged, immediately regretting it as he felt soreness in muscles he didn’t even know he had. “Eh, just wanted to make sure. Some people are asking questions, since she was apparently pretty bad for a while, and I wanted to make sure she knew her son was alive.”

A cooing sound made him look at Sonya, who had her head in her hands and was smiling down at him with warm affection. “So kind!”

“Tsk,” Nick clicked his tongue, uneasy with that kind of attention. “It’s just what anyone would have done.”

Devon shook his head, amused, and stood up with a groan. “For all that I enjoy beating the tar out of you, I doubt you came here to practice your swordsmanship without another goal in mind, and while I’m sure you were worried about that poor woman, I know you too well.”

“Ah, well, I did want to get some real practice,” Nick said, and it was the truth. It had been a while since he’d last handled a weapon, and while fighting wouldn't be his primary method, it was a skill he was reluctant to abandon entirely.

The reinforced wooden dagger he’d used for the spar lay beside him, set aside for now. It wasn’t the same as holding Akas’ remnant, as it didn’t have the driven will pushing him into specific strikes, but if he wanted to get good with it, he needed the practice, and his brother was still getting used to being a free man.

Still, it was also true that he hadn’t come without a secondary objective; that was just the kind of person he was.

“Has the old man decided if he’ll participate in the auction? I know he agreed to play security, but that was before the Circle was exposed.”

Devon smirked when he finally understood the real reason for his presence, but didn’t let it linger longer than necessary. “The Duke hasn’t revoked his request, and once Master promises something, he will follow through, no matter what. We’ll be at the auction, blending in with the other participants so as not to cause suspicion.”

As I suspected, it just so happens that I also want to benefit from the safety bubble created by the Grandmaster.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to ask because his brother saw through his “innocent request” and chuckled. “Would you like to come with us?”

“Why, I’d love that!” Nick replied immediately. “I’ll need to check with Archmage Tholm to confirm he still doesn’t plan to be there, but if everything checks out, I’ll be happy to join you two.”

I don’t know what the Circle of Pure Souls might be up to, but I doubt they are entirely gone. Groups like that don’t give up after just one failure.

Plus, with Xander beside him, he’d be able to bid on anything and everything he wanted, without anyone being able to scare him into stopping, but that was just a secondary benefit.