The Night still goes on (2)

The moon had risen but many lights were still on in the city of Pemacreba. Around this time, a young blacksmith was closing his shop and was planning on going somewhere nearby for dinner. However, a familiar group of three men were waiting for him when it was closing time.

"Hey, sorry to be here so late but, we have things to discuss with you."

Not only was it night, but this was the first time he saw such scary looks on their faces so he flinched in panic, but then he remembered the strip of skin which Shui gave him. When he took it out in a hurry the three only looked a bit confused, but once they were shown the symbol on it, their eyes became dull and lifeless.

The symbol that Shui had inscribed was 'Command'. Normally he would have to be present to use this talisman but by using the skin of a high beast specialised in mental attacks, it was possible for him to attach the command he wanted into the symbol as well define the young blacksmith as someone immune to it.

Once the three were frozen, Serina's brother wonder what he should do next before he remembered that Shui told him to give the talisman to the men, and so that's what he did.

"He,here."

As soon as he handed the talisman to one of the men, all three of them left. Once he could no longer spot their backs among the crowd, he sighed in relief but a question remained.

'I wonder what that was for?'

Once the trio accepted the talisman, they would be overcome by the urge to give it to their boss. If their boss was also weak to mental attacks then he would then pass on the talisman to his boss until it ended up in the hands of a relatively powerful person in their group of gangs. However, this plan had one major problem that Shui forgot to think about.

Just because they were his subordinates didn't necessarily mean he would meet them.

The three entered a dirty old building and walked past a group of children who slept together under one brown blanket.

"We have something for the boss."

"Huh? What is it?"

"We have to give it to the boss."

"And I asked what is it."

"We have to give it to the boss."

"What the hell? Did you turn dumb or something?"

If they had maintained their normal level of intelligence they would just need to give it to the guard. However, while hypnotized they weren't able to come up with such a simple method which meant they would only irritate the guard.

As he noticed this problem, Shui held his head while watching from a nearby rooftop.

'Damn it! I didn't think this through.'

Shui wanted to secretly scope out their organization to find out why they were targeting Serina's brother, but now he would be forced to get personally involved.

'Hopefully I won't have to knock on too many doors to learn what I want.'

Once he made his decision, Shui jumped down from the roof and entered the wooden shack.

"We have to give it to the Boss."

"Oi, you're making me real irritated her-"

The guard reached for his weapon in order to take care of the hypnotised trio, but then his eyes met Shui's and he became the next to have his eyes lose focus. Shui then walked past him while cancelling the order the group of three were acting on and putting them on standby.

"Hey, what's going on out ther-"

The moment Shui entered the room behind the guard, there were three more guards in the room but they along with the man who was their boss, were only in the Soul Realm so they couldn't resist Shui's hypnosis. Without getting a single drop of blood on his hands, Shui was able to reach their boss and look through his memories.

'Well, at least he's not in too much trouble.'

After looking through the boss' memories, Shui was sure that Serina's brother was only being harassed because he looked like a good target rather than anything else. As long as he imprinted a feeling of ominous fear that would act up whenever they got near him, they likely wouldn't bother him anymore.

'I'll still need to lay down an array or two to make sure.'

Now that he had accomplished what he set out to do, Shui erased his appearance from the minds of those in this room and exited it to finish the job. After taking back the talisman and erasing the memories of the guard and the group of three, Shui thought about doing the same to the children as well.

It would be best if he did, but he wasn't confident in tinkering with their undeveloped minds without any side effects remaining. As Shui stared at them, the children were frozen with fear as they gathered together. Most of them had grown numb to the pain of being beaten by these adults who would work them to the bone, but the sight of this mysterious figure who could waltz in without repercussions gave them inexplicable fear. Even his fascinating beauty did nothing to abate this fear, however, one among them saw something familiar in that face.

He didn't know if he was right, but if it could help accomplish his dearest wish, he would do anything.

"Shui?"

Shocked to hear his name, Shui snapped his attention to one of the older boys among the group of children. The rest of them turned to him with incredulous and frustrated expressions, but the boy gulped and took a step towards Shui.

"Do you remember me from the Heaven clan?"

Shui was finding it hard to figure out who the boy was, but with the mention of the Heaven clan everything clicked together.

"Were you one of the kids that Yur helped to escape?"

"That's right!" the boy excitedly replied.

Now that he was sure that the handsome young man before him was that talented outcast from his clan, his expression brightened. When he left the clan, Shui was only known as a crippled former genius, but whenever Yur came over to check up on them he would always mention that if it wasn't for Shui they would never have been able to escape.

This was the first time he met Shui in person, but the stories he heard made the boy hopeful that Shui could help him.

"How did you end up in a place like this? Didn't Yur help you and our mother to settle down? And where is your mother?"

Once his mother was mentioned, the boy's expression quickly became covered by gloom as he balled up his tiny fists.

"They, they took her. They took my mother away."

It took a bit of time since the boy got very emotional, but Shui was eventually able to get the full story from him. He and his mother had moved here from Silver City but struggled to find a way to support themselves, especially since they weren't the only ones with such circumstances. They tried to contact Yur but the letters they sent never received any response.

As the funds they had dwindled down, the two were forced to live in the slums, where his mother caught the eye of the boss here and was sold to one of his superiors, while he was forced to work like a slave, pickpocketing and doing whatever they told him to.

"Please! You have to save my mother!"