Embarassing situation

At daybreak, daily life in the mines began with the counting of slaves. The highvale soldier was lazy in carrying out his duties, whether patrolling or inspecting slaves.

There was still no sign of Chief Byron in the camp, which explained the soldiers' lack of effort as they went about their work. Ever since the infamous obese camp leader left for the city to help his gang with whatever was going on there, the mine soldiers took the opportunity to take some time off, making it clear that none of them wanted to be there.

However, the reason these soldiers did not want to be in this place had nothing with empathy or moral objection, but because they were simply far from the city, taking care of the slaves. So they vented their anger on the slaves, now with more freedom, as the leader was not on the ground to enforce any rules.

Hidden behind the rocks, Ryu saw the soldiers punching the slaves for fun and pushing them to the ground as they laughed at their misery. The soldiers were totally focused on themselves and their entertainment at the expense of the slaves' suffering. But this reckless behavior came in handy for Ryu, as his plan was to infiltrate the camp.

Ryu's enhanced eyes proved very useful as he could change focus quickly, allowing him to monitor the entire camp without missing a single move. Then, a good opportunity, which Ryu had not expected, presented itself, offering a unique chance to infiltrate the camp.

One of the soldiers, a middle-aged man with a severe lack of hair on top of his head, abandoned his position patrolling the outskirts of the base, heading into the forest several meters away.

What that man was going to do in the forest was pretty obvious, for moments before he had waved to his fellow highvale fellow passing by and shouted at him to cover his position, as he was going to defecate in the forest. His unwilling comrade watched his position for no more than a minute before he left to do his own thing.

Seeing his chance, Ryu put Bucky down and told him to wait, then went after the man in the forest. As Ryu had to make a detour to reach the forest area, so as not to be seen by anyone at the base, he arrived at the site only after five minutes, hoping the man was still there.

As soon as he approached the site, Ryu got confirmation that the man was still there, in the form of a stench, a putrid smell that spread far and wide, followed by the groan of a man struggling for strength. 'This man is already dead.' Ryu thought as he covered his nose to try to get closer to the dangerous spot.

A gruesome scene of a naked man crouching among the bushes appeared from behind the trees. It wasn't necessary to use any tracking skills to find the spot as the scent marked the local. Step by step, Ryu found his way to the man, and thanks to his new pair of shoes and his experience of hunting in the forest, he didn't make any sound during the walk, which allowed him to reach seven meters away without being noticed.

Not daring to come any closer because of the stench, Ryu decided to use his long-range option to finish the man, so he picked up his dagger and positioned himself to throw it with all his strength. As a hand covered his nose, Ryu pulled the dagger back and aimed at the chest of the man in front.

Before throwing the dagger, Ryu tried to inject qi into the weapon to increase its power and activate its return function. However, as he no longer had a dantian or qi of his own to inject into the dagger, he had to rely only on his instinct and muscle memory to inject the qi, and even then, he wasn't sure if it was working or not.

*Swuuus*

*aaaaaahh*

The dagger flew through the wind until it found its target, just below where Ryu had aimed, but still found the target in the man's belly. When the dagger pierced his belly, the man screamed and rose, clutching his stomach.

As the man rose, the dagger became visible, revealing that it had penetrated deep to the hilt. But the dagger was buried so deep in his belly that it stagnated the wound, preventing the blood from leaking and reducing the pain, so Ryu tried to get the dagger to fly back into his hand.

But the dagger remained immobile, so the man, even with a dagger stuck in his belly, still found the strength to advance towards Ryu. Even with his robes on the ground, the man was not helpless, as he still had his ring with him, and he pulled out a long spear and ran to Ryu, pointing the glowing point at him.

Fighting a naked man was an experience Ryu didn't want to have, so he jumped back and withdrew his staff. But when Ryu reached down with his left hand to grab the staff, he had to let go of his nose, causing the stench to invade his nose. With his eyes watering from the stench, Ryu gave up fighting the man head-on and ran to the side to escape to where he could breathe.

The naked guy misunderstood Ryu's escape out of weakness, so his confidence soared, and he started chasing Ryu. Twenty paces ahead, Ryu stopped and turned to face his naked pursuer; when he turned, he saw the man and also saw the dagger stuck in his stomach.

Since Ryu left the sect with Nura, he trained several times using the dagger on their journey, but not a single time did he manage to make it come back to him as his master did. Still, he decided to use the distance between himself and his attacker to try pulling the dagger one last time.

Ryu reached his right hand forward and tried to focus on the dagger; in his mind, there was only one thought: to make the dagger fly into his hand. But it failed to respond to Ryu's command once more, and the naked man continued to run towards Ryu with his spear aiming at his chest.

However, when Ryu started to withdraw his hand to grab the staff, the dagger reacted and began to move. It broke free and flew toward Ryu, but it only had the energy to fly halfway before it began to fall, landing on the ground in front of Ryu.

As the blade holding the wound came out, an alarming amount of blood began to gush out, and also, pain descended on the naked man at once, causing him to drop the spear as he dropped to his knees, groaning in pain.

The fight was over before it even started, and the only thing left for Ryu was to end the misery of the man in front of him, so he stepped forward and swung his bat horizontally, hitting the side of the kneeling man's head, who dropped dead with his head cracked.

At the end of the fight, Ryu grabbed the dead man's ring and his dagger from the ground; in sequence, he held his nose and ran to the source of the stink to get the gray cloak. Then he ran as far as he could, afraid the stench would permeate his clothes.

Thus, he had all the pieces necessary to start the invasion plan.