Chapter 123

The guy who had just come and made a fuss was someone he had found distasteful a few times for being particularly fidgety and not greeting properly. He was even less likely to call him Brother in a friendly way, but strangely, it felt different from usual.

The man, who had tilted his head, looked back behind the box once. Since there were other guys there, it seemed like it would be okay to leave his spot for a bit.

He moved his steps towards the entrance to follow those who had gone ahead. Since their faces were the same, he couldn't bring himself to think it was a different person, and he became a little curious about what kind of serious matter it was that the guy who had been so sloppy ran all the way here and called out to him desperately as Brother.

The man, who had taken big strides, turned the curve of the cave that bent to the right. Then, he abruptly stopped in his tracks upon seeing the sight in front of him.

"Wh, what the fu—. What is this—."

The sight was quite shocking. His colleague who had gone ahead was lying on the floor as if he had fainted in that brief moment, but the problem was that his top had been taken off and was rolling to the side, and his pants were halfway down as if someone had started taking them off but stopped midway.

The exposed body sprawled out gave him a feeling of repulsion, but rather than that, a sense of fear assaulted him more strongly. There had to be a culprit who had done this, but the mercenary who had followed behind was nowhere to be seen.

The man, whose complexion was changing from red to blue in real-time as he spat out curses, instinctively took a step back. At that moment, he felt like someone strongly pushed his shoulder from behind. The startled man immediately swung his fist backward, but the fist sliced through the air without any impact.

Without even having a chance to see who had pushed him, the man's vision went pitch-black with the hand reaching out in front of his eyes being the last thing he saw.

* * *

Meanwhile, Alec, who had been pacing near the entrance of the mining team's hideout and base, was waiting for Leonardo while keeping watch unexpectedly diligently. He occasionally whistled in time with the thudding sounds coming from inside.

"He said he would go quietly, but it seems like he's going to wake everyone up."

The waiting Alec took out a pocket watch with a unique design from his pocket to check the time and clicked his tongue. He had intended to leave this area before dawn, but time had been delayed more than he thought, and dawn was already about to break.

However, since they had made a contract anyway, he had no choice but to wait for its fulfillment, so he was planning the future direction of progress while humming a song.

At that moment, a subtle presence was felt at the end of the passage where he was standing. Alec immediately stopped the song he had been singing and stared in that direction. Since the cave was drilled in a straight line, there was no place to properly hide his body, so he fumbled in his back pocket with one hand behind him to see if there was anything he could use as a weapon.

The presence gradually got closer, and the sound of footsteps became louder and louder. Although it felt cautious, the other party's gait seemed bold as if they had no intention of hiding their footsteps, which rather heightened the tension.

The silhouette obscured by the darkness gradually became clearer, and when the other party approached close enough to roughly identify the face, Alec made a slightly surprised expression as if he hadn't expected it.

He pushed up the silver-rimmed glasses he was wearing to focus properly. Then, hiding a hint of bewilderment, he said with a grin,

"How did you... get here?"

* * *

Leonardo, who had transformed into a senior manager in his 40s with chestnut-colored hair and a long scar on the corner of his mouth, blankly looked up at the tall metal box in front of him. The etaide piled on top of it was emitting a brilliant blue light, illuminated by the torches. A smile hung on the corner of his mouth.

"Found it."

Around him, necks that had been undoubtedly defeated were abundantly strewn about. Of course, he hadn't killed them, just knocked them out for a while.

Strangely, only the storage location of etaide was isolated, so he had gotten lost several times, and there were quite a few well-trained mercenaries, about a dozen, guarding it in front, making it more difficult to control his strength than before. It also played a part that he was trying to go easy, but they were charging at him in earnest.

Still, since they were guys who had come to make a living and earn money, he tried to knock them out without pain, but for the guy he had almost sent to the threshold of heaven or hell somewhere by striking the back of his head wrong, he even kindly sat him against the wall, wishing him a speedy recovery.

After roughly pushing the collapsed individuals to the side, Leonardo jumped onto the box at once as if leaping over a high fence. Then, an overwhelmingly large amount of etaide was visible, piled up to the point of making one's eyes roll.

He lightly stepped on the minerals, bent his knees, and sat down, lifting handfuls of blue minerals with both hands. He wanted to savor the feeling of having found treasure, even if only for a moment, but due to the lack of time, he only checked if it was etaide or not.

The shape and color of the crystals. The spreading energy when a faint mana was flowed out was definitely what he had been searching for. After finishing the confirmation, he grabbed the red gem on the ring he was wearing on his left index finger and twisted it slightly. Then, the gem fell off with a pop and began to rotate in the air, gradually increasing in size.

This was a type of concealment artifact, and when the Council had confiscated all his belongings before, they seemed to have not properly checked the locked artifact and its interior, as the contents that had been stored inside remained intact.

Inside the artifact floating in the air, another blue mana stone was shining and sparkling.

It was the mana stone of the Quamare Leonardo had caught on the coast of Perion 3 months ago, and its color and shape were similar to etaide, making it very suitable as a substitute to fill the empty space. Moreover, the water attribute of the Quamare mana stone maximized the expansion effect when it met etaide in a heat-applied state.

Although he hadn't brought the mana stone with the purpose of substitution, it would be best if it wasn't known that he had stopped by here and taken etaide. Leonardo poured about half of the mana stone that had been stored onto the box, then filled etaide back into the artifact.

Then, he mixed the mana stone and etaide poured into the box appropriately. The two substances had similar mass per volume, so unless someone who knew how to examine minerals compared them one by one, it would be quite difficult to distinguish them with the naked eye.

Up until he heard the story of the mining team from Alec, he had thought that the reason they mined etaide was simply to sell the valuable mineral.

However, as a result of wandering around the vicinity and checking the condition of other minerals, he could tell that the treatment of etaide was particularly special.

The fact that this etaide was included in the minerals to be excluded from what was promised to be given to the miners, the training level of the mercenaries placed in front and their overwhelmingly large number, and even the locational aspect of being hidden in a very difficult place to find.

Overall, it was hard to erase the feeling that etaide was being given special treatment.

Leonardo, who had compressed the artifact filled with minerals back into a part of the ring and fitted it in, lightly jumped down from the tall and huge metal box.

If his suspicion was true. In other words, if a large portion of the purpose of this mining team was etaide,

He could find out the reason why the auction price of etaide had skyrocketed exponentially recently, or he might come face to face with another force that had a similar purpose to himself. So from now on, what he had to do was find the top senior member of the mining team who kept this system in existence.

Leonardo tidied the clothes he had stolen and put on, and immediately left the cave he was in. Then, he walked along the tunnels to wherever he felt the presence of people.

Perhaps because it was still before dawn, there was hardly any movement and it was just quiet, but fortunately, after turning a few curves, he was able to run into someone. That someone also looked burly, and although his impression didn't seem very good this time either.

When he was about to approach the guy in front of him to get a hint about that Martin, the other party, who he thought would just pass by, looked around and approached him secretively.

Rather, it seemed like he had business with him, so Leonardo stopped walking and made a puzzled expression. The man eventually approached carefully, lowered his voice, and said to him,

"Isaac, Martin is calling for you."

Leonardo blankly stared at the man who had spoken to him for a moment. Then, he soon lightly nodded his head.

For some reason, it seemed like things would be resolved more easily than he thought.

* * *

The owner of this face, who was called Isaac, was a manager who had been guarding a mineral more valuable than etaide. Generally, he thought that the higher the rank of the manager guarding expensive minerals, the higher their position would be, so if he borrowed this face, he expected it would be much easier to approach the person named Martin.

However, it was something he hadn't thought would be this spot-on.

The burly man led Leonardo and said that 'that person' had come.

Of course, Leonardo had no way of knowing who that person was, so he tried his best to minimize his words and speculate on that person's existence. And from the man's words that Martin would likely be reprimanded because of the recent escape of the miners, he intuitively sensed that it was someone who was like a backer that kept this system in existence.

Those 'guys who usually post such flyers' that Alec had mentioned, like the head of a large-scale merchant group or a businessman backed by a noble family.

And now, Leonardo, in the appearance of Isaac, was sitting with one knee bent as if swearing loyalty to 'that person'. Next to him was the man who had led him here, saying Martin was calling for him, in the same posture, and both of them had their gazes fixed solely on the ground.

In this deep and secretive space they had reached by taking detours, they couldn't raise their heads without permission, and they just focused on the conversation they heard as if they weren't there.

In front of them, Martin, whom they had searched so hard for, was having a conversation with someone who seemed to be that person's close confidant while profusely sweating. However, it was closer to a one-sided reprimand than a conversation, and in the midst of that, Martin only repeated that there would be no problem.

Listening to the story, it seemed that those who knew of that person's existence and could meet that person were only the three people present here from the mining team.

That's how secretly this meeting was being held, and in the secretive conversation going back and forth, Leonardo could hear the answers to the questions he had in real-time.

"For now, at least take the etaide out. We can't go around finding each of the escapees one by one."

"Yes, yes. I understand."

The one who seemed to be that person's close confidant instructed the managers of the mining team to also prepare to leave soon. If some of the escapees were caught by the Council and interrogated, the existence of this mining team could be exposed, so he seemed to be mindful of that.

In addition, he gave Martin a hint about the current direction of progress of each battalion of the Council and the situation of searching for the missing persons, suggesting a rough escape route.

Leonardo gulped. The content he was hearing now was something outsiders shouldn't know. It was content that could never be known unless they had wiretapped the Council's radio communication or meeting contents, or were an insider of the Council.

In the meantime, 'that person', who was listening to all this conversation, was standing far back there, only staring in this direction, without directly contacting Martin or giving orders. Such behavior allowed them to speculate that that person was reluctant to reveal their existence or was someone whose existence should not be known.

However, earlier, when Leonardo had followed Martin into this cave, he had momentarily made eye contact with that person. And since then, he had been in a state of confusion.

Although it wasn't clearly visible as half of the face was covered by darkness and a robe, 'that person' was definitely someone Leonardo knew.

He wanted to raise his head and confirm it one more time, but he couldn't move a finger because about five other close confidants were watching their actions closely.

As the conversation between the confidant and Martin grew longer, faint dawn light seeped in from far behind that person, slowly brightening the interior. Seeing their shadows stretching to his feet, Leonardo noticed that dawn was gradually breaking.

That person, who had been standing far away, also turned his head back to look behind him at the incoming light. Then, as if telling him to stop there, he said to his close confidant,

"Let's go now."

"Ah, yes, I understand."

The confidant delivered the final instructions to Martin, then went and stood by that person's side. Eventually, Martin bowed towards them. The man who had been kneeling on the floor with him also stood up and bowed, and Leonardo likewise got up from his spot and took the same action as them.

That person, including the confidants, quickly moved their steps and moved away towards the light of dawn coming in from the far end. As the sound of footsteps became more and more distant, Leonardo slightly raised his head and looked at their retreating figures, then soon let out a silent hollow laugh.

'What did I just see?'

The moment he heard his voice, Leonardo was certain.

In the back of that person taking off the hat attached to the robe, deep green hair was briefly visible.

It was something Leonardo had seen when he was arrested in the imperial capital's grand plaza, when he was smoking on the terrace of the Council's annex building, and when he entered the peninsula and attended the meeting of the commanders.

The backer who allowed the mining team to move meticulously while avoiding the eyes of the Council and kept this system in existence.

The heir to the Clinder family, one of the noble faction families with formidable power in Raina Logia.

He was the 3rd Battalion Commander of the Council's Central Branch. Meterion Clinder.