145 Seaside Village Quests - Outro

While all that was going down back at the Seaside Village, Kirou was already making his moves in the enemy stronghold. It's now been fifteen minutes since Kirou initiated his plan. Stealth and subterfuge were the game's name, and Kirou had to make severe commitments to follow through on his plans.

He started out by summoning two clones, which he then sent to specific places to hide until he gave the signal. Following this, he rushed back to the cave where the kids were being kept captive. Unlike his prior visit where most of his <MP> was spent searching for their location, this time he would be able to deal with them without as much trouble. That said, he remained hidden in a dark spot while watching the actions of the captors and their captives.

As he did this, he silently retrieved an item from his inventory. It was a small canister-like object that almost anyone would recognize if they saw it. Besides the main body in this cave, his clones pulled out similar objects, a few of which had been planted in various spots all over the enemy stronghold, now just waiting to be set off.

Kirou waited in his hiding spot for a few more minutes before he enacted the offensive portion of his plan. Again, the name of the game was stealth and subterfuge, so Kirou had to pull this all off without giving away his own location. With that in mind, explosions went off simultaneously at a few spots in the stronghold. These explosions caused the human traffickers to halt whatever they were doing and grab their weapons. Even the ones inside the cave with the children armed themselves, expecting enemies to eventually head their way.

Seeing this somewhat calm reaction from the captors caused Kirou to frown slightly, but he quickly dismissed this as he started the next phase of his plan. While the ones in the other areas of the stronghold were rushing out in order to find the persons they believe responsible for the attack and the ones in the cave formed an encirclement at the entrance of this prison, Kirou utilized the object in his hand.

Using <Shadow Teleportation> to momentarily appear by the entrance of the cave to toss the object in his hand at the group, he immediately summoned out both Asura and Tank, along with his third clone as he returned to his original position. The captors saw the small object flying towards them and got into a defensive position, thinking that it was an attack. Unfortunately for them, this was just a distraction to draw their attention away from the captive children. The object fell to the floor in the middle of the group but did nothing, which confused these men. Before they could even register that something was amiss, however, the object broke open and blinding gas started filling the room.

Most of the captors devolved into confusion as they could no longer make out their surroundings. While this happened, a few captors immediately realized what was happening and rushed toward the cell with the children. Sadly, before they could get close, they were greeted by the impact of a carapace armored shield hitting their heads, sending them flying in the opposite direction.

[-750]

[-710]

[-780]

The rest of the captors couldn't see it, but those three felt the brunt of Tank's Carapace Shield. Sadly, they couldn't even warn their companions of Tank's presence as the hit from the shield effectively stunned them and neither Kirou nor his clone would allow such an opportunity to finish these men off to escape them. What's worse is that even if they could have shouted out a warning to the rest, it would have already been too late as Asura was already having fun turning the remainder of the group into his playthings while Tank stood guard before the cell housing the children.

This went on for roughly five minutes before the area went silent and the smoke finally cleared. To ensure that the children didn't see anything traumatic, Kirou had Asura erect an earth wall between them and the rest of the cave. Following this, Kirou walked over to the cell and opened the door.

After doing a quick count and ensuring that everyone who was supposed to be there was present, Kirou spoke up, "I'm here to rescue you. Sadly, I won't be able to safely escort you out while taking care of the rest of this camp. So for now, would you children be okay if I hid you deeper in the mountain and come back for you when outside is safe?"

The children looked around at each other for a few moments, scared of the circumstances that they find themselves in but slowly digesting the information that Kirou shared with them. This went on for a few moments before they gave Kirou a nod.

Seeing this, Kirou gave them a gentle smile before speaking, "Good. Follow me for a moment. I'll put you in a safe place where the rest of these people won't be able to find you."

Following those words, Kirou had Asura open a path in the cave that led to another area and had the children follow. After ensuring that their new area had plenty of space, could receive plenty of air and the area itself was very secure, Kirou left his clone with them before sealing off the area and heading back to the original cave. When he returned, he removed the earth wall, only to find a few members of the camp had made their way to this cavern, looking for the kids.

Seeing them, Kirou's eyes grew cold. Even in this kind of scenario where their camp is under siege, these bastards dared to entertain the idea of using the children as shields. As if in response to their master's cold fury, Tank and surprisingly Asura started to exude a hostile ferocity at these men. With the sudden appearance of Kirou and his pets, these men were initially surprised but quickly grew angry at whom they now deemed as the perpetrator of their camp's current trouble.

Sadly, the anger and hostility currently emanating from Kirou and his pets never registered in the minds of these men. They thought that with their superior numbers, they had the advantage. That was the last thought that the group collectively shared as they stared death in the face.

*******

By the time that the pirate ships that fled the <Seaside Village> due to the Garuda player and his associates' intervention had arrived, the chaos in the camp of human traffickers had already died down.

After that first group that Kirou and his pets dealt with in the cave that previously housed the children, Kirou rushed outside to join his other two clones in killing the other members of the camp. During the fight, he eventually summoned out his pet spider and had it in charge of restraining all the camp members that Kirou deemed to live a bit longer. There weren't many that made it in this group, but those that did deeply regretted the fact Kirou didn't kill them in the initial charge.

Besides that, Kirou also discovered other groups of prisoners being kept in the camp, women and children from other villages. He never found these prisoners during his first search mainly because these prisoners were kept in the main areas where large groups of human traffickers had been kept. Unlike the kids from the <Seaside Village> that were to be sold on other continents, this set was caught for the camp members' personal entertainment.

Upon discovering this, Kirou already cold fury abruptly died and was replaced by something else. It can be said that in that instance, everyone in the camp instinctively understood a very harsh truth, whether they be captors, captives, and even Kirou's pets: it is better to deal with a cold Kirou than one with absolutely no emotion. In the case of a cold Kirou, he'll just kill you and that's the end of it. As for the latter..... (let's save that for the next chapter).

At this point, there were no signs of anything amiss from the view of the crew members of the ships as the camp was in preparations to be leaving this area in the first place. That being said, the overall leader of this pirate crew/human trafficking ring found something to be quite unnerving as his ship approached the port. He couldn't place the feeling, nor could he visibly find any indication for him to feel this level of discomfort, but his instincts kept telling him that something was wrong with the camp.

This feeling started out quite mild and was barely noticeable by the leader as he was making plans for the future and what to do when they got to the next location. This feeling suddenly changed, however, when his ship was close to the port. Unlike the events with the Garuda and his squad in the <Seaside Village> earlier, he currently felt like a ferocious beast was standing behind him, just inches away from his head.

Just as the leader felt this change and was about to issue the orders to flee to the seas, explosions went off on the three pirate ships surrounding the main ship simultaneously. For those three ships, both a clone and a pet had appeared on their decks. As for the ship with the pirate captain and the captives, only Kirou appeared, except his entrance was eerily silent.

While chaos and confusion were sown on the other three pirate ships, catching those crew members off guard, and ultimately leading to a severe loss of manpower very quickly, the captain of the pirate crew immediately surveyed his own ship for danger. As he did so, his eyes glanced at his recent captives, only to see a youth with tribal tattoos wearing leather armor placing a few items on the floor before the group. The rest of the crew turned towards this and equally found it eery that they never noticed when or how this youth appeared on the ship.

Seeing the youth, the instincts that were screaming for the pirate captain to flee had gone unusually quiet, as if deeming the youth before him to be harmless. The pirate captain would have believed this to be the case as well, if not for the very next scene that he saw.

As soon as the youth was done placing those items on the floor, he stood up and turned to face the captain of the ship. Following the youth's movement, thread after thread started to become visible. As soon as all the threads were visible, all crew members' faces paled as each found wires wrapped tightly around their respective necks. Even worse, a few moments later, these crew members' paled even further as they felt their bodies going against their wills, unsheathing their weapons. Immediately after, each crew member watched in abject horror as their companions sunk their blades into each others' hearts.

The pirate captain watched on in horror as he saw his crew members killing each other. While all this happened, the youth never once took his eyes off the pirate captain. It was as if the act of getting the crew to kill themselves was insignificant to the youth and only the pirate captain was capable of attracting his attention.

That kind of attention scared the pirate captain. He wasn't sure why, but he knew that whatever the youth was planning to do to him would make what he's done to his crew seem pale in comparison. To the pirate captain, it doesn't help that he was the only one that had none of these dreadful wires on him. That fact increased the already-rising fear inside the pirate captain's heart.

It was at this point that the youth took a step forward. In response, the pirate captain unconsciously took a step back. There was no change on Kirou's face as he continued to walk towards the pirate captain. As for the pirate captain, he continued to step back until his back hit a wall. By the time he registered this and wanted to run elsewhere, Kirou had appeared directly before him.

Backed into a corner and angered by the fear he had displayed while Kirou had killed his crew, the pirate captain decided to unsheath his weapon and attack Kirou. The pirate captain tried slashing at Kirou, only for his saber to be caught in Kirou's hand. As if to retaliate to the failed attack, Kirou used his other hand to punch the pirate captain, sending him a few feet to the left.

Instead of trying to flee, the pirate captain rushed at Kirou again, only for the same response as before to repeat. This went on for a while until the chaos on the other ships died down and all pets and clones came to the main ship, witnessing the one-sided beatdown that the pirate captain was receiving.

As this beatdown went on, Kirou ignored the system messages that kept prompting. He was fully focused on what he was doing and was not in any mood to care about them.

[Generating Skill....]

[Skill Generation Failed!]

[Generating skill...]

[Skill Generation Failed!]

[Generating skill...]

[Skill Generated: Wire Manipulation - Puppet Master]

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