Chapter 38: Strike out

"Why don't we just fight our way out? Those normal humans outside are weak. We can just walk out the main door and they can't stop us!" 

The walls of the room, and probably the whole base, were made of some very strong material. It looked a bit like the old building materials from Lantine Oasis Sky City. Cyra saw this too and didn't think we could break through the outer walls quickly with our strength.

"What's the point of saying that now? Don't forget there are Gundam in this base! And there's a big boss System. You think it'll be so easy?"

I couldn't help complaining. Cyra ran away the fastest earlier, but now she suddenly wants to be brave? It's not that I think we can't win. It's just that facing an enemy with a tricky System makes me nervous. Being careful is always better.

"I'm just saying. Do you have any other ideas? Are we really going to look for some other exit? The problem is we can't find one!"

Of course Cyra understood. She just shrugged and threw the problem back to me. But I couldn't answer her right away either.

We wandered around the empty area for a long time and saw many integrated building facilities. This area was probably meant to be a living area when it was first built. But because there weren't enough people, areas near the edge like this one hadn't been used yet. Besides that, we still didn't know anything about how the rest of the base was laid out. It wouldn't be as easy as we thought to find a hidden exit and leave this place.

Now we were stuck again. The worst part was that even though the enemy didn't seem strong, we still had to be careful of many things. It was very frustrating to think about.

"Be quiet, I think someone's coming!" Adrian suddenly warned us softly. He quietly closed the door. Then the lights in the room went out and it became pitch black.

"Do we need to turn invisible again?" I asked carefully. I could clearly hear footsteps coming from the direction we came from.

"No need. It sounds like there aren't many people coming..." 

Adrian rejected my suggestion. Was he thinking of killing them to keep them quiet? But as the footsteps got closer, we could start to hear the people talking.

"Are those intruders really that weak?"

It was a girl's voice. This seemed different from what we expected. We thought we'd run into a search team from outside, but from the footsteps it sounded like no more than 6 or 7 people.

"Of course! Think about it. If they were strong magicians or angels, we would have found them by now! Even if they were invisible it wouldn't help. The fact that they've been hiding in the base for so long means their level can't be very high. We still can't sense them clearly!"

Another woman answered very confidently. Her voice sounded a bit familiar.

"But what if they're Battle Qi awakener? We can't sense any elemental energy from Battle Qi awakener either. If we run into them, won't we be dead for sure?"

Suddenly a man's voice chimed in, asking more questions.

"Haha, how is that possible! You think Battle Qi awakener are so common they just show up anywhere?"

The woman from before answered again. But her tone seemed clearly meant to persuade.

"This kind of chance to catch spies ourselves and get credit doesn't come often! If I hadn't seen the blueprints before and known there was an unused area in the base, most people wouldn't have thought they might be hiding in a place like this! Anyway, those search teams outside are so dumb, they definitely won't search here for a while. If you're scared now, you can leave early!"

"I'm not scared at all. I'm Apton, almost a 6th level high-class warrior. How could I be afraid of a few Republic spies?" The man's voice from before immediately clarified, not wanting to seem weak. "Plus Memi is very strong too. Her light magic level is already over 5th level. With the two of us here, what intruders could we not catch?"

"That's right! Even though I'm a bit weaker than everyone, I'll definitely not let you down in trying to get credit and win the chief pilot position!" The last voice sounded quite weak, but clearly she didn't want to back out at the last minute either and kept agreeing with everyone.

Okay, now we understood the situation without needing more confirmation! It seemed a few reckless Empire soldiers wanted to try to get credit on their own by searching this empty area for us. But their plan was doomed to fail.

"As soon as they get close, I'll go out and take them down. Remember not to show your wings, or we might get discovered!" Adrian quietly instructed me. Even though we were hiding in a separate room, these Empire soldiers would eventually pass by our door on the main road. With several light mages that close, we wouldn't be able to hide our auras at all. The only option was to kill them.

"No problem!" I nodded, mentally preparing myself. Even though our targets this time were humans, we had no choice but to make an exception to ensure our own safety.

Everything developed as expected. Soon the footsteps came very close to our door.

With a loud "BANG!", Adrian burst out the door and attacked first. Outside immediately became chaos.

"Enemy attack! Everyone retreat and take cover!"

As the enemies cried out in surprise, Cyra and I quickly poked our heads out to watch the situation outside.

In the dim corridor lit by magic light, we could see several people already lying on the ground! Even though Adrian wasn't especially skilled at close combat, his strength had grown tremendously since awakening his Battle Qi. How could these common soldiers resist him? In less than 10 seconds he had taken out over half the enemies by himself.

But of course some lucky ones escaped the first attack. Two or three of them scattered and hid in the surrounding buildings. Since Adrian couldn't sense their elemental energy to find their positions, he could only start searching the rooms one by one based on where they disappeared.

"They're in the room next to you!" I couldn't help shouting to warn Adrian when I saw him about to go the wrong way. We were so close now that it was easy for me to sense exactly where those light mages were hiding. Adrian didn't know, but I could tell him!

"Damn it!" Sure enough, as soon as I spoke, a figure immediately jumped out of a small room not far to the right. In that kind of place with no other exit, if they were really found it would be certain death. The person hiding definitely wouldn't just wait to be killed.

"Huh?" Surprisingly, the person's movements were quite agile. Even though she was a female light mage, her martial arts skills were quite good! Although Adrian immediately blocked her escape route when she appeared, she managed to exchange a few moves with Adrian using her nimble footwork, then feinted and turned to escape again, disappearing into the darkness.

"Strange, why do I feel like I've seen that person somewhere before? And it seems like she used a disguise magic... or maybe not?"

Even though we only saw her briefly, I felt like that female mage had used disguise magic to hide her identity. 

Disguise magic is a type of light magic. But if a light mage casts it on themselves, the light elemental aura of the magic itself can easily be hidden. So unless you're very sensitive to and familiar with light elements, it's usually hard to tell.

In this situation, of course the closer we got to the target the easier it would be to uncover the truth. Even if she ran away again, as long as I was here we'd definitely be able to find her!

Thinking this, I immediately ran out of the room, planning to go help Adrian.

"So you're the enemy magician? Looks like I'll have to take you out first!"

Just then, another enemy suddenly jumped out from the other side. This guy must be the warrior called Apton from before. The big two-handed axe he was swinging looked quite threatening. I didn't realize at all that he was hiding so close to me. I was so startled I almost couldn't help revealing my wings.

"Solar Flare!"

Luckily Cyra behind me was much smarter this time. Seeing the bad situation, she quickly threw out a high-intensity light magic bullet. It successfully blinded the enemy and saved me for now.

"Hey! Why did you run out? I guess I saved your life this time, huh?"

Having succeeded with one hit, Cyra was very proud and started asking for credit.

"Feliciana, are you okay?" Apton couldn't see so he didn't press forward, but instead hid again. Fortunately Adrian saw the situation and quickly ran back to protect our safety.

"I'm fine, just that I also got blinded by someone's attack..."

I couldn't help feeling annoyed. Actually, even if Cyra didn't save me, I had my own way to escape! But her magic bullet came with no warning at all, so I got hit too. It took a long time for my vision to recover. I was being very merciful by not teaching her a lesson.