82

"So you're saying they've already set to work rearranging their hideouts?" I ask the first lady thug I had yet to meet in the catacombs, finding it hard to collar a woman while collecting information. This was the second group I had come across in the western side of town after coming across three empty locations throughout the day.

I had found people at the first X on my map and so I thought nothing of it, but after so many misses I started asking around and all I could get from the captives was this location. Now, I was rewriting my map and preparing a grass golem to carry a copy to the Guild.

This lady thug, after being woke up with the rest of her group, was actually being quite cooperative after watching the tall and lanky subhuman slave they once possessed beating the other members of her crew.

This subhuman was an exceptional specimen that seems to have evolved from some kind of mountain monkey with short and fuzzy grayish red body hair and a thick head of curly carrot top. It even still had its prehensile tail that curled out of its burlap tunic. I was quite pleased with this find because it would likely evolve into a proper demihuman of incredible overall stats with its next evolution.

This was also the first subhuman that had retained some of its previous magical qualities after evolving to a humanoid form. Their aura was almost the size of my own while they possessed affinities for earth, water, wind, and rare life element. Because their were already large primate creatures evolved from monkeys called great apes, I decided to call this guy Greater Ape despite its tail.

After marking all of the new territories and the still active previous locations with squares, I partnered the lady up with the newly freed Greater Ape to keep her under wraps and set off to the nearest location. I was actually somewhat pleased with today's findings, not only did I only have to kill a few people with dark resistances but the loot this time was much better than before.

Usually, they would have cheap and basic swords and crossbows that were not even worth my mana, but this lady and some of her men all had large imbued daggers galvanized in mithril.

This was not a cheap weapon, but it was still only in the lower middle on the spectrum. They had twenty-percent Conduction in their blades while their hilts were set with a natural topaz that added weight and sharpness to their attacks. Theoretically, these sixteen-inch blades could strike like large and heavy swords.

Even though they were mostly useless to me they had decent resale value and the lady's own ax and crossbow were both of nice quality enchanted steel. They said they used to be a Guild mercenary so with their equipment and stats they could have been C rank with B potential. And then ran into some trouble with corrupt officials.

Regardless of their crimes, I planned to keep them around since the originally served the Guild and everything can be circumstantially pinned on a combinations of potentially living and dead parties.

The next group we came across, surprisingly, turned out to be a busy intersection where both loot and duties were being distributed. It was still somewhat early in the morning so the night shifts out mugging and thieving were turning in their spoils while the day shifts were being sent out. Most of the loot looked like basic money with a small pile of miscellaneous jewelry and even some weapons and equipment.

Even with my wisps, wolves, and the lesser valued slaves I was forced to face just under forty people. As soon as we showed up, though, some people of rank yelled the call to arms before grabbing loot and running. They would spread the word.

I sent six lesser slaves to die supported by armed subhumans and the wolves while keeping four higher value captives in reserve. I also kept Greater Ape next to his charge while wielding her double-sided ax. With its tail.

Grimm and Shade immediately raced out to pursue the fleeing thug leaders and I unleashed a constant torrent of electricity from my hands toward an energy from off to the side. With all of the moisture in the warm tunnels it was easy for the constant flow of elemental mana to jump from the first target to the next and begin splitting up with more targets in reach.

Only the first handful of them died before the lightning forked off into three too-weak chains, but the residual stunning affect of the constantly flowing energy through the ensuing targets helped ensure the safety of my forces.

My side only lost two lives in the initial conflict before they could focus on only one half of the intersection, but everyone still ended up being injured at least once before everybody was under control. Most of the bandits were heavily wounded or dead, but enough of them were well enough to collar and collect while sending the wolves out to support my wisps. Then I tested Greater Ape's abilities by having him attempt to heal some of the lesser wounded thugs.

For obvious reasons they were initially against this but I eventually convinced them. In the end, it was only capable of stimulating a moderate speed of regeneration. While it could produce and use large quantities of life energy to heal with, it took time and time seemed to increase the strain on their low skill level.

A total of three people who were only somewhat charred or crippled in the limbs were healed and added to the slave units before Greater Ape finally had to stop. I graciously thanked him by mixing a small bowl of crushed fruits with candies and a long-term mana potion. To everybody else I simply gave a health candy and waited for my familiars to return.

The loot left behind consisted mostly of enough different coins to make up thirty gold with a few scattered pieces of jewelry. They and the weapons were some of the first to go, but still in the area itself were their lockers or chests that usually contained their personal stashes. Last time I mostly found stuff like weapons and booze but it was still material at the very least.

Loot from this location mostly entailed some basic imbued weapons, cheap booze, random hides for furnishing, and money.

The money from loot like this was usually processed by the Guild and taxed so in my hands it was better off used as alchemy material. I already did most of my spending in blanks while traveling, anyway. However, for the sake of the subhumans I needed to set aside most of this loot for their future assisted living expenses.

Grimm and Shade returned not long after we finished reorganizing the loot and I even filled purses for the different subhumans. They had managed to capture two escapees but returned with all of the missing loot. They had also killed some high value targets, but there was not much to be done about it.

After collaring all of the new temporary slaves, I divided them by value into a group contained by the wolves and a group augmented by the subhumans for combat purposes. In this fashion, I could more quickly and adequately deploy units into conflict while I deal heavy support from the side. This would, hopefully, secure more money.

People. I meant people. Ahem.

Despite all of that preparation, though, the largest group of thugs we came to after that were only thirteen combatants and a few captives. Taking down not only that group safely but also the entire northeastern quadrant of the city took up a lot of reserve mana sources such as golem cores and some agate. Not only did I have the suppress the sounds of a few dozen people at any given time but I also had to disperse them to surround some intersections and cubicles

However, the wisps handled the greater portion of work while a few or new subhumans were used to help me handle fresh slave.

The captives we rescued were some children and servants belonging to one of the lesser wealthy business families. For all I knew, they could be some of the Robirstin people in this area. Somebody who, in a few days, would certainly be arriving here.

I gave each member of the group a wolf guard and the servants a pair of impact daggers each to protect the children as they made their way to the nearest Guild associated locations. They were valuable witnesses and information sources that could speed up some of the guildmaster's plans. So much so that I was tempted to send my wisps out to guard them in secret from the sewers.

Most of the northwest quadrant had been cleaned up and marked out on the map up until the slums. I wanted to be at full power before I hit the contest grounds between the private forces of the mine lords and the gangsters of the merchant princes. For now, I had to sneak through the catacombs between the slums and the upper class district under a thin four-acre wide strip of middle class industrial district for processing mined goods.

Consequently, the upper class that lived on the river outskirts close to this area were their lower upper class that usually were in charge of the industries and slums. Thankfully, the industries had greater ties to the mine lords so the area was a no-man's-land

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