W1.A1-19: Infiltrating the Mansion

"Damn it, Dan!" Lena complained as she rubbed her waist. "Just how pent up were you to go wild like that?" She asked.

"Didn't you enjoy it too?" I asked with a smile while not replying to her directly. There was no way I was going to tell her about the vexing encounter I had with my mother.

It was too embarrassing!

"So how should we do this?" After complaining for a while, Lena finally focused on the mission at hand. Whenever we were on missions together, she would simply dump the lead on me, as I was more proficient in such matters.

At the moment, we were standing in an open space—a garden, to be precise. And in front of us was an expansive mansion. This was the location where our target for this mission was supposed to be.

I was wearing my normal clothes, while Lena had changed into her normal attire. It was not the scanty one from earlier. That was just to provoke me.

She was wearing a golden colored armor on top, and a similar, plated armor covered her waist like a skirt. The intricate patterns drawn upon it made it seem like a work of art that needed to be preserved, but in reality, it was anything but delicate.

It was given to her by our master. I also had one, but at the moment, it was back in my master's possession, along with my storage ring.

Letting go of the stray thoughts, I focused on the given situation.

The garden we were standing in was located at the back of the mansion. We arrived here on time, just before the event held by that fake royal was going to begin.

An interesting fact was that this place was only a half-hour ride from my town.

Hearing Lena's question, I started considering, "I think we should examine the location a bit before deciding our plan of action."

"Do we really have to do that?" Lena asked, looking a bit reluctant. "That's so bothersome!" She complained in a whiny tone. "Given his choice of location, the target is surely someone cowardly; he must be just so-so."

Already used to her personality, I calmly replied, "We can't be careless." I paused before saying, "They wouldn't assign this mission to two master-class experts if it was really that simple; there should be a catch."

Lena could only agree, as she was not really that careless; it was just her habit to act spoilt in front of me.

Having decided our task, we stealthily headed towards the mansion. The closed backdoors didn't bother us, as we simply climbed up towards the open balconies.

As we moved forward along the dark hallways, a faint noise could finally be heard coming from the front. But as we walked closer, the direction of the voice shifted to be beneath our feet.

We were on the second floor, and the event was probably held down there.

But we still didn't skip the area and continued forward.

After spending a while and still not finding anything of note there, I led Lena towards the stairs.

We had only descended a little, but we could already see the brightly lit lamps on both sides of the hallways.

As we finally came down, a surprised expression appeared on my face as I took another look at those lamps.

Unlike what could be found inside most of the houses in my town, these lamps were not simple oil lamps. No. Instead, they were similar to the ones I had at home—the array operated lamps. But even there, we only had them installed in the key areas, as the town lacked the energy supply to charge them cheaply.

But here, there was an entire row of them, lighting up what seemed like an insignificant hallway.

"How extravagant!" Lena also commented.

As we continued onward, all the hallways we passed through were decorated similarly. There were also rooms on both sides, but without exception, all of them were empty. We were used to what we were seeing, so we simply continued on our way.

Just as we were about to turn a corner, I gestured for Lena to stop.

Her actions were in complete sync with mine, as she stopped immediately.

A flurry of footsteps could be heard coming from around the corner. I took action quickly and led Lena to hide in a room on the side of the hallway.

"Hurry up, everyone!" A panicked and angry voice echoed. "The guests are about to arrive, and I don't want our master to be dissatisfied with any of the arrangements!" It then asked, "Hear me, you all?"

"Yes, sir!" a chorused reply came in response.

"And you!" The angry voice paused before it seemed to bark at someone in particular. "Didn't I tell you to bring refreshments for our distinguished guest to his room? Then why are you still here?"

"Sir, it was you who called-" A young voice tried to reply in apprehension but was interrupted.

"No excuses!" The owner of the angry voice once again shouted. "Don't you know how important our guest is?" it asked. "Do you even know who he is?"

"Uh… I don't, sir." The young voice replied honestly.

The angry voice suddenly turned silent, as if speechless at the reply. But it soon shouted again.

"Go now, you lazy bastard." It growled. "Or I'll have you served along with the meat from Darla's farm!"

"I-I'm going right now, sir!" The young voice responded in a frightened voice before a set of footsteps could be heard moving away in a particular direction.

The angry voice, which I guessed to belong to this mansion's butler or something, gave a few more instructions to the people present before they all left to do their respective tasks.

"That was interesting." Lena suddenly commented.

I nodded in agreement. "It was," I said, smirking. "It also gave me an idea of who we're going to meet next."

Lena also showed a smile as she understood my intentions.

Identifying the direction in which the owner of that young voice had gone, I led Lena down the same path.

Just as we had passed through a long corridor, the sound of hurried footsteps came again.

I once again hid with Lena. But realizing that there was only one person coming, I poked my head out to take a look.

We were not hiding in a room this time, as there were none in this hallway. I had just dragged us both behind a big cabinet that seemed to serve just as a decoration.

Although the corridor was brightly lit, it was still nighttime, making it possible to hide in the shadows.

The footsteps drew closer before I was able to see the person itself.

It was a young man, probably around the same age as me. He was holding a tray covered by a piece of linen cloth in his hand.

I could see the sweat shining on his face, and his breathing also sounded a bit heavy.

He was walking quite fast, and if not for him holding the tray, he would have probably run.

I waited till the guy disappeared behind a corner before following behind him with Lena in tow.

We continued following for a couple of minutes as, after turning around various corners, he finally stopped at the deepest part of the mansion.

I peeked from behind the corner and saw him standing in front of a room. He placed the tray on a table on the side before giving a knock on the door before picking the tray up again.

No response came for a minute, but the guy seemed to be too scared to knock again as he just kept waiting, making me wait along with him.

Thankfully, the door soon opened as a man appeared from within the room.

But without even taking a good look at his appearance, I had already pulled myself back.

Lena gestured with her eyes to ask about it, so I simply whispered.

"A peak master-class expert…"