Chapter 33.

"Was Rifana there?" she asked without preamble, absently brushing off the black feathers from her clothes, Isis and Trystan who had been talking about something walked closer to him as well.

Adrian just activated his illusion sword and carefully thought back to the three children in the basement, the image of the three demi-humans formed in thin air, it didn't have much in the way of colour as Blindsight didn't give him that information but the way Raphtalia lit up when she saw the girl who had been lying down was enough to confirm things for him. Rifana was still alive and was apparently a weasel demi-human of some kind.

"That's her," she said, for a moment he thought that she would cry but her expression shifted to absolute determination in an instant, "let's go and get her!"

Adrian nodded, "Let's take a few minutes to plan this Raphtalia," he said, trying to calm the girl down a little, "we don't want to risk giving Rabier the chance to activate her Cursed Seal."

He didn't like saying the words but it cooled her enthusiasm. Cruel but effective. He quickly spoke up, not wanting her to dwell on the words, "Our main goal is to save those three demi-humans and for that, we absolutely need to break the seals. As we've tested I can break the seal from either end," he said, nodding at Isis and Trystan who both winced at the memory of him testing out the Seal Removal Sword and the Curse Seal Sword. It had taken him a bit of time but the results had been telling.

Adrian could remove a slave seal by either targeting the master or the slave. Using the Seal Removal Sword, he could also apply a seal and remove it with ease and removing the Seal from the master's end allowed him to remove the seal from all the slaves at once. There were however two large drawbacks. The first was time, both swords took nearly thirty seconds of direct contact to work and if he broke a slave seal it warned the master.

This was precisely why he absolutely needed to target Rabier first. If he didn't he could easily imagine the man activating the seals and killing the demi-humans that he didn't free first.

Adrian was quick to explain his plan. It was simple and had a fair number of contingencies. Drop-in using the Disc, he would capture and bind Rabier while his party would rescue the slaves and then they would leave. Should things go wrong...well he had a few things he would set up just in case but even if his entire plan and all the contingencies went awry Adrian was quite confident that he could just crush all his opposition without much effort.

Raphtalia was nervous and tense as he bought out his Disc and they moved into the air, the air growing colder as he quickly rose to nearly two kilometres in height. Once they were up in the air he looked at the three members of his team and pulled out a large bag and a few sets of medicine and some healing cream.

Raphtalia was the one he handed the bag full of healing items too. She looked at him questioningly and Adrian felt a bit happy that he had distracted her from her worries, even if it was for a moment.

"Heal them up once I give the signal," he stated, trying to keep his tone calm even as he felt his tension growing, "and be careful."

She nodded, "Yes, Mr Adrian. I will," she paused for a moment, "thank you for everything, I-I know that I can't ever repay you for any of this but I'll try. I promise."

Adrian wasn't surprised. Raphtalia was a good person all the way through but she was giving him too much credit.

"I have affected your life a great deal Raphtalia," he stated, "but remember that it didn't cost me much to help you out. A few hours of time, some resources that I had nearly a thousand times more of and perhaps a little bit of emotional support. Judge me in accordance with what I sacrificed to help you, I think you'll find my actions a lot less impressive."

Adrian meant it. Kindness was valuable. Altruism was excellent for social animals like humans and given how similar demi-humans seemed to be psychologically, them as well, but his help had been born from guilt. A desire to have an ally who was not likely to betray him and nothing more. Perhaps from the outside, it looked like he was kind but it was nothing of the sort and it pissed him off that she was so grateful for his impulsive, thoughtless actions.

She stared at him for a moment before shaking her head, "No that isn't…" she said, trying to frame an answer to his statement before giving up.

Adrian started to continue before he saw that the walls were approaching rapidly, "We'll talk about this later," he said firmly as he moved the Disc faster, hoping that they would not be spotted, even if all the guards were likely to see was just a small dot.

Raphtalia nodded and held the bag of medicines tightly in her hand. Isis closed her eyes and took a deep breath in an action that was reminiscent of what Adrian himself did to start his meditations while Trystan stood up and got ready to transform into his Filolial form.

It took them less than a minute to reach the mansion and Adrian stood at the edge of the disc before looking back at his party, "Remember the plan and stay calm. I'll move the disc lower once I've confirmed that the situation has not changed and then I'll move it to the basement after I place the seal on Rabier. Wait for my signal." he said, his voice calm, almost mechanical, and his party responded with serious nods, even Trystan who was normally the one who worried him most was gratifyingly serious.

"Good," he said with a smile and then jumped off the disc. Time to get this started.

Adrian put his party out of his mind and focused on the rooftop that was his target. He activated Dash and once he was in range Blindsight told him all he needed to know. Nothing had changed, the plan was still practical.

Immediately he landed on the spot on the roof directly above Rabier's room. A moment to double-check the locations of the soldiers and he started to slowly move the disc closer to the ground, out of the line of sight of the guards.

Adrian took a moment to focus on his Sword Projection skill and created four blades, he moved them into a vertical position, blade pointed at the roof and hilt pointed at the sky before having them just touch the roof. A moment of thought later all four have the lowest power Sword Beams activated and Adrian had moved them in a quarter circle.

Instantly a circular hole had been created and the stone that made up of the roof had been cut. It started falling but before even a second had passed Adrian created four more swords below the circular section of the roof and caught the cut section of the ceiling before it hit the ground.

He quickly flared his Blindsight and felt his heartbeat settle as he realized that nothing had gone wrong yet. Rabier was still asleep, his party hadn't been detected, the demi-humans were still alive and the guards were still as passive and inattentive as before.

Adrian slowly moved the circular section downwards and jumped into the hole which had a diameter of a meter or so. The room was quite warm thanks to the fireplace but it was getting colder now that it was exposed to the environment. He didn't waste any time and he called all eight of the Swords he had created, the four to make the hole and the four to carefully keep the section down without making a sound, and used Sword Change on them.

Two of them became the Seal Removal Sword, two changed into the Cursed Seal Sword while the other four changed into forms that had a very, very high attack rating. In case this all went wrong they would blast the man...and most of his mansion. Adrian was grateful that the obelisk and the basement were in the opposite direction as the man's bed. He then created another two swords. These two would be used to keep him quiet.

A moment of thought and the Seal related swords and the final two swords he had created began to float above the man. Rabier didn't stir. Another instant and all four of his Sword Beam dedicated Sword aimed at the exact location of their target. A last-second where he double checked everything with Blindsight and then Adrian took a deep breath and willed his swords to move.

Four Swords thrust into the man's body with ease. Two of them, the Seal Removal Swords pierced his shoulders while the Cursed Seal Sword cut into his knees. Rabier got up, a scream primed, and Adrian used his final two swords which were pointed at his throat and diaphragm, hilt first, it was the only reason he was alive as they slammed into him with enough force for him to cough up a wad of spit that landed on his chin. It silenced the nascent scream into a whimper.

The man's eyes were unfocused and terrified, Adrian watched it all with a strange detachment as he activated the Seal Removal process. When Rabier tried to move Adrian simply twisted the swords buried in his knees and silenced the scream by pressing the blade against his throat. By the time the Seals were destroyed and Adrian got a message on his HUD the man's bed was soaked in his blood as his shoulders and knees bled profusely. The smell of blood was much the same as most of the monsters he had killed.

Would this man die so easily? Adrian had assumed that like most monsters such simple injuries to non-critical spots would do limited damage. Had his assumptions about Rabier's level been false?

Adrian then triggered the Cursed Seal Sword and walked towards the man who had stopped struggling. It took no more than half a minute before he got a message on his Status Screen stating that Idol Rabier has been registered as a slave. Adrian set the punishment settings to maximum and made sure that he was not allowed to harm his party members, disobey or move away from him before adding the man to his party and moving closer to the man.