Assassination (1)

"*sigh*... Alright, let's go," I say, pulling down my mask with the rest of Tolf doing the same.

We take a detour from the concrete sidewalk and walk towards the massive mountain in the distance. Thankfully, today wasn't too hot; otherwise, the masks would've made this mission much sweatier than it needed to be.

The climb up the rocky mountain wasn't hard at all, and we soon arrived at a ledge that hung from a cliff face. The cliff face was the part of the mountain that created the shadow, so we could look down on the mansion that was littered with guards.

A few guards were much stronger than the others, but compared to Tolf, they didn't pose much of a threat. Plus, it's not like we we're going to confront them head-on anyway.

I heard the rustling of items right next to me, and when I turned my head, I saw Clio searching her storage box for something. A few minutes later, she pulled out what looked to be 4-H19…

4-H19 is a high-risk-high reward type of explosive. It is a type of bomb infused with tightly packed mana that creates a massive explosion when set off. The explosion is caused by a severe case of magic overload, which creates a loud screeching noise as if metal was rubbing together.

"Kind of overkill- Oh, a voice modifier," Nell says, as she was the first one to talk after we put on our masks.

"Yep," Mia replies.

I honestly don't know what 4-H19 stands for, but will it be useful for this assassination? I don't think you would ever use a magic bomb during an assassination... but oh well.

Clio then hands the magic bomb to Charna, who gives a nod of confirmation. It seems she already knew what to do with the black box.

Charna closes her eyes and then sinks into the shadow below us. Since noon had passed a few hours ago, Charna had a lot of shadows to work with.

The rest of Tolf and I scaled down the mountain, finding a tree on another ledge that hung from the rocky cliff. We decided to stay on the branches and wait for the plan to be put in action since staying out in the open would get us found out immediately.

After about 10 minutes later, Charna rose out of the shadows right next to the mansion. There were guards just about 10 feet away from her, but there was no sign of panicking within Charnas movements.

Slowly, she attacked the sticky side to the wall and pressed the screen on the black box. She set the explosive to go off in just five seconds. I was shocked but remembered how quickly she could enter shadows, so the slight worry soon dissipated.

She pressed the start button on the panel and closed the lid before immediately sinking into the shadows.

Time seemed to have slowed down as the 5 seconds felt like 5 minutes.

We sprayed a can of liquid onto our body that basically erases out scent, fingerprints, footprints and destroys skin cells or hair follicles that fall off of us during this time. This was a product of the Gaignes family that only they are allowed to use… but Charna smuggled some for us.

I took a deep breath in and let it out before raising frostbite, which I took out of my inventory a while ago. Of course, out of the sight of the rest of the members.

The guards heard the ear-wrenching sound, but as they activated their earth-related skills…

BOOM

The guards that tried to stop the bomb with earth manipulation had exploded into thousands of chunks. A massive hole was torn in the back of the mansion, with Charna arriving right next to us. Just from her aura, I could tell she was satisfied with her work.

As the rest of Tolf prepared themselves, I was on the lookout for the strange mage controlling Auntie. I like to take pride in my ability to sense my surroundings, but the mage from before completely slipped past it, so I've been on edge, even during school.

But, from going to school, I think I've figured out a bit of information on the organization. First of all, I could feel the malicious gaze of somebody that's not a student while at school, but even when I tried to show openings by going to the school's back, they didn't take it.

I can't tell if they're wary or don't want to kill me at school… or maybe they can't? This leads to the next piece of information.

Judging from the two top members that I've seen from the organization and online information about the school's teachers, the organization could easily wipe the school out. No, they don't even need to launch a raid. They should be powerful enough to capture me secretly.

I won't even be able to retaliate if just one high-ranking member captures me in a flash. My only hope would be the necklace that I wear all the time.

Now, why would they not launch a raid or capture me secretly… well, it's probably because they might get exposed? If they were some underground organization that nobody knew about, they could probably go ahead with that plan, but it seems they are already known to a wide range of people.

The people who do know about the organization probably have enough info to guess that the organization was the one who kidnapped me…

Or they're just super careful? Maybe they were satisfied with mind-controlling Auntie, who is a primordial brave? No, that's not possible since people are still spying on me when I'm at school and out of school. Are they trying to gather intel on me? If they are, then I should stay around Tolf for the time being…

"Lucy, stop spacing out. Charna is about to place the other explosive… get ready," Mia says, snapping me out of my worry.

"*sigh*... I'm so confused," I mutter under my breath.

BOOM

Another explosion that was louder than before shook the tree we were on. I looked into the distance and saw smoke coming from the front of the mansion. The guards and one butler investigating the explosion at the back were panicking, and just as Mia predicted, the panicked guards and butler ran towards the front of the mansion.

"Let's go," Nuala says, readying a spear that she rested against her shoulder.

In an instant, Charna took out the security cameras while the rest of us jumped down. Mia led the way as she had done some research in advance. Due to her oozing confidence, we could only trust she knew the way to go.

We jumped to the third floor and dashed through the hallway. We collectively took out the security cameras with our weapons before we could even enter their vision. Charna's great eyesight immediately found any secret security cameras.

After about 15 seconds of arriving on the third floor, we found a room locked down by metal. We didn't want to leave evidence of our skills, so we hopped through the vent above us and crawled all the way to the vent above the metal-encased room.

The vent was locked down as well, with only a few holes that I could see were the size of our ring fingers. But, those holes were no match for Charna's ability to enter the shadows.

She slipped into the shadows vent and was able to easily slip through the finger-sized holes as if they were not even there. She slipped into the shadow just below the vent and slowly unscrewed the hinges that locked it in place.

What a flawed security system… shouldn't they put some defense in the vent.

As if some evil god heard my thoughts, small holes appeared next to us. My pupils dilated when I saw them spray a pink mist that soon turned clear. We couldn't see the mist anymore, but panic started to sink in.

"Don't worry. The mask filters mostly every chemical known to man. You think I really bought a cheap mask online. Though I did choose the first ones I saw, I made sure to use the tags that would make sure these masks are the best as possible," Mia whispers to us.

Our breathing starts to calm down as Charna finished unscrewing the hinges.

The lady below looks up in horror as we all jump down from the vents. She tries to scuffle away, but I stomp on her solar plexus, causing her to scream in terror. Pushing my foot just a bit farther made her claw at my ankle while letting out a blood-curdling cry.

It seems she hasn't experienced much pain because any regular warrior would be able to resist this.

"GET OFF ME!" The woman shouts.

Charna took out the security cameras as soon as we entered.

"We can do as we please now," I mutter to myself.

"Yo, can you give us the name of your underworld supplier?" Mia asks the struggling lady.

Hmmm… Mia never talked about this? But it's not like this information will be useless, so we might as well squeeze everything we can out of her...