Chapter 195: Noon Infiltration
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Chapter 195: Noon Infiltration
Erani and I walked into the guild lobby. We’d come up with a general plan of action on our way into town, and now we just had to do it.
The lobby was bustling with activity—it typically became most populated around noon, when most adventurers came in to accept jobs or hand in the ones they’d already completed in the early morning. As such, there was a long line headed to the receptionist’s desk, leaving the poor woman to handle several dozen impatient fighters all waiting on her to do her job faster.
So we both walked right up to her, skipping the whole line, and leaned over the desk for a short word.
“Hey,” I said to her.
“Hm?” she glanced over for a moment, her attention only partially on us as she was in the middle of explaining to a bronze-degree why he couldn’t, in fact, go and try to kill a full-grown Dragon in the mountain range.
“We’re just dropping by to speak to the guildmaster, Vanvol, about that exclusive job we turned in a little bit ago. You mind if you let us through? We remember where his office is, so no need to lead us there.”
“Oh, sure,” she said with a nod, reaching back to open up the door into the back area, where the offices were.
We stepped through, shutting the door behind us. That was step one complete.
Nobody else was in the hall we entered at the moment, leaving us alone in the walkway lined with unlabeled wooden doors.
“Y’know,” I muttered to Erani, “part of me feels like they should hire some help for her, if she’s so overworked during rush hour that she’s willing to let us back into this employees-only area just to get us out of her hair.”
“Well, technically, there’s not much to worry about us doing. In normal circumstances, that is.”
“Yeah, I guess. So, Index, you said you spotted where that room was the last time we walked through here, right? You’d seen it while flying through the walls?”
“Yep! Let me just find it in my logs...uh...There it is. Go ahead and start walking, I’ll tell you when you get there.”
“Great. Keep an eye out for anyone else that might be ahead of us though, alright?”
We crept forward, needing to stop a couple times because Index saw someone passing through the hallway ahead of us, and one time, we even needed to duck into one of the nearby unoccupied storage closets and let someone come through from behind us. But other than that, it went relatively smoothly.
“Here,” Index said, and we stopped. “That door to your left, the one made of the thicker planks.”
“Okay,” I whispered back. “So we just go through there?”
“I can’t see all of it—it’s too big—but from the looks of things, seems like nobody’s inside. Oh, but do be aware that once you go through, you’re pretty much one hundred percent committed to a use of Time Loop.”
“Why?”
“That whole place is rigged with Enchantments. The moment you enter, those Enchantments are going to send as much information on you as they can scrape to another location. From the looks of the Enchantments, it’ll be...written somewhere? A book, I think. So most likely, there’s a security log book kept someplace else, and when you go in the room, it’s going to write in the book the time you entered, where you entered from, how many people, draw depictions of what you look like, keep record of exactly what you did while inside, whether you took anything out...everything. And, obviously, since you’re trespassing and all, that’s pretty much as hard evidence as you can get that you’ve broken the law. So, yeah, you’ll definitely need to use Time Loop after this.”The inaugural upload of this chapter took place via N0v3l-B1n.
“But nobody’s going to be coming after us right now, right?”
“No, nobody’ll even know you went in until someone goes and reads the log book. That could be something they only do once a day, week, maybe even more infrequently. And even then, they’ll have to report it to the town guards and go through that whole process before you actually have anyone hunting you down. You’ll have plenty of time.”
“Well, we only need six hours.”
I nodded to Erani and put my hand on the doorknob, silently turning it and opening the door.
The room inside was dry and dark, filled with what felt like hundreds of drawers. They were arranged in hallways you could walk down, and each drawer was filled to the brim with papers—at least, that was what Index had said. This was their documentation room, where they kept every single job that had been posted, completed, everything. And, most importantly, the jobs that they planned to put up in the future.
“Those papers are going to be in the back of the room,” Index said. “I can’t see them right now, but I spotted them before, when you guys were in the guildmaster’s office. Assuming the guild hasn't rearranged, they should still be there.”
“Hey,” Index said, “the guy’s moving.”
What? Where?
“Could be in your direction, I’m not sure. He’s got a piece of paper in his hands, looks like it was sorted into the wrong drawer? I think he’s trying to find where it goes.”
Do we need to leave?
“No, no, I think I came up with something that could work. And it doesn’t even involve murder, which I’m sure will please your girlfriend.”
Just tell me what I need to do. Is he close?
“Getting closer. So, I’ll tell you the moment he’s within thirty paces of you. When he is, I want you to prepare to activate Gravity Well targeting him. Don’t do it right away, just prepare it.”
Wait, what? How’s that going to work?
“No time to explain! He just got within thirty paces, so he’s in range of Gravity Well. Can you target him? Is your Spell ready?”
Uhh...I reached into my mind, frantically trying to find the target. It was difficult to do—typically, targeting someone was helped greatly by being able to see them, but just knowing that they were there was all you technically needed to cast a Spell on them. I fiddled around, and...Ready.
“Okay, and...” Index waited for a few seconds in silence, then, seemingly randomly, said, “now!”
I cast Gravity Well. For a moment, nothing happened, and I was worried Index’s plan hadn’t worked. Wouldn’t this do nothing but alert him to our presence?
But then, I heard a voice from within the room yelp in alarm, and then I heard the sound of something banging against metal.
“It worked!” Index said. “Hurry, go over there. He won’t stay out for long.”
“What?” I said. “He’s knocked out?”
“Wait, what’s going on? Erani asked.
“No idea. Let’s go see.”
What had ended up happening, it seemed, was that Index told me to activate Gravity Well the moment the man’s foot had gotten wedged into a crack in the floor. Something that would have been nothing but a minor inconvenience on its own, but when paired with the gravity-increasing and muscle-taxing effects of the Spell, it basically guaranteed he’d trip. And, since the crack was situated right in front of one of the many metal drawers filling the room, he proceeded to fall right into it, hitting his head and collapsing to the ground.
We walked up to him just as his eyes began to flutter open, his mind clearly still not all there.
“What the hells?!” Erani asked. “Arlan, what just happened?”
“Yeah, Index, what the fuck?” I demanded.
“Just tie him up! He won’t be out for long, and this was basically the only way to get him out of commission without him dying or calling for help. You should be thanking me!”
I exhaled a sigh and hurriedly bent over, flipping the man onto his stomach so I could pull his hands behind his back.
“...H-hey, what...” he muttered softly as I worked.
“Erani, do you mind gagging him?” I asked.
She shook her head and bent down, too. “You know, I feel like I dislike this Index thing more and more every time I work with it.”
“Yeah, well, it’s just something you get used to, I guess.”
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Chapter 195: Noon Infiltration
Erani and I walked into the guild lobby. We’d come up with a general plan of action on our way into town, and now we just had to do it.
The lobby was bustling with activity—it typically became most populated around noon, when most adventurers came in to accept jobs or hand in the ones they’d already completed in the early morning. As such, there was a long line headed to the receptionist’s desk, leaving the poor woman to handle several dozen impatient fighters all waiting on her to do her job faster.
So we both walked right up to her, skipping the whole line, and leaned over the desk for a short word.
“Hey,” I said to her.
“Hm?” she glanced over for a moment, her attention only partially on us as she was in the middle of explaining to a bronze-degree why he couldn’t, in fact, go and try to kill a full-grown Dragon in the mountain range.
“We’re just dropping by to speak to the guildmaster, Vanvol, about that exclusive job we turned in a little bit ago. You mind if you let us through? We remember where his office is, so no need to lead us there.”
“Oh, sure,” she said with a nod, reaching back to open up the door into the back area, where the offices were.
We stepped through, shutting the door behind us. That was step one complete.
Nobody else was in the hall we entered at the moment, leaving us alone in the walkway lined with unlabeled wooden doors.
“Y’know,” I muttered to Erani, “part of me feels like they should hire some help for her, if she’s so overworked during rush hour that she’s willing to let us back into this employees-only area just to get us out of her hair.”
“Well, technically, there’s not much to worry about us doing. In normal circumstances, that is.”
“Yeah, I guess. So, Index, you said you spotted where that room was the last time we walked through here, right? You’d seen it while flying through the walls?”
“Yep! Let me just find it in my logs...uh...There it is. Go ahead and start walking, I’ll tell you when you get there.”
“Great. Keep an eye out for anyone else that might be ahead of us though, alright?”
We crept forward, needing to stop a couple times because Index saw someone passing through the hallway ahead of us, and one time, we even needed to duck into one of the nearby unoccupied storage closets and let someone come through from behind us. But other than that, it went relatively smoothly.
“Here,” Index said, and we stopped. “That door to your left, the one made of the thicker planks.”
“Okay,” I whispered back. “So we just go through there?”
“I can’t see all of it—it’s too big—but from the looks of things, seems like nobody’s inside. Oh, but do be aware that once you go through, you’re pretty much one hundred percent committed to a use of Time Loop.”
“Why?”
“That whole place is rigged with Enchantments. The moment you enter, those Enchantments are going to send as much information on you as they can scrape to another location. From the looks of the Enchantments, it’ll be...written somewhere? A book, I think. So most likely, there’s a security log book kept someplace else, and when you go in the room, it’s going to write in the book the time you entered, where you entered from, how many people, draw depictions of what you look like, keep record of exactly what you did while inside, whether you took anything out...everything. And, obviously, since you’re trespassing and all, that’s pretty much as hard evidence as you can get that you’ve broken the law. So, yeah, you’ll definitely need to use Time Loop after this.”The inaugural upload of this chapter took place via N0v3l-B1n.
“But nobody’s going to be coming after us right now, right?”
“No, nobody’ll even know you went in until someone goes and reads the log book. That could be something they only do once a day, week, maybe even more infrequently. And even then, they’ll have to report it to the town guards and go through that whole process before you actually have anyone hunting you down. You’ll have plenty of time.”
“Well, we only need six hours.”
I nodded to Erani and put my hand on the doorknob, silently turning it and opening the door.
The room inside was dry and dark, filled with what felt like hundreds of drawers. They were arranged in hallways you could walk down, and each drawer was filled to the brim with papers—at least, that was what Index had said. This was their documentation room, where they kept every single job that had been posted, completed, everything. And, most importantly, the jobs that they planned to put up in the future.
“Those papers are going to be in the back of the room,” Index said. “I can’t see them right now, but I spotted them before, when you guys were in the guildmaster’s office. Assuming the guild hasn't rearranged, they should still be there.”
“Hey,” Index said, “the guy’s moving.”
What? Where?
“Could be in your direction, I’m not sure. He’s got a piece of paper in his hands, looks like it was sorted into the wrong drawer? I think he’s trying to find where it goes.”
Do we need to leave?
“No, no, I think I came up with something that could work. And it doesn’t even involve murder, which I’m sure will please your girlfriend.”
Just tell me what I need to do. Is he close?
“Getting closer. So, I’ll tell you the moment he’s within thirty paces of you. When he is, I want you to prepare to activate Gravity Well targeting him. Don’t do it right away, just prepare it.”
Wait, what? How’s that going to work?
“No time to explain! He just got within thirty paces, so he’s in range of Gravity Well. Can you target him? Is your Spell ready?”
Uhh...I reached into my mind, frantically trying to find the target. It was difficult to do—typically, targeting someone was helped greatly by being able to see them, but just knowing that they were there was all you technically needed to cast a Spell on them. I fiddled around, and...Ready.
“Okay, and...” Index waited for a few seconds in silence, then, seemingly randomly, said, “now!”
I cast Gravity Well. For a moment, nothing happened, and I was worried Index’s plan hadn’t worked. Wouldn’t this do nothing but alert him to our presence?
But then, I heard a voice from within the room yelp in alarm, and then I heard the sound of something banging against metal.
“It worked!” Index said. “Hurry, go over there. He won’t stay out for long.”
“What?” I said. “He’s knocked out?”
“Wait, what’s going on? Erani asked.
“No idea. Let’s go see.”
What had ended up happening, it seemed, was that Index told me to activate Gravity Well the moment the man’s foot had gotten wedged into a crack in the floor. Something that would have been nothing but a minor inconvenience on its own, but when paired with the gravity-increasing and muscle-taxing effects of the Spell, it basically guaranteed he’d trip. And, since the crack was situated right in front of one of the many metal drawers filling the room, he proceeded to fall right into it, hitting his head and collapsing to the ground.
We walked up to him just as his eyes began to flutter open, his mind clearly still not all there.
“What the hells?!” Erani asked. “Arlan, what just happened?”
“Yeah, Index, what the fuck?” I demanded.
“Just tie him up! He won’t be out for long, and this was basically the only way to get him out of commission without him dying or calling for help. You should be thanking me!”
I exhaled a sigh and hurriedly bent over, flipping the man onto his stomach so I could pull his hands behind his back.
“...H-hey, what...” he muttered softly as I worked.
“Erani, do you mind gagging him?” I asked.
She shook her head and bent down, too. “You know, I feel like I dislike this Index thing more and more every time I work with it.”
“Yeah, well, it’s just something you get used to, I guess.”
Chapter 195: Noon InfiltrationErani and I walked into the guild lobby. We'd come up with a general plan of action on our way into town, and now we just had to do it.The lobby was bustling with activityit typically became most populated around noon, when most adventurers came in to accept jobs or hand in the ones they'd already completed in the early morning. As such, there was a long line headed to the receptionist's desk, leaving the poor woman to handle several dozen impatient fighters all waiting on her to do her job faster.So we both walked right up to her, skipping the whole line, and leaned over the desk for a short word.Hey, I said to her.Hm? she glanced over for a moment, her attention only partially on us as she was in the middle of explaining to a bronze-degree why he couldn't, in fact, go and try to kill a full-grown Dragon in the mountain range.We're just dropping by to speak to the guildmaster, Vanvol, about that exclusive job we turned in a little bit ago. You mind if you let us through? We remember where his office is, so no need to lead us there.Oh, sure, she said with a nod, reaching back to open up the door into the back area, where the offices were.We stepped through, shutting the door behind us. That was step one complete.Nobody else was in the hall we entered at the moment, leaving us alone in the walkway lined with unlabeled wooden doors.Y'know, I muttered to Erani, part of me feels like they should hire some help for her, if she's so overworked during rush hour that she's willing to let us back into this employees-only area just to get us out of her hair.Well, technically, there's not much to worry about us doing. In normal circumstances, that is.Yeah, I guess. So, Index, you said you spotted where that room was the last time we walked through here, right? You'd seen it while flying through the walls?Yep! Let me just find it in my logs...uh...There it is. Go ahead and start walking, I'll tell you when you get there.Great. Keep an eye out for anyone else that might be ahead of us though, alright?We crept forward, needing to stop a couple times because Index saw someone passing through the hallway ahead of us, and one time, we even needed to duck into one of the nearby unoccupied storage closets and let someone come through from behind us. But other than that, it went relatively smoothly.Here, Index said, and we stopped. That door to your left, the one made of the thicker planks.Okay, I whispered back. So we just go through there?I can't see all of itit's too bigbut from the looks of things, seems like nobody's inside. Oh, but do be aware that once you go through, you're pretty much one hundred percent committed to a use of Time Loop.Why?That whole place is rigged with Enchantments. The moment you enter, those Enchantments are going to send as much information on you as they can scrape to another location. From the looks of the Enchantments, it'll be...written somewhere? A book, I think. So most likely, there's a security log book kept someplace else, and when you go in the room, it's going to write in the book the time you entered, where you entered from, how many people, draw depictions of what you look like, keep record of exactly what you did while inside, whether you took anything out...everything. And, obviously, since you're trespassing and all, that's pretty much as hard evidence as you can get that you've broken the law. So, yeah, you'll definitely need to use Time Loop after this.The inaugural upload of this chapter took place via N0v3l-B1n.But nobody's going to be coming after us right now, right?No, nobody'll even know you went in until someone goes and reads the log book. That could be something they only do once a day, week, maybe even more infrequently. And even then, they'll have to report it to the town guards and go through that whole process before you actually have anyone hunting you down. You'll have plenty of time.Well, we only need six hours.I nodded to Erani and put my hand on the doorknob, silently turning it and opening the door.The room inside was dry and dark, filled with what felt like hundreds of drawers. They were arranged in hallways you could walk down, and each drawer was filled to the brim with papersat least, that was what Index had said. This was their documentation room, where they kept every single job that had been posted, completed, everything. And, most importantly, the jobs that they planned to put up in the future.Those papers are going to be in the back of the room, Index said. I can't see them right now, but I spotted them before, when you guys were in the guildmaster's office. Assuming the guild hasn't rearranged, they should still be there.Hey, Index said, the guy's moving.What? Where?Could be in your direction, I'm not sure. He's got a piece of paper in his hands, looks like it was sorted into the wrong drawer? I think he's trying to find where it goes.Do we need to leave?No, no, I think I came up with something that could work. And it doesn't even involve murder, which I'm sure will please your girlfriend.Just tell me what I need to do. Is he close?Getting closer. So, I'll tell you the moment he's within thirty paces of you. When he is, I want you to prepare to activate Gravity Well targeting him. Don't do it right away, just prepare it.Wait, what? How's that going to work?No time to explain! He just got within thirty paces, so he's in range of Gravity Well. Can you target him? Is your Spell ready?Uhh...I reached into my mind, frantically trying to find the target. It was difficult to dotypically, targeting someone was helped greatly by being able to see them, but just knowing that they were there was all you technically needed to cast a Spell on them. I fiddled around, and...Ready.Okay, and... Index waited for a few seconds in silence, then, seemingly randomly, said, now!I cast Gravity Well. For a moment, nothing happened, and I was worried Index's plan hadn't worked. Wouldn't this do nothing but alert him to our presence?But then, I heard a voice from within the room yelp in alarm, and then I heard the sound of something banging against metal.It worked! Index said. Hurry, go over there. He won't stay out for long.What? I said. He's knocked out?Wait, what's going on? Erani asked.No idea. Let's go see.What had ended up happening, it seemed, was that Index told me to activate Gravity Well the moment the man's foot had gotten wedged into a crack in the floor. Something that would have been nothing but a minor inconvenience on its own, but when paired with the gravity-increasing and muscle-taxing effects of the Spell, it basically guaranteed he'd trip. And, since the crack was situated right in front of one of the many metal drawers filling the room, he proceeded to fall right into it, hitting his head and collapsing to the ground.We walked up to him just as his eyes began to flutter open, his mind clearly still not all there.What the hells?! Erani asked. Arlan, what just happened?Yeah, Index, what the fuck? I demanded.Just tie him up! He won't be out for long, and this was basically the only way to get him out of commission without him dying or calling for help. You should be thanking me!I exhaled a sigh and hurriedly bent over, flipping the man onto his stomach so I could pull his hands behind his back....H-hey, what... he muttered softly as I worked.Erani, do you mind gagging him? I asked.She shook her head and bent down, too. You know, I feel like I dislike this Index thing more and more every time I work with it.Yeah, well, it's just something you get used to, I guess.
