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Part 3

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Popo knew which direction we needed to go. Equipping myself with a couple of daggers, I moved into the shadows and disposed of couple of low levelled NPC guards that came our way as stealthily as possible. However, I had not the skills that I could use to mask my presence from being detected by guard dogs and the higher levelled NPCs. We just entered a hidden passageway; which Popo called the rat’s way and found ourselves in the Northern Quadrant courtyard when two dogs with its owners came towards our way.

“Rose, whatever you do, cover their mouth!” I gave my order to Rose as I immediately sprung from the door and killed the first dog. Popo too did likewise as he swiped down another dog with his shortsword. Since the dogs arrived first, the other two guards were lagging behind and that gave Rose enough time to cast her skills and entrapped the two of them. She gagged their mouths and locked their joints before I drove my dagger directly into their hearts.

“Hurry, we have no time to cover their tracks.” I urged the rest as we continued our run using the cover of the night to mask our presence.

The guards here were mostly in the range of level 50-100. Since I was level 75 right now, I could take on any one of them easily. With Mimi’s Buff and Popo’s quickness and quietness of feet, the infiltration of the place was faster than I expected. Before long, we arrived at a housing complex area. Popo was the first to tell me of our destination.

“This is the Northern Quadrant, po. And most likely, Elly would be held right over there. The largest building in this part, the Royal Guest-Chamber.”

“Most likely huh. Are you sure, Popo?” I did not want this to end up as a wild goose chase hence my scepticism.

“No, but do you know any other place that might have held Elly up?”

“Well, if we do not know, perhaps we could make use of those who know.” I made a half-hearted suggestion. Popo was right. I did not know any other places that might hold Elly. Her fate and my success now lay in these two Bunnian’s guesswork. But it did not take long for them to be proven right as we travelled further down the Northern Quadrant plaza as quietly as possible.

“Be careful, from here onwards, this is where it gets tricky.” Popo was pointing at the place of our interest. Even without having him reminding me, I could see that this particular building was the hub of all the activities. And unfortunately, that came with no less than 200 guards surrounding this place by my hastily done count. That excluded some guards with dogs roaming around, but far away to detect us immediately. Most likely, the two pairs we first saw when entering the Royal Palace were sent to scout around the whole place.

I was worried that the guards that we disposed of earlier might raise an alarm if they did not return but Popo dismissed it easily. “This place is too huge to scout just by the two of them. Even 10 of them would take no less than a few hours to return and report to their officers.” A relief but nonetheless, we needed to make our moves before anyone suspected that we were here.

All of the guards in front of us were posted strategically at every entrance that we could think of entering. Not only that, but their way over the top amounts of guards covering this building – a three-story mansion, housing perhaps 30 rooms judging by the amounts of windows it had – made their movements dynamic and extremely alert. I could safely assume they were bordering on being paranoid. And for good reasons too.

“Normally, this place would always be deserted, save for some guests of the King,” Popo explained.

“So, this is unusual?” The three of us hunched behind a small labyrinth of hedge fence that stood 15 feet tall. Enough to hide us from being visually detected. Rose took to her surrounding like a duck to water. She assimilated herself amongst the vines and was gone in an instant using a skill called ‘Plant Camouflage’. Her new set of skills was sure pretty nifty indeed.

“You can say so. When the King comes to this place, not only he would bring his personal bodyguards which easily topped level 300 and more, but the security would be made tighter.” Popo continued to explain our situation.

“So, you are saying that the King will come here.” Like it or not, if the King of this Kingdom really came to this particular place, saving Elly would be way tougher than I had first imagined. But, there was no way in hell I would back out over a ‘little’ odd like this.

“I know Aldemar Thoran. My wifey and I had served his Father and him for quite some time. Unlike his peaceful Father, the current King…” Popo immediately went silent. I was quite surprised by the sudden change of his tone and demeanour.

However, Mimi completed what he wanted to say. “The current King is not just only a warmonger, but a superstitious man. Extremely superstitious.”

“What that got to do with Elly? Why did he even want to kidnap her? Just by being a Byrnhildr?” I wanted more information from Mimi which she duly indulged me with.

“By killing the descendant of Byrnhildr, especially a pure young maiden like Elly, it could grant him tremendous power. God-like powers.”

“What nonsense!” I had seen many tyrants back when I was still active in the Special Force. One thing they had in common was their lust of power to the point of projecting themselves as the God’s chosen and special one or even the reincarnation of the God’s Himself.

“And that is the reason why Elly had been raised here. Like a lamb, she would be slaughtered for the feast. Her running away had only prolonged the evitable.” I could see that it pained Mimi to say these words. I guessed she realized it far too late about Elly’s real identity and by the time she wanted to help her, the King took the first initiative.

“Might be nonsense to you, Ghost. But the King would do anything, even sacrificing Elly to some hearsay.” Mimi then concluded to tell me what she knew that would have happened to Elly if we fail to save her.

“And perhaps, with this new found power, he could further his agenda to conquer more lands, or even waging a war on nearby Kingdoms.”

You have now learned the Key Word “Aessir”.

Something new suddenly came up on my screen. I had never seen a ‘Key Word’ before. But I left it alone as I could not be distracted for now. Looking ahead, I checked a few of the items that I planned to use earlier.

“Well, what shall we do, po?”

Good question, Popo.

I gave out a bitter smile. They looked at me weirdly, like I had lost it once again and tried to do something funny. Or suicidal. Or both.

“Rose and I will distract all the guards. You two, once you see the opportunity, run inside and find Elly. If you can find her, save her and then run away.”

“It’s crazy, po! Why are you always like that? Did you think you might be special…” I shushed him immediately.

“You two know well the layout of that place. And I know too damn well how to distract some paranoid guards.”

“B-But…”

“No buts, Popo. Elly needs us. The more we delay, the more danger she will be in.”

“I trust you, Ghost. I’ll let you do whatever you want. But just be safe, alright.” Mimi was the calm one. She nodded at me while caressing Popo’s ear. Good that she saw my logic. Or whatever that was called logic anyway. No sane player would attract the horde all by himself.

“And give me the signal like I’d mentioned earlier once you have Elly with you, alright.” The two of them slowly nodded at me. Still reluctant to let me proceed with my crazy plan, but they knew it was better than going head first against the whole enemy that was now in front of us. And who knows there might be more hidden and perhaps stronger enemies somewhere within this place. Too many uncertainties and too little time to plan a countermeasure.

Well, I still had Rose with me. Looking at her, I asked, “Are you ready, young girl?”

She nodded enthusiastically. One of her new attributes was Fearless. She knew nothing of danger and would not be backed down by adversity. Even when she was still a seedling, she had displayed this attributes without actually having registered it as her passive skills. Perhaps what Mimi told me was true after all. She would take after how I treated her or what she felt about me. All her skills reflected how much she had changed and dare I say, I was very well damn impressed with her growth. She might be a proper Queen after all.

Checking my previously bought items, I gave out a grin. It was that time again; to burn things. If I had not known any better, I might think I had been using too much of the same techniques. But it worked, so why change it? Only that I hoped I could use some magic instead of this crude way.

The guards were all physical types from what Popo had told me previously. Those who used magic were too frail to be in the frontline and guard duties. So, either they were inside the building or somewhere else within the vicinity.

Now, my plan was simple. I would burn this whole place down. That was all to it. And when I mean whole, I really meant the whole building and all the surrounding areas. It would be good if it spread to other buildings in the other area too. I had spent good hundreds of gold coins that I had painstakingly kept to buy all the items necessary and made sure it was enough to perhaps burn the whole Royal Palace. I wished so anyway.

“Once I’m done preparing, I’ll give you the signal like usual. Just be on standby until then.” Popo still shook his head in disbelief as I made my way as silently as possible to the nearest building, just to the east of the mansion. There were about 6 other buildings surrounding our target building.

The rule of infiltrating a heavily armed place to rescue a hostage place was simple. Get in, distract and misdirect the enemies while the main force would enter stealthily and do their job. Once done, disengage the enemy immediately. Simple but dauntingly hard to do. We could not fight them head-on. Not only it would take ages, but Elly’s safety could be compromised. And moving stealthily like a ninja was not in our arsenal today. If we had those, I could actually do this rescue mission solo. If stealth was not applicable, then the opposite might work. All I just needed to do was to make a very, very, very big scene about it.

“Are we done, Papa?” Rose came to me as I finished laying out a pile of highly flammable and explosive mixture around a small building and the nearby areas. Contrary to the mansion we saw, all the other buildings and areas were left unguarded. And no dogs either that could spell us trouble. The force that we needed to deal with was all in one place.

“This is the sixth one. So far, we are done.” The guards did not know our numbers and I planned to keep it that way.

“We will stand by there, the nearest building to the mansion. And then, you will do what I had told you, Rose.” She nodded at my words. As we made way towards our designated location, I hoped the other two Bunnians would be ready too. Once I started to blow this place up, our mission to rescue Elly would begin in earnest. They were to wait until I gave them the signal.

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