Some of the girls started crying, and others just stood there in a daze. Al felt a bit bad for not bringing Yuly here to heal them, but he didn't want her to see something like this. Plus, it would take Al around 2 hours to go back to the house and carry her back here, and using her healing magic on others might considerably worsen her already precarious condition.

Eventually, one of the girls crawled forward and told Al her address with a shaky voice, so Al picked her up and ran out of the building with her in his arms. It looked pretty weird for a grown woman to be held by a black, child-sized figure, but that didn't seem to bother her.

She weakly held onto Al as he jumped onto the roofs and quickly reached the destination. There was an open window, so Al went inside and put her on an empty bed so she wouldn't be stuck outside, then returned to the cells.

Over the next few hours Al carried 15 girls to their respective homes, none of them too far away from the former HQ. There were three left, but two of them were orphans that had become too old for the orphanage and the third one had had her family slaughtered and house burned down for not paying a debt.

Not wasting any time on mourning, Al gave each of the girls around 2 golds worth of coinage and some clean clothes and bags. All were looted from the gangsters, of course. None of them had very valuable things but Al now had clothes and rope for days.

He had also looted around 26 gold in total, not counting what might be inside the safe. He decided to leave behind most valuable objects since he had no way to sell them, then headed back home just as the sun was rising up.

Caexiu wasn't waiting for him this time, so Al was able to get a full 2 hours of sleep.

As expected, next morning there was quite a bit of hubhub on the western part of the city, and by evening, the news of Mahkon gang's headquarters having been raided by a small, mysterious black-cloaked figure and most of the recently kidnapped girls suddenly appearing on their beds reached the northeastern area too.

Al didn't have time to bask in his glory though, as he was sure that the two sub-leaders of the gang, who controlled the northern and southern districts, would not sit still.

'Tonight, I have to cut away all the filth.'

His plan this time around wouldn't be too complex, since the remnants of the gang would probably be extremely alert that night.

That night Al set out once again, his face with dark rings under his eyes hidden from the moonlight by the hoodie of his cloak. He jumped from roof to roof with the grace of a gazelle, and in less than 30 minutes he had reached his destination, the northwestern part of the city.

Groups of five or more men were stationed on most alleyways, most of them warily looking around. 'Hoh, It'll be challenging to deal with them silently...'

Fortunately, Al had prepared for this situation. He opened a leather shoulder strap and revealed its padded interior containing twenty glass vials filled with a light blue liquid.

'This better work. The owner of that shady shop charged me 5 gold for them after all. At least I bought it with the cloak on, so he didn't know I was just a kid...'

Al positioned himself on top of the alleyway and opened the bottle. As the shopkeeper told him, the liquid turned gaseous as soon as it entered in contact with air and turned into a barely visible mist that slowly descended until it covered the whole alleyway.

'Fortunately there's no wind and they're in a closed spot...'

Soon enough, the gangsters started sitting down while trying to keep their eyes open, and eventually fell asleep. After that, Al quickly and ruthlessly finished them off.

After quickly searching their bodies, he repeated the process with six more squads. A couple of times they noticed something was wrong and started to run out of the alleyway, but Al shot spines into their heads with uncanny precision.

In the process, Al found that if he gripped the spine like the handle of a rapier he could add even more accuracy and power by using [Flash] and activating [Piercing Throw] just before throwing the spine. 'Is this an exploit?...'

He had finished all the wandering squads he found within less than 2 hours by his estimation, so Al moved onto the subsidiary HQ. The gang had completely discarded secrecy, and was heavily guarding the building with a cordon of heavily armoured men.

Most seemed to be tired, but none was sleeping on the job. Al guessed they hadn't found out how he got in last time due to him leaving no eyewitnesses, so he decided to use the same method this time. 'It's not exactly original, but hey, if it works, don't change it.'

This time the fire in the chimney was lit though, making the task of entering it a bit more difficult. Al held his breath as he slid down the chimney pipe and jumped out just before touching the fire. His body might be partly flame resistant due to it attuning to his lightning element, but the same couldn't be said for his clothes.

After checking that there were indeed no burned spots, he checked the room he was in. It seemed to be a rest area, with multiple tables and crude couches. It seemed like a mix of a bar and a canteen, where gangsters probably drank and ate.

As Al went through the rooms he found no one, which he expected due to the massive amounts of people outside. Finally he reached a room guarded by two grizzly-looking men, both with angry looks on their faces. Al took out another cual of sleeping gas and left it open on the entrance of the room, quickly folding back.

He was told it was only effective for around an incense stick of time 'Well, at least thet's what I interpreted. The sticks in question seem similar to incense, and it wouldn't follow the trope otherwise,' so he returned to the door after around five minutes and found two groggy guards. He threw two spines at them while utilising the new-found exploit. The first one died without even knowing what hit him, and the second one couldn't even scream for help as he was impaled in the head.

Now he had to deal with the subleader of the gang who was most likely inside that office, and most likely not asleep like his boss had been. Al decided to go for the blitz strat this time, so he backed up to the edge of the room as he pumped both of his enhancement skills full of mana. He placed a foot on the wall, then [Impulse]'d off it. He used [Impulse] yet another time while in the air, then expertly turned his body around as he crashed feet-first into the door.

It swung open to reveal an extremely startled man trying to reach for his weapon. Al didn't give him time though, as his feet hit the opposite wall of the room and he used [Impulse] once again, this time towards the man. He moved to the side, narrowly avoiding Al, but he just swerved in the air and used [Impulse] yet again mid-air, this tI ended hitting the man in the chest with [Flash]. He didn't manage to hit the heart, so he instead ended it with [Zapper].

"Finally someone who made me put some effort in. Hhoo, what a rush."

Al didn't even to loot the place, just taking some money from the guy's pockets. He had used eight vials, and he wanted to leave ten for the southern sector. This left him with only two for the almost twenty men outside, so he would have to strategise.

From the roof of the building, Al thinly spread out the mist of the two vials so it would reach all of the men. It was only enough for them to become slightly groggy, but it would have to do. They were a bit over a meter apart from each other, so Al managed to pick off the two guys on the edges, leaving 15 left.

He then killed three from one side with three perfect shots from behind a wall, but this alerted all the nearby men. They hadn't located him yet, but they were now on guard. They tried to stay silent to lure Al out, but he just went to the other side and killed another three. At this point, the remaining nine men huddled together into a circular formation to protect each other.

They weren't near any entrances, so they couldn't send anyone in to inform the boss. Well, Al knew it wouldn't be of any good anyway. He pushed himself off a wall once again and performed two midair Impulses to gain even more speed, then shot the giant [Palm of the Storm] that he'd been preparing straight into the group of men.

Some died on the spot, and Al quickly picked off the ones who didn't. Their screams must've caused quite a ruckus though, so Al fled the scene and ran southward.

Doing all this took him about five hours. He then did something similar with the smaller southern sector, which took him less than four hours and left him with two sleep vials to spare.

'That was...so much easier. I didn't even break a sweat. Let's go back home. The sun will probably rise soon, and I'm tired as hell... I don't care what others will say, I'll just sleep until lunch.'

And so, Al crashed on the bed as he entered Baolao's house through the attic window and crashed onto the bed. The next morning he refused to leave the bed, and happily slept until midday. By then, the news of the utter annihilation of the Mahkon gang by the unknown hooded figure that seemed to wield thunder had started to reached the nearby market.

Caexiu gave Al a knowing look when she came back from shopping, but neither of them said anything. Actually, Al felt pretty comfortable around her now. She and Baolao were different, but they were both easy to get along with.

Over the next days, Al volunteered more and more to go hunting with the old man, and Koro joined too once he had mostly recovered. Al still had to feed him mana, but the mini hulk was regaining his...hulkiness.

This meant Yuly spent a lot of time alone with Caexiu at home (without counting Misty, who only came hunting sometimes) and they quickly got quite chummy. Yuly still didn't speak, but she communicated in writing, which she excelled at.

Caexiu had apparently started teaching her cooking, sewing and housework, and Al felt like that might come really handy in the future. Being able to fix clothes and tents would prove extremely useful while travelling, and properly cooking food would improve morale. Al knew the basics, but he was no chef.

Plus, Yuly always complained about not being useful enough and being a burden, so this would be perfect to rid her of those feelings.

'It's all coming along so well~!'