Claud’s eyes, narrowed to a slit, tracked a guard as the poor fellow prowled along a passageway. Quite a few weeks had passed since the Dark-aligned Bearer of Destiny had fallen, and New Moon was almost over, revealing little specks of moonlight here and there. As such, darkness didn’t pose a problem to anyone now, but the general reluctance of any sane person to step outdoors at night was still in full force.

“Maybe I’m not sane after all?” Claud mocked himself inwardly, before watching the guard amble away. There were two towns and a barony within an hour’s worth of mana-walking from Monsville, and now that he was free of that annoying Tot moniker, Claud saw it fit to return to his old trade.

Glancing at his wrist, where a small box with a purple button was strapped to, Claud pressed the button twice. A moment later, the box shook twice too, and Claud nodded himself. Lily, who had absolutely no intention of letting him do dangerous things alone anymore, was currently perched on a tree and scouting the area out for him. Normally, he would have done that himself, but Lily wanted to be involved, so…

At any rate, she had spotted two guards so far. While Claud himself could find one, and he could easily find a few more by flying with Presence Nullification, he wanted to use this chance to polish the more technical aspects of stealing things, his stealth. He had been relying on his gifts a bit too much, and Claud knew that this was dangerous.

Darting from shadow to shadow, Claud trailed behind the first guard. As a rule of thumbs, guards usually moved in regular patterns. The second guard, which was out of his sight, definitely was on the other side of the mansion.

This was Baron Inanis’ actual home, where he lived in. The baron and his private troops were out oppressing a bunch of people at a nearby lifestone mine, something that the two of them had come across by accident, so Claud promptly decided to enact some karmic retribution by looting his largely defenceless home. Otherwise, he would have to plan a lot harder…but this was a target of opportunity.

He glanced at the mansion walls and tracked his entry vector. The walls had spikes on them, but a part of them had been ruined for some reason. Claud intended to use that to enter, and from there on, it would be smooth-sailing. The baron’s family would not be on alert, unlike their diligent guards, and with a flip of his hand…

Taking a few more cautious steps, Claud shimmied up the wall and entered the mansion compound. The Link Bearer on his wrist shook once, and he smiled. Lily was wishing him good luck, and that she would be watching in the same place until he left the mansion.

Baron Inanis had rather bad taste. All sorts of jewelled, ostentatious furnishings lined the mansion grounds, and Claud winced at the visage of a corpulent man cast in gold.

He wouldn’t steal that, even if someone paid him money to.

Making his way to an open window, Claud peeked into the room. A cat, or rather, a fluffball of fat and fear, was snoozing away peacefully there, and Claud decided not to risk it. Even if he wanted to hone his skills, there was a time and place for everything.

His fingers tore a skillstrip into two, and energy washed over him. Presence Nullification had activated…which, interestingly enough, also prevented the Link Bearer from actually working. It was as if the paired artefacts could no longer locate each other, and Claud found himself missing Lily all of a sudden.

Despite the fact she was just close by, waiting for him to return.

With that as a motivator, he entered the house and made his way into the cellar. Nobles had some obsession with hiding treasures underground, and as he located the stairs that led underground, Claud smiled.

For some reason, the idiotic baron had saw it fit to label the place for everyone to see. Was it to show off or something? Claud had no idea, but again, nobles could be very weird. And idiotic.

Descending into the basement, Claud faced off with a mighty vault. He could blast it to ashes with Absolute One, but a tried and tested method existed to bypass vault walls. Pulling out his trusty Box-opener, Claud placed the hilt against the wall and channelled his mana through the artefact. Within seconds, the newly formed blade had carved a nice straight line, and Claud repeated the process multiple times.

His mana had grown a lot stronger in virtually every aspect, and after carving out a solid block of stone, he pulled out the second essential item of a thief, the Devouring Plate. Sticking it onto the loosened block, he pulled the whole thing out with ease, before entering the newly formed passage. Closing the impromptu door behind him, Claud got up to see an entire treasure trove.

“Lots of gold here. Useless.” Claud looked around, before pulling out Crown. “If there’s anything good for you here, just take it. I’ll busy myself with the lifestones.”

The box spun on its edge and hopped off his palm. Claud took that as a cue that Crown understood his words, before making his way to the lovely green glow that lit up an entire corner.

“Nice.” Claud rubbed his hands, before dumping every single lifestone into his backpack. Given his actual strength, they didn’t affect him one bit, and after leaving behind some low-rank lifestones, Claud grabbed a few stacks of notes and filled up his backpack. He couldn’t see any useful artefacts…or any artefacts, for that matter, which was fairly disappointing.

Crown nudged his foot a second later.

“Anything?” Claud asked, picking Crown up.

“Meep.” Crown tilted backwards, reminding him of a person sticking their nose into the air, and Claud chuckled. “Alright. Nothing, then.”

He glanced at the low-rank lifestones, but decided not to be too greedy about things. Taking absolutely everything would be too much of a provocation.

Probably, anyway.

Popping Crown back into his pocket, Claud left the way he entered, and then took to the skies. Before long, he had returned to the tree Lily was hiding in, only to see her looking at Baron Inanis’ mansion anxiously. A faint warmth gathered in his chest at that sight — Lily’s worry had touched him.

Landing beside Lily, Claud dispelled his Presence Nullification by kissing her forehead, and she took his lips by way of reply. They separated a few seconds later, and Lily glanced at his backpack. “Good haul?”

“Yeap.” He held her close, and then kicked off from the ground gently. The air parted before him as Claud infused mana into the spiritual structure of Flight, and he took in the warmth of Lily’s body as they soared back home.

On the way back, he pulled out a pyramid. He looked at the markers on the sides once, confirmed that they weren’t matching, and then placed it back into his backpack. Lily looked at him quizzically, but Claud simply pointed up once.

“Don’t think too hard about that,” Claud replied. “Don’t worry. It’s just to prevent…people from hearing us.”

“You keep doing this for me,” said Lily. “I feel a bit bad about everything.”

“Don’t be. I’m also growing stronger myself,” Claud replied. “And we are sharing everything together, right? It’s not like you aren’t doing things for me too…wait, don’t try to nibble me right now, I’ll start laughing.”

“Oh.”

“You always do that when you’re embarrassed.” Claud rubbed her head. “Besides, for me, you’re even training your Smithing, even though you hate it. I can’t ask for more from you, right? And you also give me a whole bunch of explosives, even though you’ll want nothing more than to test them out every day.”

“…I really hate you. How do you know that?”

Claud prodded her cheeks. “Say that again, I dare you. And besides, it’s my job to know everything about you.”

“I also know more about you than anyone else,” Lily replied, her cheeks puffed up in pride.

“What, are we making this a competition?” Claud looked at the ground, which had turned into a blur. This lovely, romantic flight would only need to carry on for another three minutes before they arrived, at which point they would have to get down to business again.

Lily laughed. “I’m kidding. Still, how are artefacts made? Even with Smithing, I still can’t create an actual artefact. Am I missing something?”

“Well, we could check that out when we next go to the library,” said Claud.

“But we need to travel to the Vacuos County for that,” Lily replied. “And you know that I prefer just sitting in bed and reading with you at my side.”

“What are you, a child? We haven’t gathered enough material on the Celestia Ruins yet, so we’ll need to head there anyway. And the overdue fees are frightening to boot,” Claud replied. “Still…thanks.”

Lily looked at him with clear eyes, and then buried her face in his chest. “Dummy.”

Patting her head, Claud caught sight of Monsville and started their descent. The small town was nice and bright, with the houses packed close together, unlike the Inanis Barony. “It’s pretty at night, don’t you think so?”

She looked up. “Looks the same to me.”

“Well, it’s always a bit different,” Claud replied. “Look, the lanterns there had been moved three metres away. Under that shop, there’s an extra torch, while the fire pits surrounding the town walls were shifted slightly. I think they’re repairing something, and…”

“How do you notice all this?”

“Witnessing life is what I like,” Claud replied. “These little changes can mean nothing, or everything. But most importantly, they show us life in its illogical, chaotic fashion. It’s a…kind of beauty.”

“Beauty?” Lily echoed that word. “Beauty in life…yeah, that’s very you, my little coward.”

“Only by staying alive can you witness all sorts of things, right?” Claud asked. “Even if the Dark and the Moons descend, if we are lucky, we’ll be able to see new sights. Grander sights. Isn’t that worth living for?”

“…I’m not sure if we’ll be able to see anything if a blanket of utter darkness covers us all, though.”

“Okaaaaay, maybe there’s an exception here and there,” Claud replied, and the two of them touched down on their own little home.

It was time to sort out some loot.