The smell and the look of this part of the ruin was very different than where I entered. I suppose that I am either somewhere nit yet found, rarely visited or close to the enemy exit. Of course, I don’t think that I walked that much, but who knows? The whole building was very strange. Picking a random direction, I continued my way. The silent hallways following in my journey. The smell got slowly less mouldy and the hallway less abandoned, I was able to slowly find the way towards an exit.

*speaking noises*

I stopped dead in my track. After not hearing any human fellows for over a week, I am very happy to hear some civilized noises. Before I could stop myself and be cautious again, I already met with the fellows. Only then did I realize that I fucked up.

“Who do we have here? A rat?” He said. Seeing a fireball coming into my direction, I take the wise option of immediately fleeing. Behind me 4 or five pairs of boots can be heard clicking on the ground. I was somewhat faster, The walls began to shake from the force they were forced to withhold.

Running on the crumbling hallway, I solely focused on defence. I don’t have any chance at all at defeating their group. Between casting and using scrolls for soul defence, I occasionally looked behind me. Two people followed me closely and the other was farther away, unable to see them, but they still made plenty of noise following me.

In front of me, approximately 80 meters, was an especially unstable looking construct, I doubled my effort and redied all my grenades I could use at once.

Still hearing shouting behind me, I dodge a dark bolt, and throw the grandee back.

*BOOOOM*

The hallway crumbles as excepted behind me. What I didn’t expect was two of the fellas crossing over the grenades in the meantime. I don’t know whether they were reckless, dumb or calculative. Whatever.

Turning back, with a smirk I talk to them “Well, well well, what do we have here? Dou you want to surrender or do you need some help in that regard?” Taunting them a bit. Two versus one is still manageable on my part.

“Shut it, dirty Order slave, give me your life to strengthen myself.” The larger fellow said. Not a good trash talker I suppose.

I readied a grenade, then spoke a bit “So do you accidentally know where we …” Not ending my sentence, I threw the grenade in their faces.

For a brief second, they were caught off guard, the larger fellow reacted a bit slower than his companion and got caught up in the blast.

*BOOOOOOOM*

Flying into the wall, the larger man grunts and stands up again. While this is happening, the other guy bombards me with spells. They mostly spelt somewhat weak in power, but with extra effects like extra pain or paralyses. This turned out to be a boon for me, because they were shielded of easier with soul shield.

One of the spells hits my left hand. In this unfortunate moment, the defence artefact and my soul shield gets overloaded by an unknown spell from them.

Wincing in pain, I retreat slightly, still somewhat hesitant to use a potion, I just bandage it in a second and continue my fight. While dodging and defending an idea stuck me. Something I forgot in my panic. I immediately execute it. I take out my flashbangs, activate them and threw them all out. In the meantime, I activate the barrier, make it only big enough to cover me and wait.

*SHOCK**BOOM*

They go off. My idea was to simply corner them. Behind them is the now unpassable hallway and in from of them is me. So I simply spammed the flashbangs.

Walking through the crunchy bits of cloth and the strong pungent smell of burned flesh, I approach my two barely recognizable enemy. Unfortunately, all of their valuables, except their badge got destroyed, Their artefact destroyed too. Leaving them, I walk away in disgust. The smell of BBQ is not very comfortable while you rummage through corpses. All in all, this fight brought me barely anything. I just hope that the badges didn’t get completely fried, else I would take a big loss.

I explored more into the part of the ruin where I am. I occasionally met some patrols from the enemy faction, this time I didn’t stupidly charge into them, I waited for them to pass. This I accomplished by playing spiderman on the top of their heads and some magic. In retrospect o got lucky a couple of times.

After wandering around for what felt like days, I arrived at a bigger hub. Exploring the old and cleanly picked rooms, I concluded that I somehow got to the laboratory part of the ruin. A very hard to explain the distance from my previous location.

Picking out one of the empty rooms, I put the approximate map of the ruins onto the stone table, The only piece of furniture remaining in the room. Using some wood to make some light, I tried to figure out where I am right now. There were two news, one bad one good.

The good one was that I know where I am. The bad one is that I know where I am. The crossing I just chanced up is one of the main hubs for the war. The bad thing is that it is the hub for the enemy. Luckily, none of the sides has any permanent base like infrastructure, but this is one of the more used hubs. Now I have two choices. I try my luck and try to go back somehow. Two, I shadow another team passing by and wait till they meet another team and hoping that they will help me out on my way back. Naturally, I choose the second option. Getting lost is the last thing I need right now.

PART 2

The wait wasn’ a long one. After only 4 minutes, a big group of 8 people came around the corner. Making extra sure that I am concealed, I waited for them to pass by. Their group was way too big. In case they find me, they can simply spam me to death with scrolls.

The wait was rather uneventful. One solo person nearly found me. He suspiciously eyed the whole hub. It might be possible that they spread the news of one cocky guy running around very close to their side of the mountain. He might have been just stuck with that suspicion filled gaze.

I waited for 5 hours until I finally found a good group to follow, they consisted of 4 people one women and three men. Or one woman one man and two boys. The two were younger than me. I don’t even know what they are searching inside this ruin.

Their team was the one I followed. They surely won’t go to the thick of the battle, just like me, exploring stuff away from the main battlefields. Except that they don’t get distracted by ancient soul wizardry. The clean floor from the hallway helped me in this case a lot. Spells might be good for masking myself. No amount of magic, at least on my level, can help with stepping on stuff and that stuff breaking in loud suspicious noises.

Having nothing better to do, I simply listened to their conversation.

“So Marie, why exactly do we have to come here?” asked the man

The women named Marie said “because of Rudolf, you know how he threatened you”

“But then why do we come down here? Here he doesn’t even need an excuse, he can simply kill us, that’s illogical.” He nearly shouts, then remembering their situation, he continues in a whisper

“I still don’t get why you urged us to go down here”

“Don’t you understand? He has influence and resources, he might be a bottom feeder, but for us, he is simply I giant. Even if we find something worthless for most, for us, it would still have a use. Imagine if we somehow get to kill one of those dirty pigs. We could escape from all our troubles.”

“But, but …” He tried to say.

“Silent, we are already here, concentrate more on spotting people. If any of you three got killed, I wouldn’t know what to do” Marie said.

So this is how normal people are? I am lucky and have special abilities and some strong power for my age.

I might be just 14 and not very strong in comparison to the elites at the peak of the 3rd stage, but few people wish to mess with me because of my potential and the painful gadgets I slowly got to get famous for. Comparing me to those people is difficult. I come from the 26 century, my thinking is highly evolved, there’s not. Still surprising that not everyone is a selfish dick like me. At least most were who I met until now. Whatever the case, I won’t ever know, someone is approaching.

With that, I stopped thinking and focused on the coming fight. Their team is already weak, so I don’t know hoo well they might fare against the solo guy approaching. I think I read somewhere that being a fisherman is very profitable. I went back a bit and changed out my robe for the unique robe of the enemy, to level out the playing field.

When I come back, the two parties already met. With two deaths and one injured. The two kids lay dead to the side, poisoned.

The other two were still fighting, Taking a closer look, I identify the man as one of the priority targets from Nelton. So an enemy I can freely kill, how sweet.

“Don’t worry I came to help” I Said heroically to them. Managing to briefly take away the concentration of the friendly. I luckily know his weakness and his strong points, while he knows nothing about me. I Used mostly scrolls in the beginning. Looted from the guy in the airship. To mask my true identity. I also played weak. Not attacking with all my might, just here and there and looking engaged and busy. Like doing work.

After a tragic scream, he finally died

The woman, with bloodshot eyes stopped and glared at the enemy.

“You are going to regret this. If they are dead, so better be i” Then she took out something.

Sensing something not good going on, I retreated. A wise choice, because the women went full kamikaze and blew up herself in the face of the man. Not wanting to let her sacrifice go to waste, I finished the job on the heavily wounded man with a soul shredder.

“So you, my friend are worth quite a lot”. Storing his head, which I had wrapped in towels, in my backpack, I looted him and made my way from where he came.

The parts luckily didn’t have a lot of traps, the ones I could, I deactivated, the others I simply went around. After some trying, I found the right pathway towards the exit. Excited, I walked faster. Meeting more and more people along the way. I didn’t speak with any of them, less they identify me with my voice. Honestly, even I don’t know why I am so paranoid, might have to do with the constant surveillance from my past. Thinking back, I got the shudder. Back, you couldn’t even poop or masturbate without the authorities knowing about it. Really scary times. Luckily the nutjobs who wanted to make masturbation a crime, murder, were already long gone. Apropo, my hormones are slowly beginning to work. Bad timing really, in a dog eat dog world, I don’t want to make stupid teenager mistakes. Getting killed over it would make me injustice. Finally, the end of the tunnel was in sight.