Chapter 33: Taking Out The Trash, Then Becoming One

“Tsk, things didn’t go as planned,” Aden lamented as he leapt onto a roof. “I didn’t expect acting weak would be so hard.”

“And the pay isn’t even enough for a bottle of water!”

Aden counted the number of coins in the dirty sack and only managed to come up with Six Bronze coins and One Silver.

“Barely up to a dollar,” Aden appraised weakly.

He nimbly ran on a cable and leapt onto an adjacent roof. “No matter. It’s still the first day, I’m sure the mask can hold up for two more battles…”

“…I hope”

Aden jumped down without a sound. He picked a bottle of wine and meatball–like snacks from a stall and dropped one bronze coin before slipping away.

Needless to say the meal coast way more than that.

As he was walking down the street with the mask back on his face. His eyes narrowed dangerously.

’Who’s following me?’

Aden could use [Void Cloak] and throw the stalkers off his trail, but what about the next time he came for battle? It would raise their suspicions to greater heights when he’d just ’appear’ out of nowhere.

The spies would then somehow track his general location and wreak havoc just to get an audience with him.

And that was the last thing he needed, since this location was on the quieter end of the spectrum compared to the war-like nature of the other parts of town, making it the perfect place to study the mask.

Aden’s heightened senses allow him to map the pursuit without turning his head.

’It isn’t just one person; it’s a coordinated “Pinwheel” formation.’

He recalled the books he read with his Master whenever it was mealtime and Tactical Analysis had taken up a considerable amount of his study time.

His eyes closed as he pinpointed their locations from their poorly suppressed Resonance energy.

’Ten o’clock. Roof-level. Lightweight, likely a scout.’

His head turned to the right. ’Three o’clock. Street-level. Heavy footfalls, trying to blend with the crowd.’

His neck twisted slightly backward. ’Six o’clock. Directly behind. This one is the Anchor—the one holding the Resonance leash.’

Aden rounded a corner into a narrow alleyway where the smell of rotting meat was thick enough to taste.

His eyes briefly rested on a iron cover fixed into the ground before going deeper into the alley.

As he walked up to the wall, he didn’t turn around. He just took a bite of a meatball, the Hannya mask tilted slightly up to reveal his jaw.

“You’re wasting your time,” Aden said, his voice dropping into that cold, Stage four register that tended to make the air grow heavy. “I don’t have enough silver to make a robbery worth your effort.”

A soft thud sounded behind him. A woman dropped from the fire escape, her face obscured by a grey scarf. She didn’t draw a weapon, but her hands were glowing with a faint, blue-grey Resonance.

“We aren’t here for your silver, Ghost,” she said, her voice raspy. “The House of Redwyn pays much better for ’anomalies’ like you. A fighter who wins without touching his opponent? That’s a high-value bounty.”

Aden’s grip on his meatball tightened.

“That was a small trick I learnt on my adventures. It’s nothing worth your trouble,” Aden pleaded, but his eyes were eerily calm.

The woman snickered as she took two steps forward, the clacking of her heels travelling clearly to Aden’s ears.

“You think I was born yesterday?” She mocked.

“If you don’t quietly leave me alone, I’ll make you wish you were never born.”

The woman was taken aback for a moment. Cold sweat ran down her back, but she forcefully ignored her instincts and rapidly beating heart as she spoke:

“I’ll ignore that empty threat of yours,” she swung her arms lightly, the glow increasing with each movement.

“You’ve got a weird frequency, ’Ghost.’ The boss thinks you’re a runaway experiment or a noble’s bastard playing in the dirt. Either way, you’re coming with us.”

Aden looked at the two other shadows closing in.

’I can’t use a single drop of Void energy,’ he told himself. ’If these are Redwyn scouts, their equipments are probably tuned to find me. If I use Resonance too, everything still goes to shit.’

Aden dropped the meatball. It hit the muddy ground with a wet thud.

As if on cue, the man behind him lunged, swinging a heavy sap aimed at the back of Aden’s knees.

Aden simply stepped to the side.

Using pure physical momentum—the kind of martial discipline his Master had beaten into him before the incident, Aden spun. He caught the man’s wrist, redirected the force of the swing, and sent the thug’s own momentum into the brick wall.

Crack

A stifled groan of pain left the man’s lips as he clenched his shattered wrist while resting against the brick wall.

The woman hissed, her hands glowing brighter. “So you’re a martialist. Fine. Let’s see how you handle—”

Before she could finish, Aden was already in her space with just his raw, terrifying speed. He gripped her throat, but not to crush it…in that moment.

“Who is ’The Boss’?” Aden asked, his voice muffled and distorted by the Hannya mask. “And since when did Redwyn start recruiting?”

The woman choked on her saliva as their eyes met. The scent of death growing heavy in her mind.

“I don’t…”

Aden clicked his tongue softly as the energy of the Anchor grew stronger, enabling Aden to ascertain his rank.

’At least Stage three of Attuned realm, Aden calculated. ’And he’s equipped with a Wide Area Tracker.’

Aden clicked his tongue before hitting the woman against the wall hard enough to chip it but just enough to knock her unconscious.

He appeared in front of the man still struggling to stand and kicked his temple hard enough to give the same effect.

He dashed towards the entrance of the alleyway and punched the rusted iron cover loose with a burst of pure physical strength and vanished into the dark, rank tunnels just as a bolt of blue-grey energy scorched the bricks where his head had been.

Aden splashed through the knee-high waste, his hand pressed firmly over the Hannya mask to keep the Key from falling out. The stench was unbearable, but it masked his scent and dampened his residual heat.

He stopped after several hundred yards, leaning against a damp stone wall, his breathing steady despite the sprint.

“It’s just one issue or the other with this town,” Aden lamented.

He looked up at the ceiling of the sewer. The energy of the Anchor had gone out of his perception, but his instinct reassured him that he was still up there— probably taking care of his comrades.

The manner in which they would be ’taken care of,’ didn’t matter to Aden.

All that weighed on his mind was the pressing need for a place to stay and start his Reverse Engineering Project.

“Great, I somehow lost the money I had,” Aden groaned in frustration, his head buried in his arms.

“And going back to the Den isn’t an option for at least the next week…”

Aden dejectedly trodded down the sewers, his long hair wrapped around his neck to dampen the nauseating stench a little.

After walking for what felt like hours, Aden pushed through a heavy, water-logged wooden door at the end of a forgotten sub-sector of the sewers. It led into the foundation of a collapsed textile mill. The air was filled with a thick scent of limestone and ancient dust.

No source of light revealed itself to Aden but that didn’t bother him as he took steady steps down the stairway to the center of the room.

His eyes automatically adjusted to the darkness. Using his cabin building skills, he put together a table from the uselesss materials that laid around and a bed–like structure.

After a few minutes, Aden stood over his new home. Clapping his hands to get rid of the dust, Aden placed the mask on the table and traced the smooth surface of the mask, his finger lingering a little longer on the crack by the side.

“Here goes nothing…”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep