Chapter 208: Counter-Reconnaissance

After that, Albedo headed back to the Hotel and had a nice night of sleep, and soon, he next morning arrived quietly, the soft light of a blood-red dawn filtering through the curtains of the hotel suite.

The city outside felt different in the early hours, calmer, as though the entire Northern Region exhaled after a night of violence and drunken celebration.

Albedo sat on the room’s balcony, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, watching faint trails of crimson mist drift across the distant rooftops.

His tracking marks had remained stable throughout the night. None of the nine signatures had left the restricted zone. They were all just there. Some had remained in a singular point for hours, alluding to the fact they were sleeping, but others were already moving around.

Behind him, the front door to his Hotel room slid open and soft footsteps padded across the floor. Lilian’s sleepy yawn cut through the quiet, “Ugh… why does morning exist?”

She stretched lazily, her crimson eyes barely half-open as she leaned against the balcony frame. “We’re going out again today. Elara wants to see the market street you walked past yesterday. Come with us.”

Albedo didn’t turn around, “Not today.”

Lilian paused, blinking once as if recalibrating, “…You’re skipping sightseeing? You?” She tilted her head, “Doing what?”

“Nothing dangerous,” Albedo said, though the faint note of amusement in his voice made her narrow her eyes. “Just some personal exploration.”

Lilian clicked her tongue, but she didn’t push, knowing he wouldn’t tell her anything, “Just don’t get in trouble,”

“I won’t,” he lied with such ease even Lilian didn’t catch it.

She yawned again and wandered off toward Elara’s room, muttering something about irresponsible blondes and coffee.

A few minutes later, their voices drifted faintly down the hall, Elara complaining about the cold morning air while Lilian bullied her into brushing her hair properly.

As soon as he heard their steps fade into the elevator, Albedo stood up, leaving through the balcony rather than the front door. The instant his feet touched the outer railing, shadows licked up his legs like living ink before swallowing him whole.

His body dissolved into near-weightless darkness, slipping silently across rooftops, drifting between alleyway gaps, merging with the shifting welt of the city’s mana.

His trail and presence both vanished, to the point unless someone a much higher rank than him had used a detection spell, he wouldn’t be sensed.

This was a simple stealth technique he’d learned from all of the treasures he’d gained from the ring he obtained from the Axion Civilization. While it was simple, it was incredibly effective.

He moved quickly, crossing blocks in seconds, passing through districts like a ghost in motion.

He moved near the Restricted Areas, but not too close for any potential danger, waiting around for a couple minutes until one of the marks he’d placed left the Restricted Area, moving across the City towards the lower profile entertainment zones.

It was a Red-Light District that usually was filled with any mercenaries or hunters. Albedo could see escorts lining the streets, but he ignored them, following the mark as it led him to a worn-looking bar wedged between two stone workshops, its sign carved with the image of a fanged chalice.

Dark wood, crimson curtains, dim lighting even during daylight. The type of place where secrets went to ferment.

Albedo dropped onto a quiet rooftop nearby. With a light tap of his fingers against his own clothing, the Ethereal Silk shimmered and unraveled like flowing silver tides, shifting and reweaving around him.

The tailored jacket he’d worn yesterday dissolved into a matte-black tracksuit, sleek and flexible, while an ankle-length cloak draped down his back, its hood rising to shadow most of his face.

The armor’s enchantments automatically adjusted, masking his mana signature beneath a gentle hum of anonymity.

From his inner pocket, he retrieved a thin magic mask, obsidian-black, smooth, molding to his face with a faint whisper of mana. It obscured his features, projecting a vague outline instead of a clear visage.

In this city filled with nobles, mercenaries, and hunters who valued privacy, magic masks were as unremarkable as boots.

He jumped down from the rooftop with barely a sound, landing in the bar’s shadowed side alley. The doors opened with a soft creak when he pushed them, the interior filled with the low murmur of early patrons nursing drinks and secretive conversations.

A heavy scent of spiced liquor mingled with roasted roots and aged wood. Lanterns cast a warm, welcoming glow, inviting enough to relax the untrained, dim enough to hide the hunters.

Albedo approached the counter with unhurried steps, his cloak dragging lightly against the wooden floor.

“What’ll it be?” the bartender asked, not looking up from wiping a glass.

“Something light,” Albedo said, voice altered by the mask’s enchantment into a smooth, low tone. “Anything.”

A bottle popped open, liquid poured, and a glass slid across the counter. Albedo didn’t drink from it immediately. His eyes, from behind the mask, scanned the room in slow, lazy sweeps.

There, toward the back, he noticed him, one of the nine signatures sitting at a small round table, half-hidden behind a curtain of red smoke from a burning blood-leaf incense stick.

Hood down, shoulders relaxed, pretending to be just another mercenary off duty, with a woman on his arms feeding him liquor as he groped her.

However, even whilst all of this happened, the man’s mana flow never betrayed his discipline. He’d purge the alcoholic content from the drink immediately using his mana, and he had a sense of discipline from someone trained by someone dangerous.

Albedo lifted the drink to his lips, taking a small sip as he leaned against the counter.

He didn’t stare, step closer or make a move. Instead, he observed using his mana, and just quietly mapped the room. letting his mana thread drift to touch the man again.

A spider’s thread extending toward prey that didn’t yet realize the web had closed.

Albedo finished his first glass in an unhurried sip, letting the faint tingle of the alcohol roll across his tongue before mana burned it away. A soft clink followed when he set the empty glass down.

“Another?” the bartender asked.

Albedo nodded once.

A second drink slid effortlessly into his hand, the bar’s noise a lazy backdrop as his attention remained fixed on the mark, though outwardly he looked like just another cloaked wanderer enjoying a morning drink.

The marked mercenary didn’t shift, didn’t glance around, didn’t betray even the slightest suspicion of being watched.

But after a few minutes, the woman on his lap giggled and whispered something into his ear. He hummed in acknowledgement, lifted her chin with a practiced touch, and stood.

“Where’re you going?” she purred, reaching for his arm.

“Bathroom.”

“Want help?” She smiled, fanged teeth showing.

The mercenary chuckled. “Tempting, sweetheart. But I’m not that drunk.”

Albedo watched the exchange, swirling his drink once before finally setting it aside and pushing off the counter.

He didn’t follow immediately.

That would have been too direct.

Instead, he counted thirty-three slow seconds in his head, letting the sound of the mercenary’s footsteps fade down the hallway

The hallway in question was narrow and lit with flickering red lanterns, leading toward the single restroom door tucked behind a curtain of mana-treated beads.

Once the moment felt right, Albedo stepped away from the bar, the cloak around him swaying like a shadow that had learned to walk.

His presence dimmed further. A quiet ripple of mana suppression washed over him, the faint hum of the Ethereal Silk cloak thinning into near nothingness.

When he reached the hallway, his eyes began glowing slightly purple as he activated Source Code, arriving at the shut bathroom door.

Albedo entered and headed to the urinal, pretending to take a piss as the man finished his own business in a bathroom stall, beginning to wash his hands.

Albedo’s fingers tightened and he dragged a thin line of his own mana across the door, slipping through the cracks like a needle of starlight.

The moment it touched the man’s circuits…

Albedo bent the threads.

~SNAP!~

The mercenary’s mana channels seized violently, shutting down in a chain reaction of severed connections. Not physically harmful, but utterly disabling.

The man gasped, a strangled sound as he grabbed at the wall, breath hitching as panic finally broke through his discipline.

“What, what the hell—? Mana… I can’t—!”

“Morning,” Albedo said.

The mercenary lunged, instinctively, desperately, but his mana failed him, his knees buckling mid-motion.

Albedo moved like a whisper and a palm struck the side of the man’s neck, a tiny pulse of mana followed.

The man’s body slumped silently to the floor, unconscious before he even realized he’d been touched.

Albedo crouched, steady fingers brushing the man’s collar to feel for the embedded runes again. Interesting. Whoever trained this group didn’t operate with standard mercenary methods. He’d need to examine the runes later.

He straightened the man’s cloak to make the scene look like a fainting spell, then quietly lifted him onto the toilet seat, head slumped convincingly forward.

A simple illusion over the door would keep anyone from entering for the next few minutes.

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