As the sun set, enveloping Exil in darkness, Rei, Vihera, Byune, and Nakuto, headed for their destination, the Marschel family residence.

Because their goal was to infiltrate the residence and rescue Tivia, who was being held captive, they couldn’t go there by carriage. At the same time, running openly would also attract attention from the surroundings, which would also be a problem. So, in the end, they had to settle with walking quickly through the city.

「As long as Vihera is around, she’s going to attract attention no matter what.」

「Oh, is that so? I have no intention of doing that.」

「……Can you say that again after looking at your clothes and thinking about your reputation?」

At Rei’s words, Vihera’s reaction was almost reflexive, as if she had no idea how her appearance had anything to do with it.

Fortunately, since it was night time now, the gazes directed at her were not as many as during the day. But, even so, when Rei’s party passed by people, Vihera’s dancer like appearance would cause people to turn and look at her.

(If we get a little closer to the Marschel residence though, there should be less people. ……Thinking about it, it hurts not having Set with us. Being drunk doesn’t seem to stop them from trying to mess with Vihera, even though she’s known as the Mad Beast. No, I guess it can’t be helped considering how many men Vihera attracts.)

Rei muttered to himself as he ignored the whistling of two men who were flushed from drinking.

That was because if Set, a Griffon over 2m in size, was with them, people wouldn’t try to mess around with them, even if they were drunk.

Rei had the title of Crimson, but he was mostly known only because of Set. From Rei’s appearance, it was hard to judge him as a very talented adventurer.

It went without saying for the 10 year old Byune.

Among their group, Nakuto was surprisingly the most helpful one.

As the thief of Sonic Blades, which was a fairly well known party, no drunks bothered them if they spotted him.

Even those who didn’t know who he was would pull back if Nakuto, who had the fiercest face in the group, glared at them.

Yes, for example, like the two who were whistling at Vihera.

As things like that happened, they continued to make their way through the city, guided by Nakuto and Byune, and moving along the back alleys where there were less people.

Nakuto spoke as they spotted the residence, which was illuminated by many lights unlike the buildings in the city center.

「I see it. ……Let’s proceed with caution from here on. Byune.」

「Mm.」

Exchanging glances as thieves, they quickly shifted their eyes to see if there were any suspicious movements.

However, fortunately or unfortunately, they weren’t attacked by anyone, so they steadily approached the Marschel family residence.

「……This is boring. Wouldn’t it be great if they all attacked us at once? I hope there’s someone strong.」

「We’re infiltrating right now, so I don’t want to cause a commotion here.」

Vihera whispered to Rei while looking back at him with damp eyes. However, Rei just gave a sigh as he whispered back and told her not to get in the way of the two thieves.

Vihera’s white back came into view through her thin layers of clothes.

Her lusciousness seemed to be emphasised by the moonlight pouring down.

That said, this wasn’t the time to focus on that. Rei continued to move forward while remaining ready to respond to any attack.

With regards to their formation, Nakuto and Byune were at the front, followed by Vihera, and finally, Rei. Naturally, Rei’s role was to protect them from any surprise attacks from behind.

However, contrary to their alertness, there were no signs of any possible attack.

Continuing to make their way forward, they finally reached the residence before looking at each other with a sense of strangeness……or rather, suspicion.

「What do you think?」

「Perhaps they haven’t found out that their hideout in the slums has been attacked?」

Vihera replied to Rei’s question, but Nakuto seemed puzzled.

「I really don’t think the Marschel family would be that dull with their information collection……」

「Then, why is there no welcome?」

Dissatisfaction came from Vihera’s mouth.

After all, even though she had come to the Marschel family residence in search of a fight against a powerful enemy, not even a small fry had showed up.

From Nakuto’s perspective, he felt that he should be happy, since their goal was to infiltrate the residence. However, Vihera had no relationship with Tivia and did not feel the need to be as concerned.

That said, Vihera felt that Rei would scold her if she said that out loud, so she just thought that in her mind.

「If think about it from a very conservative perspective, are they trying to lure people that trespass onto their premises so they can’t escape……what do you think, Rei?」

「Well, that’s the most likely possibility. Do they have confidence in their own combat power, or do they have some trick up their sleeve that can turn the situation around? Either way, we’ll have to go inside to rescue Tivia.」

「That’s true.」

After Nakuto’s reply, Rei looked around again just in case.

Although he didn’t have the observational eyes of thieves like Byune and Nakuto, Rei’s body had been built by Zepairu’s group and his five senses and low light vision were very good.

However, even after looking around, it didn’t seem like there were any attackers hidden anywhere.

The only exception would be the two gatekeepers in front of the gate, but those two looked somewhat lazy.

The situation seemed rather eerie and Rei gave a sigh as he muttered.

「If we can’t see anything, it makes us hesitant to go in.」

「But, as you said, if we want to save Tivia, we have no choice but to go in……right?」

Saying that, Vihera dashed foward, quickly heading towards the residence, as there was no point in staying where they were any longer.

She moved to a location up against the wall but a bit further away from the guarded gate, probably because she didn’t want to cause a big commotion.

If it had been brighter, the gatekeepers might have spotted Vihera’s suspicious behaviour. But, it was already night time and the only sources of light were the moonlight and the magic lights inside the residence.

Her location was brighter than other places, but if asked if they could properly see Vihera were she was, most people would say no.

After moving to a blind spot for the gatekeepers, she jumped after run up of several steps and grabbed hold of a bird statue that was there as a decoration about 5m up the wall before continuing to climb up. Reaching the top of the wall, she turned to look back at Rei and the others for a moment before nodding slightly and immediately jumping down into the grounds of the Marschel family residence.

「It seems like there aren’t any traps in particular.」

Nakuto, who had been watching Vihera with a dumbfounded expression, came back to his senses at Rei’s words.

For a moment, he was going to say something indignantly about the absurdity of Vihera’s actions……but he quickly judged that now was not the time.

Someone had to sneak in, and he had joined the group voluntarily.

「In that case, we’ll go first. Don’t take too long.」

「Mm.」

Rei and Byune spoke quietly to Nakuto as they headed for the gatekeepers’ blind spot.

Rei used the same run up and initial jump. Up until this point, it was the same as what Vihera had done, but the next moment, he activated the Shoes of Sleipnir. With two steps using the air as a foothold, he easily jumped over the 5m wall and landed in the residence grounds.

Taking one last step in the air, Rei landed on the neatly trimmed lawn with barely a sound.

Byune landed at almost the same time, followed by Nakuto several seconds later.

「……No attack here either, huh? Then have they seriously not noticed?」

As soon as he landed, Rei took out a knife from the Misty Ring as he looked around cautiously. However, there wasn’t a single guard around, let alone anyone waiting for them.

Being the first to land in the garden, Vihera felt the same way. Even though she had extended her claws using her magic power, she had immediately retracted them as she gave a disappointed sigh.

「Well, since we’re sneaking in, it’s nice that there aren’t any enemies……but, it really is unexpected that there isn’t even a single one.」

Vihera furrowed her eyes, somewhat displeased at the situation where there wasn’t a single enemy around.

「Would it have been better to get more information out of the people from the Church of Holy Light?」

「It’s no use Nakuto. Those six were devoted to the Church of Holy Light from the bottom of their hearts. No, you could say that they were brainwashed to that state. Do you think such people would leak any information? At worst, they would just consider it martyrdom. It’s also true that we didn’t have a lot of time. If we had wasted our time with that, we would have gotten here much later, which might put Tivia’s life in an even riskier situation.」

「……I guess you’re right.」

In the first place, it had been Nakuto’s party member, Essetus, who had been making a fuss about how they had no time to lose. Considering that, there was no point in asking Rei and the others if they should have waited a bit longer.

「But……we still don’t have the all important information of where Tivia is, what can we do? Searching every tiny corner of the residence would be impossible. If she’s in something like a hidden room……」

「That’s where you and Byune come into play.」

「……It’s a bit of a problem when you ask me to do that so casually. With a mansion as large as the Marschel family residence, it’s possible that they’ve built in a lot of things from the design stage.」

「Mm!」

Nakuto sounded somewhat reluctant at Rei’s words, but Byune seemed to tell Rei to leave it to her.

She was a lot smaller than him……and even younger.

「I understand. there’s no way I can leave everything to a young girl like her. Besides, I know what Essetus would say if I don’t do my best to find Tivia. It won’t be an issue.」

「Okay, everything has been decided. Then let’s sneak in and secure a guide if possible.」

「But, if there’s no one out here, then there can’t be that many people inside the mansion either, right? The Marschel family had a small number of servants to begin with.」

「We still need to do it.」

「Well, I guess you’re right.」

With everything sorted out, the part approached the mansion while remaining wary of their surroundings.

Unlike the outside, there were many magic lights lighting up the walls, the closer they got, the easier it was for them to be spotted.

That said, there were few people employed as guards by the Marschel family and there were no guards who saw Rei and the others crossing the garden as they approached the mansion.

……Yes. Human guards, that is.

「There are four people. Master.」

「Roger that. We’ll let you know about the response.」

A voice that was hard for ordinary people to hear faintly sounded out.

「……What? Just now, what was that……」

「Rei? What’s wrong?」

Arriving at the wall of the mansion, Rei suddenly stopped moving and looked around.

However, when Vihera asked him what was wrong, he couldn’t sense anything suspicious and shook his head slightly.

「No, it’s nothing. I thought I heard a strange sound……」

Hearing his words, Byune and Nakuto immediately looked at their surroundings sharply.

They searched for even the slightly abnormality to see if there was anything wrong, but they didn’t spot anything.

「Sorry, it might have just been my imagination.」

「Is that so? I don’t know what happened……but if you have any concerns, let me know. This is the Marschel family residence, and since there is also the Church of Holy Light, we don’t know what tricks they might have.」

After saying that, Nakuto reached out to a nearby window to peek inside.

Seeing that, Rei felt that something was still watching them.

However, even after looking around, there was no sign of any living things, until he recalled something.

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