Chapter 229: 229
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Agatha stepped forward.
"In that case, I should be able to deal with that."
She stayed just on the last step so she could see the room better. Her night vision was scanning the chamber in front of her.
Gracefully, she raised both of her arms and the spinning chakrams flew up. With her hands now stretched to the front, the chakrams were sent flying forth at a frightening speed, spinning incredibly fast all the while. The moment they left Agatha's body, the yellowish mist concealing them disappeared, revealing their bloody menace.
Clank! Clank!
The armored black spider stomped the ground with its giant, metallic legs in a threatening manner. Its eight eyes looked like they were ready to shred the intruders into pieces.
Whoosh!!
The chakrams flew above it, completely ignoring the detective's defecting familiar.
In the pitch-black room ahead, there didn't seem to be many objects that might be the hidden artifact. There were a lot of crates stacked up on top of each other and empty shelves that were collecting dust. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in that basement. On top of that, Johann couldn't seem to pinpoint the exact location of the thing because the artifact's effect was dominantly triggering his secret sense.
Smash!
Crash!
Agatha's solution to the problem was clear. If she couldn't find the artifact's location, she could just destroy everything in the room, and in the process, probably destroying the artifact as well.
Two big blood chakrams were slashing everything in their path, moving arrogantly all over the room. Wooden crates were destroyed, metal shelves cut into pieces. Even the objects stored inside the crates were not spared. Vases, porcelain, old books, everything was torn into shreds.
The massacre continued on for several more minutes while the men were watching in awe and slight wariness. The brute force and the decisiveness that the woman possessed definitely was out of their expectation.
"G, definitely don't provoke her unnecessarily," Valentine sighed.
Luuk's face showed a mix of amazement and fear.
How can she be very violent like that? I don't want to imagine how she is with her lover. He amused himself with his thought.
Tiny wooden pieces, porcelain shards, and shredded paper were now littering the floor. It looked like the room had gone through a shredding machine, destroying everything mercilessly. Only the armored spider, which was standing guard in the middle of the room, was spared. Agatha seemed to know that Johann would need the familiar back after the effect was lifted.
Agatha nodded slowly.
"Then I will try to destroy the wall as well," she said innocently, but it was clear that she was not joking.
With her hands, she controlled both chakrams and began drilling away at the brick wall, chipping pieces and pieces of it. Pain, layers of cement, and bricks were quickly destroyed under the brute force of the blood weapons.
Clank!
Finally, the chakram hit something hard. It was a metal cube the size of an apple that was embedded into the wall. The blood weapons didn't seem to be able to even make a dent on it, so it was surely the artifact that they were looking for.
Hearing the sound of the chakram hitting metal, the other three walked closer to take a look. The artifact was hidden on the wall on the left, obstructed from where they had been standing.
"I don't think you can destroy the artifact that easily," he concluded.
The chakrams were drilling into the metal cube without any result. The cube was still embedded on the wall undamaged; its effect affecting the whole room.
Valentine was too far to use reveal, so he couldn't see what it was, but he was close enough to try something else.
"Leave the thing be. I'll try something," he said shortly.
Agatha elegantly swiped her hands up, recalling the blood chakrams. The spinning weapons returned to their master's side, and the moment they were close again to her, the yellowish mist engulfed them.
She then inhaled the stamina powder that Luuk had given her before. Her offensive move just now seemed to have drained a lot of her stamina.
Valentine leaned forward and focused on the metal cube. He then activated his ability.
"The effect of that artifact is a secret!"
The same but thicker yellowish mist descended and enveloped the metal cube, covering the object under its shroud of secrets. There were tiny illusory snakes slithering about in the mist, looking somewhat like eye floaters.
Valentine felt like he could link the illusory snakes surrounding the cube with those slithering around him, but he didn't know what it would do.
"What do you think, G? Do you think it will cause the effect to befall us and those linked to us and not anyone else? That could be useful if the effect were positive," he analyzed, his arms were crossed over his chest.
Once the shroud was in effect, Johann felt that his connection with his familiar had returned. The giant armored spider hurriedly scrurried close to its presence less master, relying on their spiritual connection to find him.
Valentine then used the last charge of Concealment and hid the spider's presence, and then linked it with the rest of them through the illusory snakes.
"Let's go now. They might have heard the noise we're creating here," Johann suggested.
The rest nodded and carefully entered the room one by one. That way, if the artifact's effect was actually still in place, they could quickly back away and deal with only one person.
Luuk was the first to take foot into the room because he would be the easiest to deal with in case he fell under the artifact's control. Johann followed behind Luuk. Although he was a double President rank Contractbound, his offensive abilities were limited and highly tied to his spider familiar.
The most problematic if falling under the enemy's control were Agatha and Valentine. The former could easily wipe the group away with her brute force, although she had no defense against control effects, something that Valentine was adept at.
The group deemed that Valentine should be the last because of his abilities. If he fell under the artifact's control, they would have no way of dealing with him, especially if they couldn't see him. Although Agatha could sweep the whole room clean with her artifact, the young detective must have something that could counter it.
That was even without them seemingly knowing about Valentine's Mass Illusion ability.
"It's safe now. You can step in," Johann beckoned.
Confident in his own Concealment, Valentine walked into the room casually. He then approached the concealed metal cube embedded into the wall and used Reveal on it.
'Neptu's Cube of Malice. An artifact that looks like an ordinary metal cube. It has the ability to turn anyone inside its area of effect into enemies, no matter what relationships or connections they share. It can even turn someone bound by contract against its contractor and vice versa. Its area of effect depends on the room where it is in, as it has to be buried somewhere in the desired area. However, the biggest area it can affect is the size of a large chamber. With every use, the user must give up their memory of a dearest person forever, and the effect will last as long as the strength of the connection between the user and the person they are willing to forget.'
After that, the illusory text disappeared.
"G, this artifact is not half bad, although using it will mean affecting the user as well if they remain in the area. Also, giving up the memory of a dear person sounds difficult for us," he ridiculed himself.
Meanwhile, the other three were looking at a different part of the wall.
"Thanks to Ms. van Nostrand's blood chakrams, the hidden entrance has also been revealed," Johann said, pointing at the metal door that was buried in the wall. The missing first layer of the brick wall had revealed it.
"Can you open it?" Valentine turned his attention to the Thief.
The door had no handle whatsoever, so opening it must take a special kind of measure.
"I can try."
Focusing on the door, Luuk swiped his right hand.
"The lock of this metal door is mine!"
Nothing happened.
His right hand was still holding thin air; no lock had appeared there.
"It failed. Let me try something else," he said seriously. The others had showcased their abilities while his only function so far had been lockpickers. He was rather eager to prove his usefulness to the group.
He took out the severed hand that was attached to a rope. After sending some energy into the hand, he flung it towards the wall next to the door and activated his ability. The hand grabbed on to the wall tightly like a lizard's feet.
"The wall around this metal door is mine!"
The hand was pulled and alongside it, the sections of the wall all around the metal door got pulled as well in the form of an arch. The metal door was now not attached to anything and was standing alone in the way. That way, with just a push, the door would topple.
"That was smart," Johann praised Luuk's ingenuity genuinely, "If you can't break the door, break the wall."
Luuk smiled proudly but he was still struggling to prevent the wall arch from collapsing on him.
Valentine quickly came to the young man's aid and pushed the arch away from them. The moment his hands touched it, the yellowish mist engulfed the arch and muffled the sound of its impact. There was only a faint thud the moment the wall hit the stone floor.
Valentine did the same with the metal door, pushing it forward. The mist muffled the impact again.
"Let's go," he then said shortly.
The group pressed forward, walking down a dark path that was leading deeper underground. The path was made of stone tiles, similar to the walls around them. The path that was only big enough for three people to walk side by side looked like some kind of underground ruin.
"I can't believe there is something like this under Sloten," Luuk expressed his thought.
"This place looks like it was built very long ago, even before the world war it seems. It doesn't look like a bunker," Johann added.
"My mother used to tell me stories about how a lot of places in the Republic used to be ancient cities. Maybe this is one of them, I wonder," Agatha chimed in. Her voice sounded genuinely impressed. It was as if her childhood stories had come true.
The sounds of their voices and footsteps were hidden by Valentine's Concealment. The dark path was completely silent, but slowly, there were faint noises that sounded like numerous tiny feet moving about and hard materials rubbing against each other. There were also the occasional buzzings of wings.
"That... sounds like insects..." Johann concluded.
The deeper they walked, the louder the noises became. The path that they were walking on led to a bigger room and they had to stop just before they took a step in it. The scene in the room amazed and disgusted them at the same time.
It was numerous cockroaches! The floor, the walls, and even the ceiling were littered with those tiny relentless insects!
Although their presence was hidden, they couldn't avoid stepping on cockroaches if they wanted to go to the other side of the room. If they did that, some of the insects in contact with them would surely be able to detect them and probably mark them somehow.
Johann's spider familiar showed an inexplicable ravenous look on its arachnid face.
"Looks like it's a job for Uttu and your blood chakrams again," Johann said confidently.
Valentine could use Mass Illusion to scare the insects away, but it would also affect his companions, so he decided against it. Besides, Johann was right; Agatha's blood chakrams and his familiar were perfect for the job, so he didn't have to switch with Graham to use his Fire Manipulation.
Once again, he and Luuk could only watch from the rear.
"Screech!!"
Johann's familiar let out an intimidating roar and charged ahead. It began stabbing the cockroaches from under the Concealment, using the sharp edges of its eight legs to pierce through the insects' carapaces.
Meanwhile, Agatha's blood chakrams were spinning around, slicing through the insects unfortunate enough to make contact with them. The smell of dead cockroaches filled the room, sending a pungent stench down their lungs.
Slide...
Slide...
Suddenly, countless cockroaches gathered in the middle of the chamber, getting on top of each other and forming a tower. After a while, the cockroaches solidified and turned into the figure of a tall, thin man with long, brown hair. There was a heavy sinister aura coming from the man that instantly intimidated the spider.
"What have we here? Blood chakrams killing my babies? And something concealed? A Shroud? That is very rude of you,"
The man's hoarse but effeminate voice resounded in the room. The aura he was emitting became even stronger now.
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Agatha stepped forward.
"In that case, I should be able to deal with that."
She stayed just on the last step so she could see the room better. Her night vision was scanning the chamber in front of her.
Gracefully, she raised both of her arms and the spinning chakrams flew up. With her hands now stretched to the front, the chakrams were sent flying forth at a frightening speed, spinning incredibly fast all the while. The moment they left Agatha's body, the yellowish mist concealing them disappeared, revealing their bloody menace.
Clank! Clank!
The armored black spider stomped the ground with its giant, metallic legs in a threatening manner. Its eight eyes looked like they were ready to shred the intruders into pieces.
Whoosh!!
The chakrams flew above it, completely ignoring the detective's defecting familiar.
In the pitch-black room ahead, there didn't seem to be many objects that might be the hidden artifact. There were a lot of crates stacked up on top of each other and empty shelves that were collecting dust. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in that basement. On top of that, Johann couldn't seem to pinpoint the exact location of the thing because the artifact's effect was dominantly triggering his secret sense.
Smash!
Crash!
Agatha's solution to the problem was clear. If she couldn't find the artifact's location, she could just destroy everything in the room, and in the process, probably destroying the artifact as well.
Two big blood chakrams were slashing everything in their path, moving arrogantly all over the room. Wooden crates were destroyed, metal shelves cut into pieces. Even the objects stored inside the crates were not spared. Vases, porcelain, old books, everything was torn into shreds.
The massacre continued on for several more minutes while the men were watching in awe and slight wariness. The brute force and the decisiveness that the woman possessed definitely was out of their expectation.
"G, definitely don't provoke her unnecessarily," Valentine sighed.
Luuk's face showed a mix of amazement and fear.
How can she be very violent like that? I don't want to imagine how she is with her lover. He amused himself with his thought.
Tiny wooden pieces, porcelain shards, and shredded paper were now littering the floor. It looked like the room had gone through a shredding machine, destroying everything mercilessly. Only the armored spider, which was standing guard in the middle of the room, was spared. Agatha seemed to know that Johann would need the familiar back after the effect was lifted.
Agatha nodded slowly.
"Then I will try to destroy the wall as well," she said innocently, but it was clear that she was not joking.
With her hands, she controlled both chakrams and began drilling away at the brick wall, chipping pieces and pieces of it. Pain, layers of cement, and bricks were quickly destroyed under the brute force of the blood weapons.
Clank!
Finally, the chakram hit something hard. It was a metal cube the size of an apple that was embedded into the wall. The blood weapons didn't seem to be able to even make a dent on it, so it was surely the artifact that they were looking for.
Hearing the sound of the chakram hitting metal, the other three walked closer to take a look. The artifact was hidden on the wall on the left, obstructed from where they had been standing.
"I don't think you can destroy the artifact that easily," he concluded.
The chakrams were drilling into the metal cube without any result. The cube was still embedded on the wall undamaged; its effect affecting the whole room.
Valentine was too far to use reveal, so he couldn't see what it was, but he was close enough to try something else.
"Leave the thing be. I'll try something," he said shortly.
Agatha elegantly swiped her hands up, recalling the blood chakrams. The spinning weapons returned to their master's side, and the moment they were close again to her, the yellowish mist engulfed them.
She then inhaled the stamina powder that Luuk had given her before. Her offensive move just now seemed to have drained a lot of her stamina.
Valentine leaned forward and focused on the metal cube. He then activated his ability.
"The effect of that artifact is a secret!"
The same but thicker yellowish mist descended and enveloped the metal cube, covering the object under its shroud of secrets. There were tiny illusory snakes slithering about in the mist, looking somewhat like eye floaters.
Valentine felt like he could link the illusory snakes surrounding the cube with those slithering around him, but he didn't know what it would do.
"What do you think, G? Do you think it will cause the effect to befall us and those linked to us and not anyone else? That could be useful if the effect were positive," he analyzed, his arms were crossed over his chest.
Once the shroud was in effect, Johann felt that his connection with his familiar had returned. The giant armored spider hurriedly scrurried close to its presence less master, relying on their spiritual connection to find him.
Valentine then used the last charge of Concealment and hid the spider's presence, and then linked it with the rest of them through the illusory snakes.
"Let's go now. They might have heard the noise we're creating here," Johann suggested.
The rest nodded and carefully entered the room one by one. That way, if the artifact's effect was actually still in place, they could quickly back away and deal with only one person.
Luuk was the first to take foot into the room because he would be the easiest to deal with in case he fell under the artifact's control. Johann followed behind Luuk. Although he was a double President rank Contractbound, his offensive abilities were limited and highly tied to his spider familiar.
The most problematic if falling under the enemy's control were Agatha and Valentine. The former could easily wipe the group away with her brute force, although she had no defense against control effects, something that Valentine was adept at.
The group deemed that Valentine should be the last because of his abilities. If he fell under the artifact's control, they would have no way of dealing with him, especially if they couldn't see him. Although Agatha could sweep the whole room clean with her artifact, the young detective must have something that could counter it.
That was even without them seemingly knowing about Valentine's Mass Illusion ability.
"It's safe now. You can step in," Johann beckoned.
Confident in his own Concealment, Valentine walked into the room casually. He then approached the concealed metal cube embedded into the wall and used Reveal on it.
'Neptu's Cube of Malice. An artifact that looks like an ordinary metal cube. It has the ability to turn anyone inside its area of effect into enemies, no matter what relationships or connections they share. It can even turn someone bound by contract against its contractor and vice versa. Its area of effect depends on the room where it is in, as it has to be buried somewhere in the desired area. However, the biggest area it can affect is the size of a large chamber. With every use, the user must give up their memory of a dearest person forever, and the effect will last as long as the strength of the connection between the user and the person they are willing to forget.'
After that, the illusory text disappeared.
"G, this artifact is not half bad, although using it will mean affecting the user as well if they remain in the area. Also, giving up the memory of a dear person sounds difficult for us," he ridiculed himself.
Meanwhile, the other three were looking at a different part of the wall.
"Thanks to Ms. van Nostrand's blood chakrams, the hidden entrance has also been revealed," Johann said, pointing at the metal door that was buried in the wall. The missing first layer of the brick wall had revealed it.
"Can you open it?" Valentine turned his attention to the Thief.
The door had no handle whatsoever, so opening it must take a special kind of measure.
"I can try."
Focusing on the door, Luuk swiped his right hand.
"The lock of this metal door is mine!"
Nothing happened.
His right hand was still holding thin air; no lock had appeared there.
"It failed. Let me try something else," he said seriously. The others had showcased their abilities while his only function so far had been lockpickers. He was rather eager to prove his usefulness to the group.
He took out the severed hand that was attached to a rope. After sending some energy into the hand, he flung it towards the wall next to the door and activated his ability. The hand grabbed on to the wall tightly like a lizard's feet.
"The wall around this metal door is mine!"
The hand was pulled and alongside it, the sections of the wall all around the metal door got pulled as well in the form of an arch. The metal door was now not attached to anything and was standing alone in the way. That way, with just a push, the door would topple.
"That was smart," Johann praised Luuk's ingenuity genuinely, "If you can't break the door, break the wall."
Luuk smiled proudly but he was still struggling to prevent the wall arch from collapsing on him.
Valentine quickly came to the young man's aid and pushed the arch away from them. The moment his hands touched it, the yellowish mist engulfed the arch and muffled the sound of its impact. There was only a faint thud the moment the wall hit the stone floor.
Valentine did the same with the metal door, pushing it forward. The mist muffled the impact again.
"Let's go," he then said shortly.
The group pressed forward, walking down a dark path that was leading deeper underground. The path was made of stone tiles, similar to the walls around them. The path that was only big enough for three people to walk side by side looked like some kind of underground ruin.
"I can't believe there is something like this under Sloten," Luuk expressed his thought.
"This place looks like it was built very long ago, even before the world war it seems. It doesn't look like a bunker," Johann added.
"My mother used to tell me stories about how a lot of places in the Republic used to be ancient cities. Maybe this is one of them, I wonder," Agatha chimed in. Her voice sounded genuinely impressed. It was as if her childhood stories had come true.
The sounds of their voices and footsteps were hidden by Valentine's Concealment. The dark path was completely silent, but slowly, there were faint noises that sounded like numerous tiny feet moving about and hard materials rubbing against each other. There were also the occasional buzzings of wings.
"That... sounds like insects..." Johann concluded.
The deeper they walked, the louder the noises became. The path that they were walking on led to a bigger room and they had to stop just before they took a step in it. The scene in the room amazed and disgusted them at the same time.
It was numerous cockroaches! The floor, the walls, and even the ceiling were littered with those tiny relentless insects!
Although their presence was hidden, they couldn't avoid stepping on cockroaches if they wanted to go to the other side of the room. If they did that, some of the insects in contact with them would surely be able to detect them and probably mark them somehow.
Johann's spider familiar showed an inexplicable ravenous look on its arachnid face.
"Looks like it's a job for Uttu and your blood chakrams again," Johann said confidently.
Valentine could use Mass Illusion to scare the insects away, but it would also affect his companions, so he decided against it. Besides, Johann was right; Agatha's blood chakrams and his familiar were perfect for the job, so he didn't have to switch with Graham to use his Fire Manipulation.
Once again, he and Luuk could only watch from the rear.
"Screech!!"
Johann's familiar let out an intimidating roar and charged ahead. It began stabbing the cockroaches from under the Concealment, using the sharp edges of its eight legs to pierce through the insects' carapaces.
Meanwhile, Agatha's blood chakrams were spinning around, slicing through the insects unfortunate enough to make contact with them. The smell of dead cockroaches filled the room, sending a pungent stench down their lungs.
Slide...
Slide...
Suddenly, countless cockroaches gathered in the middle of the chamber, getting on top of each other and forming a tower. After a while, the cockroaches solidified and turned into the figure of a tall, thin man with long, brown hair. There was a heavy sinister aura coming from the man that instantly intimidated the spider.
"What have we here? Blood chakrams killing my babies? And something concealed? A Shroud? That is very rude of you,"
The man's hoarse but effeminate voice resounded in the room. The aura he was emitting became even stronger now.
Agatha stepped forward."In that case, I should be able to deal with that."She stayed just on the last step so she could see the room better. Her night vision was scanning the chamber in front of her.Gracefully, she raised both of her arms and the spinning chakrams flew up. With her hands now stretched to the front, the chakrams were sent flying forth at a frightening speed, spinning incredibly fast all the while. The moment they left Agatha's body, the yellowish mist concealing them disappeared, revealing their bloody menace.Clank! Clank!The armored black spider stomped the ground with its giant, metallic legs in a threatening manner. Its eight eyes looked like they were ready to shred the intruders into pieces.Whoosh!!The chakrams flew above it, completely ignoring the detective's defecting familiar.In the pitch-black room ahead, there didn't seem to be many objects that might be the hidden artifact. There were a lot of crates stacked up on top of each other and empty shelves that were collecting dust. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in that basement. On top of that, Johann couldn't seem to pinpoint the exact location of the thing because the artifact's effect was dominantly triggering his secret sense.Smash!Crash!Agatha's solution to the problem was clear. If she couldn't find the artifact's location, she could just destroy everything in the room, and in the process, probably destroying the artifact as well.Two big blood chakrams were slashing everything in their path, moving arrogantly all over the room. Wooden crates were destroyed, metal shelves cut into pieces. Even the objects stored inside the crates were not spared. Vases, porcelain, old books, everything was torn into shreds.The massacre continued on for several more minutes while the men were watching in awe and slight wariness. The brute force and the decisiveness that the woman possessed definitely was out of their expectation."G, definitely don't provoke her unnecessarily," Valentine sighed.Luuk's face showed a mix of amazement and fear.How can she be very violent like that? I don't want to imagine how she is with her lover. He amused himself with his thought.Tiny wooden pieces, porcelain shards, and shredded paper were now littering the floor. It looked like the room had gone through a shredding machine, destroying everything mercilessly. Only the armored spider, which was standing guard in the middle of the room, was spared. Agatha seemed to know that Johann would need the familiar back after the effect was lifted.Agatha nodded slowly."Then I will try to destroy the wall as well," she said innocently, but it was clear that she was not joking.With her hands, she controlled both chakrams and began drilling away at the brick wall, chipping pieces and pieces of it. Pain, layers of cement, and bricks were quickly destroyed under the brute force of the blood weapons.Clank!Finally, the chakram hit something hard. It was a metal cube the size of an apple that was embedded into the wall. The blood weapons didn't seem to be able to even make a dent on it, so it was surely the artifact that they were looking for.Hearing the sound of the chakram hitting metal, the other three walked closer to take a look. The artifact was hidden on the wall on the left, obstructed from where they had been standing."I don't think you can destroy the artifact that easily," he concluded.The chakrams were drilling into the metal cube without any result. The cube was still embedded on the wall undamaged; its effect affecting the whole room.Valentine was too far to use reveal, so he couldn't see what it was, but he was close enough to try something else."Leave the thing be. I'll try something," he said shortly.Agatha elegantly swiped her hands up, recalling the blood chakrams. The spinning weapons returned to their master's side, and the moment they were close again to her, the yellowish mist engulfed them.She then inhaled the stamina powder that Luuk had given her before. Her offensive move just now seemed to have drained a lot of her stamina.Valentine leaned forward and focused on the metal cube. He then activated his ability."The effect of that artifact is a secret!"The same but thicker yellowish mist descended and enveloped the metal cube, covering the object under its shroud of secrets. There were tiny illusory snakes slithering about in the mist, looking somewhat like eye floaters.Valentine felt like he could link the illusory snakes surrounding the cube with those slithering around him, but he didn't know what it would do."What do you think, G? Do you think it will cause the effect to befall us and those linked to us and not anyone else? That could be useful if the effect were positive," he analyzed, his arms were crossed over his chest.Once the shroud was in effect, Johann felt that his connection with his familiar had returned. The giant armored spider hurriedly scrurried close to its presence less master, relying on their spiritual connection to find him.Valentine then used the last charge of Concealment and hid the spider's presence, and then linked it with the rest of them through the illusory snakes."Let's go now. They might have heard the noise we're creating here," Johann suggested.The rest nodded and carefully entered the room one by one. That way, if the artifact's effect was actually still in place, they could quickly back away and deal with only one person.Luuk was the first to take foot into the room because he would be the easiest to deal with in case he fell under the artifact's control. Johann followed behind Luuk. Although he was a double President rank Contractbound, his offensive abilities were limited and highly tied to his spider familiar.The most problematic if falling under the enemy's control were Agatha and Valentine. The former could easily wipe the group away with her brute force, although she had no defense against control effects, something that Valentine was adept at.The group deemed that Valentine should be the last because of his abilities. If he fell under the artifact's control, they would have no way of dealing with him, especially if they couldn't see him. Although Agatha could sweep the whole room clean with her artifact, the young detective must have something that could counter it.That was even without them seemingly knowing about Valentine's Mass Illusion ability."It's safe now. You can step in," Johann beckoned.Confident in his own Concealment, Valentine walked into the room casually. He then approached the concealed metal cube embedded into the wall and used Reveal on it.'Neptu's Cube of Malice. An artifact that looks like an ordinary metal cube. It has the ability to turn anyone inside its area of effect into enemies, no matter what relationships or connections they share. It can even turn someone bound by contract against its contractor and vice versa. Its area of effect depends on the room where it is in, as it has to be buried somewhere in the desired area. However, the biggest area it can affect is the size of a large chamber. With every use, the user must give up their memory of a dearest person forever, and the effect will last as long as the strength of the connection between the user and the person they are willing to forget.'After that, the illusory text disappeared."G, this artifact is not half bad, although using it will mean affecting the user as well if they remain in the area. Also, giving up the memory of a dear person sounds difficult for us," he ridiculed himself.Meanwhile, the other three were looking at a different part of the wall."Thanks to Ms. van Nostrand's blood chakrams, the hidden entrance has also been revealed," Johann said, pointing at the metal door that was buried in the wall. The missing first layer of the brick wall had revealed it."Can you open it?" Valentine turned his attention to the Thief.The door had no handle whatsoever, so opening it must take a special kind of measure."I can try." Focusing on the door, Luuk swiped his right hand."The lock of this metal door is mine!"Nothing happened.His right hand was still holding thin air; no lock had appeared there."It failed. Let me try something else," he said seriously. The others had showcased their abilities while his only function so far had been lockpickers. He was rather eager to prove his usefulness to the group.He took out the severed hand that was attached to a rope. After sending some energy into the hand, he flung it towards the wall next to the door and activated his ability. The hand grabbed on to the wall tightly like a lizard's feet."The wall around this metal door is mine!"The hand was pulled and alongside it, the sections of the wall all around the metal door got pulled as well in the form of an arch. The metal door was now not attached to anything and was standing alone in the way. That way, with just a push, the door would topple."That was smart," Johann praised Luuk's ingenuity genuinely, "If you can't break the door, break the wall."Luuk smiled proudly but he was still struggling to prevent the wall arch from collapsing on him. Valentine quickly came to the young man's aid and pushed the arch away from them. The moment his hands touched it, the yellowish mist engulfed the arch and muffled the sound of its impact. There was only a faint thud the moment the wall hit the stone floor.Valentine did the same with the metal door, pushing it forward. The mist muffled the impact again."Let's go," he then said shortly.The group pressed forward, walking down a dark path that was leading deeper underground. The path was made of stone tiles, similar to the walls around them. The path that was only big enough for three people to walk side by side looked like some kind of underground ruin."I can't believe there is something like this under Sloten," Luuk expressed his thought."This place looks like it was built very long ago, even before the world war it seems. It doesn't look like a bunker," Johann added."My mother used to tell me stories about how a lot of places in the Republic used to be ancient cities. Maybe this is one of them, I wonder," Agatha chimed in. Her voice sounded genuinely impressed. It was as if her childhood stories had come true.The sounds of their voices and footsteps were hidden by Valentine's Concealment. The dark path was completely silent, but slowly, there were faint noises that sounded like numerous tiny feet moving about and hard materials rubbing against each other. There were also the occasional buzzings of wings."That... sounds like insects..." Johann concluded.The deeper they walked, the louder the noises became. The path that they were walking on led to a bigger room and they had to stop just before they took a step in it. The scene in the room amazed and disgusted them at the same time.It was numerous cockroaches! The floor, the walls, and even the ceiling were littered with those tiny relentless insects!Although their presence was hidden, they couldn't avoid stepping on cockroaches if they wanted to go to the other side of the room. If they did that, some of the insects in contact with them would surely be able to detect them and probably mark them somehow. Johann's spider familiar showed an inexplicable ravenous look on its arachnid face."Looks like it's a job for Uttu and your blood chakrams again," Johann said confidently.Valentine could use Mass Illusion to scare the insects away, but it would also affect his companions, so he decided against it. Besides, Johann was right; Agatha's blood chakrams and his familiar were perfect for the job, so he didn't have to switch with Graham to use his Fire Manipulation.Once again, he and Luuk could only watch from the rear."Screech!!"Johann's familiar let out an intimidating roar and charged ahead. It began stabbing the cockroaches from under the Concealment, using the sharp edges of its eight legs to pierce through the insects' carapaces. Meanwhile, Agatha's blood chakrams were spinning around, slicing through the insects unfortunate enough to make contact with them. The smell of dead cockroaches filled the room, sending a pungent stench down their lungs.Slide...Slide...Suddenly, countless cockroaches gathered in the middle of the chamber, getting on top of each other and forming a tower. After a while, the cockroaches solidified and turned into the figure of a tall, thin man with long, brown hair. There was a heavy sinister aura coming from the man that instantly intimidated the spider."What have we here? Blood chakrams killing my babies? And something concealed? A Shroud? That is very rude of you,"The man's hoarse but effeminate voice resounded in the room. The aura he was emitting became even stronger now.
