Dia looked at the snoozing little Beth, and then patted her head. “I’ll be back, so don’t be scared, alright?”

  Beth rolled over onto her back, nodded blearily, and then turned right back to hug the little bolster. The kid had gotten quite attached to the bolster that Schwarz had gifted her some time ago, and it was her second-most favourite sleeping buddy. As for her favourite sleeping buddy — Dia — hugging her to sleep was reserved for cases of bad nightmares or rainy days. As far as childhood development went, this was definitely an improvement, although Dia did make it a point to tuck her into bed and get up if she had a bad dream.

  “Fufufu. So adorable…ahem.” Dia strapped her trusty sword to her belt, checked that she had a bunch of skillstrips and armour, and then stole out of her tent. Under the light of the white, placeholder moon, her body cast a shadow as she walked away from the tents and dived into the nearest shadow.

  Guards were everywhere.

  In addition, Emperor Grandis would never be allowed to know what her actions were going to accomplish. Therefore, if she was caught at this juncture, things would get…messy, to say the least. Discretion, stealth and most importantly, looking for her teammates, was the only way to get past tonight.

  She narrowed her eyes as a small patrol marched past, their arms and legs moving in a sluggish manner. Holding on to her breath, Dia counted to ten in her mind, and then peeked out of the tent she was hiding behind. The guards had gone past without noticing her, which meant that this was a good chance to look for any of the indicators that the others had planted.

  It would have been nice if they actually told her about these indicators and what the heck they actually looked like, but as it was, neither Risti, Nero or Kemata had returned after leaving early in the morning. Only a small letter telling her to look for a flag had been left on her bed when she returned, but…

  “Which flag, dumbasses?” Dia cursed the idiots as she began the arduous process of paying attention to things she never paid attention to.

  It took her ten minutes before she found a flag that looked similar to the Grandis flags, but had a weird miscolouration at the corner. Cursing the idiots again, Dia checked that the coast was clear, before flickering to the abnormal flag.

  There was another letter at the base of the flag, which Dia opened gently. Making a noise in a place as silent as this was simply asking for it at this point in time, after all. Curfew was not something she wanted to be caught breaking lightly, and Emperor Grandis was incorruptible.

  A hand fell on her shoulder as she opened the letter, and Dia jumped.

  “Shh!” Risti’s voice whispered in her ear. “Don’t bother about the letter. I came back to fetch you instead.”

  “Oh,” Dia whispered back. “Then lead the way.”

  The two of them prowled through the shadows as Risti began to explain the situation so far in whispers. Nero and Kemata had taken action rather successfully, but the person who had tapped onto Limbo was very prepared to begin with. The battle had gone underground three minutes after it started; the target had dived into a tunnel that had been prepared with a lot of effort.

  Right now, they were playing a game of hide-and-seek with the target a few hundred metres below ground in a cleared cavern.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Dia asked.

  “Wish I was,” Risti replied, before pointing at her face. “Look at the mud, though. A lot of effort went into this…”

  “I can tell,” Dia whispered, before stopping at a tent entrance. Without waiting at all, Risti pushed her into the tent, revealing a standard layout that would have looked very ordinary if not for the hole in the middle.

  Without any hesitation, Risti slid down the hole, and Dia joined her. Before she could fully appreciate the smoothness of the passage, however, the two of them had emerged into a cavern.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “…When was this created?” Dia asked. “This can’t have been done in a day or two, right? The war only blew up a week or so ago!”

  “The camp has always been here,” Risti replied. “Ever since the Moons and the Dark descended years ago. Emperor Grandis realised the possibility of a war on both sides, a war that he wouldn’t be able to stop, and had prepared multiple lines of defences in his own territory. He didn’t think that the other nobles would put up much of a fight, after all.”

  “Sounds like another Claud to me,” Dia muttered.

  “He’s the Emperor of the Grandis Empire. Paranoia has to be his middle name.” Risti shook his head. “And the person that we’re tracking has been here for quite some time too, or had joined up with someone who has been here for some time. This vast network of caverns and tunnels with supplies is proof of that, after all. A person could stay here for a few months on end and live a relatively comfortable life.”

  “Wait.” Dia frowned. “If his preparations are so thorough, does that mean that there might be other people who he told about Limbo?”

  “That’s another reason why we’re taking this fight to them,” Risti replied. “They should be here, these people. It’s the only way they could have hidden for an entire week. If not for our target leaking his presence yesterday, I wouldn’t have noticed either.”

  “So there’s actually a bunch of people here,” Dia muttered. “And you told me we were playing hide-and-seek?”

  “Well, it’s still true. None of the people should be able to defeat any of us,” Risti replied. “But we have to be careful. And we can’t show mercy.”

  “No rites or stuff like that?” Dia asked. “We could ask them to shatter their mana circuits if push comes to shove. And it’s not like we want their lives personally either.”

  “Nero believes the same, but we can only do that if we restrain them all,” Risti replied. “And their sudden drop in strength is a problem…wait, before I forget.”

  “Before you forget?”

  Risti answered her question by handing a mask over to her. “Wear this. In case we decide to let them live or some of them survive. That way, they can’t tell who we are…good. Your clothes hide your body well too. They shouldn’t be able to tell our gender. Just make sure to distort your voice if you want to speak, like what the others are doing.”

  “Got it.” Dia paused. “Isn’t there an artefact or something that could let us do that too, though? Would be a pain.”

  “Well, you can just watch us in silence. It’s alright to let me and Nero do the professional stuff. You need more training, after all.”

  “As if you guys are trained specifically for this…” Dia rolled her eyes at Risti, and then frowned. “Hold up. Wait. Seriously?”

  Risti snorted once. “Follow.”

  The daughter of the Folders’ Association President didn’t reply to the unspoken question as they headed down a passage. She could faintly hear the sounds of battle from the end of it, and without saying a word, the two of them sped up.

  The first thing that Dia took stock of when she burst out of the passage was the whirling scythe that had just sliced off an entire arm. Anguished screams filled the air as someone dropped onto all fours, and blood fountained once more as Nero fired blasts of mana at the prone target.

  Flesh, blood and bone splattered all across the walls, dyeing the companions of Nero’s target in red.

  “Please, stop! Why are you attacking us?”

  “Don’t kill us! We surrender!”

  “You think they’ll listen?” A woman stood at the front. “They’re spies of the Dark! They won’t let us run!”

  Nero lowered his hands, and in a twisted, distorted voice, said, “We’re not of the Dark. We’re here because you people have the same thing in common. You are all tainted people, vessels of killers from the world outside. I asked this earlier. Maybe you can reconsider the question now.”

  “Destroy our mana circuits?” one of them asked.

  Nero nodded. “We are people dedicated to preventing this corrupting madness. You people were cautious when accepting this poisonous gift. As a result, you people are still sane. Still…human. Thus, we can talk.”

  “Destroy your mana circuits, and never touch that power again,” Risti chimed in, her voice equally distorted. “And we’ll let you live. Free to go. This, we promise.”

  “Really?” one of them asked.

  “Yes,” Risti replied. “We are defenders of the world, who only seek to root out this corrupting madness. If you are not too far gone that you cannot relinquish this parasitical poison, you can turn back by relinquishing your power.”

  “We are mighty folders. There is no need to lie to you. If we wanted you dead, do you think we’ll even bother to talk?” Nero asked. “Don’t flatter yourself. The only reason why we are still talking is because you are still sane, people. Destroy your mana circuits, and we’ll leave. Never touch that power again, and you’ll never see us again.”

  “It is a price you must pay. This world is broken enough. No need for more unstable factors.” Risti folded her arms. “I give you a minute. Break your mana circuits, or we’ll kill you.”

  The small group of folders hesitated, and the woman at the front snarled at that sight.

  “You really believe them?” the woman asked.

  “They’re telling the truth,” one of them replied. “I have a skill.”

  “…Even then!”