Ganersam Volume 2

When I arrived back home, I thought I could finally rest after these weird events. It felt as if I just finished the third part of this story’s prologue mission. Usually, there would be a section where I could go off the main mission and just go around doing side quests, but unfortunately, that thing didn’t exist here. My rest would have to wait.

It was midnight, exactly 12 pm. The moon was shining brightly in the night sky, the stars stood guard beside me. How do I know? Because I was outside, in the cold darkness, with Nia crouching in front of me.

“I’m sorry for dragging you out here.”

“No, it’s fine.”

I would normally complain, but since it was Nia who asked for my help, I decided to be silent. She didn’t normally ask for things, so when she did, it was probably something serious.

We were now on top of some random dude’s home. I tried my best to not make a commotion as I walked above him. Hopefully, the roof was somehow soundproof, and my sound didn’t burst in.

“Isn’t this the spaghetti man’s home?”

“I... I don’t know?”

I threw that in as a joke, but Nia seemed to be taking it a bit too seriously. As to why we were here in the first place, it went back to Nia wanting to check out the guild. A stealth mission of some sort.

Due to the number of visitors she got, it was impossible for Lisya to be able to examine all of them, more so with the recent boom of my boba. Once again, my boba strikes back. Although personally, I doubt she would be able to recognize anything wrong even without them. The guild was pretty large, after all.

“Do you think the demon’s army is behind this?”

“Maybe? They were developing some kind of mind-controlling device when I left, but it was unusable back then, and it does not look like a piece of paper.”

“The gibberish on that paper, that’s not demon language?”

“I don’t think so. If it is demon language, then I should’ve been able to read it. It doesn’t look like any of the variations either. It doesn’t even look remotely similar.”

“I see... As to why you only invited me?”

“Stealth operations are harder and riskier the more people you involve. You have the best stats, so I thought you would be the most helpful.”

Did she forget the fact that I’m also the one with the least uses? Although to be fair, in conditions like this, an all-rounder would probably be the best option.

Besides, a girl trusted me for help, and it’s not like I could back down now.

Even if I wanted to, I would need to leap off the roof, a less preferable way to go. Either that or I could try to find the wall that we climbed up to get here, keyword try. That wall was long behind us, and I doubt I could find it alone. There was no way Nia will leave, either, so I’m basically stuck here.

To make matters worse, the street lamps didn’t reach this high, so when I said it was dark, I meant it.

Oh well, at least the view was 10/10. Best place to watch the night sky. Would hopefully (not) come again.

Nia crouched at the edge of the roof. She pulled out a small tube from her bag. The tube had a handle on one side, and a lid on the other. She pulled the lid off, returning it to her bag.

She holds the tube in her left hand. She brought it close to her mouth, and whispered,

“Charge.”

Two fade yellowish lines appeared on the top side of the tube. She pointed the tube towards the upper end of the guild’s roof.

Poof

A small sound rang. A sharp metal claw tied to a rope appeared out of the tube. It traveled across the street separating us from the guild and got itself hooked onto the roof of the guild.

Nia pulled on the black rope. After making sure the claw was firmly in place, she stuck the tube onto the roof. Pressing a button, small legs appeared under the tube. Those legs locked the tube in place. She then looked at me.

“We’re... going to cross?”

I asked doubtfully.

“Yes.”

I was concerned with something like this happening. I would hate to dangle above the streets, risking falling. Besides, what if someone saw us?

“What if I’m not willing to continue?”

“... You’re free to return. I won’t force you.”

She said keeping her face straight. I could sense a bit of disappointment in her voice, just a tiny bit, although she tried hard to hide it. She continues looking at me, waiting for me to turn away. Instead, I approached her.

I looked into her bag, two motorcycle handle-shaped objects were neatly packed inside. I grabbed one of them and lifted it into Nia’s view.

“How do you use them?”

Nia grabbed the second handle before closing her bag and slinging it over her shoulder.

“Like this.”

She held the handle in both hands, its narrow part facing upwards. Upon touching the rope, a small red light appeared on the handle’s frame. She pressed a button and pushed the handle upwards. The red light switched to green. She pushes herself off the roof and slides over onto the guild’s roof.

I looked around at the street. There were not many people on the ground. Praying that they wouldn’t notice us, I pushed my handle onto the rope. A littleticksound could be heard, marking the link between the two items. The green light also lit up. After taking a second look at the streets, I pushed myself off the roof. The three-second glide felt like a whole minute, but I arrived safely at the other side.

I gave the handle to Nia, and she stored it back in her bag. We made our way across the guild’s slanted roof, careful not to fall. Nia reached a small glass on top of the roof and using a screwdriver similar to the one Amel used back in the mansion, she opened the small glass window.

Without sound, she jumped into the hole, me following behind her.

“Why didn’t we just go through the guild like normal? It’s not like they’ll ban us from entering the inn.”

I don’t know why I didn’t think about it before, but since we slept here, they’ll probably be fine with me, or rather, us, entering the inn section of the guild.

“There’s a door that blocked the entrance to this room from the inn. They probably won’t let us enter the upper room of the guild. Even if they do, they’ll probably accompany us.”

“What’s with this upper room?”

“They’re usually used for meetings and information centers. Also, a place to coordinate with other guilds. They’re essentially the ‘hearts’ of guilds. We were taught how to penetrate them.”

Nia said as she made her way. She approached the wall on the other side of the room and started looking through the folders on the table.

“Found anything?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.”

She tidied up the folders and their contents and made her way to a small door. The small door leads to a room filled with small metal stairways heading down. The stairway was fairly dark, but still barely visible thanks to the small light bulbs on the side.

“Let’s go.”

We went down the stairs, finding ourselves inside a different room. The room had a large table with several chairs on it.

“Are all guilds like this?”

I said as I looked around. This room, unlike the one above which still had a window on the ceiling, had absolutely no windows. The room was really dark. There were two linear light bulbs on the ceiling, but they were off and we couldn’t find the switch. If it weren’t for Nia’s flashlight, there won’t be any lights in here.

“No, that depends on the guild. Alpha had a larger room because it’s a starter city for adventurers. It’s essential to the flow of adventurers, and the future defense of the country. I doubt Misana had something like this, though.”

She said as she looked around.

“So, what are we looking for?”

If my intuition is correct, there should be some kind of device in here that could control the goblins.”

“Is it related to that piece of paper?”

“Yes. When I left, they were in the process of developing a way to simplify the control over non-demon monsters like goblins. If they could unify the minds of goblins, they’ll be able to have full control over an attack. It allowed better coordination, and as a result, more effective strikes.”

That was a huge problem.

“I see. So the camps’ location exactly 5 km away from the walls is a result of the device’s range?”

“I don’t think the device’s range matters in this case. If that’s the case, then the camps would be located 5 km away from the guild, not the city gates.”

She was right. The three camps were all located 5 km from the wall, but since Alpha was not formed by a perfect circle, but rather, more like a messed-up oval, some locations were farther away from the center than the others.

“The guild is in the cross-section of the three camps, or in other words, the center of this triangle. I suspect the device could only send signals in a straight line toward three different locations, thus why they make it a triangle. They’re probably planning an attack on the city, and the reason why all of them are located 5 km away from each other is in order for a simultaneous arrival at the walls.”

“Aren’t 100 goblins a bit low for an invasion, though?”

The reports totaled at around 80 goblins, but we suspect we fought more than that.

“This is probably just a test run.”

Nia stopped at the main table. It’s made out of wood. With a length of 4 meters and a meter in width, it was the largest piece of furniture in the room. Nia crouched beside the table and pulled out a small device from underneath.

“I think this is the one?”

A small black box, similar in looks to a walkie-talkie, was blinking red. The box had three small towers, each facing different angles, forming a perfect triangle. The block was pretty small, with a size of only 10 by 10 cm. All of its antennas were around 3 cm in length.

“How does this link to the papers though?”

“That’s what I wanted to know.”

As we examined the device, a small creak could be heard coming from the door. Reflexively, we aimed our weapons at the door.

“William... Nia... I hope you could explain what you’re doing in here.”

The person behind that door is Lisya. She didn’t fully open the door, preparing to pull it shut in case we attacked.

“Wa... Wait! This is some misunderstanding!”

I try to defuse the situation.

“Really?”

Her sharp glare was still on us.

“Rea- Nia, put your polearm down!”

Nia, who was aiming her polearm directly for Lisya, immediately aimed it downwards. Her position remains, though.

“Really! We’ve discovered the secret behind the camps!”

Hearing that, Lisya’s eyes widened.

“Oh?”

She pushed the door, increasing the opening a bit.

“I hope you could give me a good reason to not write a report regarding you two breaching government property.”

She said with a grin on her lips.

“So that’s the problem.”

Nia explained the situation to Lisya. Lisya examined the device, before nodding.

“This is indeed a serious issue.”

“What were you here for, anyway?”

“The higher-ups asked me to grab some documents.”

“I see.”

“So... what should we do?”

The room fell silent. We don’t want to involve the security bureau, fearing stuff would get messy. Technically, we did breach an off-limits area. They could charge us for security reasons.

“Is there no one that requested to use this room before?”

“Only the guild staff have access to this room. No one has requested access, either. So, unless there’s an impostor among us, the other possibility is that someone breached the area as you did. Honestly, I knew that glass window was stupid. Why did they put it in there...”

Lisya continued grumbling.

“Why would they put the device up here, though? Can’t it work in a normal inn room?”

“I assume the signal would be better up here, but...”

Nia grabbed the device and pointed toward its underside.

“I have a suspicion that this is also a listening device. I’ll have Senpai check it.”

“Wait, if that’s the case, wouldn’t it be capturing all the conversation we had?”

“I turned it off. I also removed some of the key components, hopefully, that’s enough.”

Hopefully?

“Anyway, I’ll leave the investigation to you. Contact me if you need something. I’ll try my best to cover this up. Hopefully, no one will realize.”

Lisya said as she stood up after giving me a second ‘hopefully’. We can’t return via the guild, so that means once again zip lining across the streets and going through the rooftops.

“Well, at least that’s over.”

I said, relieved.

“Not yet. We still need to get this to Amber.”

After that dangerous stunt, we were finally back on solid ground. We had contacted Amber, and now we were heading toward the warehouse.

“I wonder what she’s doing now...”

“Senpai loves her work. She’s probably working on something while waiting for us.”

“You two really are close.”

Nia paused for a while, and I waited for her. She then shook her head.

“Not really...”

She said walking past me. She looked up longingly towards the stars. I hope I didn’t accidentally trigger some kind of memory of hers. She shook her head for the second time.

“Come on.”

She said, I followed behind her. The walk didn’t take long, and we soon found ourselves in front of Amber’s warehouse. The complex was lit up, signifying the fact that a certain someone was up. We made our way to the warehouse.

From the front, we could hear the faint sound of machines. We knocked, and the sounds soon stopped.

“Ah, it’s ye. Come in.”

Amber, in her pajamas, pulled the door open for us. She led us toward a small sofa near the entrance of the warehouse.

She looked cute in her pajamas.

“Did we bother you?”

“... Maybe? Me was about to sleep, but me decided to stay up for ye. Me did end up getting good ideas and making good progress on me projects, so me is fine.”

“Ah, sorry... anyway, this is the device I’ve talked about.”

Nia gave the device to Amber. Amber gave us a confused look as she examined the small box.

“They didn’t have this when me left... To be fair, it’s been 10 years anyway. Me will examine it closely. Me need some time, though, if ye don’t mind.”

“How long?”

“Tomorrow, hopefully.”

The third hopefully of the day... And it hasn’t even been 2 hours yet.

“Well, I’m fine with that.”

I said as I stood up. I and Nia walked toward the exit, but I was reminded of something and stopped. I looked back at Amber, who was escorting us out.

“Oh, but would you have time to sleep if you examined it now?”

Amber then pointed to a coffee machine tucked away in the corner of the room.

“Me got me self some caffeine.”

“Oh, alright then. Night.”

We then made our way back home, accompanied by the cool night breeze.

“That was quick.”

“What did you expect?”

“I thought you two would go into all the technical stuff and I would be left sleeping on the couch.”

The couch was quite comfy, though, I’ll give you that. Nia shrugged her shoulders.

“That was the original plan. But Senpai needed some extra time. It’s probably partially my fault since she needs to also examine the individual pieces that I took off. Besides, we got rid of the goblin camps anyway.”

“I guess you’re right. You can’t do a goblin experiment without said goblins.”

I felt a bit bad for the goblins though. I wonder how they feel being controlled like that. Do they even have feelings? Surprisingly, despite all that happened today and the day before, nothing weird happened when we arrived back home, and I could finally enjoy a good night’s sleep.