Supreme Magus

Chapter 4437: Impossible Dilemma (Part 1)

Only true luxury hotels could afford an elevator, and only the cream of the crop had small Gates on each floor. The Siren’s Song was just the best hotel in a medium-sized city, which didn’t mean much.

”Place one Golem here.” Jirni said once they reached the third floor, and Lith took Raptor out of his pocket dimension. ”Make it stand guard in the middle of the corridor so that no one can sneak in from the windows of one of the empty rooms without being detected.”

”On it.” Lith placed a few mana crystals at the Golem’s feet, forming a recharge array that would allow Raptor to cast sensory arrays non-stop without depleting its power core.

Then he left Trouble on the fifth floor to stand guard at the roof access and the main corridor as well. With its wings, the construct would have a significant advantage in case of an aerial fight.

The group picked two connecting rooms on the fourth floor for themselves, which Orion warded from all kinds of long-distance surveillance spells and artifacts.

”This will cost you a lot of gold.” Lith said once he was certain they were alone.

”Yeah, and it will be worth every coin.” Jirni nodded. ”The Gernoffs have probably long infiltrated their spies in the most influential households to keep tabs on my movements in Distar, but they lack the manpower to cover the hotels.

”I took three floors to keep them away from us and refused room service so as not to give their scouts the excuse to probe our defenses. The Gernoffs are not dumb enough to send someone flying in front of our noses and expect them to come back alive.

”By the time they have found a viable access point to the hotel’s top floor, because they will, we’ll already be gone.”

”What’s with the bag of gold, then?” Kamila asked.

”Smoke and mirrors.” Jirni shrugged. ”Alika will go around telling everyone we’re going to be at the Siren’s Song for a while and our opponents will relax, thinking they can bide their time. Too bad that I just opened a tab. I was careful not to make any reservations.

”I’ll get back any money we don’t spend and rob anyone who’s tailing us of their certainties. The Gernoffs won’t be able to guess how long we stay at each location and will face an impossible dilemma.

”Either they take it slow and scout the hotels for traps before approaching us, or they rush in without a plan and rely on luck. The Gernoffs will do the former, but I expect them to pay a few idiots and use them as sacrificial pawns to make us nervous. It’s what I’d do.”

”Sounds like a plan.” Lith nodded. ”What’s our next step?”

”Please, go make us dinner.” Jirni sighed. ”I don’t trust anything cooked by others. Kamila and I will start studying the reports while Orion keeps an eye on us. Once we start crunching numbers, we wouldn’t notice a Dragon stomping behind our backs.”

Lith was about to propose a codeword to recognize him from a shapeshifter when he realized the scope of Jirni’s plan.

’I’m the only one who can control my golems, so while I can come and go freely, even the best shapeshifter would be attacked on sight. On top of that, nobody can fake an energy signature, and Orion won’t open the door until he identifies me.

’Any attack powerful enough to break past the walls would hurt the children, and the Guardians would kill the assailant.’ He thought. ’That said, do you want to go home and dine, Solus?’

’Yes, please.’ She sighed. ’I miss my body, and I’m starving. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast!’

He threw the stone ring out of a window on his way down, and Solus shapeshifted into a small bird. As soon as she was far away enough from the city and certain that no one was following her, she took the DoLorean out and drove it back home.

Bolsa County bordered Lustria to the west, so the trip took her only a few minutes.

The chef wasn’t happy to have an intruder in his kitchen, but between the gold bag and Lith’s white robe, he didn’t argue. Lith used only fresh ingredients after testing them with Invigoration, cooking many dishes at once with magic.

”See you tomorrow for breakfast.” He stored everything in the pocket dimension and cleaned pots and pans with a single pulse of darkness magic.

”Great Mother almighty!” The chef brushed his fingers against the metal, expecting it to be oily yet finding it immaculate. ”Thank the gods mages are rare, or we’d be all out of work. The bastard did in a few minutes what takes us hours!”

Lith put the Eyes on Menadion as he walked up the stairs, checking that no one inside or outside the building was using spells to track his movements.

’The good thing about non-enchanted buildings is that they offer no interference.’ He thought. ’I can scan an entire floor without getting so much as a pang.’

Before entering the room, Lith called Orion on his amulet to announce his arrival. Orion opened the door immediately and studied the newcomer with Life Vision from a safe distance. He also checked that Lith’s figure matched his hologram, just to be safe.

”Paranoid much?” Lith asked.

”It means a lot coming from you.” Orion snorted. ”Did you notice anything weird?”

”Aside from a cadet questioning his commanding officer, no.” Lith snorted back, making Orion turn pale.

”I’m sorry, sir! It won’t happen again.” He tried to get back into character, but it was too late.

”It’s too late for that.” Lith replied. ”If someone heard you, our cover would already be blown. Luckily for you, cadet, I Hushed us.”

”Gods- I mean, thank you, sir.” Orion waited until the door was closed and the silencing arrays in place before addressing Lith casually again. ”Dammit, I’m not used to undercover jobs anymore. I made a rookie mistake.”

”Don’t worry about it.” Jirni patted his arm. ”It’s the first day. There’s almost no chance someone is following us. Just be more careful from now on.”

”I will.” Orion nodded. ”Where’s the food?”

Lith took a whole cart covered with steaming dishes out of his pocket dimension, making even Jirni’s stomach gurgle in anticipation.

”That’s one of the things you can’t train into silence.” She sighed. ”Gods, it smells delicious.”

”Thanks. Did you discover something already?” Lith and Kamila fed the babies before sitting down to eat themselves.

”Not even we are that good.” Jirni replied. ”We’re barely started with Esha County. It will probably take more than one day just to sift through the documents if we go to sleep.”

”That’s a long time.” Orion said. ”Do you plan to pull an all-nighter?”

”It’s one of the perks of being Awakened.” Kamila nodded. ”The first reading is to look for patterns and anomalies in a single county. Then we’ll look at the compiled data to evaluate how each county is faring against the bandit raids and if the methods they employed justify the results.

”We expect counties that used similar approaches to the issue to have obtained a similar outcome. If one county solved the problem and the others didn’t follow their lead, one has to wonder why.”