*Author's Note*

  A quick clarification before this chapter starts; it will be from a different character's POV. This is something I plan on implementing more regularly in future arcs, and the next few chapters of this arc will be from the perspective of different characters, after which I'll go back to Kuro's POV and pick up from where I left off in the previous chapter.

  The next three chapters will take place during the same time period as the last few chapters, just from different perspectives. Hope you enjoy!

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  Point-of-View: Misen Ragiu

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  How did I get myself involved in this, anyway? Oh, that's right, I was volunteered for it without my permission.

  And now, here I am, inside The Valaque Empire, posing as one of their pawns. I shall rewind a bit……

  It had taken a while before I found a white-robe that was both all by himself as well as a physical match for me, and as it turned out, he was of the Pawn Tier. I did not particularly mind that, had I taken over the appearance of someone in a higher tier, I may have had access to more sensitive information, but I would have likely had a higher risk of blowing my cover.

  No, I shall play it safe and simply observe the operations in the Pawn Tier, leaving all the risk to that sneaky little bastard, Kuro. He is far more suited to such tasks anyway, so I will instead prioritize my own survival over the next two weeks.

  The pawn I replaced was named Lenlee Nobdel, a match for my height and build, with short blonde hair, blue eyes and a pale complexion. He had Earth Magic and a snake Anima, though no physical mutations. He used a small axe as a weapon. He claimed to be friendly with a number of other pawns……that was going to be troublesome. I got the names and physical descriptions of those he was closest with, but it was likely going to be a challenge to fool them. I also asked him what his day-to-day tasks were, and he apparently had none, he was out looking for valuable resources in hopes that his efforts would lead to a promotion to the Lapdog Tier.

  After getting a bit more information out of him, I wrapped up the procedure to steal his appearance, using the Store Spell Scroll to hide the evidence, before destroying it using my Lightning Magic. He may not have actually created it, but even I had to admit that his spell ideas were remarkably creative, he even seems to have the grudging respect of Elina Fenegus, someone who is known for being egotistical and proud.

  "Perhaps I made a mistake provoking him last year," I sighed to myself, as I headed to the refreshments area.

  Back then, I had enjoyed fighting a lot more, even against those that were stronger than me. Of course, I preferred fighting those weaker than me, beating them after giving them a sniff of victory was the best feeling ever……but that changed after I fought him. I had lost fights before, well technically I didn't actually lose my fight against him, but despite the victory, I felt a terror than I had never felt before……that guy seriously unsettles me when he gets serious, he's more of a monster than actual monsters are.

  After everything I've seen of him, his drastic improvement between our first meeting and the Brawl of Glory, his calculating decisiveness in Goldway, the cold yet efficient ways he went about investigating and assassinating, and the monstrous new transformation he's displayed on the journey here, after all that, I knew one thing for sure……I was never going to fight him again, not if I can help it. He shook me to my core when he was still weaker than me, and now, I would have to be blind to not see how incredibly powerful he is.

  Ugh, this line of thought is making me annoyed.

  That's enough of that, time to focus and play my role as an imposter. After I met up with the others, and got a good enough look at each of their stolen appearances, I hopped onto the cart with the Jeule siblings since I didn't fancy walking all the way to the front gates……it didn't take long for me to regret that though.

  Kuro appeared to have taken on the appearance of a lapdog, and had a small squad of pawns under his command. Understandably, in order to keep up appearances, he spoke quite harshly to them, and as he did, I noticed a glint in a certain someone's eye……

  "Hey, pawn, come up here and massage my shoulders!" Ordered Selesa, as we began moving, the cart going slowly thanks to the damaged wheel.

  I knew it, she was going to abuse her position as a lapdog right now……there were many pawns and lapdogs roaming around this area, so I could not afford to make a scene, but even so……

  "I am not doing that!" I whispered sharply, moving up to the front of the cart, sitting behind her.

  Les quietly began to sneak to the back of the cart, but unfortunately for him, she noticed.

  "Hey, you! Back to the front!" She ordered, struggling to stop herself from smirking giddily.

  He reluctantly moved up front to where I was seated, right behind her, she was in the driver's seat. She was enjoying this far too much.

  "Damn it……," He muttered with a hint of dread in his voice.

  "Now, each of you……pick a shoulder and massage away! Oh, and I give you permission to let your hands wander to your hearts' content. I know……you're welcome! Well, what are you waiting for!?"

  She wasn't keeping her voice down, and she was clearly doing it deliberately……

  Damn it, if she attracts any more attention, we could be in real trouble. As much as I hate to let someone manipulate me into doing what they want, especially so blatantly……it beat the alternative, and I would prefer to stay alive.

  "I swear, you'll pay for this after this thing is over," I growled quietly, as I grudgingly rubbed her left shoulder, while Les took the right.

  "Hey, you need to get more into it, I can barely feel a thing! Be more, uh, how do I put this……grabby!"

  "Kill me now," Sighed Les, his eyebrow twitching irritably.

  I could not have said it better myself……

  The instant we got in the gates, I swiftly disembarked the cart and blended into the crowd, letting out a sigh of relief. I glanced towards the cart, which was moving further in. Les looked like he was about to exit too, but Selesa noticed before he could and stopped him……as a pawn, he couldn't afford to disobey her, a lapdog, in front of so many witnesses. His expression was one of dismay and horror, though. I can only imagine what she had planned in store for him.

  Anyway, now that I've escaped her clutches……looking around, this place is quite a dump. It was unclean, the ground was uneven and unpaved, and the buildings were rather shabby. This should be a pleasant two weeks……

  I spent the rest of the day exploring the area, before finding my living quarters and deciding to call it a day.

  The room I was staying in was, uh……filthy. And that is understating it. The floor was covered in dirt and mudstains, the bed, sheets and pillow were heavily stained with sweat and grime as well, and the bathroom was in awful condition, with a slight foul odor coming from it……

  this is a nightmare.

  I'm supposed to live here for two weeks? It was more than a little stuffy here as well, I was sweating despite only having been in here for five minutes. No wonder the bed was so badly stained, I can only imagine how much someone would sweat in this tiny space, that had no ventilation, I might add.

  "Fucking hell……," I groaned, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  What the hell am I even supposed to do here, anyway?

  There was no information to be found in the Pawn Tier area, none whatsoever. This was the biggest area of The Empire, but that was only because it had the most members. Allow me to summarize what I had seen while exploring today……

  There were a few weapon storage sheds, with some relatively low quality weapons. There were some sturdy weapons in there, but they weren't well maintained, I barely saw any clean metal, they were almost all rusted and worn out. There were also some large metal cages, I was unsure as to what those were for.

  Then there was a small building with food and water, each person could get a fixed amount of each by showing the person in charge of it the card with their name and Tier rank on it. The food was absolutely disgusting, a ration of mashed vegetables……I suppose it was technically edible, but still, absolutely disgusting.

  There were stables for horses, sheds for carts and a building to do laundry in. I had to admit, it was rather innovative, it was done using a two-scroll spell, and there were multiple rows of the two scrolls, one scroll takes in your dirty clothing, and the other returns it, fully cleaned. It was a similar concept to that 'Store and Extract' spell, just for laundry.

  And finally, a large building that seemed to work similarly to the Adventurer Guild back home, it listed tasks to accomplish and for rewards, a point-system. If a pawn earned over five thousand points, they could climb up to the Lapdog Tier. However, one would have to successfully finish hundreds of these tasks, that were basically Quests, if they wanted to do so.

  Failing to complete a task would result in points lost, specifically, double the number of points they would have earned if they had succeeded. This Guild-like building was operated and run by about a dozen or so lapdogs, who performed roles such as keeping track of the point scores of each pawn and updating deductions or additions upon completions of tasks.

  In other words, if you had zero points, completed a task worth ten points, but then later failed a task worth five points, you would be back at zero points. Quite a harsh system. Harsh, but admittedly straightforward and fair.

  The rest of the Pawn Tier area was taken up by empty spaces used for training and sparring. That was it, there was no information or anything useful stored in this area, and I couldn't exactly waltz into the areas further in. Besides, with both Kuro and Selesa in the Lapdog Tier, I don't need to.

  So, again……what the hell am I supposed to do here, anyway?……

  Over the next five days, I……didn't really do much. To be fair, there was not much of anything to do here. Like I said, there's absolutely nothing for me to investigate in this area of The Empire.

  The most challenging part of this had been falling asleep at night. The bed smelt strongly of sweat, and even if I could ignore that, which I couldn't, the immense stuffiness of the unventilated room was absolutely stifling, it was a miracle that I was getting any sleep at all.

  Another annoying aspect of this particular person that I was posing as, was that he had a lot of friends. Numerous other pawns came and spoke to me every so often, I had to feign having a headache just in case my portrayal of this Lenlee Nobdel was suspect.

  However, thanks to my conversations with them, I did manage to find out a few details that might be considered useful.

  Pawns were forbidden from killing each other and forming sub-hierarchies within the Tier. The first one was probably to prevent them from wasting manpower. The second rule was likely implemented to prevent pawns that had a large amount of points from treating those with less points as inferior, which could lead to conflict within the tier.

  Breaking the rules would result in a heavy loss of points or perhaps even execution.

  I had also learnt more about this point system of theirs. For every week that a pawn failed to perform even a single task, they would lose five points. If they had zero points, their point score would go into the negative. If it went past negative fifty, those pawns would be written off as useless, and would be made available as slaves for those of Lapdog Tier, as well as being the first picks for test subjects in human experimentation.

  Upon finding out about this, I had to question the level of loyalty I was seeing amongst the pawns. Why were they so dedicated and loyal? I brought it up as subtly as I could whenever someone spoke to me, and figured out the answer soon enough.

  Most of the people in the Pawn Tier, scratch that, most of the people across the entire Empire, had originally been peasants from the slums of Platinberg, Goldway and Silvland. In those countries, they were given no rights, and certainly no opportunities to turn their lives around.

  In other words, they viewed The Empire as their saviors. Yes, the living conditions were not ideal, and if they weren't useful they'd be turned into human test subjects or slaves. However, it was far better than life in the slums, I had gotten a glimpse of Goldway's slums during the Quest there last year, and I could only assume that Platinberg and Silvland's slums were just as bad or worse. Taking that into consideration, it made sense.

  That was the extent of what I had found out over the last five days. And I highly doubted that I would be finding anything else of any use. Therefore, I had made my decision. I was going to leave this place on the seventh day, there is absolutely no way I'm going to stay here for two damned weeks!

  Kuro had instructed us to spend one week here familiarizing ourselves with the layout of this place as well as to blend in, and then investigate during the second week……screw Kuro's instructions, I've had enough of this stressful fucking mission……

  Two days later, I took on a task to gather minerals in one of the mines, and began preparing to head out the gates. I found a rucksack in one of the weapon sheds the previous day, and I had stolen a pair of Spell Scrolls, of that laundry spell. I hid them at the bottom of the bag, along with a few other random items on top to cover them. I decided to leave the axe since it was a bit heavy for me, taking a slightly rusty dagger I found in one of the weapon storage sheds instead.

  After I packed up and left that disgusting room, I took a cart and horse, driving it to the campsite from before. I felt anxious as I passed through the gates, letting out a sigh of relief as they let me pass without checking the rucksack.

  Once I got to the campsite, I parked the cart among the others that were there, got off, and carefully walked over to the trees after taking a couple of water bottles. There certainly are a lot of them roaming around, fortunately they paid no attention to me, each of them were too busy focusing on their own tasks.

  Good, I should be able to continue sneaking away without a problem. I stuck by the tree shadows as I walked away, taking off the robe after I lost sight of the other white-robes. Well, I suppose I ought to be grateful to those investigative missions with Kuro, I got rather skilled at keeping track of my surroundings and moving while hiding thanks to those, if I do say so myself.

  Okay, it looks like I'm nearing the end of this grove of trees, and there's not a single one of them in sight. Time to get a real move on. I activated my Lightning Boost at x4 and sprinted at full speed, a smirk of relief and ecstasy spreading out on my face as I rapidly left The Empire behind.

  It's finally over! I'll head to the halfway point and wait for the others there, I can simply take it easy for the next few days. I shall have to act like I spent two weeks in The Empire just like they likely would.

  I'll keep moving fast, and when there's cover with trees, I'll keep through them in order to avoid monsters. Phoenixes should not be a problem, but if I encounter multiple Wyverns or a large group of Griffins, my best option would be to flee. At my full speed, I should have no problem doing that. Hm, after I use up around half my Mana, I should switch to walking, in order to save some in order to run in case I encounter any monst……hold on, what is that ahead of me?

  Shit, it's a cart! It looks like there's five of them on it, two lapdogs and three pawns. And since I had spotted them, they had obviously spotted me. They immediately halted the cart and jumped off, taking their weapons out. Damn it, I let my guard down……oh, well, no sense in whining. There do not seem to be any decent hiding spots around here anyway, so there was no way to avoid this.

  I halted about twenty meters ahead of them, with a sigh, before a wistful smile appeared on my face.

  "Who are you!?"

  "It doesn't matter, we must kill anyone who dares come this come to The Empire! Prepare to die!"

  Well, I suppose I don't have a choice. I'll have to kill them all.

  "You all are quite unlucky, I have been stressed out for quite a while now, so I could use an opportunity to let off some steam……now die!"

  I shot towards one of them at full speed, streaming lightning around my right hand and driving it towards his his neck. I grabbed and crushed his throat before he could react, killing him instantly.

  "Y-you bastard!" Exclaimed one of them, unleashing a barrage of fireballs at me.

  I zipped across to the left to evade them and then shot across till I was behind him. Before I could strike, another of them fired arrows at me, I swiftly drew out the dagger on me and deflected them, before flinging it at her, stabbing her through the forehead.

  The one with the Fire Magic had turned around to face me and was beginning to charge up a fireball, while another of them was running towards me with a sword, the last one was holding a hammer and standing back with fear in his eyes. He must be a weak one.

  I fired a lightning bolt at the one with the sword, he stopped and blocked it with his sword, stumbling back as it stunned him.

  I then dodged the large fireball by ducking and shooting forward while keeping low. I sprang at him, grabbed his head and filled it with lightning, his eyes exploding and smoking bursting out of his sockets, nose and mouth.

  The one with the sword then flung his blade at me, I evaded it and caught the handle, streaming my lightning into the blade. Well, that was a foolish move, all he did was arm me.

  I shot towards him, got in close and before he could step away, slashed his head off with a swift horizontal swing of the sword, he had begun to charge up a wind blast, but had been far too slow to even come close to hitting me.

  That left one more. He stumbled back as I dashed in his direction, before I drove the blade through his chest and slashed upwards, splitting his head and neck in half, his blood spraying out like a fountain, I swiftly zipped away to avoid getting too much blood splatter on me.

  That gave me quite a rush, I needed that after everything that happened over the past, uh, let's see……year or so. Particularly the last month, and especially the last week. Anyway, I should get moving.

  Hm, I should not leave these bodies here, it may cause a problem if they are discovered. I loaded them and their weapons onto their cart and hopped onto the driver's seat. I shall move on this for about a day or so, and then abandon it in a grove of trees or a cave or something. It will also give me a chance to rest my legs for a day.

  Now, then, it's time to continue moving. Finally, my part in this mission is over! I'll the rest to the others, so good luck to them.

  As for me……I look forward to having a couple of weeks to myself, free of Kuro and that eccentric pervert. The very thought of that puts a smile on my face……

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  Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Don't forget to vote, and feel free to leave a comment, I appreciate any and all feedback and criticism!

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