Chapter 281: ~Chapter 89~ Part 1

Once I had posed the question of why the island had so many underground lairs and facilities. In a similar vein, now I had to ask how such a seemingly booming first world island nation had so many abandoned office buildings where various disreputable elements could set up shop. Though on second thought, the vast, vast majority of the population consisted of placeholders who were still sticking to their daily routines like automatons, so these buildings getting completely deserted after work hours wasn't that surprising. Who knows? Maybe they were even acting so punctual just to make sure they vacated the premises in time so that they wouldn't get in the way of the shady conspiratorial meetings after-hours.

Like the one in front of me. Segue!

Seriously though, I was looking at a classic scene. A small room? Check. Dimly lit by a single conical fixture hanging from the ceiling? Check. Drab grey walls with a series of abstract black-and-white pictures hanging on them, and no furniture other than a single conference table in the middle? Check. Shady people doing shady business around said table? Check, check, and check.

As tempted as I felt to wonder just what the heck this weird room's original purpose was supposed to be, I forced my attention to remain on the people present in the room. Try as I might, it was hard to get a good angle on them at the moment, since my anchor point was standing guard well outside the room. Actually, let's start there.

So, just outside the conference room... Wait, was it a conference room? Wasn't it too small for that? Didn't matter. People were talking about stuff in there, so it was that for now. Anyhow, there were about ten tense guards idling around in the ground floor hallways. One side was familiar in appearance; squires decked out from head to toe in medieval armor and wielding swords and maces. The other side looked slightly more peculiar, as it consisted of guards dressed in black martial artist tunics wearing bright red snarling Chinese dragon masks. These masks were more or less uniform, save for a few green or yellow highlights, and they completely concealed the wearers' identities, same as the squires' helmets.

Did I even need to spell out who these people were? I mean, it was obviously the local renaissance fair re-enactors meeting up with the organizers of the Chinese New Year festival to discuss the allocation of the town's cultural diversity funds. It was only logical.

Jokes aside, the nature of the participants was quite evident, if hard to believe at face value. This was already quite intriguing, but not nearly as much as the things going on inside the ad hoc meeting room. Currently, there were six people present, though it was hard to tell for sure due to my limited vision; two negotiators sitting at the table, and four bodyguards. One of each was standing behind the seats of the VIPs, while the remaining two guarded the only door leading into the room.

"What are you getting out of this?"

I focused my attention on the voice breaking the silence. It came from the Knight wearing a full set of Gothic plate armor, and while it was hard to say due to the lighting conditions, it appeared to be a shade of really dark purple. Maybe maroon? Either way, its wearer was sitting with their back to me, more or less, and by the sound of it, she was an older woman, middle-aged at best.

"My reasons are my own," the man sitting across her answered with a flat, nasal voice I didn't recognize. That was... odd. While he sounded old, I was familiar enough with the grand elder's voice to recognize it, and he didn't sound anything like him. That wouldn't have been weird if not for the fact that, aside from the dragon mask on his face, he dressed exactly the same way as the old man.

"True. Your internal machinations are none of my concern," the armored woman stated dryly. I tried to shift my point of view to get a better view of her, but I was already at the edge of my movement range, and having my point of view accidentally enter into a wall gave me claustrophobic shivers.

"This is but an agreement of convenience," the masked old man remarked just as plainly. "It's better not to get involved in one another's business more than strictly necessary."

"I concur."

With that, the room fell silent, but just as I was getting afraid that I took too long to get ready and missed all the juicy details, the Knight placed her gauntleted hand onto the table and tapped on it in a steady, unnerving rhythm.

"Let me ask you one last time: are you certain the Dracises captured my brothers?"

"Yes, we are certain."

The non-grand elder's response made the armored woman let out a soft hum and resume her tapping.

"Do you have any proof of this?" Seeing that the masked man wasn't about to respond, she balled her fingers, and her last tap turned into a soft yet firm slam on the desk. "Recovering our brothers may be our foremost priority, but you should not think we're desperate, or indeed, stupid enough to believe everything you say without any evidence."

Still silent, the old man subtly glanced at the only exit, then back at the Knight. Finally, he straightened his back and told her, "I assure you, our most trustworthy informants have testified that your 'brothers' were held captive within their residence until very recently."

"Yet you can't tell me where they are now," she followed him up with a hiss, and he glanced at the door again. Was he planning to escape, I wondered?

"I'm afraid we can't ascertain that. I can, at most, provide you with the opportunity to force the hand of the Dracis clan."

The Knight remained silent, tension mounting in the room with every passing second, and... seriously, why did this man keep glancing at the door? This time I took a closer look, and... suddenly I felt a little annoyed. Not too much, just a little tinge of irritation.

Okay, let's be empirical with this one. Back to the old man. No irritation. Back to the door. Irritation. Focus on the squire. No irritation. Focus on the masked bodyguard. Lots of irritation.

Q.E.D.: Wow, the grand elder was playing around, hiding in plain sight and all! I seriously didn't expect that. Nor had I ever imagined that my instinctive reaction could be used like this. Though on second thought, most of my other marks rarely gave me such strong feedback through Far Sight, with maybe the exception of Crowey. So... that meant my irritability-rankings, as of this moment, when Crowey, then the grand elder, then lord grandpa, followed by Naoren, and then Sebastian. Oh, and there was the Kage clan elder too, but he was barely a blip on my radar at this point.

There was a certain pattern here, but this wasn't the time to analyze that. Focusing on the table again, nothing seemed to have changed, except for the Knight resuming her finger-tapping.

"And how can we be certain this isn't a trap, using our brothers as bait?"

"You can't. You have to put your trust in me, just as how I put my trust in you and came to this meeting in person."

"Trust, you say? Not a word I ever associated with wyrmbloods."

"As you can imagine, I had my own reservations as well, but when in dire circumstances, one can scarcely pick and choose their bedfellows."

"True. Common enemies create the strangest of allies," the Knight mused. "Such alliances never last."

"I doubt either of us minds that fact."

"True. Allies of convenience only support one another while—"

Oh, for the love of god! Stop going in circles and talk about what you're planning already!

My silent cries fell on deaf ears, as the two continued to vomit platitudes about the nature of political alliances and wild dogs and the sun and moon rising at each other, without touching on the actual details of the agreement between the two sides. So far I'd gathered that it had to do with forcing the Dracis family to release the Knights, and it somehow involved these two working together, but that's about it.

"Trust is a two-way street."

"One with cloaks and daggers in every corner."

"As they say, sometimes a single knife in the dark can achieve more than a thousand troops."

"True. Men's lives are fragile, be they the lowest of the low or the highest of the high."

"It's why one should never turn their back on his foes. Or his allies."

"I would say that someone turning their back on their allies does deserve to be stabbed, as it is…"

Seriously, how long were they planning to do this? Was this some kind of code? Or were they talking in circles just to tick me off? Maybe the dreaded Narrative was keeping them off track so that I couldn't learn anything new from them? I mean, I don't like to jump the Narrative-gun like that, but do I even have a plausible Watsonian explanation for this?

…

On second thought, maybe I do. Sure, this whole back-and-forth is a waste of time, but maybe that's the point. They could be doing it on purpose. Were they waiting for someone, or maybe some kind of signal? And if so, why? Could it be that they were in fact trying to betray each other? That would explain why the annoying grand elder was disguised as a bodyguard, but it would also make all the talk about betrayal a bit too on the nose.

"… because betrayal and revenge are just two snakes biting the tails of one another."

"Snakes and betrayers have a lot in common, as well as…"

Okay, that's it. I couldn't take this anymore. If they refused to get to a bloody point, I had no choice but to get involved. As they say, if the mountain doesn't go to the prophet, then the prophet must go to the mountain. In other words, it's show time.

"By 'snake', she means 'dragon'," I spoke up casually, already leaning against the wall with my arms crossed after Phasing in.

Everyone in the room turned to me at once, and the Knight even reached to her side, even though she didn't have a sword. Must have been a reflex. Anyhow, I let the silence linger for a while, then unfurled an arm and pointed a finger-gun at the old man at the table.

"You could say it's a sneaky insult! Ha!"

"Who is that?" the armored woman hissed without taking her eyes off me for a second.

"Oh, right. We've yet to make acquaintance."

I tried to sound as jolly and relaxed as possible, and after a beat I Phased right next to the table, causing everyone to jolt in surprise and the woman to outright jump to her feet. Ignoring their reaction, I did a well-practiced scraping bow.

"Some call me Bel of the Abyss."

"Bel?" The old man at the table muttered and glanced at the door again.

I disregarded him for the time being and focused on the Knight woman. She was fairly tall and imposing, but that was all I could say about her physique, as her armor hid the contours of her body. At the very least her helmet was unique. It was round, and the visor was decorated with thin silver filigree in the shape of small feathers. So… probably bird-themed?

In contrast with that, the main body of the helmet was darker and had two wide and sharp protrusions on the side, pointing upwards, kind of like ears. There were a pair of relatively large, oval openings on the front, but strangely enough, I couldn't see her eyes behind them. Probably the lighting, I concluded, and I scanned her from head to toe again. Regrettably, I couldn't find a hint of exposed skin. That meant I probably wasn't going to be able to mark her today. Bummer.

While I inspected her, she did the same to me, but with my full Bel outfit on and the freshly improved mask, I wasn't worried she'd recognize, considering even Penny failed to do so. On the other hand, I had a good idea of who she could be, so I grabbed my chin with one hand and made a show out of closely observing her before snapping my fingers, causing her to take half a step back.

"Let me guess! There aren't exactly a lot of women in your little club, and I already met dame Unicorn, so you must be dame Morgana, right?"

She didn't respond, or even move a finger so I shrugged and Phased over to the other side of the room. I casually draped my arm around the shoulder of the dragon-masked man by the door, making sure to brush against his exposed neck, and leaned over to whisper, "Rude, isn't she? Or maybe just shy?"

After the first shock, the man forcefully threw me off, but by then I was already at the other end of the room, with one new mark already showing on my Far Sight radar. With that, my primary goal was accomplished, if a little more forcefully than usual.

"Sheesh. Why is everybody so rude tonight?" Following that, I theatrically straightened my costume and opened my arms wide in a show of non-aggression. I still wanted to mark at least one of the squires, if the Entitled Knight was out of the question, so it was best to lower their guard by de-escalating things. "Things looked interesting, so I figured I'd pay you a visit, and you didn't even introduce yourself. Isn't that common courtesy?"

"Nobody in their right mind would show courtesy to an uninvited visitor like you," the Knight told me with one hand placed on the chair in front of her, no doubt planning to use it as an improvised weapon in case the situation required it. "How much have you heard?"

"Oh, not much. In fact, I'm feeling a little disappointed. I was expecting something really exciting, but you guys are just sooo boring. I even got the popcorn ready and everything, and it's all gone to waste."

"We cannot let him leave this room," the man sitting at the table declared, earning him a wry look I had to play into by tilting my head to the side.

"I don't think anyone was talking to you, so please stay out of the conversation."

"What? You're courting death!" the man suddenly exclaimed, and it threw me on a loop for a moment, followed by rolling my eyes and circling my head for extra emphasis.

"Wow! That just does not sound right coming from an impostor." I glanced over my shoulder at the real grand elder, currently frozen in a martial arts stance by the door, and used a thumb to point at the table. "You should've really used a better body double. He doesn't look or sound anything—"

Before I could finish my sentence, my danger sense blared at me, even before my ears picked up on the sound of furniture getting kicked over. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't the Knight who took a potshot at me, but it was the masked man who leaped over, his fingers curled into glowing claws aimed at my throat. I couldn't decide whether he was slow, or just my standards were too high, but I sidestepped his charge without even bothering to Phase away.

Normally that would've been the end of it, but at the moment I was Bel of the Abyss. So, how would an inscrutable trickster archetype react to this situation? Several non-lethal ideas flashed through my head, and I settled on one of the more irreverent ones by reaching out and grabbing onto the startled body double's face before Phasing to the other end of the room.

"—like you," I finished my previous sentence, then once I commanded the whole room's attention again, I uttered a disinterested, 'Zoink' and placed the mask on top of my head like a fancy hat. "There, take a look yourself."

The unremarkable middle-aged man, still halted in the middle of the motion he was performing, had a blank expression on his face, made even funnier by the grey wig on his head getting thrown off-center and limply hanging off the side of his face.

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"What is the meaning of this?" the armor-clad woman hissed out a reasonable question, and a long beat later the man by the door exhaled a long sigh.

"A simple precautionary measure."

Walking forward, he casually removed the black wig from his head, but not the mask, and threw it at the stupefied body double. He caught in and hurriedly moved next to him, followed by the other bodyguard, and by the time the incognito grand elder stood beside the Knight, even the squires formed up to create a united front.

"It's hardly more inappropriate than your fellow Entitled Knight standing outside in disguise. For now, let us put our pretenses aside and focus on the common threat."

"Threat? I'm not a threat," I objected in face of the duo concentrating their attention on me.

"You interrupted our negotiations," the old man stated dryly. "You cannot be allowed to leave."

"Oh? Heh. Hehehe!"

My sudden burst of laughter made them raise their guard, but they didn't move a muscle until I finished with a few forced heaves.

"Wow! It's true! Old men really do have the best jokes!" I paused here for a beat and then added, in a more contemplative tone, "Well, 'old' is relative in this case, but it's hilarious all the same."

"I wasn't joking."

"And that just makes it all the funnier! Ah, my sides! They're hurting!"

I pretended to go into another fit of chuckles, but then abruptly Phased over to the table and sit down right on top of it, crossing my legs in the process. By the time they turned around, I already assumed a relaxed pose and steepled my fingers in front of my chest.

"All right children, let's clear up a few misunderstandings." I purposefully dropped my voice by an octave, and once I had everyone's attention, I began with, "I do not pose a threat to you right now."

"Why would we believe your words?" the Knight woman asked in a slightly calmer voice than before, yet obviously feeling unbalanced by the situation.

"You're alive, aren't you?" I shot back with a cocky grin that was unfortunately invisible due to my mask, but I hoped it would come across in my voice. "I simply came by because I was curious, and who can blame me? Just how often do you see the bucketheads and the dragonspawn talk things out like this? And in the open! How was I supposed to ignore something so exotic and entertaining?"

"We are hardly in the open."

"But you are!" I insisted. "You didn't even bother to put up a purple… space thing? What are those called again?" They probably weren't going to answer, but I didn't wait for them in any case and snapped my fingers again. "Oh, right! Completely irrelevant! So long as you're on my island, it doesn't make much of a difference, but you guys could've at least tried."

"Your island," the old man repeated after me and stroked his currently nonexistent beard, probably forgetting it was hidden from sight under his mask. "Are you the arch-mage?"

Once again, I let the beat linger for a while, then burst out laughing.

"Me? A ley-leach? Bwahahaha! Please, stop! You're killing me!" They didn't give me much of a reaction this time, so I cut my laughter short and straightened my coat before reassuming my finger-tent pose. "No, my funny friend. I'm obviously not the youngster leading the local nest of ley-line leeches. How could you ever mistake this handsome face for him?"

"Then who are you?"

I gave a disparaging glance at the impatient Knight and answered, "I believe I'd already introduced myself. It's you two who still haven't done so. I mean, sure, I know who you are, but it's just common courtesy, dammit."

They remained unmoved, so I exhaled a dramatic sigh and jumped off the table, causing the mooks to instinctively take a step back.

"Fine, if you don't want to play nice, I won't even bother with the small talk."

The grand elder instantly shifted his posture into a defensive one, but I ignored him for the time being and began pacing up and down in front of their confused eyes.

"You gaggle of idiots gathered here to hatch some kind of plan, I'd reckon. If I was a betting guy, I'd guess it's about this big tournament thing everyone is buzzing about. Am I in the right ballpark?"

This time I waited out however long it took for them to respond, and it was the Knight who cracked first.

"Yes."

The old man sent a scathing glance her way, obvious even through his mask, but his attention quickly returned to me when I clapped my hands.

"Neat! That means maybe I won't have to kill anyone tonight after all!" Pretending to take a step, I Phased behind them and continued on, completely ignoring the way the mooks stumbled over each other to reposition themselves around the two VIPs. "You see, call me an old-fashioned guy if you like, but I don't really enjoy watching toddlers beating each other up. It's just not stimulating at all. Throw in a few hundred Chimeras, with no way to escape, and maybe a time limit, and then we're talking, but on its own? Nah. In short, I don't give a single damn about what you guys want to do there. Go nuts. However!"

Once again I remained silent with a finger raised, waiting for them to prompt me. Maybe because of the last exchange, but the Knight remained quiet, and since I stuck to my guns, we remained in a stalemate. At least, until the old man let out a groan.

"However?"

"That you for asking! Here's the thing: while I might not be invested in this tournament of yours, I do have a vested interest in the upcoming auction. As such, here are the rules: you conspire whatever nefarious plots you want, but the moment they get anywhere close to affecting the auction, I'm going to pay you another visit. And trust me; I won't be nearly as friendly as I am now."

Silence fell once again, and I was seriously getting tired of this. Maybe because they were on guard against each other as well, but I just wasn't getting any proper reactions, and having to pry every single word out from them was just a pain in the neck. Apparently, my Bel-tactics didn't work all that well in this situation, but considering I'd already marked the grand elder, at least this wasn't a wasted trip, and I could probably glean more concrete information from observing him in the future. As such, I decided to cut my losses, and slowly shook my head in preparation for my departure.

"You people are boring. Occasionally hilarious, but mostly boring. Oh well, I delivered my warning, and I've got to be at other, more important places with more entertaining people, so… ta-tah!"

I planned to cap my exit with a jolly little wave, only to freeze mid-motion. I mean, literally. My hand didn't budge and was stuck raised up to my chest level. Not only that, but my whole body was wreathed in ethereal light, a thick stream of bright particles connecting me to the glowing violet eyes behind the armored woman's faceplate.

More alarmingly, the old man next to her let out a spirited yell and the whole room shook as he planted his feet in a horse stance, fists extended. He forcefully drew them back to his abdomen and let out a deep roar that shattered his dragon mask, revealing a glowing red ball in front of his open jaws.

Oh. I was about to be on the receiving end of dragon fire. Well, crap.

I had to admit, the Knight's unexpected ability and the two's inexplicable teamwork caught me off guard, but I still had some leeway to maneuver. As Bel of the Abyss, I had a certain appearance to maintain, and while Phasing away was my safest option, it wasn't the only one. First, I got rid of whatever was holding me in place by severing the tether connecting me with the Entitled Knight using my phantom limb. It was as simple as usual, and she staggered back in surprise, finally allowing me to raise my hand.

Now, as for the other attacker, I took a closer look at the rapidly swelling ball of light in front of his face and noted, with some relief, that it remained an angry shade of crimson. That meant it wasn't the building-melting true dragonfire Elly could fire off in an emergency, but the 'false' kind that… could still melt a building, now that I thought about it.

Anyhow, I've never faced off against the former, but I've asked my girlfriend to let me experiment on the latter, and while powerful, it could still be affected by my magic-disrupting abilities. I've never tried taking one head-on, mainly because I couldn't convince my girlfriends to let me, but I was fairly confident I could do it, and my danger-sense was only warning me of medium-tier bloodcurdling danger, so I figured I might as well give it a try.

Just in case, I primed myself ready to Phase, and only then did I extend my already raised hand, pointing a palm overlaid with all three of my Phantom Limbs. Again, just in case.

It was just in time, as the ball of light erupted into a red beam that hit my palm. I have no idea how it looked from the outside, but on my end, it felt like I was holding back a stream of hot water fired at me from a garden hose. The whole ordeal only lasted for a second to two, and once the light cleared, I was met with the wide-open eyes of the unmasked grand elder staring at me. More importantly, I wiggled my fingers and noted that aside from a small tingle, my hand was no worse for wear. Considering the beam didn't even touch my skin, it was to be expected, but I still let out a soft sigh of relief. Hopefully, I looked cool enough to etch myself into their memories as someone not to be messed with.

"Wow. You people are rude!" I exclaimed with as much over-the-top indignation as I could muster, then lowered my voice and added, "Can you give me one single reason why I shouldn't just rip you apart where you stand?"

It was at this moment that the only door of the door was thrown open with an unexpectedly lean squire at the front, obstructed by the other mooks clustered around the entrance.

"Morgana!"

"Agravain! My sword, now!"

Hearing the woman's command, the newcomer reached down to his waist and… Whoa! He pulled a giant two-handed sword out of thin air! This… This guy had an inventory! Whatever part of his gear had that enchantment, I wanted it!

Embarrassing as it was to admit it, excitement got the better of me, and I momentarily hesitated over whether to just kidnap him and strip him of all his gear. In the end, I discarded the idea. I would've had to take him to the base to get the Fauns' help in subduing him, and if the other Knights found him, it would be impossible to explain things without revealing that I was Bel. If only he was wearing proper Entitled Knight armor; then I could just paralyze him the same way I did to Roland and then carry him off somewhere else without having to worry about subduing him. Damn.

If not that, could I at least mark him? Well, that idea also went out the window when I took a closer look at his armor, and realized he had no obvious gaps where I could make skin contact. Not only that, all the other squires I could see were fully armored as well, gorgets and all. Double damn.

Anyhow, things were still unfolding, and the new Knight underhand threw the huge sword, a full-size flamberge by the looks of it, to his comrade. Which meant…

"Zoink!"

What can I say? Force of habit.

The Knight woman's still glowing purple eyes blinked in surprise as I appeared in front of her and snatched her sword right out of the air before Phasing to the corner of the room to inspect my spoils.

"Wow, this is much lighter than I expected!" I exclaimed with giddiness I didn't even have to force, only to pause when I glanced up and realized that the area where I stood before looked like it was hollowed out, with part of the floor and the walls missing in a sphere. Probably the effect of some kind of discharge I caused by stopping the dragon fire, I guessed, and put all of it aside for the moment as I returned to theatrically inspecting the sword.

"A long hilt, a spike a third of the way up from the crossguard, and a fancy, wavy blade. Yep, this is a flamberge all right! And a fine one at that!"

I glanced back at the stunned onlookers, including the mooks in the door, and shrugged.

"Oh, fine. I'll take this as a token of your apology and won't pursue your discourteous behavior any further." I paused to inspect the blade again, and added, "I have to admit, you bucketheads give the best gifts. Grandpa Bel is truly touched in his heart of hearts. Also, late. Those pretender clans are not going to destroy themselves, so… Bye!"

And just like that, before they could get up to anything else, I Phased out of the room and popped into existence inside the Fauns' barracks, surrounded by Brang, Karukk, and Hrul. I told them to be on standby, just in case, and the tension drained from their shoulders when they realized I was alone.

"[Has thine excursion proved bountiful?]" Brang inquired, and I shrugged.

"[In higher or lower amount,]" I answered, feeling a little conflicted. I couldn't learn half as much as I wanted, and I really wanted to get my hands on whatever enchantment was used to give someone an inventory pocket space, but I did get some useful tidbits, and at the very least I managed to mark the grand elder, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

In the meantime, I held my newly acquired weapon out to Karukk, and he gingerly took it from my fingers, followed by an impressed grunt.

"[A beauty. Was this also from one of the Knights?]"

"[I repossessed from one of their kin, indeed.]"

"[Then I suppose I should hide it along with the other great sword,]" he noted and walked to the back of the room to cover it up with a spare bed sheet.

Meanwhile, Hrul cleared his throat to get my attention.

"[What about your other item?]"

For a moment I wanted to ask what he was talking about, but then as I lifted my Bel mask, something fell off, and he barely managed to catch it before it hit the ground. I blinked at the angry dragon mask, which somehow remained on the top of my head during the whole incident, and said, "[Store it away in safety as well. Mayhap it could prove beneficial in the future.]"

Brang stifled a chuckle, and when I sent him a curious glance, he told me, "[Thine smile is the perfect image of a true Lord of the Abyss.]"

"… Was that a compliment?" I blurted out in English, and when he nodded, I couldn't help but mutter, "Maybe Bel of the Abyss really is rubbing off on me after all…"

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