Shades of the New World

Chapter 264: Exploitation

[Do we strike back?] Runa asked and Evin mentally nodded back.

The two took this as a chance to retaliate and swiftly dealt a merciless blow to the man's head. The man staggered for a bit before falling into the darkness, where Evin promptly collected him and threw him further inside.

"I give up. Just, spare our lives," the remaining layeq said fearfully after he witnessed everything. He then held his hands above his head, looking around the darkness warily.

'Dude, you're a mage. How the hell am I supposed to feel assured if just put your hands in the air?' Evin thought and looked over to Sannah.

Thankfully, the latter was slowly gliding towards his location with the others following closely behind her.

Evin took this as a cue that they would take care of the ensuing events and started to pull out the two unconscious humans from his shadow. He then dispelled his Dark Room and casually appeared a few meters in front of the layeq.

"Shit, the Paradra" the man said, as he looked at Evin's head.

"Wait a moment, please," he said, wondering if he was speaking a bit too politely for someone who just incapacitated two of the man's friends.

But that wasn't the least of his worries, since a very rough and distorted voice came out of his mouth. 

'What the fuck was that?' he thought with some shock, before realizing that it was probably the mask's doing. Honestly, the thing was so versatile, Evin was pretty sad at how he never bothered to find one for himself earlier. 

In any case, Sannah soon came over and started the interrogation.

"Who are you people and what are you doing inside the Northern borders?" came the first question.

"We're from a Mage Organization in Tower City named the Old Relics, and we were searching for the secret ruins that were said to appear in this forest," came the reply.

[For members of a group named Old Relics, they sure lacked any decent artifacts to fight with,] Runa commented.

[Maybe they were going to search for ancient artifacts in the supposed secret ruins, so they don't feel so left out from the rest of the group. Though it feels rather far-fetched to think that this forest would have an ancient secret ruin,] Evin replied jokingly.

The two were having a jolly good time, but Sannah and the other weren't having none of it.

"Where's the permit for this expedition of yours? Judging from how you were moving around covered in illusions, I'm guessing you didn't come with the proper documentations from the North. But even so, you should have received some sort of okay from your organization, right?" Came the next barrage of questions.

"We do have a written order here and another permit from the North as well, uh, here" the man stammered out and brought out two pieces of paper, "We had just finished a previous work and were about to head back, but a message came from headquarters, telling us to check out this area here... since we were already here. Our leader, the one that fell unconscious first, refused vehemently... Of course, we did as well, but the organization wouldn't have none of it and started threatening us through our Oaths!"

Evin took a glance at the piece of paper and sure enough, he saw a permit with the Northern border stamp (that he saw when Purzo was documenting his papers) that had expired a week ago and another less formal letter with some very imposing wording in it. The letter was signed by someone named Larush, and was stamped with a symbol that seemed to depict an upside down triangle drawn inside a bigger upright triangle, with three horizontal lines running through it all.

"Is there a method you can contact your organization?" Sannah finally asked after she looked over the letter without really showing any reactions. 

"Our leader has one in his Storage Ring, I can show it to you if you want," the layeq said, pointing at one of the men on the ground.

Thug #1 picked the man up and let the layeq pick through his belongings, after which he brought out a tablet that was very similar to the one that Evin used.

On it, some words were written that confirmed the man's story. The group's refusal was written on the tablet, and the ensuing threat from the organization was apparent as well. The whole thing was alike the screenshot of a heated argument between the two parties.

[Wow, guess they really were searching for ruins,] Runa said as she was looking at the contents by sharing Evin's eagle vision.

[They could've easily made this up to prepare for a story of some sorts. We can't really assume that any piece of evidence is true. Though it is a bit weird, since they really can't go far with this lie, since we can very easily find out if he's telling the truth or not,] Evin explained.

Just like he thought, Sannah started to write some words on the tablet, as if she was the leader of this group from Tower City. She even made sure to write in ways that conformed to how the leader communicated previously, which was usually just a few sarcastic jabs and a few cuss words here and there.

In the end, she wrote up some story about how they've scoured the entire forest for the past three days and that there was no sign of an ancient and mysterious ruin anywhere. 

Very quickly, a reply came, threatening the group to keep searching or get stuck inside the forest without their ability to access their mana-core.

'Guess the members of these organizations don't really have it as easy as us,' Evin thought as he looked at the reply. He didn't know how these people managed to get swindled into taking such an exploitable Oath, but from this exchange, he confirmed that people were still trying to put others under a slave contract like the Hexmagi Alliance did in the past.

Sannah then replied in a fearful, but still reluctant manner, writing about the group seeing a group of mages flying through the air under a veil of illusions. 

[Since they've flown away, they won't be coming back any time soon. Shut up and search the forest. This is your last warning. Don't test the limits of our patience,] came the reply. Short, simple, and imposing.

[Don't you have anything else other than the things you've told us? This forest is kinda fucking big if you've never been here. A molding and decaying old ruin isn't really so easy to notice as you might think,] Sannah replied.

[I do not like the way you call ruins molding and decaying. They're the prime locations for relics of the past. Be more mindful of that fact when you mention it in the future. We want to see our members show passion and love for the greatest historical troves of treasure we have access to.]

'Damn, this reminds of me of those companies that like to call its employees family members and then try to exploit them under the pretense of "familial love" and "self-sacrifice",' Evin thought with amusement, explaining some things that Runa found confusing. 

In any case, the conversation went back and forth for a while, before Sannah seemed convinced by everything.