72 – Spy Hunting

The town was much the same as I remembered it. A few hundred houses, surrounded by a palisade made of sturdy wooden tree-trunks with several watchtowers facing towards the forest.

According to my senses, the majority of the residents were asleep. I was intentionally suppressing my sense of smell and hearing to the best of my ability to avoid being overwhelmed, but it seemed accurate enough.

How to find a needle in a haystack… My only lead was the description provided by Mel, so searching for a lone man in this town would take a while. Not forever – there were only so many houses – but I’d really rather not have to check every single one manually.

Mel didn’t know the target’s name, just that it was rather common. Considering what was going to happen to the man when I found him, I’d rather not think of him by name. It would just make this worse for myself. People here also didn’t write their names on their doors, so knowing it would be unhelpful, to say the least.

As for why I wasn’t mobilizing the guards to arrest this man? They probably would be able to find him with a description. My men undoubtedly knew the town better than I did. Not like there were too many people living here, all in all. However, I was worried he’d catch wind of the operation beforehand and use the opportunity to slip away. Also, I didn’t want to make too big of a commotion.

Barely any of the town’s populace knew about my new personality. Seeing armed guards dragging one of their neighbors away under claims of him being a ‘spy’ wouldn’t be popular. I could just ignore my public image, but that could easily come back to bite me later.

For example, my militia training plan was meant to improve people’s perception of me, in addition to increasing our defensive capabilities. If I was recently seen as acting tyrannically, the effects would be diminished. Less people would be willing to participate, with the opinions on the matter more easily leaning in a negative direction.

Also, all those points aside, I wanted to go out and do something myself. ‘Stretching my legs’, so to speak. Plus, if I found him, the spy could easily serve as a nice blood bank.

I wasn’t starving recently, but my current blood supply situation was a far cry from when I was conducting my interviews. Even though the actual conversations had been rather dull, I couldn’t help but think back fondly on all the blood I got out of it.

Maybe I should make this an annual thing? Oh, or twice a year? I licked my lips in anticipation before reigning myself back in. I need to maintain control.

But still… My thoughts kept drifting back to the topic as I wandered between the houses filled with sleeping humans. Even when I wasn’t focusing on it, the smell of blood all around was intoxicating.

Call it a performance review, where I see if people have any complaints or issues, potentially handing out some promotions or bonuses… I’m sure it would be well-received. Maybe not the first time around, but it could become a sort of tradition. This is a good idea.

In addition to the very selfish reason of enabling me to siphon some blood from my staff, an occasion of this sort could be used to identify any infiltration attempts or other dangers. It’d let me build up a more harmonious relationship with the people working for me as well, if they got the feeling that I would listen to their problems and reward accomplishments.

This is something I need to implement. I’ll go talk to Mia tomorrow.

Decision made, I realized I had almost walked into one of the few guard patrols while I was distracted. That wouldn’t really be a big issue, but I wanted to avoid the hassle and thus avoided them, in turn. After the two men had passed by and taken their stupid, bright lanterns with them, I resumed my search. Or rather, I began my search in earnest. I was admittedly a bit distracted before.

My target, according to Mel, was a rather short, stocky man. Balding too. He wasn’t fat, but instead well built with arms as thick as my legs and a barrel chest. Though he did have a slight beer belly. Or at least that’s what it sounded like from the demon’s second-hand description. How he discovered this spy, I didn’t know. He just said one of his followers told him. Which was an unsatisfying explanation, to put it mildly.

Not that being muscular was rare here. A lot of the men in town made their living logging, meaning they chopped down trees and carried heavy pieces of wood around. Heavy labor, in short. The local trees were quite valuable, with their special properties. That, in addition to the abundant game in the forest outside of winter, meant food wasn’t a major issue for a lot of families. Under such conditions, muscle growth wasn’t unusual.

There were, of course, outliers. Unlucky families like Mia’s, that could barely make ends meet. Her father had disappeared in the forest, working as a combination lumberjack and hunter. Stories like that happened every now and then, just like some people died in winter. A price paid in blood for the expensive wood.

Anyway, the supposed spy wasn’t a woodsman himself, but rather a carpenter of some sort, if I remembered correctly. Probably the second or third most common profession here, after lumberjacks and maybe farmers. Also a good cover to come in contact with lots of traders to act as messengers for any spy reports. Raw wood wasn’t the only local export, much of it was worked here and sold as planks or finished products. Whether this was standard practice or not, the process did create ample sawdust for food preservation.

Just those factors by themselves would have left me totally lost, to be honest. Luckily, Mel’s information included another detail – the man smoked a pipe.

Tobacco or its equivalents didn’t exist here – at least not this town, Kalin didn’t really know much about such hobbies elsewhere – so pipes were generally stuffed with a mix of local herbs. From Kalin’s scant memories of interacting with people who smoked the stuff, it produced an acrid, biting smoke with hints of a sweet undertone.

Very unpleasant for bystanders, in short. Probably even worse than tobacco smoke, I’d estimate. I didn’t even want to imagine what inhaling something like that directly would do to your lungs.

According to what I’d heard, the herbs induced a mild pain relief and euphoria, combined with being relaxing. That explained why people would willingly smoke them, especially those with joint or back pains developed through long, hard work.

All of that was to say, my search criteria were much narrower. With how unpleasant the scent was, my nose had no issue detecting it. Of course, it would be much less intense if it wasn’t being actively smoked, but similar to cigarettes on Earth, long-term use would suffuse the clothes and body with a lingering ‘aura’.

My target was far from the only smoker in town, but at least it reduced the size of the haystack significantly. The smell was also something I could detect from outside a house without having to break in everywhere.

I hadn’t forgotten my apprehension about whether or not I could enter a building without the owner’s permission, but I would test that when I found a suspect. Just breaking into random people’s houses wasn’t a good idea. Chances of discovery were too high to justify for no particular reason. Plus the added temptation to ‘have a drink’ that I’d do better without.

Intentionally taking deep breaths to pick up various scents was already making me salivate more than enough. I wandered around for a few minutes, just breathing.

Several houses had the tell-tale smell of herb-smoke. I just marked them mentally at first. Only a few were among the richer neighborhood, with its stone buildings. The relatively poorer areas had more, but not as many as what I’d call the ‘middle-class’ area.

That made sense. The – relatively speaking – rich had other, ‘finer’ pursuits. And less physically demanding jobs. Meanwhile, while the herbs were local and grew in the forest, they still weren’t common enough to be cheap, exactly.

Narrowing down my options over the next few hours, I found what I assumed to be the most likely target. An unassuming two-story wooden house, near the eastern palisade that faced the hill. And the manor. I doubted that was a coincidence.

Peeking in through the ground floor’s shutters, I saw a well-stocked carpentry workshop with all manner of saws, files and who knew what else. I certainly wasn’t a woodworker myself, but this place looked pretty successful, if the number and variety of tools was any indication. The tell-tale herb smell, faint as it was, clogged my nose.

A quick lap around the building didn’t reveal any obvious entry points. The first floor – where I could hear a lone heart beating slowly in sleep – did have windows, but they were shuttered against the autumn night chill. Likewise, the ground floor’s door and windows were closed and locked.

Breaking down the door wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, but I’d rather not. It looked well-made and sturdy, so it would likely hurt. Also, the sound would be audible from far away.

While the guards didn’t worry me – they were my men, after all – I’d rather not have to explain why I was breaking and entering into people’s homes. Nor let people speculate, if I didn’t explain. Even if I immediately fled the scene to avoid the patrols, my target would no doubt be alerted. I’d keep that as a last resort.

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My observation of the ground floor through the shutter’s gaps provided some information, at least. The door had a proper lock, plus a deadbolt only accessible from the inside. As far as I could tell, the windows were likewise secured with a bolt, though no locks.

This is where magic would come in handy, I grumbled to myself. Unfortunately, I wasn’t yet at a point where I could actually do anything with my mana.

Hmm. This is a conundrum. I could climb to the first floor, but those windows are probably also bolted shut. Can I fit in through the chimney? I might be able to ‘Santa’ my way into the building…

As I would expect from a house like this, it had a large fireplace for heating the entire building. Possibly a second one on the first floor as well. It wasn’t currently lit, the slightly cool night apparently not worth the expenditure of firewood. So there wouldn’t be any issue if I descended down from the roof.

Well, no issue except for one. I hadn’t checked in person yet – no point in climbing up on the roof and potentially making a bunch of unnecessary noise – but a simple visual estimation revealed that I was too large to fit. So this plan wouldn’t work either, unfortunately.

As I was pondering whether the door or a window was a better entry point, my bat familiar dropped in on me. He’d left me earlier when we arrived in town and I got distracted by my thoughts. Apparently, he had used the time to acquire some blood for me.

After gratefully accepting the delivery, I reciprocated with some scritches. This little guy is so cute and helpful… Wait, little guy?

A light-bulb went off in my head. While continuing to pamper him, I relayed my idea through our bond. No talking out loud this time, since I wanted to avoid any mistakes that might reveal me.

My buddy was a bit nervous, but he agreed to help me out. How endearing. I lifted the little guy and rubbed him against my cheek. Good luck, my partner in crime!

Steeling himself – the bat equivalent, anyway – my friend lifted off. The plan was simple. I couldn’t fit into the chimney, but nothing said I had to be the one to enter myself.