Chapter 206: Finding a Way In

Reinera POV

Reinera woke up in a daze. However, after a few moments, she was able to get her bearings. A quick glance at the room had her feeling confused.

The first thing she noticed was the enchanted barrier, isolating her in the stone room she was in. It was slightly damp and a little bit musky. As she slowly woke up the memories started rolling in.

She had been kidnapped.

She didn’t know whether she should be proud of it, but this wasn’t the first time she had been kidnapped before. It was somewhat of a normal occurrence at this point.

It almost made her laugh whenever it happened now.

Although, the most hilarious part about it, was that it wasn’t even because she was a princess. The people who had snatched her didn’t seem to have any clue about her identity.

This time it seemed these people kidnapped her in order to ransom her back to her noble parents.

The joke was on them though. No matter how much digging they did, they wouldn’t be able to find what house she belonged to.

In fact, their inability to do so would only prolong her isolation until they were able to figure out who to contact. But it wasn’t that bad to be fair. There was even an actual room and a bed provided for her, the last time she had been kidnapped, she had to sleep on the hard floor in a cage.

She didn’t get to enjoy the quietness for as long as she wanted.

Several minutes after she woke up, she heard the door of the room open. And a man with his face completely covered entered with a confident stride.

Unlike her attackers, this man wasn’t a Tier 3. In front of her stood a genuine Tier 4.

These weren’t just common thugs at this point. Anyone who had a Tier 4 within their ranks were people with some kind of backing or connections.

“What is your name?” The man suddenly asked her. His voice was surprisingly soft. It was gentle like drops of water hitting a glass window.

She didn’t say a word to him. The less information she provided the more time she would have to figure out how she was going to get out of something like this.

The biggest issue was that, unlike prior times, her family and their retainers weren’t actively looking for her. They were still probably too busy finding out where she had been teleported.

Now, she was kidnapped by some unknown group in a town that she didn’t even know where it was in relation to Heston. Not to mention, that they had already taken her storage ring.

The only person who she could hope would find her was Julius.

Normally, relying on Tier 2 to help her escape from a den of criminals who were all Tier 3 and even a person who was Tier 4, would be a pipedream. However, she had learned better than to underestimate Julius.

A part of her wanted for him to save her, while another was secretly hoping that he wouldn’t, it would be safer for him if he didn’t. But she knew he would try. That was just the type of person he was.

The man kept on trying to ask her questions, but she refused to even look at him. Instead, she kept looking at the empty space on the wall.

The man didn’t get outwardly irritated at her lack of response and once it became obvious that she had no intention of saying anything, he just left as quietly as he came.

***

Julius POV

After way too much pointless arguing, Elder Han finally gave in. It seemed that even whatever grudges he held against the royal family, weren’t enough to prevent the old man from helping him.

According to Elder Han, this group operated out of several locations in Stonewall.

One of them was surprisingly, but also somewhat not surprisingly, one of the local lords.

However, Elder Han was pretty confident that they wouldn’t take a kidnapped girl to the lord’s manor. It would be too damning if something were to happen and people were to find out that one of the local lords was kidnapping young children.

Thus, Elder Han told him of the other locations she was most likely in.

As the old man was telling Julius in detail about the locations of these hideouts, Julius was confused. He asked the old man why he hadn’t done anything about these people if he knew so much about them.

It wasn’t like the old man didn’t have the strength to do anything about it. Julius still didn’t know just how powerful Elder Han was, but he was confident it wasn’t an insignificant amount of strength.

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However, Elder Han said to Julius, that sometimes it was necessary to keep certain criminal organizations in place.

The old codger’s point of view was that there would always be some element of crime within society. It was inevitable. However, there were ways to control said crime. And in his experience, the most difficult times were when there was a vacuum of power.

This void prompted many other people to try and take its place. This led to lots of bloody conflict and unpredictable groups forming.

Julius understood it, he didn’t necessarily agree with everything the old man said, but he could comprehend what he was trying to explain to him.

Sometimes it was better to have an enemy you know.

While Julius managed to convince the old man to help him, he wasn’t able to actually get the old man to come along. That was a bit too much of a stretch.

It would have been easier, but Julius was just glad the old man had even helped at all. It really seemed like he didn’t like the royal family. Julius could only imagine why that was.

“Which one should I look at first?” He asked himself aloud.

As he left Elder Han, he had to come up with some sort of plan, but there were just too many unknown factors he realized. So instead, he just needed to figure out where he would head first.