Chapter 457 – To The Rescue.

“Hey, why the hell are you taking so long? We’re gonna get in trouble if … huh?”

A man with a missing front tooth walked out to see a collapsed man on the ground. It was the person they were looking for, but to their surprise, he wasn’t alone. A large hooded man stood next to him, and along with him, there was a young boy. However, before he could call for more help, the sound around him seemed to disperse.

“…”

Quickly after all sounds disappeared, he found himself being yanked towards the cloaked man. There was nothing he could do, and he felt his neck being squeezed by the unknown assailant. Soon everything went dark, and the last thing before he passed out was a strange prickly feeling of electricity running through his body.

“At least these guards aren’t too bright…”

Roland gave out a sigh before releasing the man he had just shocked with lightning magic. There were now two people down and the path forward was open as the man he just disabled, had left the door unlocked. However, before he did anything else, he needed to address the boy who was with him. The young man couldn’t accompany him into the building, but Roland could at least gather some information to prepare.

“Listen, I need you to tell me everything you know about this place. Does this involve the Thieves Guild or only the local criminal syndicates? Tell me everything you know, leave nothing out as it could save the lives of your friends”

“D-does this mean that you will help us?”

The boy broke down and cried in front of him, but it didn’t seem like he expected Roland to be willing to help. Roland noticed that the young man was still shivering, so he decided to kneel at his eye level. He attempted a more compassionate approach, even removing his hood to reveal his mithril helmet underneath. While he didn’t reveal his face, his visor allowed his eyes to be seen.

“Yes, I’ll help you. But I need information to make sure we approach this situation with efficiency. The more I know, the better. Can you do that for me? Can you tell me who those people are that took your friends?”

The boy sniffled, wiping his tears away with the back of his hand but quickly after, his expression changed.

“Y-yeah, I can. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“Good.”

Roland listened as the boy recounted what he knew about the area, the people involved, and any potential leads regarding the whereabouts of the missing children. There was a lot more information than he expected, it seemed that this street urchin had quite a lot of information about these assailants.

First of all, it didn’t seem that they were directly part of the Thieves’ Guild, but rather something like an affiliate. This place was probably owned by a crime lord, similar to the ones Roland took care of back in Albrook. This made things slightly better, as he wouldn’t be going directly against the guild and their leader, something that was better to avoid. However, once inside, he needed to keep his identity hidden. It was possible that once everything was over, the owner of this place could put a bounty on his head.

‘There would probably be some crazy assassins that would be willing to kill even a Knight Commander for the right price…’

Roland couldn’t allow himself to be identified as he would be putting himself in danger and everyone around him. Using people around a strong target as bait was a strategy for criminals. He couldn’t let his wife be used as a hostage or his friends be targeted just because of his actions.

Going about this discreetly was a must and luckily this new robe along with his armor could help him conceal his identity. Hiding the runes was a possibility and he had already changed the structure of his helmet that would help keep his identity hidden. Unless someone pried him out of his clothes, he was confident in keeping himself hidden.

“You’ve seen them take out people and move them into large wagons?”

“Yes, I think they should be in one of these buildings too…”

Something caught his attention, and Roland looked at his mapping device. It was obvious that this entrance led underground, where the whole situation was taking place. The buildings aboveground seemed abandoned, but surprisingly, no beggars or homeless people dared to come here. Most of the buildings in the slums were occupied by someone, which meant that they were just afraid to rest in them.

‘There are a few people there but their levels are too high to be beggars, they are guarding something. If what this kid is saying is true, then this must be an illegal slave trafficking operation.’

He had an idea of what he was dealing with, so now he had to handle it. His hand connected with the ground he was standing on and a strange orange right surrounded him. This action scared the boy slightly but no explosions were going to occur.

“Don’t worry, I’m just performing a scan…”

“A scan?”

There was no time to explain, but Roland quickly increased the range of his mapping device and began copying the layout of the underground lair he was about to assault. Within a minute or so, he had a rough map of the area stored inside his armor. There were quite a few of them down there, but luckily, this was just a gathering spot and not a venue where they presented or sold slaves.

‘Good, they probably just gather them here before selling them off to slave traders.’

This seemed to be only a drop-off point, which would make things a bit easier. For a moment, Roland wondered if he would need to contend with some rich merchants and nobles and their guards. He had heard rumors of some depraved places that held auctions for rare slaves. Even though slavery wasn’t forbidden, it was only allowed to buy sanctioned debt or criminal slaves. This didn’t stop places like this from appearing, where they grabbed orphans from the streets or other unfortunate people.

“What’s your name?”

“It’s Vico, Sir.”

“Good Vico, do you know how magic scrolls work?”

“N-not really.”

“Have you ever used your mana to activate a skill or any type of enchanted item?”

“I… I think so?”

The boy was a villager with the only skill Roland could see being farming, which was a passive skill. Luckily, he had at least activated some type of magical device in the past and had just enough mana to use the card-sized runic scrolls that Roland had made.

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“Good, these are magical scrolls. Use these to protect yourself. If you look at the back, they have drawings of what they do and explanations on how to use them. I want you to go hide in that building over there and wait until I come out with your friends. Only use them if you get into trouble, do you understand?”