Whoever it was, he was not slow at all. Most of the merchants who’d been approached by the hooded man had been adamant in their belief that he was an E-rank Awakened. If this man they were following was indeed that same man, then he definitely wasn’t an E-ranker. D-rank was more likely.

  “He’s heading to the market,” Lisa muttered as they approached the inner city.

  “Don’t lose sight of him, please,” Eik said.

  “I’ve never lost sight of anyone ever,” she said, clicking her tongue in displeasure.

  “What about before you had Awakened? What about when you were four years old? Three? Two?”

  “Do me a favor and shut up,” she hissed.

  “You can’t talk to me like that! You work for me.”

  “I most definitely don’t work for you. I work for Travis Lockwood, and he’s asked me to do this as an extension of good will.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

  Her jaw tightened but she didn’t say anything. She had seemed receptive to his annoying jabs, but maybe not quite after all.

  “We’re entering the markets. Keep close to me. And, most importantly, be quiet.”

  They weaved through the many narrow streets of the inner city with ease, the gloom of night leaving the streets empty with the exception of a few people working through the night. Seeing the normally bustling place so devoid of noise and eager vendors was strange.

  “Why isn’t he stopping?” Eik asked. “We’re about to leave the market again.”

  “Maybe he’s just cutting through here,” the dark ninja scout commented.

  “And going where?”

  No one could answer that.

  A few minutes after leaving the market district, Lisa raised a clenched fist in an order to stop. “He’s going into a building around the corner from here. Let’s follow him once he’s inside.”

  She led them down an alley that terminated at the door of a nondescript little building. It didn’t particularly look like a stash house. Not that Eik had seen one before. Maybe it did look like a stash house. “What is this place?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of super spy or something?”

  She shot him a sour glare. “I’m busy with our actual enemies that want to exterminate us. I have no time to waste on third rate thieves like this.”

  “Sorry.”

  For some reason it felt like the door creaked a thousand times louder than when the thief had entered. The inside was surprisingly normal. They found themselves in a small entryway, doors on either side. It was filled with shoes of various sizes thrown about as if by the gust of a hurricane.

  “Is this just… his house?” Eik wondered out loud.

  “That’s what it looks like but I can’t hear him anywhere in here. Maybe he took a back door out of here?”

  “Why? Did he know we were on to him?” Eik asked as they rushed through the house to locate said back door. “We can’t afford to lose sight of him!”

  “If he knew we were following, then he did an excellent job of hiding it,” Lisa and stopped once they’d reached the room furthest from the entrance. “There’s no back door here. The windows latch internally and are all closed. He’s gone somewhere else.”

  “Where?” the dark ninja man asked, his head turning as if on a swivel.

  Lisa, momentarily lost in the focus on her senses shuffled quietly around the room, leading with her ears and nose. Eik and the ninja followed her into the next room and after a good ten seconds, she grabbed the edge of a heavy cabinet without a word, her fingers crushing the polished wood as easily as if it had been made of dry saltine crackers.

  With not even the slightest hint of exertion, she tore it away from the wall with a crunch, revealing a hidden staircase leading down into some kind of underground passage. It was dark, without the luxury of torches mounted along the walls in regular intervals like they’d enjoyed while hunting for the missing kids in that subterranean ritual hall infested with cultists.

  Here it was just… dark. All the way down.

  “A-Are we going down there?” the dark ninja asked with a slight stammer.

  Lisa and Eik shot him looks before taking lead down the steps.

  For some reason, descending blindly into the depths of an unknown hideout was significantly less intimidating here on Earth than in an alien world. With every step, the air grew gradually stale and a rancid odor was carried up from the abyss on a mild waft of wind.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “What is this place?” Eik asked. The steps were unpolished and uneven stone slabs. An Awakened at D-rank could probably cut boulders into rough shapes like this. The walls and ceiling, however, were left as is, the soil only kept up by a simple wooden support structure

  “My best guess is that it’s one of the dens of that blasted ring of half-assed, unwashed criminals that calls itself the Bankers.”

  Eik failed to hide a snort of amusement and caught an ireful glare from the B-ranker. “Oh, come on. You have to admit that name is funny. But I thought they had more or less been eradicated by now. Doesn’t Mission Central have more than enough power to put an end to them once and for all?”

  “It’s not an issue of power. We always need more people to help. Do you know how often we have to drive back monsters trying to attack Forest? More than once a day. Yes, usually they come with insignificant numbers and negligible strength, but there’s no monster forecast a week in advance. We have to tackle it on a day to day basis and simply hope that today is not the day where we must face an unmanageable invasion.”

  Eik nodded soberly. “You’re right. I didn’t think of it like that.”

  “We’re busy watching the outside and sending strike teams into the wilderness. I know it’s not good enough, but we just don’t have time to focus on a thieves’ guild like the Bankers. A city-wide cleaning operation to get rid of all the thieves is just too complicated right now.”

  “I know, I apologize. I said something I shouldn’t have. I never meant to say that you’re not doing what you can for us. I aim to help as much as I can as well. I know you do so much and even though the two of us are at each other’s throat all the time, I have endless appreciation for what you do.”

  She shot him a look in the last light from the ground floor doorway above, her eyes revealing astonishment. For a few seconds she was silent. “Thank you, that… that means a lot. I have been watching you and I can see that you’re also working hard for the good of the people of Forest. Even if I am struck by the urge to twist your neck a couple of times per day.”

  Eik laughed but stopped when he felt a hand slap him on the chest. By now it was almost pitch black but he could just see the outline of Lisa’s head. She had stopped. He grew two small staves of crystalline toxin from his shoulders to provide at least a bit of light.

  “I can hear something from below.”

  Eik sighed. “I think I’m experiencing deja vu here, guys,” he whispered.

  “You’ve hunted thieves around these parts a lot, have you?”

  “Well, I guess they were more like an inter dimensional cult of cannibals, and it was in an underground temple on an alien planet. But it’s pretty similar otherwise.”

  The silence of Lisa and the ninja man was deafening. The B-ranker lead them further down, and after another minute of walking light began to flicker faintly from somewhere below and Eik’s ears too picked up the sound of muffled voices.

  “How many?” Eik asked.

  “Judging by the sound of their voices alone, I’d say at least four but possibly more.”

  Eik thought it through for a moment. “We can probably take that many, don’t you think?”

  “Most definitely,” Lisa concurred with a nod.

  “Are you serious?” Lisa’s assistant questioned. “We don’t even know their ranks!”

  “She’s a genuine B-ranker, and the two of us are at D-rank and,” he said and pulled two vials of Potion of Mighty Strength class 2 from the slots in his belt. “I’ll give you one of these to boost your confidence — and your strength.”

  Immediately recognizing the drug for what it was, the man snatched one of the vials from Eik’s fingers and studied the liquid inside. He looked immensely tempted.

  “This is what we were hired to do. Getting the drop of them with a swift surprise assault is more advantageous than sneaking closer and risk being discovered,” Lisa reasoned. “I’ll allow you to retreat if you’re completely sure you’re not up for this.”

  Swallowing hard as he stared intensely at Lisa, he upended the vials and chugged the whole thing in one. “I’m not going anywhere. Lead the way and I’ll be right behind you.”

  Eik swallowed a large handful of poison, the amount such that he felt stomach pains and muscle spasm course through him before it was neutralized by Resistance: Toxin, leaving only the boost from Noxious Invigoration.

  He washed it down with a Potion of Mighty Strength and exploded down the stairs, Lisa was right on his tail, a short blade appearing in her hand as if by magic.

  Bursting into the room without a sound, Eik took in the space in a moment and went straight for the person standing closest to the entrance. Well, standing might have been the wrong word since the woman was slung lazily in an old, greasy linen chair.

  Anyway, Eik’s boot stomped her so hard in the face that she was carried bodily over the back rest and onto the floor behind where she rolled twice before smacking into a wooden support beam, unconscious.

  By the time he looked up, the dark ninja was coming into the room, while Lisa had moved onto her second target. Her first victim was on the ground, frantically clutching a struck trachea.

  “Which of you rotten bastards has my fuckin’ potions, huh?” Eik bellowed, the volume of his voice hurting even his own ears in the small, underground space.

  This seemed to be some kind of subterranean hub designed as a place to stash valuables and concoct cunningly vile plans. The ceiling was low, only just barely high enough for Eik to walk around upright inside. While he might well be above average height, it still made it exceedingly uncomfortable and made it feel like the Earth was about to collapse on top of them.

  The walls were lined densely with rickety shelves flooded with all manner of miscellaneous this and thats. A few dirty, old sofas and chairs were placed haphazardly about the space and a large table in the center practically engulfed in numerous papers filled with scribbles and drawings.

  The whole place was dimly lit by a number of pots of bio luminescent moss — a plant that had first appeared after the collapse of the world. Looking at it now, the glow stones from Gimleh were in a totally different league, offering the same amount of soft light as a modern light bulb. A few of those would have done wonders for this dirty den of thieves.

  Eik crouched and fed a couple of healing chunks to the man with the injured throat, unwilling to let someone die just to punish a theft. “There, there, you little shit. You’ll be fine. Get well so I can beat you up again.” The man shivered as he looked up at Eik, eyes devoid of comprehension.

  He whirled up and appeared right in front of a balding man whom he grasped by the collar.

  Creating a plate of solid blue the size of a forehead right above his own brow, Eik headbutted the guy twice quickly but didn’t let him fall to the ground even as he flopped over in his grip, legs scraping limply on the dirt floor.

  “I’ll ask again! Which of you dogs stole my damned potions?” he shouted, shaking the unconscious man hanging flaccidly by his shirt. “Tell me!”

  A woman in the back of the room lifted a trembling finger and pointed at the man dangling from Eik’s hand. “Th-That one there.”

  Eik stared down at the guy and stuffed a couple of healing chunks into his mouth and moved his jaw in a chewing motion with a firm grip on his chin, before slapping him several times across the face. “Wake up!”

  Slowly, the man came to, his eyes the picture of confusion. “Wh-Wh—… What’s going on?”

  Eik squeezed the man’s cheeks between his fingers as he glared into his eyes. “Take me to your leaders, you stinky sack of garbage!"

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  The Green Forest