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Jones, who returned to the basement, handed the purchased goods over to Troy. Since the situation was in a deadlock, they decided to stock up on essentials while they could.

They procured an illumination lantern and their share of sleeping bags as necessary items. And food, drinking water, and also a change of clothes.

Washing their clothes wasn’t feasible so this was very important.

“Jones, what’s going on outside?”
“Even getting here was hard already. The soldiers went to isolate the village from the outside, but some still remained behind.”
“So they increased the vigilance even further huh?”
“But it doesn’t seem like this place has been found. Looks like the little lady was right with her assumption.”

Fina, who had been meeting with Maxwell since she was born, had accounted for him using the Search spell. So she decided to hide near the mansion, following the ‘if you want to hide a tree, hide it in the forest’ saying. At that stage, her decision could be called correct.

The fact that she could make that judgment showed that she was no ordinary three-year-old.

“What if we had left the village in a hurry instead?”
“We probably wouldn’t have made it. Lyell and Maria aside, Maxwell showing up was unexpected.”
“Thinking about it, it was only natural. Why didn’t we realize something so simple?”
“I suppose that’s how it goes when you commit a crime. You’re so pressed that you can’t see any other option.”

Jones grumbled while pulling out the lantern from his luggage. He passed it to Zell and shrugged.

“Here, with this, we don’t need the Light spell.”
“Oh, thanks. This helps.”

Since they’d been hiding underground, Zell was in charge of illuminating the room with his magic. But that also meant he was constantly exhausting his magic power. They also sold pebbles with Light spells cast on them, but they were a bit pricey, so in this situation where anything could happen, buying them was hard to justify.

They would need money when escaping, after all.

“What about the young lady?”
“She’s sleeping now. It’s natural of a child her age.”

Troy answered Jones’ question. He had a daughter of similar age, so he seemed quite emotionally attached already.

He was watching Fina, who had crawled under the sheets with the Carbuncle, with a gentle expression unlike that of a kidnapper.

Zell lit up the lantern while looking at Troy. But as he was about to hang it on the wall, it suddenly ruptured and the Light spell he was using got canceled along with it.

It seemed that a pebble flew in from somewhere and broke the lantern.

“W-What’s going on?!”
“I don’t know! My spell also—”

Zell tried to recast the spell in a hurry, but a thin thread twined around his throat.

“It was the Erase spell. From the Interference system.”
“W-Who are-…gahhh!!”

Zell heard someone’s voice in the darkness and tried to ask who it was, but failed to.

The thread around his neck suddenly tightened, and at the same time, he was pulled behind.

And then, his back was met with someone else’s. It was as if they were carrying him on their back by pulling on the thread around his neck.

“Agh-gah!”
“Zell, where are you?! Agh!”
“Gegh, kagh!”

As if reacting to Troy’s voice, Zell’s throat was released and at the same time Troy started screaming.

Zell was released but he couldn’t do anything and fell to the ground, and as he gasped for air, a hand chop was delivered to the base of his neck, fainting him.

Troy also took a kick to the stomach and fainted in agony.

It seemed that the moment the intruder released Zell, he delivered a kick to Troy and then hand-chopped Zell to make him faint.

“Zell, Troy! What happened?!”

A scream suddenly reverberated in the darkness. The only remaining Jones called for his comrades as if seeking hope.

Without knowing that that action allowed the intruder—Reid, to know his whereabouts.

He approached Jones who continued shouting and delivered a roundhouse kick to the base of his neck, making him faint too.

And then, once it had grown silent, Reid spoke.

“Kabby, light.”
“Squee!”

Everything happened fast but this much noise should’ve woken Kabby up.

Judging so, Reid called out to it, and as expected it was awake.

Fina on the other hand was still asleep. Children were deep sleepers, after all.

Once the underground room had grown brighter, there stood Reid and three fallen men. As well as Carbuncle and Fina still under the sheets.

The fallen men were all out cold, but they were properly breathing, showing that they weren’t dead.

“Good, they’re still alive. The way they looked at Fina told me there was more to this thing, so I decided not to kill them but…”
“Squeeee!”

The Carbuncle cried as if saying he overdid it, but Reid thought this much was still merciful enough.

If Lyell was the one who had come, they would have been turned into pieces of meat by now. And in Maria’s case, she would’ve made them suffer tremendous pain with some weird means.

Reid sighed, ignoring the Carbuncle, and started to search through the luggage that Jones brought.

“Oh, there are enough sleeping bags. If I tie them up and stuff them in, I should be able to easily carry them up with Levitate.”

He immediately used piano wires to tie the three up, then stuffed them inside the sleeping bags with the head first and sealed their mouths.

This was so the sight of the three was obstructed and they would feel dread not knowing where they were being carried. And their fear would make it easier to torture them later.

“Okay, let’s go. Come on, you crawl out of there too.”
“Squeeeee!”

He pulled Fina out of the sleeping bag and held her up with one hand.

At the same time, he formed a magic circle with his other hand and made the sleeping bags with the men inside levitate.

Then he tied them up with threads and headed for the exit.

And thus, the incident that got the three kingdoms involved was easily resolved without the participation of most of the people.