Goddess Descent (1)
I told myself not to panic. The things I had to do remained exactly the same. I coldly clicked the abacus inside my neurons. One opponent had already turned into several the moment I wasted time dealing with the first. The top priority was shaking off the pursuers before even more people joined the chase.
Don't stop moving! Return to Master as planned!
I deliberately laid down that bait for them to hear while urging the Heswald sisters forward. I had considered trying to drive a wedge between Primor and Minerva, but the effect seemed too uncertain compared to the effort required. Here, the surest thing was to fly the hell out as fast as possible.
‘The archers have the high ground! How are we supposed to run?!’
‘That’s what I— Ah, shit!’
Right in the middle of strategy time, a sword sheath aimed straight for my skull. I drew the baton at my waist, blocked it, and dodged the incoming blade. Minerva, who had escaped the tear gas, was swinging her sword. Her face glistened as if she had dumped a potion over it, and she unleashed a ferocious series of strikes.
‘Master, was it? If someone put you up to this, I can’t possibly let you go.’
She had called me Master. I was grateful she had taken the bait exactly as I hoped, but the price was that Minerva’s expression had turned as severe as a judge facing a preschool rapist. My balls instinctively shriveled. It looked like my status had been downgraded from ‘phantom thieves who only robbed the bastards in her territory’ to ‘hired burglars.’
‘Ugh, seriously! I’m going first!’
Audrey impatiently spread her wings and caught the headwind. With a sharp whoosh, she shot upward on magical wind, but the knight had been waiting for exactly that moment. She activated Spring Jump—the same technique from when they attacked the caravan. Audrey’s eyes widened, then she let out a furious shout.
‘Getting hit with the same move twice makes me a disqualified phantom thief!’
She stepped on the charging knight’s shoulder while riding the headwind, then executed a mid-air somersault, adjusting her angle with wind magic. Her skill was impressive. But Audrey wasn’t the only one who had changed since last time. A silver arrow shot through the gap and pierced her wing again.
‘Kyaaaaaaaah!! Why me agaaaaaaaaain—!!’
‘Sister!!’
‘You idiots! What the hell are you doing?!’
Did those bitches think this was a goddamn comedy concert? Their employer was getting stabbed right in front of them, yet they were busy filming a skit? I was furious, but my own hands and feet were tied. It wasn’t just Minerva binding me—I was also shackled by the need to hide my identity.
‘I can’t use Yesugei’s techniques, and I can’t use the ones I use as Nord either. What the fuck am I supposed to do?!’
The skills I had captured with Skill Capture were all ones Primor and her guards had already witnessed! Faced with this unexpected crisis, I felt suffocated, unable to move a single hand or foot. Minerva’s swordsmanship played a big part in that too.
—Shupat!!
Her thoroughly fundamentals-oriented style, which perfectly reflected her personality, gave me no room to think. She pressed the attack relentlessly, and with my techniques restricted, I was too busy just protecting myself. Solid fundamentals meant always holding at least three cards in poker. I had assumed a lord in her forties would be some middle-aged auntie, but the Minerva I met in person was a skilled warrior in her early thirties, pouring her youthful beauty and vitality into the blade. She was an experienced fighter who would be hard to beat even in a fair match.
Pushed back helplessly with no time to pull any tricks, cold sweat ran down my back.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
My heart, which had lived an honest life until now, was only making my concentration worse in this special situation called thievery. My field of vision narrowed, and my head filled with the single, frantic thought: I have to run.
‘If I miss the timing to escape, I’m seriously fucked…!’
It was the same gut feeling I had back when I was a foolish high schooler dreaming of grad school. After finishing another shitty night of self-study, I had spotted the old bastard teacher wandering around with a mop. He was the legendary old fart who spilled his own coffee and then looked for students to clean it up. The memory of that half-bald, ugly-faced geezer surfaced for no reason. The bitter memory of being caught, exhausted, forced to wipe coffee stains and even wash the mop. That sense of injustice and the helplessness of having no way to fight back sharpened all my senses.
And that restriction combined with my razor-sharp senses pulled up the secrets of the light-foot technique I had stolen from the Heswald sisters from the ocean of my neurons.
‘…This is it!’
I moved my feet. A mysterious principle lingered at my toes. At that exact moment, I set aside my machismo-based pride and became a true phantom thief. The essence of thievery wasn’t in the stealing itself. A true phantom thief was someone who stole and then escaped safely!
A supreme movement technique that allows instantaneous escape from any binding pressure. Once activated, the user becomes impossible to pursue.
Boom—bang!
‘…What?!’
I used a backstep to slip out of the range dominated by Minerva’s sword strikes. Since I had been barely dodging until a second ago, my sudden swift escape caught even Minerva off guard, making her miss the chance to pursue.
‘Kiyoooooooot—!!’
I let out a spirited battle cry, snatched Audrey and Catherine by the waist, and launched myself with Spring Jump. I spread my wings while holding the two screaming girls under my arms. The rune-magic cloak transformed into a glider, and I added propulsion with a steam explosion. A belated arrow wisely struck the glider, but the giant-leather cloak didn’t even flinch.
‘I’m terribly sorry, everyone! Showtime ends here! If I’m any later, my Master will try to kill me!’
Having barely regained my composure, I shouted at the ladies who now looked like dogs that had lost their chickens.
‘If possible, let’s never see each other again! So goodbye, sayonara, adios!’
Whoosh!
Catherine, who had finally come to her senses, cast a wind spell on my cloak. Thanks to her, we escaped the burning auction house in an instant. Seen from the air, the burning building looked even more tragic. I could only hope that Diabolo had only sent his idiots, and that the people at the auction house who fought them hadn’t been too badly hurt.
Audrey pressed her hat down and let out a big breath.
‘Phew—! I’m exhausted! Still, we managed to run somehow.’
‘Yeah. We’re flying straight to the lord’s mansion, so don’t let your guard down completely.’
At my words, Audrey’s eyes showed a hint of greed.
‘Hey, are you really going to throw away everything we stole? Not keeping even one thing?’
‘Don’t you guys only rob bad rich people? There’s no guarantee that every owner of the items we stole is a complete bastard.’
Audrey shut her mouth at that. I chuckled. The reason I had set aside my principles and committed theft was because this was the most effective and least damaging method against Diabolo’s raid on the auction house. As I said before, even if I lived honestly, my abilities were more than enough that I wouldn’t run out of money.
‘You’ve been living in this neighborhood for a long time, right? It’s a bit late, but we should still give the lord a New Year’s gift.’
After all, when Koreans move into a new place, isn’t it proper etiquette to hand out rice cakes or side dishes as a small token? The beginning of the year was supposed to be lively and bustling.
The day after the auction house was raided and every item stolen, Renapolis fell into chaos once the news spread.
The buyers and sellers united in condemning the lord.
‘How are you going to compensate us for the stolen goods?! And who’s going to take responsibility for our disrupted schedules?!’
‘The commoners working at the auction house are only temporary hires who work this time of year! The lord who hosted the event must take responsibility!’
‘There’s no one left to appraise the stolen items! Don’t even think about spouting nonsense about compensating at the starting bid price!’
It was an unwritten rule in Romanian auctions that the noble who opened the event was responsible for security on site. When it was revealed that the lord had not sent any private soldiers and had placed the entire burden on the commoner auction manager, the criticism became even more vicious.
Yet even as they faced the direct fury of every powerful figure—from wealthy merchants to nobles who had scheduled their visits—the lord of Renapolis remained completely silent. On top of that, the fact that they kept dozens of soldiers guarding the mansion instead of devoting every effort to expelling the criminals fueled the victims’ outrage even more.
‘What on earth is the lord thinking?!’
Bang!
A boy whose voice had not even changed yet slammed the table violently. Even against a noble of his status, the lord’s steward only calmly shook his head.
‘The lord is currently bedridden. Viscount Diabolo, who is managing the territory on her behalf, is also working urgently to resolve the matter. Please rest assured and wait patiently.’
‘Rest assured? The one who protected only his own mansion like a fortress while every auction item was stolen? What exactly are we supposed to feel assured about?!’
The boy protested with veins bulging on his neck, but Minerva, who sat beside him, calmly stopped him.
‘That’s enough. Questioning the steward won’t solve anything.’
‘But, my lady! We finally found an Elixir that could heal your wounds, and it was stolen right before our eyes!’
Minerva hid a bitter smile and shook her head. It wasn’t just because the old-fashioned term of endearment ‘my lady’ didn’t suit the boy. More than that, she felt sorry for this child who had been forced into a marriage with her that was little more than a political arrangement. What sin had this boy, who had not even reached adulthood, committed to become the son-in-law of a woman already approaching forty?
The boy praised her beauty every single day, but the way his face turned bright red each time made it clear his feelings weren’t genuine. It was obvious from the fact that he had dragged her all the way here just to heal that hideous wound. Without knowing that the boy agonized every day over why this beautiful warrior woman could not understand his heart, Minerva spoke to the steward.
‘You’ve worked hard. You may leave. My husband and I will take a look around the garden before we go.’
‘Shall I provide a guide—’
‘That won’t be necessary.’
The steward withdrew without another word. Minerva patted her anxious husband’s back—completely missing how the thirteen-year-old boy despaired at being treated like a child—and left the reception room. The boy, having shaken off his frustration, spoke to his wife who was twenty years his senior in an attempt to sound mature.
‘Ahem, hm. My lady. Is there any value in viewing the garden of such a mansion? Isn’t it merely a tasteless space arranged to suit the eyes of a commoner-born writer, reflecting the vulgar tastes of a nouveau riche?’
‘Discriminatory remarks are not good. Sir Diabolo’s title was bestowed by His Imperial Majesty.’
While confirming with her one good eye that the boy had closed his mouth, Minerva sharply observed the mansion.
‘…The phantom thief gang that escaped last night headed in this direction.’
That was the result after gathering and confirming eyewitness accounts. Minerva did not doubt the investigative abilities of the subordinates she had chosen herself. No citizen would be bold enough to build a house near the lord’s mansion. The more wealth or power one possessed, the less likely they were to do so. Therefore, the only person in this lord’s mansion whom that strangely skilled phantom thief would call ‘Master’ had to be someone here.
It was uncomfortable, but with no other clues, she had no choice. It wasn’t what she wanted that her tiny husband, whose head only reached her chest, had followed her, but thanks to his outburst, the lord probably wouldn’t suspect Minerva’s infiltration.
‘The annex and guest rooms are the most suspicious, but that would be reckless.’
Minerva gave up on observing those areas after considering the even stricter security around the annex and her relationship with the person supposedly staying in the guest room. Although it could easily cause misunderstandings, she held no personal feelings toward the member of the Armaals family who was a guest in this mansion. The reason she had ordered her men to chase the thief in her territory was simply to uphold the law within her lands. Her husband, enraged upon learning that the person who had wounded her was involved, had forcefully given the order in a fit of youthful passion.
‘If you want to hide a tree, hide it in the forest. Considering that the victims might try to sneak people into the mansion, they wouldn’t have hidden the stolen goods in the annex or guest rooms.’
Therefore, what was suspicious were places where people were not stationed. If they had hidden the items using special barriers or magic items here, they could have caught her off guard. With that thought, Minerva freely moved around inside the mansion under the pretext of viewing the garden. It bothered her that the wariness toward her seemed strangely low for someone who had stolen auction items, but that sense of unease proved to be nothing more than a needless worry once she actually discovered the barrier.
‘…As expected.’
A space secretly hidden in one corner of the wall. She had found an abandoned warehouse meticulously concealed by a barrier method she had never seen before. Minerva narrowed her eyes.
—Slide.
She removed her eyepatch and activated the magic item embedded in her prosthetic eye. The scene inside the barrier appeared in her pupil like an uncolored sketch.
‘The ones who attacked the auction house were Diabolo’s subordinates.’
Otherwise, there would be no reason for those stolen goods to be here. Minerva clicked her tongue as she confirmed the stolen items inside the warehouse. The operation itself was sloppy. Even people with less strategic ability than her would be unable to withdraw their suspicion toward Diabolo. He was in a position where he would have to pay tens of gold in compensation if he didn’t catch the culprit immediately. Yet he was guarding the mansion with this many soldiers? There had to be a reason for Diabolo to willingly suffer such a loss. It meant last night’s incident had been a self-orchestrated play.
He would probably soon sell out those so-called phantom thieves and obscure his own responsibility. The victims’ anger would then be directed at the phantom thieves and the fictional buyer who had supposedly purchased the stolen goods from them.
‘It would be better to make this public. It’s not good for our family to handle this alone.’
Simply announcing the existence of this warehouse would make it impossible to avoid the pressure from the victims. That would also loosen the iron-tight security around the annex. Whatever was hidden in that annex, there was no legitimate way to calm dozens of nobles gathered for an auction.
‘…Hm?!’
Minerva, who had been about to withdraw while planning for later, clenched her fist upon spotting an owl watching her. For a moment she thought she was being observed by a familiar, but she felt no mana from the owl. It was just an ordinary wild animal.
—Flap!
The owl twisted its head, then flew away. Minerva watched its retreating figure before turning around. With this much circumstantial and physical evidence piled up, the criticism and protests against Diabolo would only grow fiercer.
And the owl she had spotted flew for a long time before landing on a certain man’s forearm.
‘Hoot hoot hoot! (Feed me!)’
‘Cookoo cookoo. (Here you go.)’
That man—Nord—threw chicken to the owl while glaring at the lord’s mansion in the distance.
“It went exactly according to plan.”
The rune barrier Veronica had installed to be ‘easily discovered’ had been found by the nobles who came to interrogate Diabolo, just as Nord had wanted. Of course, if Diabolo himself had stolen them, he wouldn’t have hidden them so sloppily. That was precisely why Nord had needed to personally steal those stolen goods. If they had been stored in the annex, the plan he had built would have become meaningless. Diabolo would never have imagined that the goods he had missed were sitting in an abandoned warehouse on his own property.
‘I wanted to show him obsessing over the Elixir I submitted to strengthen the suspicion even more, but… oh well.’
Diabolo was already acting suspiciously enough. Once that mountain of circumstantial evidence was combined with such clear physical proof, total ruin would be unavoidable. If it took too long, he had planned to move himself, but now that the strict lord had discovered it, it was only a matter of time before the victims exploded with rage at Diabolo. And if he was driven even further into a corner, the security around the mansion would inevitably loosen. That was exactly the moment Nord was aiming for.
He watched the owl fly off with the chicken in its beak, then blended into the crowd and returned to the mansion of the Hermaion Guild Master.