Art of the Explosion
One of the most useful skills Bennett had cultivated throughout his decade as a mercenary was the art of disguise.
While magical tools offered convenience, the risk of exposure was simply too great. Competent mages could pierce such illusions at a glance, and seasoned knights or mana-attuned mercenaries were quick to grow suspicious whenever they caught anomalous mana ripples in the air.
Bennett himself had once been exposed during a past operation involving nobility after relying on an enchanted disguise charm. Ever since that close call, he had committed himself to mastering physical disguise through mundane craft.
The process had been grueling. Through relentless trial and error, pouring in endless hours and substantial coin, he refined his methods until he could alter his appearance convincingly enough for field operations.
His younger sister, Bella, had played an indispensable role in that achievement.
Bella possessed an exceptionally keen eye and a delicate sensitivity that caught the faintest artificial flaw. Thanks to her ruthless scrutiny, Bennett had learned to obsess over every minute detail, polishing his craft to near perfection.
"Ah, testing."
Mimicking Donovan's rough cadence from moments ago, Bennett turned and slipped into the factory complex.
It was not a flawless recreation, but experience had taught him that capturing the general timbre and cadence was more than enough to deflect casual suspicion.
"Alright, listen up! The real work starts in a week, so make sure you've committed these operations to memory by then!"
"Understood, sir!"
Inside the plant, workers were busy familiarizing themselves with the machinery. The low, rhythmic drone of beverage-processing equipment hummed faintly in the air. Bennett blended into the background, scouting the interior layout while taking care not to draw attention to himself.
This doesn't match the floor plan Whisper handed over.
The intelligence purchased from the information brokerage differed noticeably from the actual layout before his eyes.
The second floor alone proved the point.
According to Whisper's schematics, this facility was supposed to be a single-story structure. Yet an upper level clearly existed—cleverly concealed so that it remained invisible from the exterior, and virtually unnoticeable from the inside until one stood at a very specific vantage point.
Evidently, the Drake family had leaked falsified blueprints in advance to guard against corporate espionage and raids.
—"Hey, you worthless bastards! Mind your posts! If the superiors dispatched from the main house caught you slacking, you'd be stripped of your badges on the spot! Count your lucky stars I found you first!"
Bennett halted his approach toward the stairs. People dispatched from the main house?
Have they been stationed here all along, or did they catch wind of something?
Either way, their presence was an unwelcome complication. After a moment's calculation, Bennett turned on his heel.
He retraced his steps toward the boundary wall near the entrance where he had first slipped in.
It looked like nothing more than a neglected scrap heap, but buried beneath the debris was the rucksack he had smuggled past the perimeter. While keeping it on his back would have been more convenient, a common security guard roaming the dormitory grounds with a bulky traveler's pack was practically begging for an interrogation.
The ordinary-looking bag was packed with magic scrolls.
I originally intended to use these during my extraction...
Circumstances had changed, and plans had to change with them.
Bennett circled the perimeter near the front gate, methodically planting the scrolls. Magic scrolls typically unleashed their payloads the instant they were torn, but specialized varieties existed that permitted a timed delay—they were simply far more expensive. Stacking standard offensive scrolls beneath the delayed triggers to chain the blast, he finished planting the charges and hurried back inside the main complex.
Reaching the foot of the stairwell leading to the hidden second floor, Bennett checked the time.
Right about now...
BOOM!
The air violently shook. For a brief second, the thunderous concussion tore straight through the heavy mechanical drone of the factory floor.
—"W-What was that?! Where did that explosion come from?!"
—"I'm not sure, sir!"
—"Is anyone out there? Exterior watch, report!"
Fumbling briefly with the transceiver as if flustered by the controls, Bennett clicked the transmitter.
"I-It's the main gate! Someone approached the perimeter and popped a magic scroll! I couldn't get a clean look at their face—"
KABOOM!
Bennett cut the transmission precisely as the secondary detonation roared.
—"Donovan! Donovan! All guards converge on the main gate immediately! Repeat, fall back to the main gate!"
A heavy door swung open above. Urgent footsteps thudded from the second floor before rapidly heading toward the exterior exit. The measured, metallic weight behind the stride betrayed the identity of the wearer—unquestionably an armored knight.
Lurking in the shadows, Bennett made his move.
Stealthy Steps Lv.2
The upper floor was straightforward, consisting of a short corridor and a single spacious office. Bennett advanced cautiously, unfurling his Detection. There was no one register—
He froze.
No, someone was inside.
"Hm?"
A low, puzzled murmur filtered through the doorway. Bennett's psionic energy had brushed against him; to anyone with cultivated senses, such an intrusion was impossible to miss.
After a fleeting beat of deliberation, Bennett pushed inside. Having come this far, turning back was out of the question. It was better to eliminate the threat quickly and be done with it.
"A guard?"
A man lounging in an ornate armchair rose to his feet. He was dressed in casual attire, though a sword hung at his hip.
"A traitor, then. Die."
In a fraction of a heartbeat, the man vanished across the gap. The sheer burst of speed bordered on instantaneous teleportation as a blue-wreathed blade cleaved through the air.
Slash!
Cutting through empty space, the swordsman narrowed his eyes.
"You dodged?"
Having stacked Reflexes, Insight, and Detection simultaneously to slip beneath the lethal arc, cold sweat traced the back of Bennett's neck.
He's an Elite.
Putting aside the terrifying burst of movement, the blazing azure radiance coating the steel was unmistakably Aura—the defining signature of an Elite-Class Knight. A combatant operating on an entirely different plane from ordinary mana practitioners.
Clack-clack-clack!
Deploying his chainsword, Bennett lunged straight at the swordsman. The knight eyed the high-tech weapon with sudden greed, yet his blade whipped up with sharp precision.
A concussive pressure wave surged from the man's frame, attempting to suppress Bennett's footing, but Bennett raised his psionic energy in response. The ambient mana dissipating into nothingness caught the knight off guard, his face stiffening in shock.
Clang! Crash!
Brilliant azure aura collided violently with warm twilight radiance. The swordsman moved with the swift, dazzling precision expected of his station, but Bennett weathered the storm, parrying and deflecting the onslaught.
Though he had never received formal training in prestigious swordsmanship schools, a decade of surviving life-or-death battles had honed his martial instincts. Relying on raw intuition, he understood how to redirect momentum and disperse the lethal impact of incoming strikes. More importantly, Bennett's agility was by no means lacking.
"You're faster than you look."
While Bennett could not overwhelm him in sheer velocity, he was quick enough to fight on equal terms. Perhaps the knight had taken an effortless victory for granted, for his initial composure rapidly soured into an irritated scowl.
"What kind of bizarre technique is that?"
Clang!
The swordsman's gaze bored into the chainsword—specifically, the twilight glow clinging to its interlocking teeth. The covetous gleam in his eyes had vanished, replaced by profound wariness. Bennett understood the reaction; psionic energy ate away at aura just as voraciously as it unraveled mana.
That parasitic property made standing against the knight considerably easier.
"I asked you what—"
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Lv.1
Seizing the instant the knight's focus fractured, Bennett drove forward.
Dropping his stance, he triggered Flash Sprint.
Though his center of gravity was slightly off-balance, the movement engaged by a hair's breadth. Distracted by the bizarre energy, the knight's defense lagged by half a tempo—and that fraction of a second was all Bennett needed to lock in the ambush.
"Kh!"
Bennett's legs wrapped around the man's torso in a punishing guard.
Panicking, the knight lashed out reflexively, but Bennett's forearm was already snaking across his windpipe. Snapping his hips and throwing his full body weight backward, Bennett drove him violently into the floorboards.
The knight flared his aura to break free, but the chokehold clamped down tighter. Trusting his instincts, Bennett applied suffocating pressure before the man could consolidate his power.
"You think parlor tricks like this will work on me?!"
Summoning monstrous physical strength, the knight twisted his torso, attempting to deadlift Bennett off the ground. But Bennett had already read the vector.
Reflexes Lv.3
The moment the knight exerted his upward force, Bennett pivoted his hips, transitioning cleanly into a joint lock. He slammed his body weight down over the fulcrum of the man's elbow.
Crrrack!
Yet the tempered physiology of an Elite-Class Knight was not so easily broken. Though the man's face twisted in agony, he clamped his jaw and held on. Veins roped across his neck as his muscle fibers swelled to defy the breaking point.
Tough bastard.
Surprised by the stubborn resistance, Bennett leaned in with everything he had.
It lasted only a matter of seconds, but that brief stalemate was more than enough to put him on edge.
Yet endurance alone could not defy physics indefinitely. In the end, even an elite's conditioned flesh buckled beneath the hyper-leveraged torque.
"Aaaagh!"
With a sickening crunch, the elbow joint gave way. The knight screamed in raw torment, his sword slipping from his grip as the azure aura coating the steel sputtered and died.
In the same motion, Bennett drove his heel downward.
Crack!
It was a stomp heavy enough to shatter an ordinary man's skull, yet the knight merely grimaced. Bennett hammered several more vicious kicks into the man's face before snapping back to his feet and raising his chainsword high.
The swordsman scrambled blindly across the floor, miraculously scooping up his fallen blade to meet the overhead chop. However—
Skrrrrt!
Because he had drawn on his power in sheer panic, the aura wreathing his sword was thin and erratic. The psionic energy suffusing the chainsword seized upon the flaw without hesitation. After a brief shriek of friction, the whirring teeth bit straight through the steel.
"N-No...!"
The knight frantically tried to pump more aura into the weapon, but the half-severed blade could not hold.
Snap.
Slicing clean through the sword, the chainsword swept across the exposed flesh of the knight's neck.
"Guhk."
While this wasn't technically the first elite he had ever put down, the confrontation had certainly been far cleaner than his previous desperate encounters.
The knight lay sprawled across the floorboards, eyes vacant and jaw slack.
Wiping the blood spatter from his cheek, Bennett hurried over to inspect the room's safe. Fortunately, it was not hidden behind a trick panel.
Skrrr-clank!
Shearing the hinges off the safe door, Bennett peered inside, his brow furrowing.
Empty?
The interior was completely bare. Suspecting a false compartment, he reached inside to sweep the edges, but felt only cold steel.
His gaze shifted back to the corpse from the main house.
Bennett patted down the dead man's tunic and pulled out a bloodstained leather portfolio. Unfastening the clasp, he found a detailed production recipe transcribed upon a sheet of thick parchment. While ordinary paper was standard for administrative documents and scrolls, irreplaceable proprietary secrets were still recorded on durable parchment to guard against decay or wear.
Thud! Crash!
—"Damn it, get the water! Put it out, now!"
—"Yes, sir!"
The fire outside had clearly taken hold; through the windows, guards could be seen frantically battling the encroaching flames, drenched in sweat.
Bennett slipped down to the first-floor production area and herded the remaining workers toward the exits. There was no need for elaborate explanations; sensing the mounting disaster, the laborers panicked and bolted out into the yard on their own.
I'm definitely billing for the cost of these scrolls.
Distributing the remaining explosive scrolls from his pack across key structural pillars, Bennett darted clear of the main plant.
BOOM! K-KABOOOM!
An inferno that made the earlier gate detonations look like mere firecrackers ripped through the facility, swallowing the plant whole.
Screeeech—!
Searing sparks and jagged pieces of twisted machinery rocketed into the sky before raining across the compound. Even beneath the bright midday sun, the towering plume of fire blazed with terrifying clarity.
...What kind of title is that?
Baffled by the bizarre notification, Bennett vaulted over the collapsed perimeter wall and slipped away from the burning grounds.
Reaching a secluded alleyway, he scanned his surroundings. Pulling out the spare set of clothes he had cached beforehand, he swiftly changed and peeled away the facial disguise, stuffing the remnants deep into his coat.
Moments later, restored to his original appearance, he stepped out into the main thoroughfare with the leisurely air of an innocent bystander.
Behind him, the factory burned fiercely into the sky.