Chapter 100 – Operation: Bro, Why Are You There? (2)

"There aren't that many mages over here."

"What...?"

It'd been three days since Lee Shin-Woo started patrolling the inner city, and this was the conclusion he'd come to after comparing notes with Jin. Jin was momentarily dumbstruck when he heard Lee Shin-Woo, but it didn’t take long for him to respond with a retort.

"You said the mages were the ones you needed to be most wary of. That it wouldn't be so simple; that it wasn't just knights patrolling around."

"That's what I thought, but when I actually looked around, it turned out not to be the case. That's what you found in your patrol too, right?"

"That's... That's true."

There had been a time when Lee Shin-Woo assumed all high-level mages were on par with Kratia. However, that wasn't the case. Kratia was the exception. Then again, she was a hero; she wouldn't be a hero if she wasn't exceptional.

Moreover, it's pretty obvious that their intellect has gone down considerably when they turned into undead, though I'm not sure about their magic.

There weren’t that many undead that could use magic. Even among those who could, most would specialize in only a couple spells since casting them properly would require calculations. As a result, they were only able to use spells that they used so frequently when they were alive that they became instinctual.

Of course, the higher-leveled the undead, the more they regained their abilities and intellect, and thus more of them would be able to use magic. However, the effectiveness of their magic was still a few levels down!

"What about that feminine looking undead?” Jin asked. “There's a level 6 undead in the castle."

"Yeah. There is one mage in this city that I have to be wary of."

Though there were few that were defending the inner city, the reason that the lord was so willing to send most of his knights to the outskirts was because he had someone he could count on inside. It was none other than the level 6 Mage Leader!

The Mage Leader appeared to be a dreary feminine figure. The fact that he could ascertain what gender she was made it clear that she was a high-rank undead. And like the lord, she looked emaciated. She might seem frail at first glance, but her magic was impressive, rivaling even Kratia when he last checked her power before they parted ways.

"But that just means I have to be wary of her during battle. That's all. I'm sure of it. Her communication abilities, surveillance abilities, and even her skill in basic mana sensing is worse than mine. Even when she noticed patterns moving mana as I used magic to secretly provoke her, her response was always the same."

"She could’ve reported to the lord!"

"Well, but we needed to see how she responded to such provocation, didn’t we?"

"..."

Lee Shin-Woo was clearly confident that his identity wouldn't be exposed, regardless of how she responded to the provocation. Jin was tired of Lee Shin-Woo's confidence. It irked him even more that his confidence didn’t come from hubris, but thorough analysis.

"As revealed by my tests, she wasn't able to sense my magic until some time had passed, and even then it was with difficulty. Later I even released mana into the air a few times. In the end, she seemed to assume that she was seeing things and simply returned to what she was doing."

"It’s characteristic of an undead to not do anything even after finally sensing your mana..."

"Right?"

In other words, undead were brain-damaged no matter how powerful they were, which made them idiots. The mage was most likely powerful in offensive magic; there was no questioning that. However, it wouldn’t be the first time he fought a powerful opponent; Lee Shin-Woo was confident that he could get close to and take care of her before she could even start casting her magic.

"The mages aren't really following the imperial decree,” Lee Shin-Woo said. “The alarms and patrol routes in the city aren't covered in mana, and the mages only existed to act as artillery troops..."

"Then there's nothing to be afraid of now. Let's go to the secret facility."

"No, not yet. There's one more thing I have to do before we move on."

It was to find their communication line to the twelve generals. If he found it and either destroyed or secured it, he would have nothing to be afraid of. Now that he'd figured out that the mages weren't all that strong, the thing he had to look out for was...

"The lord."

"You're just doing this for fun, aren't you?"

"I'm doing this so we can avoid danger and defeat them without a hitch. Ah, Jin. Starting now, figure out how to covertly get into the city without being seen."

"Can't we just kill the lord and prevent him from contacting the 12 generals?"

"Well, you'll see."

Lee Shin-Woo wasn't blowing everything out of proportion just so he could fulfill Guillotine Steelworker's request. He wanted to use this chance of infiltrating the city to figure out how the Empire operated... He also wanted to take over this level 3 danger zone city. To do that, he couldn't just kill the lord and run away!

But Jin wouldn’t cooperate with me if he knew.

Lee Shin-Woo had purified several level 2 danger zone cities, but the level 3 danger zones and up were completely different. There were three level 6 elites in this city alone, as well as some regular level 6s... There were also hundreds of level 5s. If he added in the level 4 knights, the undead force in the city was too great for Lee Shin-Woo and Jin to take on.

A head-on assault would be barely doable if he had all of the Pauls and Golems with him. However, Lee Shin-Woo wasn’t going to use up his valuable resources here.

Those guys... I should be able to use them.

He left his lodgings and returned to his duty even while his head was on overdrive. How should I destroy the city while reaching my goal? He was hashing out a viable plan.

[Now... A routine report...]

Huh...?

It had only been a day since he'd marked the lord as his primary target, yet surprisingly, things were progressing much faster than he had expected!

While Lee Shin-Woo was on his regular patrol and wasn't even bothering to hide his presence, he sensed a peculiar magic reaction; it seemed the lord hadn't expected a 'mere knight' like him to notice.

[Where… Here... This way...]

Lee Shin-Woo didn't miss the lord's flow of magic from beyond the door, and he committed it to memory. It seemed as though the lord wasn't guarded in the least and was letting the world see his mana.

It's not really that difficult.

To be exact, the security measure was about the same level as Anti-Skull's. It was so easy to figure out that Lee Shin-Woo actually felt uneasy; after the mana pattern was conjured, he heard a small sound coming from inside the room.

At the same time, he felt an odd magic reaction... It seemed as though the lord had just taken out an item he had been hiding.

[Mm...]

At that moment, the mana pattern that the lord exhibited changed again. If the first was to unlock the security around the castle, then this one was to activate the magical tool he'd taken out.

This isn't very tough, either.

It wasn't difficult for someone with the general administrative rights. Of course, the other heroes would be pissed if they knew, Kratia included. Lee Shin-Woo's magical ability had developed so significantly that it exceeded their wildest imagination.

[Greetings, Lightning General.]

After Lee Shin-Woo had completely memorized the magic pattern, he listened carefully to the suddenly speaking lord.

Unfortunately, he couldn't hear the other speaker, but he could at least tell the lord was speaking to one of the twelve generals, or more specifically, the Lightning General.

[There are no abnormalities. Yes, of course.]

[Our defense remains impenetrable. No Golem or even a single fly would be able to get through. But what kind of Golem... No, it's nothing.]

If Lee Shin-Woo still had lips, he would be smiling right now. It was so clear that the lord must be bending down and kowtowing even through the wall. Lee Shin-Woo also noticed the one-sided relationship between him and the general, which proved how highly-regarded a general was.

But then...

[Unimportant changes...? But, hmm...]

Because the lord kept repeating the Lightning General's instructions, Lee Shin-Woo was able to figure out what the Lightning General was saying. As he thought, an undead could surpass the limit on its intellect once it reached the level of a general, which was slightly worrying to him...

[There's nothing like that. Yes, you can trust me to carry out your orders.]

Fortunately, the lord was an idiot and didn't mention Lee Shin-Woo at all! Of course, even if he did mention him, it wouldn’t be such a big deal with Lee Shin-Woo keeping up the act of a loyal undead to the Empire. However, it was obviously much better to be completely unmentioned than to have attention drawn to him.

[In a month... Yes, of course. I'll contact you if those Golem bastards show up. His Imperial Majesty... It's a relief that he's still healthy!]

The lord was sycophantic to the very end of their conversation. Lee Shin-Woo had grasped a thing or two: the lord gave a routine report to the general once every month! Moreover, their conversation had ended without any mention of him, so as long as he stole the device that allowed the lord to communicate with the general, he would be able to clean everything up.

Hoo...

Lee Shin-Woo had a hunch that his plan could move on to the next stage. However, he didn't act immediately.

I'm going to aim for a time when I can kill the lord without attracting any suspicion. What's most important is the aftermath... I have to focus on that first.

He patrolled through the inner city. In addition to keeping an eye on the mages, Lee Shin-Woo also watched the undead who regularly visited the lord and the lord himself as he summoned them to give them orders... Essentially, Lee Shin-Woo had been observing how the undead within the city communicated with each other.

The knights would have to report to the lord after finishing their patrols, so the lord had company most of the time. There was a reason that this was a level 3 danger zone.

But still, the lord isn’t protected 24/7.

High-level undead accepted their death and moved on. They accepted the fact that they had died and built a new life and order for themselves. Obviously, those who had accepted their deaths were much scarier than those who roamed around denying reality.

Despite that, there was still one habit that the undead couldn't break out of: sleep. Even though they knew they couldn’t sleep, they lay on their beds in order to retain their sanity. The higher ranking the undead, the more likely they were to do so.

And this lord is no exception.

The time had come! After activating the lock again and hiding the crystal, the lord slowly walked outside. Lee Shin-Woo acted as though he had coincidentally run into the lord as he passed by the area and calmly bowed to him.

"My lord."

[Good work, Sir Seta.]

"This level of work is nothing if I can help uphold the imperial decree."

[Hm, very impressive. I'll call you later separately and reward you.]

The lord called one of the knights standing nearby over and went to a different room. It was the room the level 6 Mage Leader was staying in; the two seemed to be lovers before their death, and they always slept together.

There was no way to tell if they were still sexually active, but Lee Shin-Woo prayed that they weren't.

Nice. Let's see where they're going.

Lee Shin-Woo saw the two meet up before heading to the bedroom. Smoothly, he entered the room the lord had once inhabited. He'd memorized the patrol routes for the inner city perfectly and knew that the lord's room would see no guards for 7 minutes.

[Code 0819 Communication Line]

[A high-rank communication line that enables communication by using a particular frequency.]

"Nice. Now I can ensure none of the twelve generals would be contacted through this device."

He unlocked the extremely simple lock and had extracted the communication line that had been hidden in the room. After placing it in his inventory, Lee Shin-Woo left the room. With time to spare, he grinned and made his way to the lord's bedroom.