Chapter 30.1
Retrieving the Princess (1)
I followed the path to the kidnapped Elena through a small side hole.
Even if that maid had been tipped off, there was no way she would have had time to dig a hole this deep beforehand, and I guessed the kidnapper was probably a user of earth magic.
Even if Sera’s friends were keeping an eye on them, they couldn’t have checked all the way down to the basement….
They even had to use children like me, as they were short on manpower to begin with. The only one of Sera’s companions who was by Elena’s side this time was the maid who helped her, but I was told that she too was not skilled at concealment or detection, but only possessed some warrior skills to serve as a shield.
Not everyone in the organization had the high level of scouting skills that Sera had, and most of them were probably just intelligence-gathering, counter-intelligence types. That’s why Sera was trying to plant her skills on an unknown kid like me.
Even if I could contact the senior butler outside, it would take him a dozen minutes to catch up with me. By then, I would need to find Elena and stall for time to rescue her on my own.
If she herself were to move with one child through such a narrow space that only a child or a slender woman could pass through, she would be dealing with a scout, a Thief type, or…
“…or an Assassin.”
An assassin who uses magic is the worst I can imagine. But I still needed to go after them. Maybe it was not only because it’s a job I had been hired to do.
As I proceeded through a basement the size of three houses, it abruptly transformed into a vertical hole. I ascended the hole smoothly, using stealth to strengthen my body, and fingering the dirt skin. I peeped out of the hole, searching for signs, and saw a dirty little man preparing to flop out of the hole.
Was he not working alone, but had companions? Possibly, he was just scavenging, but I had already decided to attack.