I Level Up Dragons with My Evolution System

"Young Master Edward, where are we going?" Harry ran after Edward and climbed into a private carriage that would take them out of the city.

"We’re going to blow up a place before the situation catches up with it." Edward smiled. "I told you we were going to play a game of counterintelligence, didn’t I?"

Harry nodded. "I remember. What do you plan to do? Counterintelligence against whom?"

Edward looked ahead and focused his gaze on the road before answering. "I’m playing a little game of chess against two very powerful people. One false move could kill us in seconds. If you’re playing chess against someone that dangerous and your only power is the information you have, what do you think is the best way to beat them?"

"Cheat?" Harry asked, puzzled.

"Haha, well, that’s one way." Edward laughed. "But I mean, you have to make them make mistakes."

"Mistakes?"

"Yes. But that mistake doesn’t have to exist literally."

Harry looked confused. "I don’t understand."

Edward shrugged. "You’ll figure it out. Besides, we’re also going to watch a show. Don’t you like dramatic movies about political intrigue?" Edward asked.

"Movies? What’s a movie?" Harry turned to look at him, even more confused than before.

And Edward burst out laughing. "Plays, I suppose."

"Oh." Harry nodded. "I like dramatized stories of political intrigue," he admitted, though honestly he didn’t understand what that question was getting at.

"Then you’ll enjoy it, even if you can’t understand it," Edward replied.

The two continued chatting idly for a while until the private carriage dropped them off on one of the roads leading to the towns neighboring Lor City.

There, Edward stood on one of the hills and looked at the town on the other side.

"Young Lord, this village..."

"Are your men ready? Let’s blow it up."

Harry’s eyes sparkled with genuine interest. "Everything is in place," he replied firmly.

Edward smiled coldly... "Very well, then let’s blow this place up. Let’s make the king fall into the trap and move to a square he shouldn’t have moved to."

Then he entered the village, and soon a series of explosions engulfed the place.

Countless landmines blew up houses and people, killing everyone there, including the undead.

Thanks to the explosives, Edward had little to do. He killed a few who were trying to escape and little else.

An hour later, Edward looked proudly at the destruction before him. "Red Moon Cave, huh." He smiled as he toyed with a token in his hand. "Since you’re after my uncle’s downfall, I’ll have to be after yours."

From a considerable distance away, amid tall trees that blocked the view, Edward sat on the roots of a large tree and watched.

There were several men around him, including Harry, who didn’t understand why they were still there.

"We’re waiting for our opponent to make his move, Harry. A chess game is played in turns," Edward laughed.

"I know that..." Harry shook his head and sat down beside him, giving up. He didn’t exactly understand what the hell Edward was doing, but he trusted him.

After another hour of waiting, there was finally movement around the destroyed village.

"Is someone coming?" Harry lowered his voice.

"Don’t talk too much while that man is nearby," Edward whispered.

Harry’s eyes widened when he saw the person’s identity... Alric Dorne, the highest-ranking instructor at the current academy.

Alric walked alone from the carriage stop to this spot to investigate. He was still wearing his academy uniform.

But as soon as he arrived, his body froze.

"What happened here?" Alric quickly stepped forward to investigate.

The entire town lay in ruins, with no trace of anything in particular, leaving him stunned. Even beneath the rubble, there was nothing but ashes and body parts of people and undead.

"This mission..." Alric suddenly trembled.

"I..." Without a second thought, he turned around and hurried back toward the carriage.

"Where are you going, Instructor Alric?" A voice echoed from every corner at that moment. "Come on, we need to investigate what happened here."

After a chuckle, Owen appeared. He was wearing a full black suit with some gold trim. His body exuded a calmness capable of killing his enemies.

"E-Elder Owen." Alric forced a smile. "Did you come to investigate as well? I was on my way back to the academy to let you know that some things have happened."

"Haha, I couldn’t resist the urge and had to come." Owen looked toward the village. "I can see that things aren’t going well, so come and investigate. I want to see what happened."

Alric hadn’t moved from his spot yet. "S-sir, I’m not a mage from the Information Group..."

"That doesn’t matter when it comes to something this obvious." Owen quickly interjected his thoughts.

Alric swallowed hard and finally nodded. "You’re right, Elder." He clenched his teeth and turned to walk toward the village again.

After walking for a while, Owen stopped and looked up at the sky.

"Instructor Alric, what do you think of this place?" he asked.

"The village, Elder Owen?" Alric turned to look at him. "It was a pretty village before all this. The villages around here are usually pretty because of the flowers that grow everywhere."

"You’re right, though that’s not what I meant." Owen shook his head and looked down, staring intently at Harry. "I’m talking like a tomb."

Alric blinked a couple of times and his heart tightened. "I don’t think the villagers deserved to die like that."

"How strange. The mission order indicated the coming massacre, and you didn’t object."

"Dying by the sword versus dying burned to a crisp are different kinds of pain. Even though the end result is the same, one hurts more than the other. Maybe I’m too much of a humanist." Alric laughed.

Owen laughed back, but said nothing. He simply bent down and grabbed one of the burning embers. He didn’t feel a shred of pain, and the ember ended up shattering into pieces.

"I don’t think you’ve understood yet." Owen stood up once more and flicked the ashes from the extinguished ember at him. "I’m asking what you think of this place as your grave." His cold words seemed to freeze Alric’s limbs; he didn’t move an inch.

His whole body began to sweat.

"If you had no connections to the Red Moon Cave, why did you think the letter was here, Alric Dorne?" Owen asked suddenly. His eyes turned dangerous.

Alric swallowed hard, but answered. "I-I had no idea, elder. I-I actually got lucky."

"Lucky, huh." Owen shrugged. "Luck alone couldn’t have let you turn that mission in as completed, just by using the contents of an old scroll that could have come from the city’s junk street."

"That’s because that letter..."

"And remember, you don’t know what’s in the letter, Alric Dorne." Owen spared him any excuses.

Finally, Alric realized something.

He’d screwed up.

He’d fallen into a trap someone had set for him. He tried to think of something quickly, but having run out of excuses—being a bit of a man of few words—he was forced to look around to see who the bastard was who’d lured him into that trap.

’Edward...’ He couldn’t help but recall that name.

"Don’t think about anything else, Alric Dorne. You can actually make mistakes faster than we thought in the council of elders. Someone set a banana peel for you, and I took it upon myself to lead you right to it... I must say I’m proud; you fell like a ripe piece of fruit."

"You..." Alric tried to retort, but no words came out of his mouth.

He tried to figure out what had happened, and when he finally understood, his body shook.

From the very beginning, Edward had set a trap for him, using his own knowledge against him. It had all been a game, and he’d fallen for it easily.

From the moment he handed in the mission to the moment the village was destroyed, not much time could have passed. The ground was still hot from the explosions, so it couldn’t have been long.

Despite that... he had lost.

The problem was that Owen was the one who made him lose. He hadn’t realized it before, but some of his questions had been trick questions...

"So you wanted to destroy it; that’s why you gave them that mission..." Owen smiled as he reminded him of those words—the very ones Alric was thinking.

His response to that statement was: "That was my plan."

"That doesn’t mean I’m a traitor..." Alric said suddenly.

"Well, that guy did a thorough job, you know? Actually, they don’t just have one mission right now. They got two that day—didn’t you notice? Both involved destroying certain infrastructure through treachery."

"But you rushed to this one, even though the other was closer. And when we talked, you didn’t even remember that mission. Because you knew where that letter was."

Finally, Alric clenched his fists in anger. "Damn..."

"Heh, looks like you finally noticed. I’ve been managing those missions very closely because from the start we knew who you were, Alric Dorne."

Alric jerked his head up and glared menacingly at Owen. "You’re a has-been; I’m in the prime of my life. I’m already on par with the elders, and you think you can kill me all by yourself? Since you’ve already found me, I have nothing left to say. I’ll kill you and bring your head to the Lady. You’re the only one standing in the way of our plans in this damned territory," he shouted.

His body was surrounded by a powerful energy, and a massive beast appeared, roaring behind him. It was a huge, imposing orangutan. It stood over three meters tall, and its musculature was several times that of any muscular human.

It possessed enviable strength.