Chapter 224

In Rumanus, the army and the police were the knife and the whetstone that protected the Consul’s power. That was why, to ordinary Rumanus citizens, soldiers and police were not symbols of safety but of fear. For comparison, they were worse than Germany’s secret police, the Gestapo, and even harsher than the police in China.

“Holy shit, we actually won!”

“Did you see their faces? Those bastards were scared out of their minds. Soldiers, police, all of them! They were begging us to spare them!”

For people who had lived their entire lives being oppressed and stripped of everything, this victory couldn’t help but feel special.

“Move, move, move! This isn’t over yet!”

However, people on the bottom rarely got the luxury of celebrating even a small win. All they had really gained was a handful of weapons stolen from one corner of a massive armory. What they had put on the line was their lives. They had also put the lives of everyone connected to them on the line.

“We get out through the tunnels while the Consul’s dogs are still scrambling!”

Because of that, the resistance didn’t even look back as they fled Rumanus the moment the operation ended. At a midpoint on the escape route toward the tunnels, they were joined by another group of women and children. They were the families of the fighters who had taken part in the operation.

At least they aren’t completely stupid, Do-Jin thought.

As he moved with them, he felt a flicker of reluctant respect. They were amateurs at this kind of operation, but they clearly knew how to run and hide. The fact that they planned to flee the country entirely to avoid the inevitable backlash, and that they brought their families with them, showed that much.

A young boy’s scream suddenly snapped Do-Jin out of his thoughts. The boy had been running hard, but he stumbled and collapsed right in front of him. The woman holding his hand turned back with a face gone pale.

“Watch your step,” Do-Jin said, scooping the child up in one motion. “I can carry him.”

“Th-thank you,” the mother responded a bit late.

Eventually, they reached the mine entrance. Far behind them, powerful lights swept back and forth, cutting through the darkness. The pursuit had already begun.

“Get inside, move! Guides to the front! Everyone else, don’t lose sight of the person ahead of you! If you get lost in there, you’re dead, so keep that in mind!”

At the commander’s shout, the resistance members and their families slipped into the tunnel through the hidden passage they had prepared. Lining up and squeezing into a small hole under cover of darkness, they looked like rats fleeing from humans. Considering how Rumanus, the Consul, and his lackeys had always called them rats, the sight felt bitterly ironic.

“Hurry! Move faster!”

The commander stayed behind to make sure every last person got inside. At the very end of the line were a woman, a child, and a mage. The mage was supporting the exhausted woman while she carried the child on her back.

“S-sorry we’re late,” the woman said as she approached.

Seeing that, the commander felt a strange sense of disconnect.

I swear, he just looked like a devil moments ago.

The mage who had rained fire and ice on their enemies had looked like something straight out of a nightmare, but here he was escorting a helpless child and his mother.

“Let’s go!” The commander scolded himself for having such useless thoughts and gave the woman’s back a gentle push.

After he confirmed that everyone had entered, the commander activated the device. The mechanism collapsed the entrance to the narrow side passage they had created and the path behind them was sealed.

***

As night fell, the wraith monsters that naturally thrived at this hour began to go completely feral in the tunnels. The Rumanus Free Revolutionary Army knew that when they chose this route. Every one of them understood that no matter how hard they fought or how fast they ran, casualties were almost inevitable.

Even so, they had chosen to move and flee at night because the Consul’s hounds terrified them far more than any wraith ever could. Moreover, with Do-Jin on their side, they suffered no casualties that night, an unusual occurrence.

The resistance fighters, their families, and Do-Jin made it out of the tunnels safely and reached a hideout they had prepared long ago.

“You put some real work into this,” Do-Jin said.

The hideout was more solid than he had expected. There was a decent stockpile of long-lasting food, and other necessities were stacked in wooden crates. The surrounding environment was so harsh that it was barely suitable for people to live in, but that also meant the risk of being discovered was low.

“We did put in the work. With what little we had, getting even this much together wasn’t easy,” someone behind him replied.

When Do-Jin turned around, the commander was standing there. He held out a warm cup, from which the smell of potato soup wafted its way over.

As he took the cup, Do-Jin mentioned, “Your raid plan was such a mess that I thought you were completely hopeless. Looking at this, though, you’re not beyond saving.”

“That’s because we don’t really know how to fight. But doing things like running, hiding, and sneaking things out, we’re damn good at that. You don’t grow up hungry without learning those skills early.”

It was a story so bitter, Do-Jin had to wash it down with the salty soup.

“So what now?” he asked.

“Our revolutionary army is spread out wide and thin. The ones who caused trouble are all pulled back here, so as long as the others keep their heads down, they shouldn’t be discovered.”

The commander took a sip of soup and continued. “We still have plenty of rat holes dug. We will keep shaking things from the inside and the outside. There’s only so much they can do to control information. When enough people learn that we exist, it will get harder and harder for them to deal with us rising up from both sides.”

He let out a deep breath. “At least, that was our thinking before the full military parade.”

If the mages from the Empire had already given the Consul that much power in such a short time, then what would happen as more time passed? The anxiety was eating at him. He knew something had to be done, but he had no clear idea what or how.

Sensing the hesitation, Do-Jin set down his unfinished soup, pulled out a roll of leaves, and lit it. The smoke, mingling with the cool night air, carried a faint scent of mana.

“I’ll help you deal with those bastards. Is your organization’s intelligence actually usable?”

The commander gave a short chuckle. “Intelligence? Of course it is. Our people are everywhere. We just never had anyone who could really fight. Now we even have the Consul’s son cooperating with us, so even upper-level information, as limited as it is, is not completely out of reach.”

“And yet you still couldn’t get close to information about those mages or the Chimeras.”

If they could have, they would never have gone all the way to the Empire.

“Give me one too.” The commander held out his hand. He looked like the frustration had finally made him cave in to the temptation.

Do-Jin lit one and handed it over.

“Cough, cough, what the hell?!” The commander choked violently. “What the hell is this? Are you smoking poison or something?”

Tears welled up in his eyes as he glared at Do-Jin with pure resentment.

Do-Jin burst out laughing. “This isn’t tobacco. This is what mages use to stabilize and strengthen their circuits.”

He burned the rest of his own roll down completely, turning it into ash and letting it scatter into the air before continuing, “You’re right. Giving them more time does nothing but screw us. Those bastards won’t stop for a second. They’ll just keep cranking out more power. You said your intel network is decent, right? Then look into places where mana stones and food, especially meat, have been getting shipped in heavy volume lately.”

“Mana stones? Meat? Why are you looking for those?”

“You said it yourself. At the parade, they rolled out Chimera units and troops armed with magitech gear. You think that shit was made in someone’s backyard?”

At Do-Jin’s words, the commander’s expression twisted slightly. It was the look of someone who had just connected a few ugly dots.

“Chimeras and magitech equipment both need facilities and materials. Both of those chew through massive amounts of mana stones. On top of that, Chimeras need a stupid amount of food to keep the fusion stock alive and growing,” Do-Jin explained.

“So mana stones and food supplies...”

“No matter how well you try to hide it, logistics always leave a trail. If a place that used to burn through one unit of mana stones suddenly starts taking five, or a site that used a hundred suddenly starts chewing through three hundred, that means something is going on there.”

The commander didn’t waste another second. He stood up and moved quickly. “Mana stones and meat... Or food supplies in general. That’s enough, right? I’ll find someone who knows.”

As the commander hurried off, Do-Jin thought to himself, Even if they can’t dig it up from this side, Altos can probably get this level of information without much trouble.

Althos and Kate had been pulled out of this operation. From a strategic standpoint, it made far more sense for Althos, the Consul’s son, and Kate, a military officer, to stay embedded in enemy territory without exposing themselves. Through them, getting information like this wouldn’t be difficult at all.

The Cult of Ruin isn’t building up the Consul’s power for his sake. They’re planning to turn him into a puppet or use him however they want, then absorb everything he’s built for themselves.

They would use that power to cause even bigger disasters. If production was being pushed this hard and interference started hitting them for real, then the Cult of Ruin would have to react.

And even if that’s not the case, smashing their production is still worth it.

For now, his plan was simply to break everything in their path.

***

“We found a source!”

It hadn’t even been a few minutes before the commander came back. He looked a little excited as he said he had found people with useful information.

“I, I work at a slaughterhouse. My name’s Dorothy,” a young woman stammered, shifting nervously as she went on. “At the slaughterhouse, we butcher pigs and send the meat to several military units and restaurants in neighborhoods where high-ranking people live. But that’s changed recently.”

She explained that meat that should have been spread out to multiple places had started getting sent to a single military unit instead.

“And after a while, they told us to package everything except the bones. Blood, organs, skin, all of it. Nothing gets thrown away anymore and that part really sucked for us.”

Then someone else came forward with information about mana stones. “I worked as a porter at the border. When merchants from other countries brought goods in, I helped unload and move them.”

He talked about the day he got beaten half to death.

“There were four of us carrying a crate together when one guy collapsed because it was so damn heavy. The box broke open, and everything inside spilled across the ground. They were blue stones and one of the guys said they were mana stones.”

The soldiers beat the porters badly and hauled off a wagon loaded with mana stones toward a wasteland area that only had a small outpost. It was, by coincidence, the exact opposite of the area where the recent terror attack had taken place.

The Consul’s probably running around with his head up his ass right now, Do-Jin thought.

Just like that, their next target was decided.