Chapter 55

Chapter 55 - Hidden Undercurrents

Deep underground in the underground city of the capital of the Beast Folk Territory, some communication was being passed along and eventually landed in the hands of an elderly lizard folk in a long robe.

"So, the hero party did indeed arrive."

"Indeed, it really was a big problem that you humans had caused for such variables to appear in the plan."

In the room was once again an assortment of different types of beast folk with a lizard elder at the head. The second speaker who was a fox lady had aimed her words opposite the side of the beast folk where a few humans in dark cloaks sat with dark expressions on their faces. 

One of them wanted to explode at the beasts in retaliation but was held back with a single raise of the hand by their leader. 

"On behalf of our comrades troubles, I give my condolences. However, the fact that they could be found and that the humans had grown suspicious of you all is not entirely our fault. After all, those prying eyes have been watching the movements here for a long time haven't they?"

When he said this, the other elders all began to grit their teeth in frustration. As this human had said, they had to retract many of their businesses underground during this period because of a large flux in the amount of human visitors arriving at this time. 

As this was nearing an annual festival day for beast folk, these elders had expected for things to have been like they always were and for them to finally have the opportunity to concoct their hidden plan while the other nations were unaware. Unfortunately for them, recently they have been spying around and found many newcomers in recent days who appeared in various locations checking many places out. 

Because of them, several operations that they had kept hiding had suddenly come up to the spotlight and so this capital suddenly came under scrutiny. Because of those suspicions, the arrogant house cats who believe that they truly have maintained their rule through their own skill have started to crack down on and check many places. 

It is because of this sudden increased scrutiny that many of the original plans to make their ceremony foolproof had suddenly failed. It even reached a point where they had to turn to working alongside what they considered as 'filthy humans' like these guys in front of them.

They believed that they should be the de facto rulers of the era rather than humans. After all, they had the same level of reproductive rate to take over plenty of territory while also having the natural abilities to overwhelm an ordinary human. It is just that every generation of humans always had some sort of shining figure to lead them to brightness every time the beast folk attempted to crush them.

For them, these circumstances appeared to be a sick joke. Especially when figures like those always appeared as suddenly as a shooting star and grow wildly to the point where they can surpass most threats easily. It seemed unfair that humans seemed so blessed by divine providence. 

That is why several generations back the elders had decided to feign abandonment and hide further underground in order to wait and see the changes in the situation and to await the so called prophecy to break the situation. 

According to an old astrologer sage elder from several generations back, there will be a generation that under specific circumstances would find an opportunity to change the race. Whether the change was for good or bad was not stated, but these old codgers would of course never believe that what they were doing was bad. 

So after they found that this year and era had matched the circumstances left behind by that elder, they were both happily surprised and profoundly worried at the changing situation. 

After all, trees increasingly intense situation is adding credence that this time point is indeed an important turning point for us beast folk, but the variables added also made the final result seem rather nebulous at this current point in time. 

"Humph, let's end this back and forth here for now."

Tapping it's old wooden staff on the ground, the leading beastfolk elder then grabbed the others attention before stating his own piece. 

"Just the hero party's presence alone is not enough to discard the plans that we have made. After all, the hero has not yet fully grown to his full potential. How could such a young'un compare with someone like that Bloody Hel? We already made plans targeting her so that hero is even less of a problem."

After hearing his thoughts, some of the elders nodded along with approval at his thoughts while some of the elders showed no change in expressions. Even some of them showed visible disapproval, but seeing the overall trend chose to remain neutral. 

When the elder was done with their side, it was then time for the humans to give their side's end of the deal. After all, the beast folk had invited them to help their own ceremonial preparations by being a back up helper. If they did not show strength equivalent to the price then they could end up in trouble. 

Clicking his tongue in annoyance, the head of the human side was forced to show his cards a little earlier than he had expected. But it was no matter. For the plan was already under way and hiding their strength would no longer help with the current volatile situation. 

"Huh. You know us three brothers are most certainly here. Alongside us, Shadow has of course brought his Shadow Serpent. Although some of his members had suffered a defeat previously, he has already dispatched a group to arrive three days before the celebration. This time he is sending half of his forces. In addition to that, old bones over here has got a legion of undead on standby. How about that?"

Although he said a lot about their preparations, the elders did not take his bluff and the old lizard finally cracked open his eyes wide. Hidden under those eyelids were gray piercing vertical pupils that bore holes into the central figure. 

"Don't try to fool me, boy. Our elder council are not like those foolish human states. There is no way that 'you' of all people would have not made any preparations. After all, you are the Bloody Hand of Death for this generation. Am I right?

Showing a mocking smile at the human, the old lizard smiled even harder when they sensed that slight change in mood from that center human. Although he hid it immediately afterwards, that small glance was enough to confirm many of his guesses.

Figuring that the play was over, the cloak over the center leader of the humans was finally taken off and his full appearance was shown to the group. 

"It seems like I truly underestimated the capabilities of you beasts."

"How dare-"

As one of the elders, a bear beast folk, raised his voice towards the leader of the humans for disobeying, the lizard old man made a move and shot out his staff in the direction of the elder. 

Before the elder could react, they were pushed back several steps and winced in pain backwards. 

"Old fool what are you-"

Opening his wincing eyes, he saw that right where he was originally sat, a crystal clear ruby spike of blood had pierced right where he was standing. Had he not been moved, his head would have been skewered by the spike and he would for certain have been killed. 

Wiping the cold sweat that just ran down his back, the others also remained in hushed quiet in this situation. An aura of beastial ferocity emanated from the lizard folk as an aura red like rubies spread from the center human. After their auras clashed for a few seconds, they both withdrew their auras and sat back in their seats. 

"So that is how it is. Then I suppose... we have an agreement?"

In response, the leader of the humans only silently nodded his head as the voices around them all quieted down. With this, the operations between the two sides would be both more intimate than before as they both strived to complete their own goals.

Unbeknownst to the citizens above, a conspiracy was about to rear its ugly head towards them all and all of it lead to a week later. All on the festival of Rebirth. 

Even if the true conspiracy was unknown, the tense atmosphere in the embassy for the Aloph empire still worked around the clock to try to see through this conspiracy as soon as possible. 

Time slowly passed since the hero party had arrived at the area and remained on guard. It was the second day after they had arrived and the group was all together practicing their hands with another group that was guarding the area. 

It was a simple spar so both sides simply used their basic physical skills or weak spells to move around and keep people on their toes. 

After they were done and both sides were wiping the sweats on their own bodies, a messenger quickly arrived informing the hero party to head on over. 

"It seems like some progress has been made."

After saying this, Luke and the rest of us then quickly followed after the messenger over to a large office where the head guard of the embassy was waiting. 

"Quite timely, there is a new mission for you to prepare for."

At the seat of the office sat the Boss Lady now leaning forward lazily with her elbows on the table with her hands covering the lower half of her mouth. She then reached over and pushed a file over to the other side of the desk as she waited for Luke to pick up and check the sheet. 

"Let's see."

Checking the sheet, I saw that when he read through the first part of the mission briefing his eyes squinted a bit as his grip on the folder had tightened. Leaning over his shoulders along the others to take a peek, I noticed the wording of the briefing was rather short yet informative. 

It spoke mostly about the reason for suspicion at the head where several bodies were found in the woods outside the capital after some spies had tracked a few beast folk heading out of the city. 

After taking the bodies out of their buried bags, they were then pieced together and analyzed until it was found that one of the people shown was a beast folk that had been seen being carried into the city that had then afterwards gone missing. 

What was strange was that the blood in the corpse was mostly drained away so the corpses look emaciated as if they had an encounter with a vampire from legend. 

Following this was a quiet investigation of those corpse removers which revealed that they were part of a company that is hired to deal with corpses that need to be discarded by various people. Usually the information of their clients would be kept hidden, but many places in the gray area like these would keep records of their transactions for emergency purposes should they ever need to deal with the ones who have hired them.

But those records are not privy to just anyone. In fact, such information would have to be kept as secure as possible. Should their clients find traces of such investigation on them, that would be more than enough grounds to deal with a small organization like that. 

So these spies sent by the Empire had been employed to sneak in and search for the record in order to narrow down their search of the potential culprit of the mysterious happenstance in the city. 

This was all a work in progress from even before we arrived and only now did the boss lady get news that their mission had succeeded. Having copied down the names of the organizations that had supposedly been working for them, the information was then passed down to the embassies hidden analysts in order to narrow down further the groups that they should investigate. 

Now that all of it was over, there were three mainly suspicious areas that required some finesse to investigate. Of course, there were others that had some suspicions as well and we were to be sent to search one of those exact locations. 

"So, are you up for the task?"

She said it while knowing the exact answer she was going to receive. After all, she herself was one of the higher ups at the Aloph Empire and obviously knew the personality of their famed hero. 

"Leave it to us."

Without another word, he turned around to go and prepare to head out to solve our side of the investigation. Following him, we heard her say her words of encouragement as we returned to our room to prepare together as a group all of our supplies and resources to come up with a foolproof strategy for this mission.