Chapter 7: Underground base
Little info dump.
~~~~~~~~~~
Spending the following weeks working none stop for bailor, Sano satisfied everything the workaholic elf requires, gaining his trust as a result; of course, cleaning came first, but with days, Sano showed tremendous interest in books. Every time he finishes with something, he started looking at them, even though he hardly understood anything.
Still, he had interior motives, getting Bailor to help him acquire the world's diction.
Someone like bailor, with a deep appreciation for enthusiastic dispositions, especially those with the hardest wills to learn, naturally couldn't overlook him. And as expected, one day, he took pity on him, giving him some of this world's basic books to start from.
Sano learned the most basic words of this new language and managed to collect some critical information he needed about his new world.
Like the black eye informed him, this world name is Astoras, governed by only one god named "Marlock," also called the god of magic; this particular world had seven kingdoms with seven religions, each one of them worships the same god.
Although the practices vary from one to the other.
The kingdom Sano reincarnated in was named Axia, the province of the Axian kights and the Catholic Church, one of the top three most influential churches between the seven.
Reading more, the books Bailor provided have few descriptions about the powers that exist in this world, yet, it was still enough for him at the moment.
Warlock was not a benevolent god; moreover, he's ruthless and paranoid at the same time;
There isn't something called a devil king or demonic creatures in this world; as soon as warlock feels threatened about something, he eradicates it instantly, not leaving any doubt in his mind, the only evil in his realm was the beasts, the environment itself, and the human race.
At first, he didn't care who would reign supreme.
Nevertheless, his creations, especially the human race, were like cockroaches on the earth;
Elves naturally could use the power of nature; dwarfs had the bee mentality as they stick together, creating a strong force not to be trifled with, and beasts naturally had allomanc cores, while humans had nothing.
Which made the sole god ultimately try to balance the powers.
After getting to such a conclusion, he allotted upon his subjects a book called the grimoire of magic, containing information about what people called sorcery, such as spells, conjecturing tools, and even alchemy.
The book was like a riddle; you can't memorize a spell if you can't understand it, even if you looked at it for hundreds of years.
However, after the book descended to the mortal world, war immediately broke down after humans found out about its use, as greed corrupted their hearts and minds.
Hundred years passed, and the war seemed like it never wanted to end.
Warlock saw this and fumed with anger, pulling the book from Astoras, leaving only Seven fortunate people who managed to memorize portions of the book's spells, which eventually became the head pops of the seven denominations.
Each of them rewrote what they memorized of the grimoire in a book, making seven holy books, ultimately, ending the war, as people saw the urgency of learning such spells.
After the seven founders' deaths, the spell's number kept deteriorating with each generation, as the nobles and high-ranking community were the only people to have access to them.
It's not like aptitude didn't have anything to do with it either; after all, only five percent of the population can become a magician. The fortunate others either become alchemists or knights, which also had the same problem of having a selectional path controlled by the church.
Sano closed the book and laid down on the floor as Bailor grinned, gawking the tired youth. He liked the kid a lot in the past three weeks he was here, exceptionally the brilliant mind the latter possessed, which he wasn't shy to use when the work had a more significant load than what he can take.
"Kid, you still need to finish the winter food containers computation for me,"
"I already did them," Sano said, looking at the ceiling as he pointed his hand toward a nearby shelf.
"Great! Now you can start doing the mines orbs production analysis" he waved his hands, and a big stack of papers flew its way into Sano's face.
Bailor wasn't trying to overwork Sano;
On his mind; he was lenient the whole time the kid was there, by his standards, a man
should work at least more than he sleeps.
"..."
Sano recalled his current progress in his delicate investigation in the little time he had every time he was ordered to bring something from the outside.
The guards of the damned footway have lunchtime at around 3 pm, but the problem laid on the quick switches between their shifts, which he estimated to be about 30 seconds for the stationary guards, While The walking guard's switches came at a later date.
Thirty seconds were enough for him to enter the gate, but twelve was a bit tricky, at least that he's sure now that the gate has a special key.
Which was put on one of the stationary guard's belt.
But that wasn't a problem for a trained assassin like him; back on the earth, he taught countless people how to open locks without the use of any key; just two elastic solid cables was enough to do the trick.
Sano sighed, lifting his body from the ground, as he said, "What about my reward?"
His objective today was to enter the gate and have a glance inside.
"Tsk, can't you get your forty minutes break later?" bailor said.
"No,"
"Hehe, frank like always, alright you can go, but remember that even if you're late a second after the forty minutes mark, you won't get any lunch,"
Sano's excitement blinded Bailor's bitter words, making him nod in return as he strolled out of the room.
Everything was timed right;
Sano takes his breaks at precisely the time the guards have lunch. And even the seconds he takes were counted using his mouth.
He stealthy walked for about ten minutes, till he reached near the narrow path, the setting was designed to have three directions, two respectably led to inside and outside, and the other was situated in the middle, making a T shaped road, the desired door was parallel with the passage in the center with the two stationary gatekeepers stood beside each edge of the door.
Waiting for the shift to switch, to grant him a few seconds to try and open the door, Sano inhaled a mouthful of air.
His patience was rewarded, as the standing guard's partner said, "Our shift has finally finished; shall we move now?"
"Yes, let's go grab some food,"
They departed, passing right where his hiding, leaving Sano to start his plan.
"1...3...4...."
"Now,"
He ran as fast as he could after the walking guards faced him with their backs; he only has twelve seconds to accomplish the task.
Rapidly, Sano reached the gate and chucked in the cables, twisting them inside the lock in an experienced way.
"Cling"
The door made a cracking noise.
Sano entered in a single motion, closing the door gently after.
The guards heard the noise and turned around to seek the source, yet, only emptiness met their eyes.
'finally am inside,'
Sano almost fell after his leap, meeting only descending stairs after the door, deeply rolling like a snake to an underground base.
The granite stairs were dug low and dark, almost thirty miters on the ground; Sano was risking a lot by going down without any prior knowledge about the site.
Yet, the dusky road helped him go down undetected.
Sano sniffed a familiar odor with each step his foot made.
'Death, these walls reek of the smell of the death.'
He already had his theories about the hidden place; at first, he considered it as a little nursing house for the baron, but who would be stupid enough to dig it underground?
With his thoughts operating, it wasn't too slow before Sano found himself in front of a hall;
He hid behind a wall and analyzed the place.
The hall was like a prison, with cages, all over the place and what looked like slaves stacked inside of each cell; some of them looked like they lost the will to live, some of them wants to scream, yet the iron mouthpiece sealed everybody voices.
'Interesting, slaves underground? Now add that to the equation; this place is some kind of human experimenting ground! No wonder I can smell death everywhere.'
Suddenly, right after, his mind jumped to that conclusion, one maid and two-men appeared from what looks like more stairs underground.
They wore a white uniform with masks, walking down the hall, as the slaves started to become restless, shaking, and weeping from the terror and danger looming in front of them.
Weekly Power Status
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