Chapter 181: City In Need
Lake was getting tired of waiting, turning to Freed he said. "I feel like they should be back by now." He didn't actually think this because he had ridden the Elevators multiple times and it took a while. He was just saying this to see if he could waste time locating other Demon Worshipers while they were waiting for the people who went to the guild to come back.
"It shouldn't be much longer." Lake had expected for Freed to say something like this so he said his prepared line. "I'm gonna go out and check the city for the rest of the time until they get back. I'm worried something might happen while we're all here." Freed seemed on board with this plan of his and said. "I'll get you a map that has some hotspots for you to check."
Freed had seen what he could do earlier so Lake was sure now that he had offered Freed was excited to see what he found. Freed came back after a few minutes of talking with other team leaders with a hand drawn map that told him where he should go. Lake took it from him and said. "Thank you."
Lake planned to look everywhere later but he didn't have as much time as he would need so going to these few places would have to do for now. As he was reading the map, Lake realized the first place was extremely close to where they were now and it made him think the one who got away probably went here.
Since finding them was his whole reason to be looking at all, Lake went straight there and used Detector to look for them. Walking past the building Lake didn't see any marks made by Detector so he switched it to just look for all Demon Worshipers real quick so he could mark this location off of his map if there was nothing here.
Seeing nothing around Lake knew it didn't mean there was actually nothing here because the base could just be empty now or much deeper than the last few so out of his range but he doubted that would be the case since such an important thing had been only about twenty feet under ground in the last base they had raided.
Looking at his map again Lake planned out how to get to the next location and did his best to follow the hastily drawn map and while in route saw something he hadn't expected. Detector lit up someone walking on the street. Lake got excited because he felt this had a good chance of being the Demon Worshiper that had run earlier just in plain clothes so Lake went ahead and marked them.
He had no way to confirm this though so after following them for a while to see if they were heading in the direction of any of the marked areas on his map he moved on to continue what he was doing. Once he was at the next location Lake did a walk by like he always did and while he didn't find a bunch of Demon Worshipers underground like he had at the other locations he found this house did in fact have a few inside.
He wondered if this just happened to be where they lived on a day to day basis and had no idea if he should even bother to kill them. If they were just living here in this territory with no nefarious plans of their own they didn't seem that important but at the same time it wouldn't really take him very long to get rid of them so there wasn't really a reason not to.
They probably did have bad things they were a part of as well, he just didn't think it looked that way from how they were acting currently but everyone needed time off he guessed. It did make him wonder why the guild had been able to get their hands on where they lived though, like where had the intel came from that had led them to check out this place.
He guessed one of the spies had just found out that some of the Demon Worshipers came here at times and handed the information over without knowing what was here. Looking down at his map, Lake went ahead and marked that this location had something to do with the Demon Worshipers and moved on to the next closest.
A few streets over he was still inside the residential area of the city and outside of the next building that was marked on the map. Like the first place he had gone to he saw nothing with Detector so he quickly moved on to the next place. This next location was the first on the map that wasn't just a house and from the smokestacks on its roof it was pretty clear it was some sort of smithy.
In a place like the Metal Domain it wasn't weird that the Demon Worshipers would have at least one or two places to make equipment but when Detector found nothing and Lake was able to see that there were people inside working he wondered if this place was just selling things to the Demon Worshipers and not actually part of their plan.
He wasn't planning to run inside and start accusing them of this though so he looked at his map and moved on to the final location. It was another business but as he was arriving and walking around it to let Detector do its thing, Lake saw someone who he recognized, it was the Demon Worshiper he had seen on the road earlier.
They slowly made their way up to one of the buildings on the street he was on and he watched as they walked inside the building. Once they were inside Lake used Detector and after they left his range he switched to the mark he had placed on them earlier to see them descending way further down where Detector's range could ever hope to reach.
Lake couldn't help but smile, if it hadn't been for them he would have missed this entirely but now he wouldn't have to worry about not knowing if this was an actual place the Demon Worshipers were using and trying to sneak inside to see without freaking anyone inside out. Marking this location, Lake started to head back towards the others.
He had killed a good amount of time by doing this and he would be able to pass the rest by talking to Freed about the things he had found. Returning Lake saw that they were still waiting for the people who had gone to the guild to get help so he found Freed and started up a conversation.
...
Donny looked up at the stone city and couldn't help but wonder why they had made the top tier taller. A lot of the important human families lived there so it was probably a status thing and had no real use but he did think it made the city look better at a distance. The next thing he noticed was the amount of unrest in the city.
Usually the people of the Metal Domain were very calm and worked hard so seeing them make any noise told you there was something bad going on in the city. It seemed the situation had become more serious in the time it had taken him to get here. Realizing this made him feel sort of bad about the fact that the only reason he had come to help was for money.
This was where he had grown up so the fact that he hadn't really cared made him realize just how much he had changed since he had left home and wondered what the other members of his family were doing about this. If he had never left he was sure he would be with a few of his cousins as they cleared out the infestation that was the Demon Worshipers and while that seemed like what he really wanted if he thought about it there was something he had always wanted more.
Because of all the training he and his father had done together Donny had spent a lot of time listening to what his father said about the shield and how it was made as not only a test but a training method for those who had the potential to become subordinates of the God of Metal and before he had even realized the test in the shield was all he really cared about.
Being power hungry wasn't a good thing and it had led to a lot of bad decisions that at the time he hadn't thought were that big of a deal but eventually all of them had led him to becoming a person of interest for the Demon Lord and had really changed his life for the worse. Donny's mood was starting to fall so he decided he should stop thinking and get back to work.
Looking at the only other member of the Fighters guild that was with his group Donny said. "I'm going to the guild are you coming?" Donny had learned by now not to expect any words as an answer and just decided that she didn't look like she was mad at him for talking to her as a yes. With them here at the city their mission to protect people was over so they could go to the guild and get their money but he planned to actually just start helping with whatever was going on.
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