[Vol. 7] Chapter 75: Blending In!
As the darkness finally lifted and light returned to the little dragon girl's vision, she found herself inside a large storage shed. Around her, thick ceramic jars of uniform size were neatly arranged in rows. If she listened closely, she could catch snippets of hurried conversation coming from outside.
The language they were speaking was one of the common languages known as [Veir Language]. Since she had studied it for some time, she could roughly understand their argument even without relying on the translation tool her master had given her.
"Are you all idiots?! Using the power granted by our god in a public place, inside the most heavily guarded Adventurers' Guild. Are you trying to get us exposed?!"
"B-But, sir…"
"Call me Bishop!"
"Uh… Y-Yes, Bishop sir. You weren’t there to see what happened! Enrique the [Tree Bow] and Sophie the [Tree Wall] personally stepped forward to greet that little girl in white. Even Ramon’s Insight Technique was directly countered, nearly exposing us! That short black-haired woman is definitely bad news!"
"So what? What does that change?"
"Think about it! If someone can get the [Tree Bow] and [Tree Wall], two of the Guild’s top elites, to welcome them personally, that means they must at least be a Legendary-ranked Adventurer. The Adventurers' Guild is already fully focused on investigating and tracking down our movements, making things difficult for us. If they bring in another Legendary Adventurer, wouldn’t that make our situation even worse?"
"So, Ramon and I came up with an idea. While the three legendary-level adventurers were away, we quietly took the child that was with that black-haired woman. If things get dangerous, we might be able to use her as a hostage to threaten them. Plus, she has those strange horns… who knows, she could be some rare species—"
SMACK!!
A loud, forceful slap suddenly cut off the man’s scheming words. From his pained groan that followed, it was easy to guess, he had just been slapped hard.
"You absolute fool! All you do is ruin things!"
The other man, who also called himself a follower of the faith, instantly flew into a rage.
"Threaten? Threaten my ass! Do you even know what their relationship is?! What if she just picked up a lost child on the road and brought her to the guild for help? What if that woman was just passing by and had no intention of getting involved in any of this?! And now, thanks to your so-called 'brilliant idea,' you kidnapped someone connected to her, right in front of everyone! Do you have any idea how humiliating that is for a Legendary Adventurer?!"
"Uh… well…"
After taking a slap and getting scolded so harshly, the man's voice turned awkward and flustered, as if he had finally realized the huge mistake he had made.
Hah, what an idiot…
Listening in on their conversation, the little dragon girl curled her lips in disdain.
They were exactly right. While she still wasn’t entirely sure what these people were planning or why they were enemies of the so-called Adventurers’ Guild, she did know one thing. Her master wasn’t the type to interfere in troublesome matters unless she had a really good reason.
But now that she had been "kidnapped", things might not be so simple anymore.
The truth was, she had noticed those two guys, dressed like adventurers, watching them with ill intentions from a dark corner a long time ago. Her master, Violet, had probably sensed them as well but had chosen to ignore them on purpose.
This body of hers wasn’t as strong as her original form, but when it came to sensing danger and gathering information, it was even sharper. If she had wanted to, she could have caught those two fools ages ago.
Instead, she had deliberately stayed alone in the resting area, giving these two humans the perfect opportunity to act. Since her master hadn’t exposed them, it wouldn’t have been right for her to take action first. Besides, she was genuinely curious, what exactly were they planning to do in this situation, and how far did they think they could go?
Since her master had given her permission to observe everything around her in her own way, making decisions like this was no problem at all. It was just like she always said:
[Life needs a bit of the unknown, a bit of surprise. Otherwise, it’d be boring!]
Just as expected, the two adventurers slowly started moving closer to her. Maybe they thought they were acting naturally, blending in, but to the golden-haired little girl who had already noticed them, their clumsy performance was downright laughable. She was so unimpressed by their poor acting that she had to resist the urge to expose them several times. Pretending to be an innocent, clueless child was harder than she thought.
Still, in the end, their actions did give her a small sense of… unexpected amusement.
The moment they found a brief window where no one was paying attention, the two men, who had already moved within a few meters of her, suddenly rushed forward. One of them pressed a thick cloth soaked in some kind of liquid over her mouth, trying to silence her, while the other seemed to crush something in his hand from behind.
In the blink of an eye, the world around her completely changed.
The bright and noisy guild hall instantly vanished, replaced by a dimly lit, deserted alleyway.
Now that… was an interesting trick.
Having experienced the transition firsthand, Xiao Guang quickly realized that this wasn’t the spatial magic her master had previously demonstrated. Instead, it felt like a more mysterious and complex form of teleportation, one whose underlying mechanics were difficult to determine.
From what she could sense, it was as if she had been briefly sent into some unknown dimensional space before being spat out again. Only this time, the entrance and exit weren’t the same, which was why she had ended up in this exact spot.
It was an incredibly intricate process, but to an ordinary person’s senses, it had probably happened in the blink of an eye. Maybe even those two fools didn’t fully understand how it worked themselves.
This little discovery piqued her curiosity.
For now, she decided to hold off on crushing these two ants beneath her feet. Instead, she would wait and observe for a bit longer, to see what they were planning and, more importantly, where they had gotten their hands on such a power.
The damp cloth pressed against her nose and mouth had a strong, pungent smell, likely soaked in a high-concentration potion. It wasn’t hard to guess its purpose. It was clearly a type of sedative meant to knock out its target, making them unable to resist. Given the circumstances, it was easy to figure out what these guys were up to.
Kidnapping.
Were these two the "poachers" her master had mentioned before? But why were they dressed like adventurers?
Her first instinct was to beat them half to death, then step on their heads and force the truth out of them. But considering how stupid they had seemed so far, Xiao Guang seriously doubted they had any real useful information. If they tried to be sneaky and lie, dealing with them would just be a hassle.
In that case, she might as well use her current form to her advantage.
Just as her master always said, don’t mindlessly resort to violence. Keep it as a last resort. Sometimes, a little patience can bring even bigger rewards.
So, to keep their plan moving, she pretended to pass out.
Sure enough, the two fools fell for it immediately. Without any hesitation, they stuffed her into a sack they had prepared in advance and began moving with their so-called "prize."
Just as she had expected, they weren’t working alone. There were more people involved, maybe even a base of operations.
The voices outside continued.
"So, Bishop… what do we do now? Should we send this little girl back?"
"Send her back? Are you out of your goddamn mind?! What, you wanna do a 'buy one, get one free' deal?!"
The man sighed in frustration. "Forget it. Since you've already brought her here, just send her to headquarters along with the others. She fits the criteria anyway."
"We can’t stay in Layla City any longer. We leave the city immediately. Got it?"
"Yes, sir!"
Oh?
So there was an even higher-level headquarters involved in this…?