The king didn't move for a long time. He couldn't understand what had just happened.

'Monster,' he thought. He had brought a veritable monster to this world.

The fresh corpses on the floor were from Two Star Knights, trained by the best instructors and hardened by real battles. They were members of the Royal Guard, capable and experienced men.

And yet, they had been killed by a single attack from a mere Inept. Someone without a single star, zero, nothing. A common and complete mortal.

The way it had happened was simply incredible. The man had taken a step forward and seemed to blink. He had disappeared and reappeared in quick succession in a straight line towards the exit as if he were teleporting repeatedly.

Since there had been no energy expenditure, the king knew the man hadn't been teleporting, which led to the only other plausible explanation for it: the movement technique the man had used was too advanced, much beyond what the king could understand. The king's mind couldn't register the things it judged incomprehensible, so it had only captured a few glimpses of the man as he moved forward.

Another surprising thing was how the guards' actions had been completely ignored by the outsider, as if the armed men were two children playing with toy weapons. Common sense dictated that an Inept couldn't kill two Two Star Knights in direct combat, much less with such ease. Even after witnessing such a feat personally, the king still couldn't believe his own eyes.

'Monster,' he thought again, absolutely perplexed and trying to forget the man's last words:

"I'll come to reap your life."

 

 

On the other side of the doors, Aaron found himself in a long corridor with large windows. He took the opportunity to wipe his bloody hands on the curtains of a nearby window before moving on. It didn't take long for him to spot a maid carrying a fruit basket.

"Good afternoon," he said with a smile. "I'm lost. Could you take me to the exit, please?"

She almost jumped in shock when Aaron spoke to her. She had been fully focused on the job and hadn't noticed his approach.

"Sorry," she said, ashamed for having behaved in a manner unbecoming of a royal maid.

She looked at the stranger and noticed that the white robe he wore wasn't a servant's attire, but neither was it as refined as that of a regular palace guest. As a royal maid, she was used to serving only nobles and powerful men, but the orders given to servants were clear: any guest was a royal guest and should be treated with total courtesy and professionalism, regardless of their status in the outside world or how the servants felt about them.

"This way, milord," she said and guided him to the exit.

Aaron followed her in silence. He wanted to talk to her, ask some questions, but he stopped himself. Any contact with this maid could become a calamity in her life. He had just killed two guards, and the king didn't look like a prudent person who would respond reasonably to the threat he had received. Anyone Aaron associated with could end up as a target for the man's wrath.

During the few minutes it took to reach the exit, he silently observed the riches of the Roman-style palace. It had plenty of statues of ivory and gold, paintings that covered entire walls, and comfortable carpets of animal skins. The kingdom might be under attack by evil enemies, as the king had said, but the situation wasn't bad enough if there was still so much wealth on display. Wars were expensive businesses, and losing wars bankrupted entire nations.

At last, the maid left Aaron at the palace door. "Here we are, milord."

"Thanks," he said before leaving.

On the outside, he found a vast garden around the palace, surrounded by tall, thick gray stone walls. Dozens of guards were on the walls, and groups of three were making rounds in the garden. At least this view, of a strong security scheme, was more in line with a nation at war.

The guards wore plate armor, and he considered his own clothes. He was wearing the same white robe before coming to this world, but in his home universe, that outfit was armor capable of withstanding even blows powerful enough to destroy stars. Here, he wasn't so sure. The robe looked the same, but he couldn't use any energy outside his body to check its intricacies, and he had designed it to look common to mortals. So, he did a simple test; he touched the robe with one of his still slightly bloody fingers and waited for a few moments. The red smear didn't disappear.

'Just ordinary clothes,' he concluded. His old clothes, besides protecting him, also automatically cleaned themselves, a common feature found in any magical armor of at least a passable level.

Now aware that he would have no magical defense if he went into battle, he headed towards the closest gate on the walls. The guards looked curiously at him, but he ignored them, looking straight ahead, walking like someone full of power and arrogance. As expected, no one dared to bar his way.

That probably wouldn't work if he were trying to enter the palace instead, but the guards weren't there to prevent anyone from leaving. Luckily for them, the king hadn't ordered them to stop Aaron either. That saved them from becoming compost for the garden.

On the other side of the portcullis, he found a wide paved street with large Roman-style buildings on both sides. The closest buildings had sizeable gardens, high walls, and many guards protecting them. As the houses moved away from the palace, fewer guards were visible, the gardens became smaller, and the walls lower, until, finally, the buildings became glued to the street.

Between the palace walls and the nearest building, there was a distance of about one hundred meters, probably so that enemies would have nowhere to hide during an attack. However, Aaron was surprised to see an open-air market occupying that empty area just to his right. That was a terrible strategic decision for a nation at war.

Dozens of stalls and carriages were lined up, facing each other, leaving corridors between them where hundreds of consumers and onlookers walked through. People talked, laughed, negotiated, and argued. Most of the customers wore expensive-looking clothes and were followed by bodyguards in armor of all kinds.

Aaron had come to save the universe, but whoever had caged the Core would likely not watch quietly while an outsider came to destroy their Cage. He needed to mingle with the people of that world and cover up the advance of his power as nothing more than the natural consequence of any person's common ambition.

Of course, with his knowledge and experience, he would walk the paths of power much faster than ordinary people. Yet, he couldn't show any desire to save the Core until he was powerful enough to defend himself from the Cage and its creator.

A similar reason had prevented him from further investigating the kingdom before coming to this universe. Focusing his attention on that region would have attracted the attention of powerful local forces even if the Cage ignored him. Knowing that he would become a mere mortal temporarily, thus unable to protect himself against a powerful foe, he had chosen a measure of anonymity and, consequently, ignorance.

Not that he was completely anonymous. He had been summoned from another world, and that brought its own kind of attention with it. He would have to make some shows of power here and there, lest people try to capture and dissect his alien self. Also because he had been summoned, he couldn't just disappear into a corner to grow stronger until he could challenge the Cage. It or its creator would certainly wonder what he planned. Instead, he needed to show it that he only wanted to integrate into that universe, world, and society, that he saw nothing wrong with either.

He also hadn't chosen absolute ignorance. He had been bold enough to at least assimilate the local language before coming to this world, though the local customs and the political-economic-social structure of that kingdom were still a great unknown.

Therefore, Aaron needed to understand society and find out what ticked those people, so he could pretend that he was the same and mix with them. Fortunately, the little he had seen so far had already given him a good idea of ​​what the local ambitions would be, the same as most places he visited in his long life: wealth and power.

And what better place to confirm his assumption than a market next to the palace, full of wealthy people and merchants, where money ran unimpeded and power was displayed as a trophy?

Better yet, he had the perfect technique for collecting information in such an environment.

Spying Arts: Explicit Harmonization!

He stepped ahead, but he didn't just take one step after another. He harmonized with the environment, his aura became as common as that of a landscape, and his presence all but disappeared.

People still saw him, but he didn't look dangerous or noteworthy. It was as if he had become a quiet, curious, cute, and polite child that no one cared to have around. Obviously, if someone were worried about a secret, even a child would be suspicious. But most people were having superficial conversations or negotiating trivial things and didn't care if an innocent-looking bystander heard what they said.

He observed the magic items for sale, the currency used, the way people negotiated, how the bodyguards were submissive to those they followed...

He heard conversations about betrayal, politics, economics, religion, customs, gossip...

He felt the different energies present in the air and in the enchanted items people wore...

Time passed.

 

 

Tia needed a Rogue and her last chance to find one was at the Royal Market.

That was the place Rogues feared the most for three good reasons. First, the Royal Guard was a constant presence, with guards even watching from the top of the palace walls that the Market touched. Second, the merchants were mostly at the Two Star level and hated Rogues with a passion. Third, the customers were almost all nobles, and any attempt to steal from them was punished by a beating and the cutting of a hand, at the very least.

Rogues were not thieves by definition, but their range of skills certainly opened doors — often literally — in the darker side of society and gave them the negative reputation they held. She herself didn't believe in the existence of honest Rogues, and no dishonest Rogues would want to join an Honored Unit like hers unless they were very brave.

The same bravery required to steam from someone in the Royal Market.

Unfortunately, her chances of spotting a Rogue before the Royal Guard and the paranoid merchants did were slim. She still tried though. Throughout the morning and most of the afternoon, she watched the people at the market. The guards approached her multiple times, suspicious of someone who was just walking around buying nothing and interacting with no one.

Shortly after the sixth patrol questioned her, she concluded that they were too good at their jobs and gave up on competing with them. She stopped walking to turn around and return to the guild.

That was when someone hit her, almost knocking her to the ground.

"Sorry," said the one who had bumped on her, a guy in his early twenties, and left before she could reply.

Tia frowned and watched him. Where in the seven hells had he come from? She was at the Royal Market for hours and hours and hadn't noticed him. Worse, she hadn't even noticed that had been behind her!

Now that she thought about it, the way he walked away after apologizing was way too smooth. He moved just noisy enough that no one would be frightened by his sudden appearance, but silent enough to go completely unnoticed by the casual observer.

She used the Heavenly Skill Check Level skill on him, and it showed that he was an Inept.

But she was a One Star Markswoman! How was it possible that she had been the one to almost fall to the ground when they had collided? He had bumped into her as soon as she had suddenly stopped walking, so he couldn't have planned it.

The only explanation was that he walked impressively stably, which was something only experienced combatants or those with excellent instructors were capable of.

The more she analyzed the situation, the more suspicious she became. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a monocle, and looked at the young man through it. Nothing changed in his level check.

After watching him for a while, she couldn't stop smiling. He was discreet, but if someone watched attentively, they would notice some significant details about him.

To begin with, he always walked where conversations were most abundant — certainly paying attention to them.

Furthermore, when he looked at the items for sale, he never let his eyes stop at the most expensive items, but always stopped at the items next to the most expensive — clearly looking at the most expensive indirectly.

Finally, when looking at people, his face never showed any emotion, be it surprise, disgust, or physical attraction. He seemed to be perfectly in tune with the rest of the market, unwilling to risk offending anyone by even shooting them a look they might dislike slightly.

Someone who glanced his way would never realize how deliberately harmless his actions were. Even she wouldn't have noticed anything were it not for the accidental bump that had made her pay special attention to him!

Best of all, the only way he could be hiding his true level from her Mask-Piercing Monocle, a Greater Mystical artifact, was by using fifth-grade skills, which made him a Fifth Grade Rogue!

What was his level, then? He couldn't be at the Five Star level, this kingdom was too small and weak for that. A Four Star cultivator using a fifth-grade skill would make him a genius though, and hence a great catch. As for the possibility of him being a Three Star cultivator using a fifth-grade skill, just the thought filled her with excitement.

It seemed she had found a Rogue even better than she had expected.

'Please accept, please accept,' Tia repeated to herself as a kind of mantra while approaching the man.

She was halfway to him when he stopped to see something in a stand, this time fixing his eyes on the most expensive item there. A few seconds later, he moved behind the stall, walking in between the customers to go unnoticed by the seller.

Tia felt her heart racing. That was it! He was going to act! She picked up her speed to intercept him before he did anything stupid. As a member of an Honored Unit, she would have to hand him over to the authorities if she saw him doing something illegal, thus losing her best chance of completing the commission for which she needed him.

However, instead of trying to steal something, he entered an alley. Tia almost sighed with relief. Apparently, he had decided on his target, but he wouldn't act until later. She had time to convince him.

She followed him to the alley and saw him turn a corner. She followed and as soon as she also turned the corner...

... she jumped back in surprise.

He was standing there with his hands behind his back, staring at her with eyes as black as the night. They seemed to penetrate her soul.

"Who are you, who sent you, and what do you want with me?" he asked.