Now that Cornelius is thoroughly incapacitated, I need to alert Mi'ara to the change of plans. Of course I'd need to find her first. Although she shouldn't be to far off,  as she's dealing with people who were following Cornelius.

I cast a very wide range mana detection spell. This would be costly to keep active for long, so I need to be quick. After a few seconds I locate an enchanted spear with my mana on it. Rushing over, I find Mi'ara next to a pile of people who appear unconscious. Judging by their attire . . . Christ, is that the ghosts?

 The ghosts were a very special unit of the secret organization. They are essentially the organization's top assassins, however they also had a second job. That job being the "cleaning up" of members in the organization. If someone was under suspicion of being a traitor or just generally useless, the organization would send out these guys to watch over them. After confirming if they were a traitor or useless the ghosts would then kill the member discreetly. Of course only top brass really knows about these guys. Wouldn't want your members in constant fear of being killed off if their useless, really kills morale. Why the hell are they sending these guys after Cornelius? Actually thinking about it its probably because of me...

Looking over Mi'ara seems like she hasn't even been scratched. Which is great because the ghosts basically always use poison on their weapons, but also kinda scary because holy shit she fought off three of the organization's finest assassins, alone and without even being touched. 

"Oh thank Vil'anth that you're fine, Mi'ara! We need to go!"

"What's going on? Why are those men with you?"

Borris speaks up

"I didn't expect your companion to be snakefolk. Don't see them here too often."

"Yeah yeah, anyway Borris, goon 2, and Boss this is Mi'ara. Mi'ara this is Borris, goon 2, and Boss. They got caught up in the altercation between me and the organization member, who happened to be Cornelius."

"HEY I GOT A NAME YOU KNOW!"

"I see. . . In hindsight I probably should have handled Cornelius. That must have been rough on you. . ."

"DON'T JUST IGNORE ME! MY NAME'S JOHNSON!"

"Its alright I got these goofs to help out"

"That just leaves what to do with the three I took out. Should we try to drag them along and interrogate them later?"

"We don't have the time or man power. If Boss wasn't wounded then maybe, but as it stands we should just dispose of them."

After confirming the plan with Mi'ara we slit the throats of the three ghost members. I'm surprisingly not that opposed to killing people. I was basically already on the verge of killing someone in my old world anyway . . . I'm not a psychopath, shut up. 

Cleaning up the mess was incredibly easy with some clever applications of water magic. Maybe I should try this in combat sometime. We decided to leave the bodies in an alleyway to send a message and then quickly got the fuck out of there. Boss woke up and told us about a secret tunnel out of the capital. We used it and I healed him down there before heading out. When we all made it out Boss spoke,

"Lass, I'd just like to thank you. Without you we probably would've died to that crazy bastard. Is there anything we can do to repay you?"

Hmm... after thinking about it, I figured that it'd be nice to have a little assurance that the organization will be dismantled when I eventually come out of hiding. Also if these three are in the theive's guild, they'd probably be heavily affected by the organization. Thusly I decided to give them a little information about the organization's plans for the theive's guild and some potential ways to deal with them. 

"So you want us to go against this Keif fellow?"

"Yeah, he's not to be trusted. I'll enchant your gear to help out, but be warned he's gonna be tough to fight upfront."

"Good thing we hardly fight honorably Ghahaha!"

His face becomes a little more serious as he continues 

"Also your secrets are safe with me. According to Borris, you probably aren't human because you summoned poison with magic, but I don't care. You saved us there and for that that I'm eternally thankful."

Oh god I'm starting to tear up a little here

"Thanks Boss."

"Gahaha, if you ever come back lets actually complete a job together, aight?"

"Yeah, lets pull off the biggest heist Esu has ever seen."

With that we departed.

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Cornelius PoV

"Ahhhhhh GOD IT HURTS *blerg*"

Is this god damn POISON? But how? She summoned it with magic. Only monsters can do that. Then it clicked. 

W h a t  I f  t h a t  w a s n ' t  B e r n a d e t t e . . .

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Luckily I was soon found by some passersby and brought to a healer. After some healing spells were applied, it was confirmed that the magically made powder was poison. How long had that monster been about? It seemed capable of human speech. It could easily blend into any city or village. Did this new species of monster have anything to do with the anomalies? How long had the Bernadette I knew been replaced for? I needed to report this immediately. There could be impostors anywhere, even among the organization.

-------

"What is so urgent that you must report it now, Cornelius? You're scheduled to be on the expedition that leaves tomorrow."

"I'm sorry, great leader, but it's far to urgent to wait. Allow me to start from the beginning. When I was walking around the capital I thought I encountered VIP#078, the crown prince's fiance that ran away. She seemed to be going into the slums, as such I approached her. She was being mugged in an alleyway so I attempted to saved her with hopes I could convince her to come back and we could salvage our initial plans. I managed to land a unhealable blow on what appeared to be the ruffian's leader. This seemed to incensed the other 2 ruffians and the VIP#078 look-alike which I'm now labeling VIP#078-1. Combat started and despite my attempts to talk down VIP#078-1 she continued to support the ruffians. It was towards the end of the battle, but VIP#078-1 casted earth magic, magic which VIP#078 should not have."

"Cornelius where is this going? Because as of now it merely looks like you are trying to tell me you accidentally confused some random girl for VIP#078"

"Great leader, I assure you their physical characteristics were exactly the same. The earth magic was merely the first clue that something was very wrong. What happened next is that VIP#078-1 summoned poison with magic."

"...Poison?"

"Yes, when I was brought to a healer after my defeat, it was a poison heal spell that helped me. It was apparently arsenic. Any longer and I may have suffered permanent damage. I believe that what I encountered was not Bernadette, but rather a monster posing as her. This may provide insight as to why she went missing. It also hold terrible implications. There maybe an imposter among us."

"You have given me a lot to think about, Cornelius. You're failure in fighting the creature is forgiven. You may now leave."

"Thank you, oh great leader."