[Near Aleta]

Standing a few kilometers outside the city's walls, Jennia looked towards them in annoyance. After Darganth and Allaire had intervened in the bandit raid a few days ago, the group had made its way towards the city without problems. Despite it being a relatively small city, Darganth wanted to search for anything related to either the king or dukes among the houses of its nobles.

Allaire had chosen to accompany him, much to Jennia's annoyance. With her not having a humanoid form, she was unable to do so and thus was forced to wait outside for their return.

“We will be back soon.” Darganth reassured her.

He was currently in his true form, standing next to Jennia. Allaire was sitting on his back leisurly, smiling at her in reassurance.

“I know, but I still hate it. First the bandit raid and now this, I really need to learn transformation magic.” She said.

“With the bandits you could have joined.” Allaire pointed out.

“Yes and I regret not doing so. It would have either reduced the number of mercenary's that attacked you or increased the number of them who died. I still don't understand why you let him live, an aura enhanced anything can be dangerous and even normal stones can kill.”

“But he was too weak for it to be dangerous. And I am not defending him, I am extremely disappointed by what happened, but its just not worth the trouble.” Allaire said.

Shrugging slightly, Jennia shelved the topic. Giving Darganth a short kiss, she watched the two flying towards the wall.

Climbing high enough that his pitch black scales made him nearly invisible in a dark night like currently, he flew into the city undetected. Luckily for them the city had only third ranks, making it improbable to be found.

Looking over the city, he quickly identified the district where the upper class lived.

“I think there is a good spot.” Allaire whispered to him while pointing towards a particularly large building.

Changing his direction slightly, Darganth cast an invisibility spell while making his way to land on the roof. Letting Allaire get down from his wing, he transformed into his humanoid form and surveyed the area.

“I will start with that building.” He said after a while, pointing towards a mansion a few hundred meters away.

“Good luck.” Allaire said, giving him a kiss.

Jumping of the roof with a smile, Darganth transformed himself into a falcon. While he disliked transforming into normal animals, a magic beast of even the first rank would result in too much attention.

While large animals like bears grow only by a small amount, the first evolution that happens when a small animal becomes a magic beast increases their size substantially. No matter how large or small they were previously, most first rank magical beast would be larger than a normal bear at minimum. A bird of this size would be spotted immediately, thus he chose a normal animal.

While flying towards the house he kept an eye on his surroundings, making sure to remember them in case he is found. The main focus of this search were magical barriers or sensors, mainly those with the purpose of unmasking transformations or restricting mana usage. While the former is mainly designed to deal with transformation magic used by humanoids, powerful enough variants can at least detect if not outright nullify even a dragons transformation.

'No security against transformations at all? Either they don't know that branch of magic or the countermeasures are extremely well hidden. The second case would force me to be more careful, being forcefully reverted to my true form in the middle of a house would not go unnoticed.' He thought to himself.

Thinking for a moment whether to use his true form and shrink himself as much as he could he decided against it. While the innate ability to shrink down their true form that beasts, dragons and some other beings have isn't affected by transformation nullification, he could at most shrink to his size at birth. An over one meter long dragon wasn't really the best form to remain undetected.

Taking the risk, he circled the house while searching for a good point of entry. Due to the existence of magic the quality of life, mainly for nobles and other rich members of society, far surpasses that of medieval times on earth despite society in general being similar. This leads to the houses of the upper class being constructed quite stable and comfortable, with glass windows being the norm. This together with other luxuries made his task of remaining undetected slightly more difficult.

Finding no opening he could use, Darganth started searching for an unused room. Finding two rooms without any light in them, he chose the one closer to what he believed to be the office. Using wind magic to nullify the sound, he enhanced his leg with aura and shattered the window.

Making his way inside, he flew through the room while making sure that no one was inside. Arriving at the door, he transformed into a human form and cast an invisibility spell on himself. While the protections in the house made advanced invisibility spells that could hide one from even magical detection risky, weaker ones like the one he used would largely go unnoticed.

This was because this spell simply formed an illusion that prevented visual detection, something that is hard for to restrict or detect. More powerful invisibility spells meanwhile also shield from different kinds of magical detections, but in return are susceptible to multidirectional surveillance. Such formations nearly always have areas where multiple detection waves intersect and the warping of the waves caused by such invisibility spells is easily detected at these areas.

Of course there are other methods of detection that this pseudo radar, but it is the most commonly used.

Due to being only hidden from sight, Darganth was carefully planning his route. The only mana user currently inside was the noble who owned the house, with the guard mainly patrolling outside. This made his task easier, allowing him to sneak around without the danger of directly encountering mana users inside.

Finding a good route where he would stay as far from the guards outside as possible to prevent them from accidentally finding him, stealthily made his way onto the floor. The fact that he knew where the guards who could use mana were without having to risk exposure was one of the perks of his dragon eyes. The ability to see mana itself allowed him to get a relative good grasp one each persons mana and its activity, allowing him to distinguish between mana users and other people near perfectly. Others would have to actively send out mana probes to get this information, something that is easily detected.

Walking through the houses corridors without much care, Darganth reached the office. Forming an illusion over the door that mirrored its current state, he opened it and walked inside. Making his way towards the desk standing in front of a large window, he looked at the books lying on it. A bit annoyed by the lack of light that made it difficult for him to read even the titles, he inspected the windows in detail.

Seeing no alarm mechanism apart form those that activate should they be broken, he smiled. Using darkness magic he covered it completely, preventing any light form going through it either way. Activating the magic item on the wall, a series of plates at the ceiling formed small balls of light below them.

This was another quality of life items that was similar to technology from earth that magic made possible. While even most middle class people would make light through the usage of candles, most nobles used magic items that use atmospheric mana to cast a small light spell. And despite it being cheaper in the long run compared to candles, those with less money lacked them as few mages would build such devices for those without certain connections or influence.

Thinking about how magic expands the disparity between the rich and poor for a moment, Darganth focused back onto his task. Skimming through the books and documents to find any that may be of interest for him, he found four and grabbed them. While few nobles would leave things like their thoughts about their king or knowledge about him that isn't public written on paper and lying in their office, letters between different nobles contained much useful knowledge.

Skimming through the three letters that he had grabbed, Darganth had to keep himself from laughing.

'They think that their so called 'dragon killers' could protect their capital? The most effective of them is a giant crossbow bolt made from metal that is enchanted and propelled further by wind magic. Not bad as it could probably hurt the current me, but their enchantments lack by so much that it wouldn't even pierce the scales of an adult dragons.' He thought.

Apart from the knowledge about the workings of a few of what they call 'dragon killers' the only thing in them that interested him was the nobles dislike of the kings adviser. Or to be more precise their dislike of his influence over him, despite not being from a noble family. Additionally he survived many attempts on his life by them, despite multiple of them killing all of his guards.

Adding this adviser as a person of interest, Darganth went through the remaining documents.

About ten minutes later he returned the book containing a multitude of documents to its place. Clicking his tongue in annoyance that it didn't contain anything useful, he returned towards the door. Deactivating the light, he stepped back into the corridor before stopping his spells.

A few minutes later he took of from the same window where he entered, flying back towards Allarie in his Falcon form. Seeing her eying the vicinity of the building with vigilance, constantly ready to fire at the guards should a commotion start, he flew towards her obviously to not startle her.

“Found anything?”

“Two other houses with potential information and a good lead. Remember that demon the angel told us about? When he truly is in this kingdom, it is likely to be the kings adviser. Someone in a position of high influence with no apparent past, seems like a changeling demon to me.”

“Then where to next?” She asked him after a short moment.

“There.” Darganth said, pointing towards a building standing relatively isolated. At one of the buildings edges stood a tower, about twice as tall as the second highest point in the district. Smirking his arms around her hip, Darganth waited for Allaire to give her OK before teleporting them onto the tower.

Arriving behind the guard standing on top of it, Darganth placed a hand on his back. Before the man could even react he fell over, with Darganth catching him and laying him down to prevent sounds. Looking at the body, Allaire turned to Darganth in interest.

“Didn't know death magic can be used non-lethal.”

“Yeah, that name in general is slightly wrong. But element of death, life, curses, undeath and decay is quite long.” He said jokingly, causing her to grin slightly.

“Those two building.” He said after a bit, pointing to two different buildings, the one next to the tower and one a bit away. Stepping a bit away, Allaire focused on the one further away while Darganth transformed and made his way there.

Repeating the same process as with the previous building, he slowly made his way through it. While it was a bit harder as three mana users were inside, one even in the office, he soon reached its door. Waiting for the first rank aura user inside to not look towards the door, Darganth hastily made his way inside.

“Who is-” Was all the man could say before the psychic spell knocked him out. Smiling at the luck of having an isolated noble in front of him, Darganth went through the mans mind. While a full search of his memories, even those he may no longer recall, would take too long with his current power, searching for key words and moments was easy.

'An incompetent king known for his excess suddenly becomes obsessed with capturing a dragon, how curious. Especially that he hired this adviser shortly before, I doubt that there won't be a connection.' He thought.

Just as he wanted to search more of the man's mind, Darganth noticed someone approaching the room. Seeing the man nearing to be a third rank aura user, he quickly casts a stronger sleeping spell before teleporting out of the house. Compared to the first one, this one only has a spell to detect incoming teleportations, thus it didn't trigger an alarm.

“We have to speed this up a bit, they will soon find that something is wrong. While the noble whose mind I searched will sleep for a few hours and they won't know what exactly happened, I doubt that they will keep quiet once they realize him to be under a spell.” He quickly told Allaire.

“I will target any guard trying to get in.”

Hearing her answer, Darganth took of again, flying down the tower. Reaching a window on the second floor of the building next to it, he only silenced the sound and dove through it. Looking at the closed door to the room he arrived in, he reluctantly changed from using only internal aura. As soon as the flowing silver hue formed around him, an alarm in the house picked up his mana usage.

Vanishing from his spot without a trace, Darganth used the space aura around him to travel through the house. Arriving in room after room, he soon found himself in the office. Returning to a human form, he hastily read through the books.

The city guards were meanwhile pouring into the district in the dozens. A minute ago the son of baron Cole had notified them that someone put his father to sleep with magic. Faced with at least a third rank mage, even third ranks made their way over.

It took them nearly seven more minutes before they learned of the alarm in the house of viscount Dexter Mayer. Once they did they started swarming towards it, but their progress was quickly halted. Due to their superior speed, the first one to reach near the house was one of the third ranks.

Nearly flying across the open field surrounding the building with wind aura, he suddenly felt danger. Being in the middle of a jump forwards, his only option was to materialize an aura armor around him despite the wind elements poor defensive properties. Before he could even try to find his attacker, a piercing pain erupted from his chest.

Landing a few meters further, a puddle of blood soon formed around him. Most couldn't even see the hole in his chest and thus where the shot came from, so they quickly went back into cover. To wound a third rank rank though a materialized armor was no easy feat, even with the wind element focusing on mobility and its direct defensive capabilities being its worst aspect.

The body of a third rank aura user alone was powerful enough that those below the second rank would find it impossible to wound them without a magic weapon. Adding onto this his armor as a member of the city guard and the one made through aura it became clear that the assailant also was a third rank.

Watching from the tower as the guards took cover, Allaire focused on the third ranks among them. With her being hidden from sight by the tower and magical detection through a spell she used, she was sure that the second ranks wouldn't dare to cross the opening. While one of them peaked out of their cover every few seconds, she ignored this.

Darganth was meanwhile making his way towards the main hall of the house. He had long since noticed the guards outside, thus deciding to take a different path. Teleporting through wall after wall, he soon arrived in front of the main doors.

“Well, well, who do we have here?” A voice asked from behind.

Turning around, he found a man in traditional mage robes standing on the other side of the room, looking down at him from the wide stairs going up from this hall. Focusing and finding him to be a first order master magician, the same rank as him, Darganth relaxed. Winning a magic shootout in the same rank and order was something he was confident in.

“Had hoped to get away without being found, seems like I miscalculated.”

“Did you really think you could break into my house without being found? I am Dexter Mayer, soon to be court magician of this kingdom.” The man bragged.

Not caring for his bragging, Darganth shot a fire arrow at him. Sneering in disdain at what he believed to be a weak spell, Dexter erected a water barrier in front of him. Much to his surprise, the arrow made it through the barrier nearly completely, exploding once the barrier started pushing it back.

“Spell fusion?” Dexter said, clearly shocked.

“So you are a first order advanced magician, color me impressed. As someone at the same level I know how hard it is to reach here.”

“Wasn't that hard.” Darganth said dismissively.

Ignoring what he believed to be a cheap provocation, Dexter cast his own spell. Dismissing his shield, he replaced it with one that looks similar though Darganth could clearly fell that it was made with spell fusion. At the same time two spells formed to the right and left of the shield respectively, one being a lightning strike and the other a fireball.

Casting his own defensive spell, Darganth soon became surrounded by an earth wall coming from the ground. When the two spells crashed into it, the wall shook for a moment. Despite this there remained no obvious aftereffects, only a slight singe in the case of the flames and a small dent from the lightning.

Just as Dexter wanted to launch another wave of attacks, the wall fractured before hundreds of small pieces of rock flew towards him. Abandoning the spells he was in the process of casts, he redirected his mana flow into his shield. Blocking nearly all projectiles flying towards him, he was still hit by a small rock at his left leg. While most of its momentum was lost due to the shield, it still caused him to grimace in pain.