It had been several weeks since Lyra joined the Third Army. Although she was a spy of the Empire, no one suspected her, since she had been living in the Kingdom for more than half a decade now. She had the perfect cover even if someone were to interrogate her.
She and two other spies were drinking on the second floor of a tavern in Akash City. Although the previous owner was locked up in the dungeon, it did not stop the Kingdom's soldiers from making the place their own. Every night, several soldiers would come here to drink, to wash their fears and uneasiness away.
"We've received a message." A man dressed as a soldier slid a letter across the table. "I already briefed Greg beforehand."
The man next to the soldier nodded his head and started emptying his mug of beer.
Lyra unfolded the parchment. Inside were codes which resembled random doodles of a child. Only she and the two others were capable of deciphering the meaning behind them.
"The rations, huh?" she said. Her mug of juice remained untouched.
"Just about time. Greg, you've been working with the supply team, right?"
Greg raised four fingers. "Four places. They store the supplies in four separate places."
Greg spread out a hastily prepared map of the city on the table. Four places were marked with circles, while another one was marked with a cross. He pointed at the cross. "I heard there's a fifth one here, but it's restricted—even to us working in the supply team. I believe this place is where the rations of the Empire were stored, before the Kingdom captured this city. This is just a hunch though, and the place might actually be another weapons factory or something."
"A weapons factory? Then it'll be perfect," smiled Lyra. "The fewer places we have to burn down, the better. Rito, the status of the army?"
The man in uniform replied, "?ot good. I've been to the weapons factory in the fourth district. They're building those damn balloons again that they used to defeat the Amubal Army several months ago. I also saw several peculiar weapons. At this rate, if the Empire doesn't make a move anytime soon, it'll be exponentially harder to bring this place down."
"That's why we're here," said Lyra, her hands clasped together, covering her mouth and chin. "To make sure the tides of war favor the Empire."
Although Lyra had no direct access to the supplies like Greg, she currently belonged to the group tasked to cook meals for the soldiers. If she wanted to, poisoning the meal and killing several hundreds of soldiers would be an easy task. The hardest part was escaping the pursuit alive.
Their group actually considered the 'poisoning the soldiers' part, but decided that they could cripple the Third Army in a better way by burning the supplies, or if lucky, by destroying the weapons factory in the fourth district. They also considered poisoning the high-ranking officials of the army, but this proved really difficult for people like them with low-ranking positions. They could probably kill one high-ranking official or two, but that's it. The security would skyrocket and their movements would become restricted.
"Lyra. We'll probably die after pulling this off," said Rito, frowning.
"You have a husband and kid at home, right? In the capital."
Lyra flinched, but immediately showed an indifferent face. "What are you trying to say? Rito, my life belongs to General Rizel. I am nothing but a dagger that will slit the throat of the Kingdom."
"Same here." Greg belched and slammed his mug on the table.
"Rito, what the hell are you hesitating for anyway? Didn't we come here for this? I made my resolve years ago, and I made my pact with the General with blood."
After hearing the resolve of his two comrades, Rito closed his eyes.
"Alright. Then, let's proceed with the plan."
The trio discussed the plan all throughout the night. In the end, they came to a consensus—to attack only one storage house instead of trying to light all of them simultaneously. According to Greg and Lyra, the storage house next to the cathedral contained the largest number of supplies. It was safe to assume that if they succeeded, they would be crippling the Kingdom in an instant. They would be literally burning down weeks' worth of rations overnight.
The place was heavily guarded, but with the combined strength of the three of them, it should be possible to pull it off.
The next day, they implemented the plan. Rito killed one of the guards on night duty, hid the body, and took his place. With his authority, Lyra and Greg gained access to the storage entrance. The two of them slipped in and blended with the other workers. The feat was especially easy with Greg around, since he belonged in the supply team in the first place.
When night came, the number of guards outside remained the same, but the number of workers inside the storage house was significantly less.
There were only four guards inside the storage house, and the number of workers managing the rations could be counted on only one hand.
The defense outside was iron-tight, but the defense inside was lackadaisical.
Lyra and Greg nodded to each other. Lyra threw a very small vial onto the ground. The glass shattered and the alchemical potion inside released a potent paralyzing gas. Lyra and Greg quickly distanced themselves from the green smoke which covered the area, their mouths covered by thick cloths.
"We… We're under attack!" despite the paralyzing effect of the gas, one of the guards managed to shout.
The gas was fleeting. It disappeared just a few seconds after it was released. ?sing this opening, Greg and Lyra shot toward the guards, stole their swords, and slit their throats. With the guards paralyzed, it was a one-sided slaughter. Even the workers were killed immediately afterwards.
"I'll start from here," said Lyra. "You take the other side."
The two of them moved as one. Lyra and Greg took the barrels of castrel oil located next to the walls and poured them over the other rations.
They were glad that their enemies trusted the defenses outside so much that they didn't even think of moving these barrels underground.
After using more than half of the barrels of castrel oil, Lyra and Greg distanced themselves from the piles of rations. Lyra chanted her spell and a small orb of fire shot out of her fingertip. The moment it made contact with oil, the entire storage house burst into flames.
Or so they thought.
That was what was supposed to happen, but for some strange reason, the orb of fire died mere seconds after it appeared. Lyra, unable to understand what transpired, shot another fireball spell. And the result was the same: the fireball dissipated a few seconds after.
"W-What's happening?" she stuttered.
Even Greg was dumbfounded, unable to mutter a single word.
Everything had been perfect. They'd managed to infiltrate the storage house, subdued and killed the guards and the workers, and spread oil all over the place. All that was left was to light up the oil and burn down the rations.
The door groaned. The soldiers outside must have realized that something was wrong as they tried to force it open from the outside.
Thankfully, the door was thick and fortified with iron. They still had time to burn the rations before the soldiers could apprehend them. Even if they died, they decided to burn the damn thing down.
"Can you cast a stronger fire spell?" Greg asked.
Lyra immediately channeled mana into her surroundings. "I'll try."
More than half her mana was immediately sucked dry. A ball of fire started forming before her, it's size large enough to engulf a child whole.
"Just burn already!" she snarled.
The ball of fire shot toward the supplies, but to her horror, the ball of fire vanished before it even reached the rations. Although she was a low-ranking magician, she finally realized what transpired.
A restriction – a spell – had been put on this place. Fire spells which could potentially burn the rations were restricted by some spell of unknown origin.
It seemed that Greg hadn't realized this yet, as he was looking at her with half-questioning, half-expectant eyes. She didn't have the time to explain things to him, as the door was finally burst open and soldiers came flooding in. Rito was among them, but judging by the way he was pretending to surround her and Greg, it seemed that his identity had not been revealed yet.
Rito looked at her, then at the intact supplies inside the room. The smell of castrel oil was so strong that some of the soldiers were crinkling their nose.
"I knew something was wrong when the wards I placed on this place were activated," a woman's voice was heard.
Lyra turned toward the source of the voice and saw the leader of the supply team. A red-haired woman with matching crimson eyes. That pair of jewels scanned the room, as though searching for anything amiss.
"The two of you," she said, her voice soothing to the ears. A stark contrast to the tense atmosphere. "What are you doing?"
It was obvious by the oil spread all over the place, but the woman asked regardless.
"?ot going to answer?" the leader of the supply team frowned.
"Seize them."
The soldiers charged toward Lyra and Greg upon hearing the order.
Lyra and Greg looked at each other. Greg clenched his fists. "It was a foolish move to try this with just us two, huh?" he said in a voice loud enough for others to hear.
Lyra understood what Greg was trying to achieve. Rito wasn't discovered yet. There was no point in taking him to their grave. Lyra smiled wryly. She took out a small pill and swallowed it. A second after, she fell down on the ground limp like a stringless puppet. Seeing this, Greg gritted his teeth. He took out the sword he'd stolen from a guard and slit his throat.
Everything happened so suddenly that the soldiers surrounding them halted in their tracks. They had not expected them to take their lives the moment they were discovered, without hesitation at all.
Chryselle went toward the corpses. She checked the woman's pulse, just to be sure, but she was really dead. She tried healing the man with magic, but the cut was too deep and the amount of blood loss was so massive that it proved futile.
She sighed and shook her head.
"?ow, how should I explain this to the Commander?"
She had a headache just thinking about it.