Meanwhile, in the Northwest district of the City—
Heimfher walked along with his 2 other colleagues in the quiet street, the humming noises of the cold wind was tranquil, accompanied with the bright crescent moons in the sky.
They've arrived at the northwest side if Monetre city, and according to Bentley's detection magic, this district was the place where the owner of the necklace reside. Which means the woman's kidnapped husband was brought here by the kidnapper.
Now the only thing they have to do is to pinpoint the location of him.
"Findelve—
Bentley used his magic once more, because of his limited mana reserve, he had to delay each uses of his magic, unlike before when he was still in the carriage heading toward this place.
"Huff.. Still straight.." He said amidst his gasps.
"Hmm, is it at the edge of the city?" Duskiell replied. he looked at the direction of where Bentley was pointing and pondered.
"We've taken a few turns and zig zag routes to pinpoint the exact direction, and it seems like they're really in the northwest, but the question now is.. Where are they hiding—
"Pause your magic Bentley, we'll rest first so that you can refill some of your mana."
Following Duskiell's suggestion, Bentley anf Heimfher nodded and they then sat down at a nearby bench.
Time passed by pretty quickly as they relaxed the three men relaxed their mind, Heimfher looked into the sky and was mesmerized by the sight of two moons, different from what he had always seen on earth.
One large moon and one tiny moon beside it as if they were a parent and kid.
Beside the extra moon and all of the different star constellations, there were no other visible difference in the sky, atleast to Heimfher's knowledge. The moon still shone yellow lights, and the constellations were painted with purple and blue dye.
'Maybe there's a God of Moon and Sun?..' Heimfher abruptly wondered to himself.
'I wonder what they'd look like..'
Heimfher was talking to himself, when out of nowhere Duskiell stood up from the bench and announced the end of the brief breaks before he smirked.
"Aight boys, listen up, we should check for suspicious homes, those kidnappers probably stored all of the hostages inside of a basement—
"If there's a house with no lights visible or a house with windows that are covered with curtains, we'll break in."
Bentley gulped, and agreed, while Heimfher also stayed silent and quietly nod.
Their search went on again for a couple minutes, Bentley used his magic again, exhausting his mana reserve for who knows how many times, after the location was revealed, Duskiell and Heimfher immediately went to the direction.
It took them an entire day to find the kidnapper's location, but to save a lot of people, it was something that they ought to be done no matter if they're tired or not, because that's their duty as the division 0 of the Monetre Protection Bureau.
"The pendulum was pointing at this house." Heimfher said, he and the two others stood infront of a seemingly normal house, except there was no light visible comib from the inside, as if the house has been abandoned or the owner of the house was already sleeping.
"No need for permission, follow me." Duskiell then took a step forward, he climbed the few stairs that leads to the house front door and kicked it with his leg.
SLAM!
The wooden door was shattered, instantly revealing the interior to Heimfher and the rest.
'So dark!' Heimfher thought.
There was no one inside, the house looked untouched, as if there was once someone living there but they left unannounced.
No lights was visible, the entire house was pitch black, and Heimfher had to summon his fireball to light up the room.
"O' Ignis, Heed my plea."
Whirrr!
"You think someone is sleeping here? Doesn't look abandoned for me.." Bentley asked, he cautiously stepped forward along with Duskiell and Heimfher.
"Okay infiltration complete, hey kiddo, check the bedroom." Duskiell said.
"H- huh? Me?" Heimfher got startled by the sudden order from Duskiell, afraid that an ambush might meet him when he opened the bedroom door.
"Who else? Don't you worry! I'm here you won't die, trust me." Duskiell tried to encourage Heimfher.
After some hesitation, Heimfher eventually obliged and he began walking to the closed door that was supposed to be the bedroom.
Creakk!
Gradually, the creaky wooden door was opened, and to Heimfher's relief, there was no one there, no trap, no ambush. Just an old messy bed and a wardrobe that was half-open with clothes hanging in it.
"Phew.." Heimfher sighed.
"There's no one.."
Hearing the report from him, Duskiell instantly headed to the bedroom and checked it for himself.
"—Alright! Good one kiddo, i thought you'd die, but i guess no one was living here anymore." He said.
'SO YOU WERE EXPECTING ME TO DIE!?' Heimfher shouted in his mind, he couldn't believe that Duskiell would use him like that.
While he was angered by Duskiell, Bentley also came over to the bedroom, the three of them soon entered and began their investigation, checking every corner of the room for any hidden mechanism or anything that could be used as clue.
After all, if Bentley's detection was pointing to this house, then it'd be strange if they can't find anything.
'If there's nothing, then maybe we should check behind this house.' Heimfher said to himself.
"Aha!, found it." Duskiell said out of the blue, surprising both Heimfher and Bentley as they saw him smiling like a madman.
Duskiell was checking the inside of the wardrobe when he noticed something weird, he knocked the wooden walls of the wardrobe and the sound it made was familiar to him.
"It's the sound of something hollow." He said.
"This wardrobe is hiding something."
THWACK!
Suddenly, Duskiell punched the wardrobe wall with his fist, the wood was broken, and beyond the broken walls, a secret tunnel was seen, a tunnel that leads into a staircase.
Heimfher and Bentley quickly approaches Duskiell and they also saw the tunnel that was hiding behind the wardrobe.
"I guess it is indeed this house." Bentley calmly said.
Without wasting anymore time, Duskiell then throw all of the clothes in the wardrobe to the bed and punched the wooden walls a couple more times until the hole was big enough to fit a human through.
THWACK!
THWACK!
"—Shall we go in?" Duskiell asked with his cheeky smirk.
.
.
Heimfher and Bentley went inside the secret tunnel, following Duskiell's footsteps, they head down with each stairs that they stepped on, getting closer and closer to the basement while Heimfher used his fireball as a light source.
As they walked, Bentley asked a question that broke the silence.
"Don't you think this whole thing kind of.. Strange?" He said.
"What do you mean?" Duskiell replied, he didn't quite get what Bentley was saying.
"I don't know, it's just that.. There's no one that came to us, you'd think if a kidnapper that was able to kidnap more than fifty people in one night wouldn't just leave their hideout recklessly when they know that the authorities would be coming for them right?" Bentley responded.
His speech made Heimfher and Duskiell's eyes widened for a few seconds.
"..Now that i think again, you do have a point." Duskiell said, he surprisingly agreed and not trying to deny Bentley's theory.
"Bentley, can you use your detection again?"
Bentley nodded and started his chant, when his magic was activated, everyone was shocked to find that the pendulum now instead pointed to their back, the opposite direction of where they were walking.
"That's weird..." Duskiell furrowed his brows.
"Weird, weird.. It should be here.."
Then, Duskiell gasped, his eyes focused to the dark space infront of him and he started to quicken his pace.
Step!
Step!
Step!
The staircase was quite long, but the three of them eventually arrived at the bottom, and when they stepped on the cold, damp floor, they were greeted with another door.
"Tch.. There's no way..." Duskiell said, he clicked his tongue in frustration as he opened the basement door in an instant.
Creaakk!
Behind the old creaky door, was another set of staircase leading them deeper underground.
Realizing what was happening, Duskiell then turned back, he looked at the endlessly stretching set of stairs above him as his heart sunk when he couldn't see the end of it.
However, he remained quiet, he didn't say anything, he glanced at both Bentley and Heimfher, then, from beneath his coat, he pulled out a small knife, the same size as his thumb.
Slash!
Duskiell made a small cut in his fingertip, letting blood flow out of his skin and drip to the floor.
Heimfher and Bentley was obviously startled when they saw Duskiell's strange behavior.
"W- What?! What are you doing!?" Bentley said in a panic state.
"Hey! Are you okay!?" Heimfher also tried to calm Duskiell down, however it was futile as he was stronger than both of them.
Despite being afraid that Duskiell might have gone crazy, Heimfher didn't run away, he instead waited in silence and observed Duskiell as he touched his bloody finger to the wall beside him.
"H- Huh..." Heimfher's jaw fell when he saw Duskiell writing something using his own blood, he drew each letters, some being vague, but the entire word was obvious enough to guess.
The word he wrote was 'Mirabelis'
The Goddess of Illusion.
"M- Mira—" Heimfher was about to say the word, when suddenly, Duskiell covered his mouth with his own bloody hand, a couple drop of blood went inside Heimfher's mouth but there was no flavor.
Heimfher then looked at Bentley, and to his surprise, he was also being silence, his face was pale, and his hands were shaking.
That's when Heimfher knew, what Duskiell meant when he wrote Mirabelis.
They were caught in an illusion.