Arcane Innovator

Finished with our transaction, we were then quickly ushered out of the mansion.

As we were walking out under the butler's austere look, I made a conscious effort to remember the mansion's layout as well as the faces of each servant we met in case I would need to return here later for some in-depth reconnaissance.

However, all my attempts to stall for time so that I could look around were promptly thwarted by the vigilant butler, who seemed to regard us with the utmost suspicion, never leaving his eyes out of our backs.

Thus, we quickly found ourselves back on the busy main street in the very center of Weisberg.

'Whatever, I already have what I came for,' I smirked as we made our way back to the inn.

When we returned, I suggested that from now on, we should dedicate a few days each week solely to herb gathering so that we could go sell them to the wealthy Alchemist.

Both Ram and Vixen enthusiastically agreed with my proposal after realizing how much money this could bring us.

So, in the following days, we dutifully scouted the nearby woods, gathering every herb we could get our hands on so that I had a valid excuse to pay regular visits to the esteemed Sir Konrad.

I used each and every opportunity to not only spy on him but to try and win his favor, hoping that he would offer us some other jobs and I would have a chance to take a closer look at his affairs.

Yet no matter how many herbs we gathered, we never saw anything more out of the grand mansion than the study we were always brought in, and I soon realized that if I wanted to find out more, I would have to employ a much more direct approach.

However, trying to sneak unseen into Sir Konrad's office would undoubtedly prove to be a much more challenging endeavor than when I paid a visit to the Ostengard mayor's house.

Namely, Sir Konrad had plenty of servants and guards that would make any such attempt next to impossible. I would either need to create a suitable diversion or use a brute force approach and incapacitate anyone I come across before they had a chance to raise an alarm.

But I very well knew that whatever I decided to do would mean blowing out my cover, so I had to be absolutely sure this was the right guy before making a move, as I got only a single shot at this.

Feeling both eager and slightly nervous as I had an inkling that I was getting very close to the bottom of the conspiracy that took down my business and killed my sister. I first decided to go through everything I had learned so that I didn't miss any critical piece of information.

I was almost certain that Dominic's gang had a hidden base somewhere in the city and that the esteemed Sir Konrad was somehow connected to it.

I knew that he was amassing a huge amount of herbs and that he was also providing the gang with a large quantity of purified water. All of which would suggest that the gang was preparing to start producing potions en masse.

But this was exactly what was so weird about it... How could they mass-produce potions in the first place?

Even if they had Theo and he told them our entire process, it would be impossible for them to replicate it.

The reason was essence... They simply lacked essence.

Each potion crafting required a certain amount of essence to be infused into the base elixir, and the more potions you wanted to craft, the more essence it would take.

I didn't create any miraculous shortcut to this elemental principle of Alchemy. I was able to do what I did only thanks to my enormous pool of essence, which I had painstakingly cultivated from the moment I reincarnated into this world and discovered I had a talent for magic.

So, in order to craft a batch of my elixirs, they would need about two hundred times more essence than what was required to craft a single potion the usual way.

Neither Theo nor any other Alchemist, for that matter, had anywhere enough essence to do what I did. Not to mention, I had never seen anyone capable of chantless casting before, so how would they even channel the essence into the vessel?

Yet, from everything I had seen so far, it was obvious that they were making serious preparations as if they could start production at any moment.

This peculiarity was why I was reluctant to make a move despite having a clear target in front of me.

Something about this didn't quite add up. That was why I decided to spend a few more days carefully observing the Alchemist's residence from a distance while trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

I had previously told Ram and Vixen that I had something important I needed to take care of so that they wouldn't worry about my prolonged absence.

I knew things could get quite ugly from now on, so I wanted my companions to stay as far away from this as possible to avoid exposing them to undue danger.

In the days that followed, I continued to dutifully watch Sir Konrad's residence at every opportunity I got while meticulously planning the best way to infiltrate it.

Both the main gate and the side entrance were heavily guarded, and even if I somehow managed to escape the guard's attention, then there was the army of servants and other visitors busily moving about all over the premises, leaving almost no blind spots for me to sneak in.

However, I soon noticed a weird phenomenon taking place. The number of people coming in and out of the mansion didn't quite match.

At first, I thought they were perhaps spending the night there, but when that exact same thing happened the next day, I began to suspect that there must be another secret entrance somewhere else.

'So the plot thickens...' I thought with a cold smile playing on my lips. It was currently late evening, and the moon hung high in the sky, casting an ethereal glow over the city.

I was just about to wrap up today's observation when I froze, my eyes glued to the unassuming courtyard in front of Sir Konrad's residence.

'It's him...' I tensed as a wave of anger began welling up in my stomach. I forced myself to calm down as I quickly jumped down from my current hiding place in a hidden alcove beneath the roof of an opposing building.

I hurried over while keeping to the shadows, trying to get close so that I could overhear their conversation. But before I got close enough, the small group disappeared inside the richly decorated parlor.

Cursing, I lingered for a moment, unsure what to do. Yet my hesitation didn't last long, and soon, I was hurrying along the fence that separated Sir Konrad's residence from the rest of the street.

What I had seen a moment ago was no other than Sir Konrad, together with the same mysterious merchant who had been there with Dominic when I had last met him back in Ereneth.

Although I had only met him once, I made sure to remember that slick bastard's face well. So when I spotted him just now merrily chatting with the Alchemist, I instantly recognized him.

This was as good evidence as I could get of Sir Konrad's involvement with the gang, so my previous reluctance to act was all but gone.

And since one of the main actors behind all of this was so kind and decided to show himself here in person, I wasn't the type who would waste such a perfect opportunity.

I hid in the shadow of a neighboring building, and after making sure no one was on the street, I propelled myself onto the roof.

With no time to properly plan this out, I would simply have to barge in using a brute force approach, going room to room until I found them, and then we could finally have a nice long chat as there were plenty of things to catch up on since our last meeting.

With a vicious smile, I ran across the roof's ledge until I got close enough to make the jump across, right onto the mansion's roof.

I landed with a thud, pausing for a few seconds before sighing in relief as nobody seemed to notice the unusual sound.

I then quickly made my way across the mansion's roof, coming right into the middle of the left wing before jumping down and hurriedly generating a cushion of air on the ground to soften my landing.

Ensuring that nobody saw me and my cover remained intact, I made my way to the sole unguarded entrance.

'I guess they could never have imagined that someone would fly in from above...' I chuckled as I promptly snuck inside using the kitchen's back door.