After finishing his drink, Bell didn't order anything else. He simply stood up and walked out of the tavern.
Looking up, he saw that night had already fallen completely over Orario. The streets, however, remained bright under the glow of countless magic stone lamps that kept the city from sinking into darkness.
Under that light, Bell erased every trace of his presence.
Turning right from the tavern entrance, he found himself not in a side alley but facing a long stretch of warehouses.
But something about these warehouses was strange. When he'd observed them earlier, he hadn't sensed a single sign of life inside. They didn't even seem to serve the purpose of actual storage.
There were no cold rooms powered by magic stones, no organized crates or goods—just layers of thick dust covering the floor. The depth of it made one thing clear: no one had used this place for a very long time. Yet, beneath the warehouse, there was an enormous underground space.
After suppressing his presence completely, Bell placed a hand on the wall.
"Conformity."
Through zero-distance spatial synchronization, he could phase through the wall without damaging it.
The surface beneath his palm rippled like the surface of water, waves spreading outward.
Bell leaned forward and stepped straight into the shimmering wall.
His body slipped through as though diving into water, and within moments, he emerged on the other side. The ripples faded behind him, leaving the wall perfectly still once more.
Inside, the warehouse was cloaked in complete darkness.
'A specially constructed environment using barrier magic.'
'The dust on the floor is probably part of a detection system—it's coated with a near-invisible layer of magical energy.'
Bell couldn't help but admire the setup. The design was clearly meticulous and deliberate.
Many of the fixtures that looked like magic stone lamps weren't used for lighting at all—they were actually sustaining the barrier itself.
That was one reason the barrier remained active even though there were no signs of habitation.
The other reason, of course, was the use of specialized magical tools crafted specifically to maintain it.
'So, Evilus really does have some skilled mages among them.'
Such magical tools were excellent for defensive purposes. Without understanding how they worked, anyone investigating the area would almost certainly trigger a trap.
And once a trap was triggered, the hideout would be compromised. Evilus would immediately abandon and destroy it—erasing all traces, no matter how much effort had gone into uncovering it.
Worse still, it would reveal that someone in Orario was actively searching for their hideouts.
But for Bell, the barrier posed no issue at all.
"Conformity."
The same technique that allowed him to pass through walls worked by harmonizing his spatial coordinates with the wall's, effectively blending their spaces together. This time, he extended that effect to let the dust and magical energy flow harmlessly through him, bypassing the barrier's detection entirely.
Carefully stepping across the dust-covered floor, Bell moved silently through the warehouse interior.
It was an ordinary space—aside from the single investigative artifact generating the barrier, there were no other restrictions on movement or perception.
'No wonder my earlier scan of Orario didn't pick up anything unusual.'
When he probed the underground space again, the readings were murky and indistinct. All he could sense was what felt like solid ground—yet beneath it, there was no hint of open space at all.
'This must be the same construction method used for the outer layer of the hidden floor.'
'A special alloy blocks magical detection, making external scans read it as completely solid—no hollow spaces at all.'
Damn, Evilus really didn't mess around. They'd actually managed to develop materials like this—and to use them defensively? Whoever was behind this wasn't just paranoid, they were filthy rich.
Even Bell, who had no shortage of experience in caution and stealth, couldn't help but admire Evilus's tacticians.
'So damn thorough.'
Still, this kind of setup only worked against magical detection. More detailed physical probing would easily expose it.
The warehouse itself was meant for storing materials, while the underground section was designed mainly to block magical scans. Naturally, that meant the concealment wasn't as perfect as it appeared.
Sure enough, after just a short circuit around the lower level, Bell found a passage leading to a hidden chamber below.
This sublevel had originally been built as a cold storage area. Being underground, it was sealed off from both airflow and light, the entire floor cloaked in pitch darkness.
More importantly, there were almost no traps here. Aside from the emptiness that discouraged visitors, nothing seemed out of place.
But Bell, whose night vision was long perfected, noticed something subtle in one corner of the floor—a small depression, barely three centimeters deep. That one spot was different from the rest.
He crouched to inspect it. Sure enough, there was a fine crack at the edge of the recess, and faint magical fluctuations pulsed beneath it.
There was no mistaking it—this was the spot.
"Conformity."
Ripples spread across the surface as Bell's body slowly sank through the floor.
No alloy, no matter how hard, could resist the force of Conformity. By directly synchronizing the space within the alloy with his own, he phased straight through it. It wasn't destruction—it was pure assimilation, and nothing could withstand it.
His body slipped past the obstruction and descended into the space below. A stairway stretched downward before him.
The staircase wasn't long; after only about ten seconds of descent, Bell reached the hidden underground floor.
The air here was strange—carrying a faint, sweet fragrance that made his vision blur slightly.
'Hallucinogenic gas.'
'And on top of that, a large-scale gravity trap covering the entire floor. Tch... these guys are paranoid mutts.'
'This whole setup is more meticulous than anything I've put together.'
Still, Bell could understand why this underground space had been fortified with gravity traps.
Thanks to his night vision, he could see clearly even in this near-total darkness.
The space ahead was a rectangular basement about two meters high. The entrance spanned roughly ten meters in width, and by his estimation, the length stretched close to thirty.
In the dimness, rows of wooden crates came into view, each one covered by a thick cloth, clearly meant to conceal their contents. But Bell already knew what was inside.
'Flame Stones.'
A cold sweat trickled down his temple at the realization.
...
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