The Insider System

Chapter 231: New Defense

Lake had been running around for a few minutes trying to lose them but was surprised to find that it didn't seem to matter what he did, they didn't lose him. Up until this point he had figured he was almost untraceable unless someone could see him with their eyes because of Trespasser but he guessed all things were possible as long as you got the right skill.

Something that let you see through objects was the most obvious but he was sure there were other workarounds he couldn't think of. He was also starting to wonder how A Thief's Sense worked in a situation like this.

A Thief's Sense (U) Lv.1

Gives a 6th sense for how much attention is on you, Also gives lie detection, night vision and increased hearing.

He had always kind of assumed it meant people looking at him because that always seemed to be what meant people had their attention on him but maybe it just meant how much people were focusing their attention on him and had nothing to do with them seeing him. For all he knew this also detected the fact that they were looking for him because he was a threat.

It made sense that they were all thinking about him especially if they had lost sight of him. He could think of a way to check this. Detector could do almost anything if you could think of what to set it to. After thinking for a second Lake decided 'People trying to find me' was a good thing that would highlight the people he was looking for to test his theory.

Once he found someone looking for him and took them out he would know if A Thief's Sense was picking up on people that couldn't see him if A Thief's Sense sensed less attention on him. After running for a while Lake saw Detector highlight a fast moving person. Taking out an arrow and Imbuing it with Fire and using Crunch Lake sent the arrow at them.

After passing through a few walls the arrow struck the person in the head and Lake felt the amount of attention on him diminish a bit. It seemed he was right and people looking for him counted as well. Thinking back to all the times he had been alone in the Alchemist guild and felt someone paying attention to him making him think he was being spied on.

It had been around the time he had started stealing things outside so maybe he hadn't been spied on as much as he thought while inside the Alchemist guild and it was actually people looking for the person who robbed them. Turning mana vision on Lake looked back to see if he was still being chased by the guy he had been fighting.

He saw a few people chasing after him so he switched Detector to look for the person he had been fighting and killed the others with his arrow. He felt the attention on him drop even further and decided he was ready to take this guy out. Letting them catch up to him, Lake could tell they were surprised to find he wasn't running anymore because they didn't get near him.

If he was chasing someone and caught them he would launch an attack not stop forty feet away. "Why'd you stop?" Lake didn't answer and ran at him at the same time his arrow pierced a nearby wall heading for the Demon Worshiper. "Oh." Lake could tell they thought he was planning to use this lame sneak attack to win the fight.

Running towards them Lake waited till they turned to block his arrow and used Retrieval to take their armor. He could see them shudder at the sudden loss and felt something hit him in the back to make his punch miss but it was already too late and he sunk his hand into their back until he felt a core in his hand.

Ripping it out, Lake put it and his new armor away before grabbing the body and running. He had felt the Exp so he wasn't worried about them still being alive and he wanted more time to loot them since he still needed a new bag. They had the rest of this armor set as well so he could see if it fit him.

They looked to be the same size but sometimes armor was tighter than it looked. Especially things like the fingers of a glove. Bigger pieces of armor had straps that let you change the size a bit but the smaller stuff didn't. There was a way around this problem if it did end up being that not everything fit, he could change into them using their core until he got the armor refitted.

No one would notice if his face was different as long as he didn't take his helmet off so it wouldn't really matter if he turned into someone else for a while. Getting to a place he felt was a good place to stop and loot the body, Lake set them down and used Mana Vision to look around real quick.

Going and taking their bag off of their back Lake dumped it out and started to use Retrieval to get the stuff that had fallen out of his bag earlier and started to stuff it into his new bag. Once he had the important things like backup potions and the small amount of money he had in the bottom of his bag, Lake tried to get his food.

He only had a small amount of meat and bread but he still had a whole block of cheese. When he tried to get his cheese nothing appeared in his hand and Lake knew why because he had been kind of worried about the stuff that had been inside the Booster Bag space. It seemed when the bag had been destroyed anything in the secret space had been destroyed or at least was somewhere he couldn't get to it.

Taking his destroyed chest piece off, Lake looked at what was left of the bag. It had been fully destroyed so there was nothing for him to even try to repair to retrieve the stuff inside. Throwing his old armor to the side, Lake started to put on the new chest piece. Once he was done he slung his new bag over his shoulder before moving around a bit to see if it would hinder his movements any.

The bag had been designed to hug tightly to you so it didn't move around but at the speeds he moved he was afraid it wouldn't hold up. That test would have to wait till later though. Grabbing the rest of the armor Lake started to test to see if it was his size. The arms and gloves were fine but the boots weren't his size.

Deciding it wasn't worth changing his identity permanently to wear new boots he threw them into his bag and ran outside. Drawing his bow, Lake set Detector to look for Demon Worshipers again and started to wipe them out again like he had been doing before he was attacked. At this speed as long as he wasn't attacked like that again he would be done here in an hour or so and he could move to clear out the base he had snuck through earlier.

...

After following the man through the fortress for a while Donny arrived to a wall that had formations covering it. He understood this was the other side of the wall that was being bombarded by the Demon Worshipers. He also understood what they would be doing when he saw a formation get damaged before quickly being repaired.

"Set a formation onto the wall and keep it up as long as you can. When you run out of mana there are beds in the next room for you to sleep." Donny nodded and asked. "Are we in charge of deciding which formation we use?" Donny knew a few formations he could use to help strengthen the wall and he saw there were lots of different ones on the wall.

"Yes but try and use ones that won't tire you out too fast. We have lots of people here so it isn't all on you." Hearing this Donny asked Fendis. "Do you know a wind formation you can use?" Fendis was very new to formations so he was just making sure. "Yes, but is it ok to use wind mana to power it or should I just use my own mana?"

After Fendis said this he looked at the guy that had brought them here. "You can use Wind mana if you can, most of the people here are earth mages or metal mages so they're having to use their own mana but you'll be a great help since you'll be able to last longer than the others."

The man was about to walk away when Donny stopped him and said. "There's a man named Hank who should be here as well." After he said this he went to get to work. Forming a formation onto the wall Donny got it stable and calculated he would be able to do this for seven hours before he needed to take a break with the formation he had decided to use. That was what he was going for so he just waited for a spell to hit the part of the wall he was reinforcing.