Following the directions, we reached a block in the northwest of the town. It almost looked like a factory area. Everything was cramped in with lots of the metal supporting the castle above. There was lots of wire mesh too. It was almost making it hard to tell if I was in another world or my own modern one. The air looked pretty dirty, with smoke billowing from factory-like chimneys.

“Raphtalia, how are you doing?” I asked her. She’d been sick in the past. Polluted air like this could cause her to cough. Now that she had recovered from the sickness itself, she would probably be okay. But it didn’t hurt to check in with her.

“I’m okay, for now,” she replied. “This air looks horrible.”

“Tell me about it. It doesn’t look like many people come through here either, which means soldiers might get suspicious if they see us hanging around,” I realized.

“No need to worry about that. I also have concealment skills. With Raphtalia here, we should be able to perform a search without standing out.” Glass proceeded to spread her fan and then mutter the name of the skill. “Circle Dance: Mist Veil.” We were buffeted by the same feeling as when a concealment skill or magic was activated. I hoped this would be enough. These kinds of skills and magic often didn’t work very well on monsters—although with their level, or Raph-chan or Raph-chan II, it was possible to achieve complete concealment.

We’d just have to proceed as cautiously as possible.

We carefully pushed our way through the wire mesh and began poking around. It didn’t take long to find a suspicious-looking entrance to some kind of underground facility. There were guards on watch too.

“Pen,” said Chris. His flipper was now pointing diagonally down at the ground. Looked like he wanted us to go down from here.

“If we can determine the spot directly above Kizuna, it might be fastest if we all just dug down together,” I suggested.

“I can’t believe you’d even suggest something so dumb,” Glass said, shaking her head.

“You were trying to get us to agree to that?” Raphtalia added, looking appalled. What was wrong with that idea? At least I was making suggestions.

“So? That place does look super suspicious. Are we going in there right away?” I asked.

“We could . . . but it would be risky if we got spotted,” Glass reasoned.

“If we get spotted, don’t underestimate the magic of Raphtalia and Raph-chan,” I told her.

“I’m happy to hear of your faith in us, but I also feel that we need to be careful,” Raphtalia said.

“You think?” I asked.

“Yes. I just have a feeling that if we charge down there, we’re going to get caught,” she said.