The Martial Unity

Rui was right.

Rui and Kane retreated from the fourteenth floor, leaving the Shionel Dungeon after Rui confirmed the extent of the damage from the mini-fiasco that the operation had turned out to be. They returned to back to their inn undetected via Void Step, before spending the rest of the day taking a break.

Rui completed his chores such as writing a letter informing Guildmaster Bradt of the location of the latest supplies of esoteric ore deposits, while including an updated three-dimensional map of the Shionel Dungeon as per their agreement.

On the other hand, Chairman Deacon was not having such a chill day.

In fact, any semblance of peace he was having that day had been upended when he read through the report submitted by the captain of the expedition team on the fourteenth floor.

"WHAT?!"

His bellow was loud enough to echo through the main branch of Deacon Industries, making all of his employees wonder what lit his fuse this time.

For the next few hours, Chairman Deacon poured over every word in the report one by one, digesting all the information before he finally put away the documents, before frowning.

His eyes wandered around as he clasped his hands hands together.

"Sir, the Chairman of Carlun Manufacturers has requested a meeting with you," His chief of staff informed him, breaking the silence.

replied absentmindedly. "Have Vice-Chairman Dellia

dismissed her, wanting to think in

as he parsed through all the information that the report from the leader of

to process, but he quickly made strides in analyzing them as he considered everything that he had just learned. He began with what

appearing and disappearing,') He considered what it meant. ('It's almost certainly not literally the case that they appeared and

possibility of it literally being a case of something like teleportation or something of the

the Shionel Dungeon, it's almost certainly the case of said figures eluding the senses of the patrol guard,') Chairman Deacon quickly inferred some basic facts. ('It's not implausible that they just temporarily entered his sensory range momentarily before leaving very

report of a single patrol guard as absolute fact and was open to

travel was towards the tunnel, not away from him. Meaning they appeared and disappeared while the distance between them was more or less constant,') He sharply noted. ('That

had happened within a very short time

smoke bombs…') His eyes narrowed. ('Why

of course, was

His eyes narrowed. ('Their goal had nothing to do with the expedition team. They didn't mount an attack on the expedition team, they did not

('Was that part of the plan? Is Squire Harens actually a secret operative

presented itself to him when he considered the

was quite familiar with Squire Harens. The man had been a trigger-happy Martial Artist for as long as he could remember. This reduced the probability of it being a conspiracy. However, the operation didn't make sense if the attack from Squire Harens was the end objective. Such an objective was worthless by any

for? What could that possibly achieve in

eyes narrowed. ('Thus, it can be concluded, that regardless of whether Squire Harens is a colluder or not, that attack could not have been the main objective. There had to be