Sam could see that fights were flaring up all around the city. Great explosions were going off, all manner of elemental effects covering buildings and squares, and an amalgamation of noise akin to a roar of a great crowd.

As he looked over the situation, he saw two possible options to escape the city. On one hand, he could go full stealth with his meager skills when people were explicitly looking for him. On the other hand, he specifically built his character to be focused on speed.

Closing his eyes, he focused on his Mana Sense and began channeling mana into it.

"Lucky, watch my back!" he said as an afterthought.

"Wuff!" He felt the wolf move around him, but then he was distracted by the magic.

He made sure to channel as much mana as he could into the spell as possible, aware that he was very close to collapsing the entire structure by overloading it. Instead, he waited until the last possible moment when he felt the spell structure strain under the pressure and then opened a thin hole in it and let it out in waves.

Slowly and softly, thin pulses of mana went out from his position on the top of the building and began to bounce between the buildings and magical battles, giving him a low-resolution but wide-reaching map of the ruined city.

Hopefully, his spell would be lost between all the noise the battles were generating.

No doubt, there were NPCs that would realize what he was doing, but he sincerely doubted that any of the players had refined their mana-sensing skills enough to discern his low-key spell. Or if they did, they were most likely in a research lab, surrounded by elite guild guards, trying to figure out a way so that the guild leader could cast bigger fireballs.

Slowly, the situation became clear to him as the low-fidelity map began to appear in front of him.

The west was a total write-off, that's where he could see the most ruins and based on the feedback from his spell, the battles over there, thanks to being home to a lot of mercenary guilds, were the busiest.

If he were to go that way, instead of fearing that somebody would discover him, he would instead need to fear being clipped by any of the hundreds of spells continuously flying back and forth.

North was where the main entrance to the city was and the bulk of the blood mages had set up there after the collapse and seemed to be building up for another gruesome ritual.

'No, thank you…'

East, on the other hand, seemed to be promising. Mostly because of the nobles' district and the soldiers Sun Warriors and the like protecting it, made it so that there was a naturally occurring corridor around the edge of the district.

He squinted in the direction and thought about it for a second before shaking his head. If the enemy leader had at least more than three brain cells, they would realize the same thing and set up a trap.

Could he blast through? More than likely, yes. Did he want to? No.

He wanted the fastest route out of the city so that he could return to the Emerald Kingdom to complain to his master about his choice of business associates.

Letting go of the spell and opening his eyes, Sam let out a sigh as he once again beheld the ruined visage of a once beautiful city filled with criminals from all walks of life.

"West it is…" he murmured as he petted Lucky's head in thank you before sending him back into his shadow.

He spent a few minutes just resting, putting his thoughts in order, and writing a few messages to send as soon as he was out of the area. Apparently, the ruined city still counted as a quest location, thus the ban on communication was still active.

Standing up, he did a few stretches, made sure his equipment was in working order, his poor Moonlight sharpened and his potions were ready to be used.

A path prepared between the most active battlefields, and he was off.

By his calculation, at his top speed – without dipping into his reserves – it would take around half an hour to reach the walls and from there another to leave the area of the battle and thus the quest.

Now he just had to see if the universe would cooperate with his wishes or not.

Running through trashed alleys (both by actual trash and by the explosions) he dodged around – using his little stealth skill and speed – fighting groups as he headed toward his objective.

The first one was a blood mage group doing a desperate retreat against several very angry berserkers with insignias containing an angry, snarling head of a bear, wielding giant slabs of serrated blades, not unlike what Katie preferred.

Based on the yelling, the explosion destroyed something important.

'Hmm…bear…bear…Ah! The ghost bears! Now I remember,' Sam mused as he carefully avoided several pieces of bloody debris flying his way and ducking into the next alleyway. 'They managed to figure out a way to ghost through walls reliably. Nothing better than a suddenly materializing raging berserker in your face. If the attack disrupted the research…'

Making a note for Lucy to reach out and do some fact-finding about them, he continued on his way.

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'It would be nice if we could recruit them…' he grinned to himself as the roar of victory sounded behind him.

A few more alleyways, some creeping and crawling through and under rubble, and he was halfway to his destination.

Sadly, the universe, or in this case, the game system, decided to throw a wrench in his plans. As he looked out from behind the corner of his latest alleyway (the city had too many of them, in his opinion) he saw three well-built and well-armed blood mages with clouds of aerosolized blood surrounding them menacing one lone victim. A woman, dressed in mage-like clothes, dirty and trying to scuttle back desperately.

Based on the 'jokes' he was hearing, all of them were players.

"…hehe, let's see what she can do. Her teammates weren't as impressive, but expect great things from her!" said the one in the lead as he leered at the woman.

'Is he for real?' Sam, once again, wondered about the average intelligence of humanity.

She just snarled something unintelligible and raised her hand to cast something, based on the feeling in the mana, but as soon as the first spark of the magic left her hand a patch of blood magic rushed over and sucked it all up, leaving the woman helpless.

Cursing, she spat at them. "Then kill me, you morons, why the theater play?"

"Well, well… it seems she can talk," came from one of the blood mages. "Don't worry, sweet cheeks. The ritual we have planned for you is going to be… electrifying."

Not really wanting to give extra power to the idiots that tried to sacrifice an entire city, he abandoned his 'hiding' place and sprung forward with incredible speed.

His presence was felt when his blade went through the heart of the guy in the middle and then was unceremoniously ripped apart by wind. As the blood turned into pixels and the cloud of blood began to lessen, Sam pivoted, bringing his sword straight at the neck of the next guy who was just turning toward him.

Unfortunately for him, not fast enough.

As the head, separated from the body, hit the ground, he heard a thump and crunch, only to see Lucky sitting on the broken remains of the third man, tongue out and looking at him proudly.

Walking over, he patted his head. "Good boy." He then turned toward the woman, who was looking at him with wide eyes. Instead of saying anything, he winked and vanished toward the alleyway the three idiots were blocking.

Leaving her prone on the ground, surrounded by a small pond of blood.

"You moron, they cursed me! At least help with that!" was the last thing he heard before the rest was swallowed by the general noise of the city engulfed in battle.

Though Sam assumed it was mostly cursing.

The rest of the journey, thankfully, was less interesting.

True, he had to wait out a battle moving through his planned path, but the rubble provided plenty of hiding spaces.

Still, despite those hardships, he managed to reach one of the intact parts of the walls that stood not long ago as a testament to the hardiness of the people of Sunspot. Now, it was filled with holes wide enough to drive through several armies.

Most of those holes were either filled with defenders, keeping out the undesirable elements or attackers streaming into the city to fulfill whatever insane plans their leaders concocted.

'Can't wait to see the videos…'

For some reason, the intact walls were only guarded sparsely, with a few token soldiers and such. Taking a running jump, he bounced from roof to roof, rubble mountain to rubble mountain until he landed in the shadow of a small stone building on the top of the wall. Glancing inside, he saw a hastily abandoned game of cards.

'Guard post,' he noted disinterestedly.

Looking around carefully, both with his eyes and other senses, he looked for anyone watching. Aside from the general chaos, usual malcontents, and the thick-as-hell miasma in the ether, he sensed nothing.

Nodding to himself, he quietly crept up to the ledge and dropped down silently.

He arrived at the exact moment Lucky emerged from the shadows, landing on the saddle at the perfect moment.

Grinning, he gave the loyal wolf – currently the size of a horse – a scratch on the neck and pointed him toward his goal.

"Let's go home, Lucky!"

"Wuff!"

And they were off.

While Sam didn't see or sense anybody, there were several groups stationed around the city whose main job was to make sure nobody stabbed the invading army in the back. Thus, they were too far away for Sam to sense, but close enough, that with the help of several binoculars and spells, they could see him and Lucky speed through the trampled underbrush away from the city.

"Hey, uh, boss?"

"Yeah?"

"Is that who I think it is?"

"Where?"

"C7."

There was a silence then a small surprised sound.

"Well, I'll be… What the fuck is he doing here?"

"Should we report it?"

"No, we should fucking ignore it. Yes, go and report that fucking Solar just left the city!"

Instantly, several people rushed away to deliver the messages. With the quest blocking messaging, and the chaotic ether making magical communication fickle, they had to rely on runners.

"Do you think they can catch him?"

Another bout of silence.

"I can't even see him anymore."

"I heard he was good, but that kind of speed…"

There were some agreeing sounds all around before someone voiced a question.

"Do you think they're going to blame us for letting him go?"

All of them looked at each other before wincing.

"Fuck…"

The trip back to the Emerald Kingdom was fast and incredibly tiring. He had Lucky run as fast as he was capable, only stopping when they were both out of mana or hungry and tired. Even then, after they rested the minimum amount of time, they were back on the road.

Well, not on any road, as Sam made sure to avoid any sign of civilization. He didn't know how wide of a net the blood mages had cast and he had no desire to figure it out.

He arrived back at their newly built town, dirty, exhausted, and more than grumpy.

Ignoring all greetings, he immediately headed for his Master's workshop.

The guards, thankfully, recognized him and didn't stop him when he practically kicked in the door as he had no more energy to play nice.

He found Fitzgerald bent over a fascinating piece of runic device – which from a glance, was for some kind of targeting artifact – and he was already talking by the time the older man looked up from their work.

"What the hell, master?"

It took a second for his Master to parse the question before he sent him a commiserating look.

"You too, huh?"

Sam just blinked. "What?"

"He tried to kill you, right?" the man asked, nonplussed while nodding slightly. "He did that to me, too. According to him, a good merchant needs luck. He believes that if they don't have luck, it is not worth making deals with them. So, if they're lucky to survive, then he will work with them in the future."

Sam just gaped as the other man continued.

"For me, it was one of the laces on my boot that came free. I bent down to tie it and avoided a strike aimed at my neck," the runemaster explained with a dry look.

Sam opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Instead, he let out an annoyed huff.

"Whatever. I delivered the stupid box. Now, I'm going to sleep for a week." With that, he turned around and headed for the door. He really needed a shower, both in the game and outside of it.

"Come back after you're rested! I need to show you something!" yelled Fitzgerald after him.

However, Sam's attention was on the people waiting for him outside the workshop.

Lucy, tapping her pristine shoes on the sand and dust-covered ground, Lara grinning ear-to-ear while the rest of his team stood to the side, refusing to look him in the eyes.

"What now?"

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