"Really? Do you have to do that during your shift?" a guy shouted with annoyance.
"What?" a guy asked, sounding like he was chewing something. "No one's here anyway."
"I am here, Keanu. I am someone," the other guy answered.
"Why would you care? You're not my boss. What I do during my shift is not your concern, Bryan," Keanu said.
"Keanu, you never know when an important person from the city wants to enter or exit. If they see you-"
"Oh, come on," Keanu shouted in exasperation. "No important people come through here. Barely anyone comes through here. The last guy we saw appeared three days ago, and he was just a random Extractor that went to the wrong entrance. Chill out, Bryan. You're genuinely starting to annoy me with your rules-lawyering. Go deal with your own shit!"
Bryan took a deep breath as he watched Keanu shoving another black stick into his mouth.
"At least share some-"
"No," Keanu shot back before taking another bite.
Bryan grimaced with disgust and annoyance before noticeably looking away.
The only sound for several seconds was Keanu chewing and moaning in pleasure.
Nick watched all of this happen in silence from the ceiling.
The entrance was about three meters high and wide, and it was blocked by a massive gate. The two guards stood outside the gate.
Their job was to watch out for any Specters that might want to get into the city.
This was one of the side entrances of Black Mine City.
The main entrance was far larger and had far stronger guards and security measures.
According to what Nick had found out by eavesdropping on the guards of the other entrances, this one was only for guards and led directly to the headquarters of the city guards.
Naturally, the security of this entrance wasn't nearly as tight as for the others. After all, anyone who managed to get through this entrance would be entering the middle of the guards' headquarters, which was generally considered the last place any criminal or invader would want to go to.
The guards were more occupied with making sure that none of the other guards exited the city without permission.
Nick slowly slithered along the ceiling of the entrance and approached the door.
A moment later, he tried to get through the slit of the gate.
BZZT!
"Huh?" the two guards uttered as they turned around.
For some seconds, they looked at the door.
Silence.
"Must've been the wind," Keanu said before turning away again.
"The wind," Bryan repeated, unamused. "You think the wind would activate the Barrier?"
Keanu shrugged. "What else? Do you see anything?"
"Keanu, the Barrier only activates if it encounters Zephyx! We both heard the Barrier activate for a moment just now! That means it touched Specter Zephyx!" Bryan said with urgency.
When Bryan saw Keanu shrugging again, he nearly exploded with anger.
"Keanu!" Bryan shouted.
"What do you want me to do?!" Keanu shouted back. "If you want to ring the alarm for something like this, go ahead! I'm not your boss. I can't tell you what you should or shouldn't do."
Bryan gritted his teeth before looking at the gate for a bit.
The Barrier had only activated for less than a second, and it had already deactivated again.
Additionally, they had been talking for several seconds, and nothing had happened.
Maybe it was okay not to say anything.
"Fine!" Keanu shouted in frustration. "I'm going to tell them!"
Bryan looked relieved and nodded.
Keanu's face turned annoyed, and he walked towards the gate.
He summoned his Barrier, and a moment later, the gate opened.
Keanu stamped inside with annoyance as the gate behind him closed.
"Seriously! What's Bryan's problem?!" he grumbled to himself as he walked through the corridor. "He knows that we have to report every single activation of the Barrier! Why would he try to stop me?"
At the same time, Bryan looked at the gate from outside with furrowed brows.
He didn't know why Keanu didn't originally want to alert their superior.
After all, they had to report every single activation of the Barrier.
Both of them were annoyed that the other one didn't want to report the issue.
Naturally, that was thanks to Nick.
'That was closer than expected, but it worked out in the end,' Nick thought as he slowly floated behind Keanu.
Nick had not felt the Barrier until he accidentally triggered it.
The noise the Barrier made immediately attracted the attention of the two Veteran guards, and Nick immediately used his illusion ability on them.
He changed their perception so that they felt like the other person was trying to downplay the situation.
Sadly, that only worked on Bryan. Keanu was adamant about alerting the guards.
So, Nick made the Keanu in Bryan's perception change his decision and walk inside.
Luckily, the Barrier was not a Liquid Barrier but a Solid Barrier.
If this were a Liquid Barrier, Nick wouldn't have been able to get inside this easily.
A Solid Barrier could not be passed by anyone unless it was deactivated.
Meanwhile, a Liquid Barrier was always active. The only way to get through it was by using a Barrier that was attuned to the Liquid Barrier.
If one imagined the Liquid Barrier as a waterfall, one could imagine the attuned Barrier as an umbrella. The waterfall still continued, but one could redirect the waterfall around one's body by walking through it with an umbrella.
Nick knew almost nothing about the inside of the city, which made the beginning the riskiest part.
After following Keanu for a while, the two of them entered some barracks.
Several guards were shooting the shit while playing cards and eating some black sticks.
"Bro, Keanu. You wan-"
"Not now," Keanu shouted back, not halting. "I'm on duty."
"Oh, sure. Carry on!" the man shouted.
Keanu continued walking down the barracks and loudly knocked on a door before entering without waiting for an answer.
"Sir, the Barrier in entrance 2B was triggered!" Keanu reported with a salute.
An older man looked up from the sheets of paper in front of him and looked at Keanu.
Then, the older man swallowed something. "More details, please," he said with an even voice.
Keanu went into detail about what had happened earlier but didn't talk about what Bryan and he had talked about.
While Keanu was disappointed with Bryan's attempted breach of protocol, he could tell that it was just a genuine mistake.
Additionally, Keanu was no snitch.
"What's your suspicion?" the older man asked.
At that moment, the door opened, and the guy, who tried to talk to Keanu earlier, entered. "Oh? The Barrier got triggered?" he asked casually.
The older man stood up and saluted respectfully. "Yes, sir!"
The guy that wanted to talk to Keanu earlier was his boss' boss, but the hierarchy in the guards was very strict.
Keanu had to report to his boss, not his boss' boss.
"I'll check it out," the guy said casually.
"Thank you, sir!" the older man said. "Keanu, lead him to the entrance!"
"Yes, sir!" Keanu answered before turning to the other guy. "Follow me, please, sir!"
The guy nodded, and the two of them went back to the entrance.
When they were not on duty, the two of them were best friends, but when it came to work, over two ranks and levels were between them.
The door closed behind them, and the boss was left alone in his office.
Some seconds later, he took out a small stash of black sticks and shoved one of them in his mouth while moaning in pleasure.
"Oh yeah, that hits the spot!"
Luckily, nobody was there to hear him.
Nick had already left.
When Nick had noticed the boss' boss earlier, he rapidly fled.
This guy was a Mid Specialist, at least, and Nick wasn't confident in being able to hide from him in such a cramped building.
Nick had quickly found a small vent near the ceiling and entered.
While the entrance to the guards' headquarters was secure, the inside wasn't as much.
There wasn't really a reason for such paranoia. After all, only Force Specters would be able to travel through these tiny slits, and no Specter would dare to enter the most fortified place in the entire city.
Nick traveled through the network of vents before finding a humongous hallway.
'The main entrance to the city,' Nick thought as he looked at the two gigantic gates.
The main entrance was a kind of floodgate, and it was impossible to open both sides at the same time.
Nick decided to wait inside the nearest vent.
Several hours passed.
Eventually, one of the big gates opened, and Nick could see a caravan entering from the outside.
Nick watched as the caravan was thoroughly searched for several minutes before the main gate into the city opened.
Nick left the vent and attached to the caravan's gigantic cart.
Then, the caravan moved into the city.