Godfather's System

Sneaking into the flying castle was no simple task even under normal circumstances, and the alert state of the army at the time didn't make it any easier. I looked for an opportunity, which I was yet to find even as the sun started dipping down.

Admittedly, trying to cause some trouble for Somaton wasn't the only reason I wanted to sneak into a flying castle. We were yet to discover their working principles, and even Zolast had failed to learn anything desite his access to ancient knowledge while helping the princess.

The biggest problem he had faced was the core of the castle. Resting at the central tower, the core was a true black box in terms of its working principles, and was shielded strongly from any experimentation. While our fake church had a good relationship with the princess, it wasn't enough to ask her to sacrifice a strategic asset just to assuage our curiosity.

However, his access was enough to see the core, which was a black circle, with a radius of ten feet. Not exactly the easiest thing to steal. But ,it wasn't impossible, especially if the soldiers were busy evacuating a falling castle.

It was why I pulled back quite a bit, trying to catch up with the reinforcing castles that were coming from the direction of the Capital. Sneaking into them was a more acceptable challenge than trying to sneak into the ones at full alert.

There was one factor to my benefit. Perhaps lady luck was on my side, as along with evening came heavy rainfall, blocking the vision somewhat. The provided obscurity was nowhere near enough to allow me to move around with impunity, but every little bit helped.

In particular, it had reduced the sharpness of the guards quite a bit. Leveling helped people in many things, but the discomfort of wet socks was not one of them, especially when those wet socks were under metal armor. An inconvenient feeling, which meant that the occasional patrols that left the flying castles weren't as careful as they were supposed to be, and were willing to cut some corners.

It allowed me to sneak inside one of the carts that they sent down to pick up a patrol with relative ease. I clamped underneath the flying cart, a combination of Concealment and illusion spells keeping me safe from the wandering attention of the careless guards.

And, the moment we approached the cargo bay of the flying castle, I ran off, disappearing into the bowels of the castle. However, the moment I was fully inside the castle, I felt an interesting change.

The barrier between me and the System weakened the moment I entered the castle. It was a subtle change. If it wasn't for my most recent experiment when I added the youngsters into the Heroic Party, I might have even missed it

An interesting change, making me wonder why a flying castle interfered with the blocker the gods had on the System. The block wasn't as strong as the modified dungeon room Zolast created, but worked in a similar manner.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of time, not when I had worked hard to create a border crisis. I had to repeat that experiment later.

Instead, I started working on my current mission. Mixing with the servants was once again easy, particularly since the lower parts of a castle were never maintained particularly well.

I was starting to feel that it was more about driving the sense of superiority of the nobles than the general lack of cleanliness of the commoners. Another disappointing fact about a magical world, but ultimately, that list was already pretty long.

So, rather than wasting time daydreaming, I decided to look for a chance to sabotage the castle while also poking around. The emergency mobilization of the castle helped me, as I quickly realized the servants had been gathered at the last minute, meaning most didn't know each other.

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As I listened to the chit chat, I started to get a general sense about the background of the castle. From its flags, I had already figured that it belonged to one of the ducal houses rather than the royal military — House of Tumkin, to be exact — but as I listened, I started to get a better sense of the situation.

Apparently, the flying castle was being commanded by one of the sons of the current duke, who had been marginalized by his brothers, showing that House Yoentia wasn't the only one dealing with a succession crisis. Intervening with that crisis was a tempting proposition, but, ultimately, I was too busy to spend resources on that.

Instead, I started searching for an opportunity, which I came across relatively quickly.

"One of you. Go and feed the prisoners," one of the servants wearing a different uniform shouted.

"Yes, sir," I said as I bowed and grabbed the large pot of disgusting slob, feeling no problem in bowing and scraping a bit now that I found my chance.

The food was horrible, even worse than some of the worst stuff we had to eat back when we were at the worst camps. There was next to no vitality in the food, to the point that it felt intentional.

They were likely trying to keep the prisoners starving to prevent them from being a threat. And, there was a positive side to it. It meant that the prisoners could be strong enough to be a threat.

The perfect distraction.

Why they were logging around prisoners strong enough to potentially be a threat in a flying castle, I had no idea. Regardless, right now, I didn't have the luxury to overthink, particularly since it wasn't the only weird decision I ended up having to deal with since I had arrived in this world.

Instead, as I delved deeper in the castle, I threw in a few high quality health pellets into the food. The pellets still had their covers, it wouldn't be detected by any magical ward easily. And, now that it was already in the food, I could pass them to the prisoners that looked strong enough to create some distraction.

Soon, I passed many storage rooms, and even the stables, and reached a reinforced door. I knocked on the door, and it opened.

"Just distribute the food," the guard said carelessly before he turned to the other guard to go back to playing cards.

I hid my disdain at their lack of discipline and turned my attention to the prisoners.

It was a mixed bunch. Their near-starvation made it difficult to assess their strength. So, I chose to focus on their attitude instead.

Some looked angry, some desolate, though one of them caught my gaze in particular. It was a young man, late twenties, to my guess, but the aura of depression around him was thick. Like, he had lost something very important due to his imprisonment.

Then, I noticed that his depression was being exacerbated by a certain kind of aura that felt time I had felt anything like it was from Zolast.

A divine curse.

I found myself facing an interesting choice. The safe option was to ignore the curse, and, if it wasn't for the realization that the flying castle somehow limited the blocking of the System, I certainly would have done so. That weakening effect wasn't enough to allow me to pull people to my party with impunity … but the curse had weakened the connection with their divine patron sufficiently.

Moreover, I was finally away from the border, and at the territory of Somaton. Even if gods noticed my overreach, they couldn't find out my identity.

Together, the opportunity was too good to miss.

I added three pellets to his food, while I gave one each to four prisoners I assessed as the ones with the highest potentials. Then, as I passed them their bowls, I also unlocked their doors, but kept that mostly hidden. Before they could discover the pellets, I walked back to the door.

Just as I was at the doorway, I extended a Charisma connection to the cursed young man … and triggered the Heroic Party with a subtle flare of mana. For a fleeting moment, I found myself floating in the astral plane, a cursed soul in front of me, with a meager connection to another divine being away in great distance…

I extended the Heroic Party connection before he could even react. He accepted, and the curse around him disappeared.

As much as I wanted to stay and interact, I didn't have the luxury of taking that risk. The flying castles had too many methods of blocking the access between floors, and I needed to go up before the first prisoner consumed a health pellet and started an inevitable commotion.

I moved fast, trusting my Concealment to keep me hidden from the servants and the weaker guards, reaching the middle floors. I wished that communicating was possible with my newest Heroic Party member, but unfortunately, that was not an option until I could teach him the modified morse alphabet we had developed for this exact purpose.

Instead, I searched for a room that I could hide while the guards reacted to the sudden, and inevitable, prison break. Then, barely after I managed to find my path into an armory, a magical flare passed through the castle, and the doors leading deeper into the castle were slammed shut.

Luckily, I was at the other side of those doors.

I continued to wait.