Savior! Redemption in Another World! - Chapter 71

“Come with me if you want to leave,” I say, sticking out my hand to the still dazed Sylvia.

“W-wha-” She begins to stutter as if this was the first time she’d ever spoken to a person before. We don’t have time for this.

Ignoring her dazed state, I dash over to her and scoop her onto my shoulder, new clothes and all.

Then, without wasting any more time, I jump out of the now rapidly closing hole, just in time to land on the now fully stabilized roof with the even less mentally stabilized Sylvia.

However, time is still not on our side. We need to leap off this building and escape the eyes of the guards before the commotion on the western end of the city is wrapped up, and I can’t afford to have Sylvia suddenly becoming lucid and ruining this whole escape plan.

Setting her down onto her feet gently, thankfully I don’t have to worry about her suddenly snapping back to her senses mid-air, as she seems to have regained some amount of mental function, given she is now wordlessly throwing the clothes I gave her on.

“Who are you?!” She yells as soon as she’s somewhat dressed, taking a hasty step back from me.

“I am Gust, a friend of Boramir’s. Can you cast? It would be beneficial if you could make your way back to the guildhall on your own, otherwise, I’ll have to carry you.” I ask as multiple emotions fly through her face.

“Hurry. We have little time before the guards arrive and even less until my floating spell wears off. Answer or I’m leaving you behind and assuming you can fly.” That’s a lie. There’s no chance in hell I’d leave behind the ticket to seeing my kids again after coming so far, but fear ought to shake some sense into her.

“No, I can’t cast. Whatever drugs they were injecting me with for these past few years have kept me from using any mana. That’s why I couldn’t just break out of that prison myself.” She quickly answers, finishing getting dressed yet taking another unsteady step away from me.

“What? I thought you were just cautious of the mana scanners?” I ask, taking a step closer and sticking out my hand. “Come, you can explain everything on the trip down.”

Syliva takes one slow and uneasy step, followed by another until she eventually grabs onto my hand.

Not being able to waste any more time, I grab her hand and pull her into a bridal carry, leaping off the building and reactivating Falcon’s Swoop.

We escaped not a moment too soon, as from the sky we can see a beat-up yet alert platoon of guards begin to head back towards the tower.

Gently gliding through the air, it’ll take us at least twenty minutes of silent descent to reach the ground, then about five minutes of walking to return to the guild building. Plenty of time to wring some answers out of my new supposed comrade.

“So, what’s this about a mana inhibiting drug? How Boramir explained it, it sounded as if you were simply being cautious.” I ask, as Sylvia scoffs slightly and shakes her head.

“I’m the guild master of a grey guild, why would I be afraid of some measly scanner? No, after I was captured, they would give me daily injections of this strange glowing liquid. At first, I tried to resist, I could resist, but after a while…” Sylvia replied, her voice trailing off as she subconsciously rubbed her right arm.

“I understand, you don’t have to go into much detail. How long have you been held there? Also, guild master? I thought that title belonged to Boramir?” I ask as Sylvia takes a moment to think.

Hmm, her face seems somewhat familiar, but I can’t quite place it.

“What year is it?” She asks, looking over at me with a strange expression.

“It’s 982, yet in a few months it’ll be 983,” I say, as a look of shock gradually comes over Sylvia.

“**** *****” She mutters inaudibly.

“Come again?” I ask, as a look of sad acceptance finally hits her face.

“Five years. I’ve been imprisoned and drugged for five years.” She says in a defeated tone. I can feel warm tears slowly collecting on my arm, but there’s not much support I can give her, given both my arms are full and half my focus is on maintaining Falcon’s Swoop.

Thankfully, it looks like I won’t have to just yet, as she simply continues talking.

“It all makes sense now. Why you know Bor but I’ve never seen you in the guild, why you don’t know who I am and why you’re referring to Bor as the guild master. Of course. It all makes sense now. I was forgotten by the guild, and abandoned for five years.” She says, her tone deflated and her body slumping.

“Well, that’s not true at all,” I say, which is completely true.

If the guild had abandoned you, they wouldn’t have given me this job, and you wouldn’t be free right now. But I can’t just say that.

“They never abandoned you, according to Boramir, even with all his might, he was barely able to put a crack in the guard’s tower. It’s more like they all failed, not that you were necessarily abandoned.” I end up saying, looking down at Sylvia with a mix of understanding and pity.

Yet, something is still nagging at me.

There are too many details that just don’t add up. The way Boramir spoke about Sylvia, it sounded as if she’d been trapped, a caged person, for most of her life. Yet, from what I’m hearing from Sylvia, she was actually Boramir’s boss.

Also, there wasn’t any scanner. The captain didn’t even have anything on him, although it’s not as if I checked, and even Sylvia said she didn’t care about its effects.

Finally, if it’s this easy, why hasn’t anyone done it yet?

Sure, I just happened to have the right set of tools to complete the job, but with five years worth of prep time, anyone could have done this much.

Maybe not the explosives, but someone could have developed a flight spell and a powerful enough spell to blow open the tower, whilst the rest of the guild made a distraction on the opposite side of town.

In fact, this was the first plan that came to mind, let alone if I had five years of plotting and preparations.

Something just isn’t adding up.

“Sylvia, I have a question for you,” I say seemingly out of the blue, as she looks up at me with a confused yet still deflated face.

“What is it?” She asks, her voice has only a hint of real interest.

“Did you or do you have any enemies in the guild? Anyone, who you think would actively work against your interests?” I ask, as Sylvia’s face suddenly seems to fill with life and intrigue.

“Hmmm, no one aside from one or two people. Why?” She asks, now interested in the conversation.

“Describe the two to me,” I say, slowly piecing together an idea.

“One’s name is Lenard, he was one of our higher-ranking members who would focus mainly on assassinations and break-ins. We would always butt heads on the direction we wanted the guild to take, but when it came to serious matters, we were always able to see eye to eye. He’s someone who cares more about the guild than anything.” She says, placing her hand on her chin and forcing me to shift my weight a bit to not drop her.

Based on that, it’s most likely not him. No one who cares about the guild would backstab their guild master, and he doesn’t seem to have the necessary connections.

“Next?” I ask, as Sylvia breaks from her trance of thought and continues to talk.

“The other guy’s name was Keith. Focused a lot on theft and was one of our top info guys, basically, every tip he gave was correct. He was a bit of a klepto so I had to keep him on a real short leash. Even if he was a nut for stealing, his real talent was his information network. If you wanted to know anything or wanted anyone to not know something, he’s your man.” She said, once again going back into a deep state of thought.

He sounds like our guy.

How I see it, is that this Keith character had one too many bad experiences with Sylvia, and once she got taken, did everything in his power to keep her there.

It makes sense, if he controls all the intel the guild gets, it would only be natural to skew the truth. Making up lies about Sylvia being completely fine and at full power, just being cautious and not breaking out.

Making up information about fake technology that the guards had to dissuade people from trying to help Sylvia, and even keeping the guild busy and focused on other things, suppressing any info that came out about her.

“Why do you ask?” Sylvia said, snapping me out of my reverie.

“Hmmm, just working with a theory. I think Keith may have to do with why you’ve been locked up for so long.” I say, speaking my mind.

“Not possible.” She says, instantly shutting me down.

“Why not? It seems perfectly possible to me?” I reply as Sylvia shakes her head and sighs.

“Keith died on a job two years before I got captured.” She said, her voice filled with a bit of remorse.

Hmmmm.

This still doesn’t sit right with me.

No matter, after a bit more small talk, we land gracefully on the ground and make our way back towards the guild building of Edge of Night.