Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Three - Sneaking Around

  The first thing to check out was the area around the kobold portal. At the moment, it was surrounded by Seraph. Not so much delvers (though there were a lot of those) but support staff and E-rankers with rifles and some lighter combat gear. Lots of normal folk in one-piece uniforms that were coming out of the factory carrying bodies on foldable stretchers and random portal-world stuff in wheelbarrows.

  A half-dozen trucks were parked around and more were coming. Seraph was going to make a good amount of money with this one... maybe. I wasn't sure if there was any use for kobold meat, but it looked like they were pulling out artefacts and some raw resources as well.

  The slime portal, I knew, would be worth a fortune.

  I'd had plenty of time to look up slimes, and to look at what people were saying about Seraph having found some out here, and... yeah. Slimes themselves were a living magi-chamical.

  That was common-folk talk for thaumochemicals. Basically, any chemical derived from some sort of magical effect. There were some that were made from spells, and more that were mined or gathered from within portals.

  I think, technically, they were almost all synthesizable, but then everything was technically synthesizable, that didn't make everything cheap.

  Slimes were made of exotic chemicals that were all either imbued with a ton of magical energy, or which only existed while interacting with magic in some way.

  There were comments that popped up online after the news came out about this portal that said that it was basically paydirt for any corp. A recurring E-ranked portal filled with slimes was worth ten goblin portals. More, probably. A C-ranked one? Well, other than the fact that it was filled with C-ranked monsters, and that was a nightmare all on its own, it was still valuable as hell.

  If this one was recurring, then the property that the factory was on would be worth a small fortune and the contract to exploit the portal more.

  But that wasn't something I had to worry about. Seraph could have their slime portal and keep it too. I was aiming for the kobolds, even if that wasn't my original plan.

  I was still salivating over the idea of nabbing two portals in one morning. It would be... very risky, but damn, what a catch if we pulled it off.

  I settled down on the roof, then... took a nap.

  There were probably better things to do, but I had to wait a few hours to get to the next part of my plans, and I was tired. A nap would do me good, I figured, and an hour later, I was proved right when I woke up to find that the sun had finally poked through the clouds and was beaming down on me.

  I licked my lips and regretted not bringing a water bottle with me. I think I had one in my bike's bags, but that was a ways away.

  Shuffling around, I sat up, then looked over the edge of the roof. I'd picked a space with a raised lip to nap in, because I wasn't stupid.

  There were just as many, if not more, Seraph people down below, but they seemed to have spread out a little and there were fewer people around. Just some clean-up crews, and it looked like everyone was distracted, so that was probably a good time to head over.

  If I got caught, then I'd just try again later. Or in another loop. For now, I just wanted a good sense of the interior of the factory.

  I made my way around, hopping from one rooftop to another, and getting a feel for those as well. It was very possible that I'd be taking the girls across the rooftops. Mostly because it was a fast and indirect route, but also because it was cool as fuck.

  I might have to bring rope or something, or see if they were even down for this kind of thing in the first place. It would suck to plan a big escape only to learn that Fran or Becky was afraid of heights.

  I found a spot where I could jump from one of the adjoining roofs onto the one of the Redlad Welding building. I almost went through the roof. It was old tin, and I felt it shift dangerously under my weight until I threw myself forward and spread my weight out.

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  "Damn," I muttered.

  Still, it held, at least for the moment. I scampered on all fours towards the top of the roof, then I looked over the edge. The building had a lower roof and an upper roof. I'd landed on the upper one. There were nice old windows where the upper roof met the lower one, grimy with dirt and blocked by smoke within.

  I shifted to the edge of the roof where there wasn't a window, then scooted over the edge. The lower roof, at least, was at less of an angle. Still tin, and I winced as I landed on it and it made some noise, but it wasn't that bad.

  Turning towards the nearest window, I shifted closer, then started to look for a way to open it.

  Unfortunately, it wasn't made to be opened at all. The window had caulk all the way around it.

  I rubbed a circle clean on the glass to at least spy through it. There was a lot of old smoke staining the inside of the glass, but I could make out some of the inside anyway. A walkway ran just on the other side of the window which looked like it ran around the upper floor. I think there was an office on the far end of the room, with stairs learning down. The main floor was pretty open, with some old machines hanging around, but also space to move things in. The ceiling had a lot of gantries and big... chain things with pulleys on them. For moving large objects around? That'd make sense if this was a welding shop for more industrial machines.

  No one inside was looking up, so I figured I was safe for the moment.

  I sat back and waited, half expecting someone to call out for me or to come up to the window from the inside, but nothing happened.

  When I noticed that there weren't any lights inside anymore, I pulled out my revolver, flipped it around, and used the butt of it to smack the window.

  It shattered.

  I was hoping for a small, discrete break, but the entire thing burst apart all at once, a crack running right across it that broke off into a few large pieces.

  "What was that?"

  I ducked to the side and shuffled away from the window. Okay, so it wasn't as empty as I had thought.

  I hid from the window for a while, but all that really happened was that some Seraph guy came up and poked around it. I heard him over a walkie-talkie saying that it was just a broken window, probably busted from the fighting earlier, then he was off.

  I still ended up waiting another hour or so before I snuck off the roof and into the building proper. By then, it was well and truly empty.

  Cool, so that was one way in, though it wasn't subtle. Still, it might not be that bad? The upper floor had a good view of the space below. I could tell where the portal had been, if only from the sheer number of footprints in the dusty ground that people had left. It was near the rear of the room, next to what looked like a small break room and bathroom. Someone coming in from the front wouldn't be able to see it, on account of a few partitions, but from above?

  Some of the prints weren't boots, but clawed feet, and those had clearly wandered around the shop's main floor.

  Some things had been moved, and recently, and I noted a few holes punched into walls that looked distinctly like shotgun pellets. The Seraph's doing? There was a lot of blood left over, usually pretty close to those same shots.

  Alright. I had a good idea of how to get back in here, but it was loud.

  So, I wandered. I checked the front entrance, then the rear. The backdoor was bolted shut, with a bar across it, so that was a no-go. Not many windows on the lower level either. So, above was the way to go, unless we rocked up to the place so early that we could just come in from the front?

  When did this one even breach? It might be sooner than I expected, if the kobolds wandered around for a while before breaching containment.

  Well, there was only one real way to find out. Next reload, I'd be coming here first thing in the morning and checking the portal out.

  If it breached overnight, then there was nothing to do, but if it wasn't breached yet... then that would be lucky.

  ***