TOP SECRET: Adventures in the Dark Continent

Inside the builders' office ...

The place was a small office in the city like any other, the difference was that there were many types of equipment used in house construction.

Inside one of the rooms were the four builders, who helped repair Liu Yang's mansion, and a middle-aged man dressed as a butler.

The atmosphere inside the room was heavy and tense. The middle-aged man seemed to be impatient with something.

"Is the job done?" He asked coldly. If the other side did not do the job, they would be severely punished.

"Yes. We did the job. Some explosive traps and surveillance spells were placed at strategic points in the mansion. But we were only able to put it on the first and second floors because on the third floor, we couldn't go. Mr. Berny did not let us go to the third floor." One of the builders explained.

"I see ... This was already expected. Activate surveillance spells so I can see the mansion."

"Yes sir" One of the four placed a crystal ball on the table.

When the crystal ball was touched, it flashed and images began to emerge. The images that appeared were of the interior of a mansion, such as the lounge, bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchen on the first and second floors.

In one of the images, it was possible to see a group of people, a man, and three women, eating while talking and laughing. They were Liu Yang, Callie, Nancy, and Alwine.

The group was having lunch on the first floor, while the second floor had no one.

"It seems that you have fulfilled your part of the agreement. Here's the other part of the payment. You need to remember that what happened cannot be disclosed, right? Furthermore, this is something that puts your reputation at stake. It would be very disastrous for your competitors to discover that you have set traps and surveillance spells on the houses you build, right?" The middle-aged man spoke coldly. He placed a leather bag on the table and picked up the crystal ball before leaving next. He had nothing else to do on the spot.

"..." The four builders did not comment on the middle-aged man's words. They could only remain silent and let him go without making a sound.

"Shall we look in the bag?" The group was nervous about what was in the bag. The other side may have tricked them into doing the dirty work and not paying.

"You can open the bag. I believe there is nothing inside. The kind of people like them doesn't keep their agreements" One of the builders commented. He didn't even need to see the contents to guess what was inside.

"I will open this bag" One of them was skeptical about this and decided to see if the other side kept the deal or not. Despite this, he was also a little hesitant, as he didn't want the bag to be empty.

He slowly opened the bag, but when he looked at the window that appeared, he saw that it was empty. The leather bag had nothing but air.

"Empty. The bag is empty. Those damn nobles!!! They use us to do the dirty work and they don't pay us!!!" He threw the leather bag on the wall hard to take out his anger.

"I had said it before. Narrow minds people like these nobles will never fulfill their parts according to commoners like us. But we can only accept this because they are much more powerful and wealthier than us "

"Are we just going to sit and pretend that nothing happened? This is very humiliating!!!"

"What are you going to want to do? Complain this matter to the governor? He won't do anything about it either. The other side is also an influential and powerful nobleman, the governor will not want to offend the other side by people like us"

"What about Mr. Berny? He must be angry if he finds out about it "

"You are mistaken. He won't do anything about it, because he doesn't care about the mansion. Haven't you noticed that yet? He only asked to repair the mansion because it was the governor who gave it to him, otherwise, he wouldn't even be willing to spend money to repair the mansion "

"Allard, how are you supposed to know that? You don't even know that guy"

"I know this because he realized this during our conversation last week. Didn't you notice that he didn't even care about prices or anything? He just wanted us to fix the mansion, moreover, he seemed to be out of time, that young man must be wanting to get out of the city and the only thing that prevented him from doing that is the mansion" Allard was the person who negotiated prices with Liu Yang before.

"Allard, you can be right. I also realized that. I remember that this person named Berny came with a traveler coach, according to the information I searched for, that coach has been restored and is now ready for another trip. He must already be prepared to leave the city" Another commented. 

"Yes. He's not from the city, so he has no reason to stay. Even if the governor gave him a mansion, he doesn't have to live in it."

"So what are we supposed to do from now on? Forget that this matter happened? "

"Yes" The other three agreed.

"At least we received part of the payment. This is already better than nothing "

When the group was approached by the man dressed as a butler, he gave a large number of gold coins to set up traps and surveillance spells at Liu Yang's mansion. This was the first part of the payment and the other part would be delivered after they finished the job.

"Yes. This is true, but I refuse to accept that the other side has deceived us"

"What are you going to do? To rebel? If you do that, I believe that in less than a minute you will be killed "

"No. I will not do this. But you don't need to know about it and you don't need to know what I'm going to do"

"Owen, do you want to kill yourself? !!! Making trouble for nobles is like suicide !!!" Another of them commented. He was startled to hear his friend's words.

"You don't have to worry about me, I won't do anything stupid" Owen left the room without letting the others speak up.

"..." The group did not comment further on this subject and each one left the room.

But one of them had a cold look in his eyes that was not noticed by either of the other two.