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Shadow Behind the Mask

Ep. 12 — Too Smooth

Ep. 12 — Too Smooth

Feb 12, 2026

Present: 24 Years Old


The raid was scheduled for midnight.


Eblin didn’t know how many Imperial Knights had been assigned to this project, but he knew they were somewhere along the street and riverbank. His own ‘division’ consisted of three other members, camped out on a rooftop directly across from the target.


Unlike the rest of the division, he and his fellows were being open about their presence. With a lantern hanging dimly above their heads, they cheerfully proceeded with a game of cards that wasn’t exactly quiet. But if they hadn’t acted normally, the people in the warehouse would have realized their usual lookouts had been swapped hours ago.


“Aces!” crowed one of the others triumphantly. He slapped down the card and immediately reached for the pile of nuts they’d been gambling with.


The only female of the group rolled her eyes and tossed her cards down. “You’re a moron, Jens. You do realize this is fake, right?”


“I’ll take my wins whenever I can get them,” was the solemn reply.


Meanwhile, knight number three, Albrich, gathered the cards and shoved them at the woman. “Your turn.” He then turned to Eblin as he took a deep drag on his cigar. “Since this is the only time I get to ask, how is it working for Jacques Vellane?”


Eblin shrugged and leaned back in his chair, keeping a casual eye on the warehouse at the same time as swinging one foot around on his crossed knee. “Stubborn old man.” He winked. “He knows how to use that cane, though. I saw him break the leg of one of our perps once. Made me real glad he doesn’t aim any serious hits at me.”


“I heard he once worked directly for the Emperor’s first knights,” the woman, Allison, commented as she dealt. “Is that true?” 


“Really?” Eblin shrugged. “I have no idea. Jacques doesn’t answer questions, unfortunately.”


“Must be an age thing,” Jens said wisely, earning himself a smack on the back of the head from Albrich.


“You do realize I’m forty-five, right? I’m not much younger than Master Jacques.”


“Then you’re just as ancient.”


Allison rolled her eyes and, ignoring the two men, pulled a package out of her hip pouch. “I know you said you don’t smoke,” she told Eblin, holding up the package. “How about hard candy?”


He accepted a couple of pieces, popping one in his mouth.


“So, Eblin.” Jens turned to him, ignoring Albrich’s continued grumbles, “I hear you have a fairly famous book. Can I see it?”


Eblin grinned and, failing at the mock solemnity he attempted, he undid the outer straps on his pouch and passed over his copy of the Investigator’s Guidebook. Then once again peeked across the road.


Still nothing.


It had to be past midnight now. What was going on? Uneasily, he wondered if the missing paperwork that had led to his ‘execution’ almost a week ago had changed the smugglers’ plans. Even if the thief was caught, they might’ve concluded that he somehow still handed their plans to someone else.


Not unreasonable, though unlikely. He’d literally had ten minutes between getting his hands on the papers and getting caught. And they had no way of knowing that he’d had a transport spell ready to go when he’d broken into the boss’s office. Most petty thieves and informants didn’t have the resources to get their hands on such a spell.


Tears, most city or imperial guards didn’t either. He just happened to live with one of the best spellmakers in the city. And who, for some reason, tolerated his petty requests.


He owed Roryce a lot.


A burst of laughter caught his attention, and he turned back to the stalled game. No one had picked up their cards as they all tried to get a peek at his book.


“‘Neutrality is code for ‘Don’t annoy the nobles,’ “ Jens read. “And is that a bunny rabbit?”


“A dog, I think,” Allison corrected, only half listening as she squinted at another scrawl in the margins. “My reports go directly to the client, and I speculate plenty. It’s called thinking.”


“You can read that?”


Allison shrugged. “It reminds me of my little brother’s handwriting.”


“I don’t know if I should be insulted or flattered,” Eblin grinned, watching them flip a few more pages.


“I don’t get this one,” Jens poked the page.


Allison rolled her eyes. “Read the attached article, dummy. See.” Like she was reading with a child, she used her finger. “1. Collect physical samples before magical ones. Residue can evaporate faster than ether can stabilize. 2. Seal all enchanted objects separately. Cross-contamination or masking spells may distort signatures. Now his note. ‘Also keeps the Bureau’s “sample auditors” from pocketing things. If it glows, bag it yourself.’ “


“I still don’t get it.”


Albrich chuckled and leaned back in his chair while Allison tried to not-so-patiently explain the joke.


“And they keep offering you a job?” he asked Eblin, eyes twinkling.


“Urging from the upper bureaucrats, who haven’t done their homework on what kind of disaster I could make for them.” Eblin said it so somberly that he got the intended reaction of a belly laugh.


“Seriously, though, if they can successfully reform the investigators division and get a large number of good people in there, a whole tears load of problems could be solved.”


Eblin grimaced. “Unfortunately, until House loyalties can be reduced, I can’t see it becoming anything less than another stage for politics.”


Albrich held up a hand in surrender, then picked up his cards, putting them in order while the other two continued to read over Eblin’s notes. “Unfortunately, that’s probably too true. But as long as we’re making headway with the knights and guard, I’m sure we’ll eventually spill out into other sectors.”


Eblin shrugged. “I give it at least fifty years.”


“Maybe not even that long. At least not here. Five years ago, House-sponsored candidates made up eighty percent of all applicants. Can you guess how many this year?”


Eblin hesitated. “Seventy?”


Albrich grinned. “Fifty.”


Stunned, Eblin leaned back. “Wait, how did that many unsponsored candidates even get high enough scores?”


“Well, it’s not that they’re unsponsored, they’re just unregistered and encouraged to act within Imperial law rather than House politics. Hey, you two, are we playing or not?”


“Yeah, yeah,” said Jens distractedly, picking up his cards with one hand and trying to balance the book with the other. “We can’t arrest the laws of nature for bad breeding?”


“Bastard magics,” Allison interpreted.


“What are those?”


“It’s rare, but it’s basically what happens when the magics of two or more races clash—”


Tuning them out, Eblin hastily picked up his cards. “I don’t get it. How can you be unsponsored but sponsored at the same time?”


“There’s a group of nobles who are encouraging employment and education reforms,” Albrich explained. “It’s heaviest here because the instigator lives here, but it’s been slowly happening all over the Empire. Especially in the capital.”


Eblin hesitated as it clicked in his mind. “Ma’Shite’s projects? Like the Workers Perpetual Education program?”


“Exactly. These people are trained to respect the law more than any one House, even Ma’Shite’s. What’s more, they’ve been outperforming House-sponsored candidates in every field, not just the Guard.”


Finally closing Eblin’s book, Allison dropped it in the middle of the table. As though she’d been keeping track of both conversations at once, she added dryly, “I don’t get why, since no one is standing behind them with any kind of metaphorical whip.”


“You think someone needs to be whipped to be motivated?” Albrich shot back.


Allison visibly bristled. But before it could develop into an argument, a siren suddenly pierced the air. All four card players stopped what they were doing, listening to the shouts below and watching as shadows seemed to swarm into the building across the street.


“Should we finish the round or join them?” Jens asked.


Albrich relit his cigar with a snap of his fingers and some mana manipulation. “Finish the round. We’ll just get in the way if we go down there too soon.”


They actually played two more rounds before packing up and joining the rest of the knights below. Eblin said a quick goodbye before splitting away from them, going straight into the now brightly lit building.


To his relief, it seemed to have gone smoothly.


The knights had lined up their prisoners, hands tied behind their backs and on their knees, in the middle of the warehouse while other knights ransacked the place. Mostly they were opening crates, shoving straw onto the floor as they checked for illegal contraband.


Eblin stepped over to an open crate. Upon peeking in, he was stunned to see several dozen mana cores. Reaching in, he picked one up.


The glossy black surface of the oval-shaped stone glinted at him as he turned it slowly. These cores were the size needed for large spells—the kind that kept the lights on in a manor—a little bigger than his fist closing over it, leaving only a little of the color peeking through the cracks. If an average-sized woman were to try hiding it in her palm, she would fail.


How in all tears did they get so many?


Each crate of them probably had the same amount. Dozens, maybe a hundred or two. And there were several hundred crates here! Not all the crates were mana cores, but it didn't take long to reveal that the cores were a significant part of the shipment.


Where were they sending these? A random buyer? That’s what the records indicated. But it all seemed so… intentional.


He couldn’t put a finger on why he thought that.


As though to answer his troubled questions, he noticed someone coming around the crates with his arms loaded with bound books. Following where the man’s attention was fixed, Eblin put the core down and headed hastily over as well.


Jacques and Prefect Ashwyn were standing by a particularly big crate, on which the man Eblin was following dumped his armload.


“Found them! These are the records of shipments and sources for the last ten years.”


Ashwyn picked up one of the books and flipped to the first page. Noticing that it was dated six years ago, she put it down and searched until she found one from last year. Jacques, meanwhile, beat her in finding the one for this year.


“And they’re not the legitimate records?” she murmured, looking through the list.


“If legitimate records are hidden in the walls instead of the safe.”


She looked up with a raised eyebrow, and the messenger clarified.


“We found two sets of records.”


“Bring the others as well,” Ashwyn instructed. Then she surprised Eblin by tossing him the book she was looking at. He hadn’t realized she’d noticed him, and he almost fumbled catching the object. “On a cursory look, I’d say the manufacturer is the same one they raided two months ago in Gath. This was their last big shipment.”


“How convenient,” Jacques said dryly.


Ashyn raised an eyebrow. “Convenient?”


Jacques shrugged and put down his own book to cross his arms, cane dangling from one hand as he looked around the warehouse and its activity.


“For us,” he said, and Eblin perked up to hear behind his careful words his even more careful sarcasm. “We’ve got the manufacturers, we’ve got the shipments, we’ve even got a small list of buyers. Though that list is almost useless to us because it’s encoded.”


The Prefect waved her hand at the line of prisoners. “We are not short on people to interrogate.”


“That doesn’t mean the buyers didn’t cover their tracks.”


She sighed. “As long as the main operations are shut down, we can deal with the buyers separately. Or leave them be, as they now don’t have access to the wares.”


“Of course.” Jacques bowed his head to her.


“Do a quick look around. My people should be able to handle most of the paperwork, but I want you to look for any anomalies that we should be aware of.”


“Yes, ma’am.”


The Prefect walked away to talk to the Captain of her knights. When she was out of earshot, Jacques made a quiet snort and picked up a book just long enough to toss it aside.


“You feel it, too?”


Jacques grunted, shooting Eblin a faint, pleased smile. “I knew I was training a smart apprentice.”


“So this is a cover-up?”


“I suspect so. We’ll do our job, but I doubt we’ll find any more leads to the bigger picture here.”


“Can’t we just tell her?”


“Tell her what? That it went too smoothly? That our guts are saying there’s more to what’s going on? That something feels off, if only we had proof?” Jacques shook his head. “Unless you find something to convince her, this case is closed. Just do your job and let’s go home.”


“Does the word of one of the top investigators in the Empire mean nothing?” Eblin pressed.


Jacques immediately looked tired, his shoulders slumping as he turned deadened eyes around the building again. “Maybe once. But since the reforms and the emphasis on strict law, it’s become much harder to press the point.”


“But—”


“Boy, listen. Take your ham bones when you can get them, but don’t expect much more. In the end, we’re not funding a hobby.”


Eblin pressed his lips together and watched his mentor walk away. Only he noticed the slight slump in his shoulders, the defeat in his walk.


The years of frustration melting into stagnation and boredom.

kittykir1129
kittykir1129

Creator

Did you know that one piece of advice people give to web novel authors is to frequently talk to your readers?

😩 Here's a horrible secret. I'm not a chatty person. Right time, right place, right topic, and right people, I can bleed your ears out with the best of them. But most of the time, I struggle to keep a conversation going. I got a cashier job last year and it's so nice when the other person is chatty. When they're not, awkward silence. That's when I'm desperately trying to fill it with the same stories I've told a dozen and twenty times already.

So, here I am, trying to be chatty. 😂 I might end up looking for prompts, but I'll start with things people have asked (or might ask) about the story... and it won't be every episode.

Wish me luck!

---KittyKir

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If you are reading this anywhere but on royal road, tapas, or reamstories, you'll need to go to royal road or tapas to support the author. Thank you!

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The city calls her the Amicus, the arena’s shadow—an unwanted, dangerous survivor people pretend not to see.

Zanie prefers it that way. Keeping her head down, hiding her name, avoiding the one wrong encounter that might get her executed.

So far, it's kept her alive.

She owes that life to her benefactor—a gentle, incorruptible idealist who somehow manages to be both soft-spoken and impossible to bully. His charity work is infuriating the aristocrats who profit from suffering, and when the ruling regent fails to strangle those reforms with laws, he turns to quieter, nastier methods.

But Zanie won’t let him destroy the only person who ever showed her mercy.

To stop him, she has to sabotage him without revealing that she was once his property. Worse, she has to stay ahead of his son—an apprentice investigator whose sharp instincts and inconvenient kindness both cut far too close to the face she can’t let him see.

As danger tightens around her, Zanie finds herself caught between a ruthless noble who unknowingly holds the proof she needs… and a man she has no business talking to, let alone laughing with or falling for.

If she’s unmasked, she dies.

If she does nothing, the only good man she’s ever met loses everything.

And in a city where the law shelters monsters, the arena’s shadow may have to stop hiding—and start haunting.

---

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13 episodes

Ep. 12 — Too Smooth

Ep. 12 — Too Smooth

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