Things looked suspicious to the elves, they realized there were not as many challenges as they thought there would be, and this was, indeed, quite fishy.
"Yeah, this seems suspicious to me as well. There's something really fishy." Hermes said.
"It almost feels…"
"As if Greenwood is inviting us inside…"
The twins began to think, even after looking over the minds of the soldiers they found nothing of valuable information, apparently. Or maybe they didn't knew how to properly read minds? Well, they seem to not be able to read souls either.
The group of four elves looked into the facility, narrowing their eyes for a few seconds, but then, Alma seemed decided.
"Very well… Let's do this. I've got a plan." Alma said with a smile.
They quickly began to discuss the plan with one another. Alma seemed completely competent as a leader, more than she made up to be. She has been mostly acting mildly cocky, a typical ojou-sama from anime stereotypes, or a rich girl stereotype as some people might recognize them.
These type of people raised in nobility that are full of themselves, yet although Alma very much acts like a typical one, she also got a kindhearted personality and is very intelligent and caring of others, especially of her party of friends and allies.
"If Greenwood wants us to enter the tiger's den, so be it. But if we do it, let's do it sneakily. He'll probably expecting us to enter by force as usual. But this time, we'll infiltrate using magic and these guy's clothes." Alma said with a smile.
"Infiltrate?!" Asked Elena.
"How so?" Elma asked.
Alma looked at Hermes with a smirk, showing her white teeth.
"Eh?" Hermes suddenly felt scared, as if he was about to be used as a tool by someone else!
At the end, Alma's plan was simpler than I imagined. Hermes had an ability named Space Bubble, which allowed him to create a small pocket dimension to store living people inside, he put Alma and the twins inside, while Alma's knife stayed with Hermes. As long as the knife was equipped with him, it could activate one of its abilities that could only affect the wielder named [Mirage Veil].
By using that Ability, Hermes was able to disguise himself as a generic elven guard from this shady Greenwood facility, all while wearing their armor and weapons to make up for them. The knife hated being away from his master, but he still cooperated at the end.
I suppose this was the best bet they had at infiltrating inside, Hermes was amazing at acting based on his skills alone. They had a good shot with him. Meanwhile, this "root" guy they talk about was still hiding, he's probably a brute force unit, so they cannot bring him with them.
Hermes quickly melded into the crowd, slowly walking into a small door and using the key to enter. However, there was a trick, an hologram thingy showed up, asking for his eyes registration.
"…Shit."
Hermes, however, let the thing do its thing, and his eye was scanned.
Perhaps luckily for him, Knife had transformed him into exactly one of the elves they killed, and the keys didn't seem locked to each person, so he was… allowed to enter at the end.
Although everyone almost had a heart attack.
Meanwhile, as Hermes entered, I was telling everything to Benladann and Miranda, their faces growing shocked as they heard everything that was happening in less than six minutes.
"W-What?!" Miranda asked.
"So those guys are actually trying to infiltrate Greenwood's place…" Benladann said, as she smiled.
"Should we help them?" Miranda wondered.
"Yeah, we should totally go there and wreck everything and everyone." Benladann said. "And then we rescue the people he got captive there!"
"I guess we can, but I am not planning to simply jump for their help, we are busy here after all. It would seem suspicious if we all disappear, isn't it? This is why I am planning on watching them for a while and then if they are really in danger, I'll step up. I've already sent more Slimes down, they're pretty strong themselves, and I can use Magic Transfer with them to conjure Divine Magic if necessary." I said with a smile.
"Hm, you seem oddly relaxed." Sighed Miranda. "Things might get intense if it fails for them. We don't know what trick Greenwood could have."
"Yeah…" Benladann said. "But let's trust Drake for now."
Like this, I resumed my investigation underground. Hermes had successfully managed to get into the facility, as he was greeted by the interior that looked straight out of a sci-fi high tech facility, or something like the interior of a spaceship from star wars. There were lights everywhere, and even small robots walking around carrying things, while elves moved around.
"We are here…" Hermes whispered back at the girls inside of his bubble thing, as the girls seemed to want him to find clues as to where the test subjects were located.
"Alright, I'll investigate around for now…" Hermes said, walking around the facility almost aimlessly, looking around.
I was able to see many different rooms, areas where weapons and armor were being made by nanomachines of some sort, another area where there were… wait, what?!
"This place…"
There were countless of floating elf bodies inside of large capsules filled with embryonic liquid… Greenwood has been cloning people in here. Every elf here is actually some sort of clone too! There were different stages, from embryo to baby, to child, teenager, and then young adult, where they all were brought outside of their tubes and woken up.
"Hahh… Agh! Aahhh!"
One of the clones was quickly woken up from his sleep, looking around and suddenly panicking, trying to run away from everybody else, but then being quickly stopped by an electroshock.
"Uugaaggh…! Unngh…"
The clone quickly fell unconscious.
"This one was as bit crazy, are you sure he's mentally okay?"
"Sometimes weird ones are born, if he keeps up screaming after the education process we'll have to throw him into Gluttony."
"Yeah I guess that things just eats anything."
The two elves there quickly carried their fellow clone and walked away.
This shit was crazier than I imagined…
