Besides the guards and a portal, at the other side of the magic array, Daimon could see the real structure of the prison, it was basically an underground structure with different portals and they were inside one of them, meaning this place was just a division of the prison.
Seeing the guards glaring at them, Daimon landed on the ground followed by the girls, without waiting to be asked for, they showed them their tokens.
Daimon could guess the strength level of this division of the prison was in the middle, judging for the fact that these guards were only peak Lord ranks, that also explained why that merman Archmage was so confident when dealing with them, in this part of the prison he considered himself as the peak of the food chain, which ended up being his downfall.
Another thing he noticed was that the mermen that had extremely noticeable fish characteristics, like octopus heads and the like needed water to breath from time to time, Leslie who was the first to try on the helmet discovered it t he bad way, the helmet she tried on had a formation that stored and expulsed water in periods, and she happened to put the helmet and got her face soaked.
So, they only put the helmets after rendering the formations useless destroying some of the runes engraved on them.
The Archmage on the other hand seemed to be able to breath on the surface without any problem, so it was probably a difference in the lineages,
Unlike the mercenaries, although these guards had the head of a fish, a barracuda in this case, they didn't use helmets but an accessory around their necks which was similar to a water tank, overall, they looked quite fierce and their annoyed expressions didn't help too.
"You know the rules, show us your rings and put those flying fishes in your beast pouch", ordered one of the guards.
Daimon already expected something like this, so with the bracelet of the god of mischief they hid their personal rings, and left the ones they stole from the mercenaries visible, and those were the ones they handed for inspection.
Also, another device that didn't exist in the Wonder Myriad stellar chart was the "beast pouch", since the mermen could tame sea magic beasts, they put a lot of effort into how to transport them, which ultimately led them to create beast pouches, a device similar to a storage ring but that could keep living beings!
Although the limit seemed to be five and the Archmage only had one of them, anyway, Daimon kept the flying fishes inside and then kept the pouch in his pocket.
Once the guards finished their inspections, they threw the rings back at them, moved aside so that they could go through the portal and stopped paying Daimon and the girls any attention.
Aster Daimon and the girls went through the portals, Daimon heard the guards whispering to each other.
"I don't understand why the lord warden prohibited us from getting some benefits from that fake noble".
"Beats me, even if recently ascended, a high-level mortal expert hunting in the middle zone rank zones it's lame, not to mention he brought those tentacle faces with him, who knows maybe he is clinging to the boss's leg or something".
Daimon's chuckled, even if these guys have Emperor rank existences, they still have internal conflicts like every other forces.
'Good to know, they will be harder to deal with if they were completely united', thought Daimon as they reached the other side of the portal appearing on the large underground facility he saw before.
There was a line at the other side for those who wanted to enter, and they were on the one that was reserved for those who were leaving.
Daimon inspected their surroundings for a couple of seconds before he advanced towards a table where an old man with the barbels of a catfish was lazing around.
"Huh, what do you want Tomas?", the catfish merman didn't seem to be interested in dealing with Daimon, but he still asked.
Daimon simply took out the corpses of the prisoners the mercenaries hunted; he saw other guys bringing their findings to exchange them for some kind of currency that looked rather familiar, so he did the same.
The barbels of the old mermen moved as he took out a large book from below the counter, he then drained some blood of the corpses on the cover of the book and the book then automatically expelled a couple of pages without the need to open it.
"Your loot this time is just a bunch of trash… whatever here is your reward, five thousand sea crystals", the old man handed Daimon a leather pouch containing mana crystals with similar properties as the ones he knows but a more concentrated amount of mana and shaped in octagonal forms like the beads he has gotten whenever he killed the skelefiends.
Daimon nodded at the girls and they all left this place, leaving behind a slightly confused catfish merman.
'Since when that guy doesn't bargain, I bet he asked a favor from the boss again and was put in his place for it hahaha', the old man then returned to laze around waiting for his next client.
Daimon and the girls walked following the indications Horals got from the mercenaries and soon they were out of the underground facility.
The entrance to this place were a set of stairs that went down from ground level, there were two early-stage Arch ranks guarding them, their eyes wandered around Daimon and the girls, but not finding anything out of the rule, they didn't pay them any more attention.
Daimon looked around, there were some small buildings and what seemed to be dormitories, because according to Horals's information the prison was built below the headquarters of the city guards.
They walked towards the front gate and the after the gatekeeper checked on some kind of wanted board, to see they weren't criminals they were allowed to leave.
Outside of the city guard headquarters, the place pretty much looked like a coastal city, there were fountains and other similar decorations here and there that portrayed some kind historical figures, or maybe the rulers of the Mermen Sea, besides that the city was pretty much like any other big city you could find at Lykos, having a mix of medieval and modern architecture.
"What's the plan now?", asked Leslie, she was inwardly laughing at her voice that was modified by the bracelet of the god of mischief, to sound deep and hoarse.
"For the time being we'll go the inn where these guys were staying to get the rest of their assets, we'll decide what to do after that".
"Mm", the girls nodded and Daimon took out a piece of paper on which Horals wrote some important information, such as the currency, the inn where the Archmage was staying, and other stuff.
Apparently that Archmage knew the guars would have tried to extort some money from him if there was a chance, so he left most of his valuables at the place where he was staying.
It didn't take them too much time to arrive at a three-floor light blue building, with a sign that said "Millar Inn".
"Here it is", with Daimon's confirmation they all entered the inn, the one in charge was a guy in his late twenties, that looked at them when they entered but recognized they were already staying here, so he pretty much ignored them.
Daimon and the girls didn't pay attention to it and just went upstairs, at the second floor where the room that the mercenaries rented was.
The inn was pretty much a cheap place, just barely enough to not be considered run down, but not good enough to be average.
After Daimon closed the door behind him and he inspected the room just in case, he nodded and everyone dispelled their disguise, the girls took out the helmets as they weren't used to it.
While they sat on the chairs in front of a desk at one side of the room, Daimon looked below the bed of the Archmage, and brought a small coffer from it, he then opened the lid using a key that Borals confiscated from the Archmage.
Inside of it there was just a single dark blue storage ring, which Daimon grabbed, it was sealed using mana which clearly belonged to an Arch rank, which would have normally taken a lot of time to undo, if it wasn't for the fact that his magic core was being a sweetheart lately obeying him.
With a mental order, the mana sealing the ring was fully absorbed by Daimon's magic core.
"Mm?", Daimon raised an eyebrow, the mana in the ring wasn't completely the same as the one the Archmage called Tomas had, there was a second different mana there, also once he looked inside the ring, he was speechless.
The girls saw Daimon's fluent expressions and they wondered what he found.
"What, was that guy too poor or something?", asked Aisha as she stretched her body.
"No… I guess we'll get rid of these identities after leaving this inn", what was inside of the ring, besides some low and middle ranked treasures, were rack after rack of coffers containing hundreds of thousands of "sea crystals" like the ones the old man gave them, but they all had seals on them and clearly were labelled.
'Thanks for your support', thought Daimon as he kept the ring in his inventory, just in case, the inventory was similar to the innate ability of a smiling ghoul of hiding things, even if they were to have some kind of tracking mark, it won't work inside it.
Daimon saw that the girls were a bit tired, which was understandable after experiencing being inside that giant whirlpool, he wasn't at his best and needed to sleep too, but now that they had really high budget they didn't have to stay in this cheap place.
Still, there was one last thing they had to do using these appearances, return the keys of the room.
"Let's get out of here, Horals wrote of a place where we can get trending news of other cities and even the other seas, we'll go there and then we will also go to a decent inn".
The eyes of the Risha sisters sparkled, it's been some time since they slept in a proper place, none of them came from sea races and they weren't used to sleeping in boats, the movement was quite annoying, the other option was to sleep in the caves which wasn't that bad, but a proper room in mainland was the best.
After inspecting the room to make sure they didn't leave anything else behind, they went downstairs, the guy at the counter was reading some kind of newspaper and only looked at them when Daimon left the keys of the room.
"Come again", with those single words, the guy continued what he was doing.
Once outside of the inn, Daimon and the girls walked into an isolated alley, he casted the black curtain to hide them, and they changed their appearances to some random people they have seen at Lykos, because Daimon told them they would only use their real appearances after getting the information they needed.
He who helped Elaine administrate the information network of the Revy family, knew that places that sale information always have some link to the high echelons of the society, and they also gather information about their clients one way or another, so using random appearances he wouldn't have to worry about anything.
They got rid of the armor and helmets of the mercenaries and just wore generic clothes that wouldn't stand out.
"Let's go", once they finished assuming this once time disguises, they left the alley and walked to the merchant's district of the city.
