Rui sighed. The situation was far from desirable, but still quite salvageable. The leader may not have pieced all of it together, but Chairman Deacon certainly would. He had eavesdropped on the conversation that they'd had, coming to learn exactly what the patrol guard had seen, and what else they knew.
Thankfully, it seemed that the part of Rui's plan that aimed to ensure that the raiding team never once got to confirm the existence of the gigantic esoteric ore deposit at the center of the floor below the trunk of the tree was a complete success.
Although there was some speculation that the hole in the ground may have hosted some esoteric ore deposits, not a single person could fathom that there had been a huge deposit sitting there just seconds before they destroyed the last wave of branches of the tree. This gave Rui some breathing space as far as what they could infer from this, but it wasn't enough.
('Chairman Deacon will, at the very least develop some suspicions in regards to the truth. He has enough clues. He has plenty of reason to suspect that the Voider is responsible for the sabotage, barring Squire Harens' impulsive blunder.') Rui analyzed their situation. ('Once that happens, the patrol guard's report will confirm that the Voider is comprised of more than one person, at a bare minimum. That will change how he handles the investigation. More importantly, it will also strongly support the idea that the Voider's modus operandi highly relies on stealth more than anything. The only reason he can't assume this to be the case is that a single patrol guard's ambiguous report filled with uncertainty is not compelling enough. I should thank my stars that only one guard sensed our presence, if multiple guards reported the same thing, then it would be much more ironclad.')
Still, that wasn't too much of a consolation to Rui.
('Also, if he finds proof that there was a huge deposit in the center of the dungeon under the trunk of the tree, then things will get much worse,') Rui sighed. ('Then he'll know for a fact that we're using some way to extract the ore deposit from the dungeon that allows me to ignore conventional carrying capacity since he knows that, at most, several people extracted a gigantic ore deposit and got it out of the dungeon even though it ought not to fit through the tunnels.')
All in all, Rui's analysis allowed on the matter that at best, Chairman Deacon's suspicions would be very close to the truth, and at worst, he'll come to figure out the whole truth.
('Thankfully, the discrepancy in our levels with the incredible might of the Voider will be a barrier that he will be unable to ever see past,') Rui realized. ('The feats that we have accomplished should be impossible in his eyes unless performed by multiple Martial Squires who are truly at the very pinnacle of the Squire Realm.')
This meant that Rui could take comfort in the fact that even if Chairman Deacon went all out with an aggressive large-scale investigation based on the new information. Rui was a grade-six Martial Squire, and Kane was a grade-four Martial Squire. It ought to be absolutely impossible by any metric of evaluation, based on available information for the two of them to be part of the Voider group.
Thankfully, Rui had maintained an extremely thorough front for their official records. Rui and Kane went on a highly normal and very average raid in the most common and populated floors, where they harvested esoteric ore deposits like very normal and average Martial Squires and sold it in the market the way very normal and average Martial Squires did.
Furthermore, Rui made extremely sure that the profits from their public dungeon endeavors were more than enough to cover their public expenses. The costs of food, housing, Martial equipment, utilities, items, and dungeon taxes and fees among other things could all be comfortably covered by their registered revenue and income.
After all, if the two of them splurged the money that they earned as the Voider, it would be extremely suspicious as the question of where all that money came from would naturally present itself. Rui was far from foolish enough to commit such a blunder, hell, he had thought of this the moment he had conceived of his plan many months ago to participate in the Shionel Dungeon raid with Kane.
This elaborate measure that Rui had taken consistently would decisively filter them out of any suspect pool.
('It's a big country with a huge number of Martial Squires that have flooded into the country for quite some time now,') Rui noted. ('Good luck finding us, and good luck knowing it is us. I'm not that easy of a person to pin down. This time's incident is pure dumb luck for you, although it certainly came with its price.')
Rui's determination to succeed in his ambition of being the one to clear and plunder the dungeon had not shaken. In fact, it only grew fiercer now that the difficulty of it had risen slightly.
('Chairman Deacon will probably take some drastic measures after this,') Rui analyzed the businessman, making predictions of how the man would react to this time's event based on the profile that Rui had formed of him after a thorough analysis of any and all information that Rui was able to get his hands on the man.
This allowed him to have a deep insight into the man's modus operandi. He was an aggressive hound that pursued opportunities like there was no tomorrow. Although his acumen for business and politics was inferior to that of Guildmaster Bradt, his conviction and tenacity allowed him to achieve a level of success that threatened Guildmaster Bradt's dominance in the Shionel Confederation.
Rui knew that the man would not let go of the boons of information that he would glean from this incident. He would let loose until he caught Rui, and then he would kill him.
