房客(糙汉)何璐程曜坤

The sermon has already started but his duties kept him from attending it on time so the sound of his sandals clapping on the stone floor was both loud and hasty.

Something he would definitely be scolded for if he was caught red-handed.

Still, he didn't run because actually running would be deemed an even greater offense to the sanctity of the walls and he would have to...

*WHOOOOM*

Before the monk could turn the corner, a black-haired boy dressed in casual clothes that were covered with ice armor emerged from the puddle of darkness on the ceiling...!

*WHAM!*

"Ugh...!"

...and dropped right on the monk's head, taking down the unsuspecting man with a full body slam that gave out an unpleasant sound when the two of them slammed into the ground.

"Ooww... the recoil is still too large... that's barely any better than stone armor..."

Zoemi groaned raising his head and looking around with a pained expression.

"...at least no unexpected witness has shown up out of nowhere..."

After confirming that there really was no one else in the hallway and his rather coarse appearance didn't bring any attention, he breathed out with relief and rolled off of the body of the monk and stood up.

"Uwah... that dealt more damage to him than I intended... hey, could one of you heal him a bit? Not enough to make him regain conscience, but still... I am not an expert but the human shoulder should not be able to bend that much back..."

Zoemi's face soured as he looked at the knocked-out monk, and he spoke to the sentinels within his shadow.

"(Of course!)"

"Good, thank you."

The answer came immediately and one of the murky black orbs popped out from the boy's shadow and hovered over to the poor victim.

"Check what's behind that door too, alright?"

"(On it!)"

Zoemi added, motioning at the closest passage with his chin, and another sentinel showed up and changed into a murky-black mist before phasing right through the wood...

"(Unused chamber!)"

...just so it could emerge right back only a second later and report in an overjoyed voice.

"Good job. Now then..."

The black-haired boy nodded with satisfaction, checking whether the cleared room was locked or not first before asking his sentinels to take another action - and to his satisfaction, the door was actually open.

With that out of the way, Zoemi dragged the monk, whose limbs were all back in their natural positions, inside and proceeded to strip him from his hooded robe.

"Tie him up just in case."

"(Stone or ice?)"

Zoemi instructed, but since neither of them had a rope on hand, the sentinel asked for clarification on what attribute spell it should use to replace it.

"Stone, just don't make it too tight."

The black-haired boy decided while putting the secured robe on top of his ice armor and after confirming that he did not look too much out of the ordinary, he left the room with the calmly breathing monk with legs and hands stuck inside two slabs of heavy stone.

In the end, making the shackles out of stone was less damaging in the long run, for the ice to be effective and not melt within minutes its temperature would have to be so low that it could cause frostbite.

With stone, there was no need to worry about that – plus, there were far more earth magicians than ice magicians around, so doing it that way also doubled as a distraction.

Not that Zoemi needed one to begin with – the most of the people on his side still thought that he was in a coma, while the ones who got fooled and believed him to be some vicious villain kidnapping people left and right for his own benefit would believe every bad rumor about him at that point.

"Check the area, either with shadow connect or just look around."

"(Okay~!)"

"(We will!)"

Zoemi asked and the sentinels called out happily and chose the latter option, emerging out of the boy's shadow en-mass and scattering through the monastery's hallways.

*click*

Just in case he closed the door and put his hand armored hand to the lock, making it freeze over because of the temperature of the ice.

"(Master! Another one is here!)"

"...!"

Only a moment later one of his sentinels called out hurriedly, making Zoemi straighten his back and start walking as if he wasn't doing anything suspicious – but with enough hesitation to make it seem that he was bothered about something.

"...huh...?"

Less than five seconds later, another monk showed up from around the corner, almost walking onto the black-haired boy with his face hidden under the robe's hood.

This newly arrived monk was at least four times rounder than the one whose robes Zoemi was borrowing and had a different colored rope around his waist – which was a dead giveaway of some higher-up, at least considering that the one wrapped around the boy's waist was the same as most of the monks that he had seen while surveilling the area before picking ut his target.

The only question about the person in front of him was- when if he was important, how important was he...?

"Brother."

"...?!"

Zoemi nodded his head towards the round monk and the monk stopped in his track with a shocked expression as he definitely did not expect to encounter anyone at the current time.

"Brother, why aren't you at the sermon!?"

As if he wanted to make it even more obvious, the round monk was already mid scolding, looking at Zoemi with accusation.

"Ah, brother, it is a really embarrassing thing, really. I was asked to check on the second prince, you know how hard it is to deal with him... He is a truly cunning youngster... But the thing is, our abbot chose me to try and talk some sense into him since I'm the closest in age to him... But you see..."

Zoemi came up with a lie on the spot and began playing a role, fidgeting nervously while the round monk was looking at him with suspicion.

"I can't find his cellar..."

The boy mumbled nervously sounding incredibly ashamed of himself.