Thief of Time

All three moons were shining brightly when Claud moved out, clad in grey from head to sole. Normally, such a sight was associated with a peaceful night, but the master thief couldn’t help but think that tonight was rather special. For Julan, tonight was not fated to be a peaceful night, but rather, one in which strife and wisdom combined together to yield loads of wealth for one particular individual.

Flitting from cover to cover, Claud crossed from shadow to shadow, and before long, he had left the main residential districts. There was little point in using Presence Nullification here; it would be nothing but a waste of a skillstrip.

The Julan treasury was located in the middle of a vast plain. Other than four watchtowers built three hundred metres around the three-storey building, there was nothing else there.

Literally.

The trees near the area had been cleared out, along with any vegetation that dared to poke its head out of the soil. Claud was beside himself with appreciation when he first found out about such measures; such drastic methods were rarely seen when it came to the treasuries of other nobles. To be honest, this was the first time he’d seen a landed noble adopt so many anti-theft methods; most other nobles would not take the extra mile in clearing the local shrubbery and trees.

In contrast, unlanded nobles — baronets, knights and gentries — took their financial security far more seriously, something Claud learned shortly after picking up the thieving trade. Hundreds of them existed in the Istrel Dukedom alone, most of them only owning the land their houses were built on. Therefore, their treasuries were a lot smaller…and a lot more guarded.

As a trade-off, retribution from unlanded nobles usually didn’t exist. Since they couldn’t even mobilise village guards without permission from their local baron, thieves trying their luck at these places would rarely face any repercussions.

“Still,” Claud murmured, “the Julan Barony should have become a county long ago, no matter how I look at it.”

Most barons ruled only a village, like that poor Baron Aoro, whose son was now pushing up the moonflowers. To Claud, however, Julan looked something closer to Licencia, and from his initial gauge, probably had the military might to be a county.

Stopping at the sterilised perimeter of the Julan treasury, Claud reached into his pocket. A little box nuzzled his fingers, and he made a small smile. Clearly, Crown had realised that tonight was an important night, and was suitably worried.

“No worries, little guy,” Claud whispered. Retrieving two skillstrips, he tore them up and stuffed the remains into another pocket.

Clad by Presence Nullification and Flight, Claud crossed the cleared area around the Julan treasury within moments, slipping past the watchtowers with absurd ease. His heartbeat slowed down as he approached his target, and the master thief continued to keep his eyes peeled for any artefacts.

Presence Nullification, though utterly useful when it came to shielding oneself from all forms of perception and detection, did not have its limits tested yet. What kinds of artefacts could it deceive? What properties did it work on? Claud wasn’t sure, but he didn’t want to brave any risks while working.

After matching the structure of the treasury with the floorplan he’d memorised, Claud got to work. Other than the two guards that were at the entrance, and presumably four more at the perimeter, there wasn’t anyone else. No patrols, nothing.

It was understandable why the Julans saw no need for a patrol; these measures would have been enough to sniff out most people. Claud was quite sure that these guards were equipped with appropriate measures to sense out invisible people, but Presence Nullification went beyond mere invisibility. It hid him from the world itself, which meant that even if his mana leaked out or he made a sound, Claud would theoretically go unnoticed.

Making his way to the rear of the treasury, Claud pulled out some tools, thieving tools key to making an entrance. The first was a bladeless hilt, a highly desired artefact by warriors and thieves alike. Formally, it was called the Formless Sword, but it was called, by those in this trade, the Box-opener.

The Box-opener looked like a hilt with only a missing blade. It looked rather useless at first glance, but when activated, mana would surge out from the slit where the blade would normally extend from. For warriors, this was a very portable weapon that didn’t need maintenance.

For thieves, however, it had a more useful function.

Placing the Box-opener against the treasury, such that the slit was facing the treasury’s wall directly, Claud activated the artefact and waited, keeping an ear out with bated breath.

After two minutes, a blue light lit up on the Box-opener, and Claud nodded with satisfaction. The light indicated that the formed blade had reached a point of sharpness, and Claud began to carve out a line that was half a metre tall. Once done, he deactivated the Box-opener and repeated the process of carving out another line.

It didn’t take long before a solid block of wall had been carved out entirely. Of course, it was impossible to pull it out by hand, but Claud had, as usual, come prepared.

The next thing he needed to do was to pull out the loosened block, which could be done with an adhesive called the Devouring Plate.

The Devouring Plate was a dull-looking metal plate. There was a handle on one side, with the other side completely flat. Placing the flat bit against the loosened bit of wall, Claud activated the Devouring Plate, before pulling it out entirely.

Stale air gushed out in its wake, and Claud heaved a sigh. Fortunately, the treasury wall wasn’t as thick as the length of his Box-opener, or else he would need to do even more things. Granted, he had already estimated the thickness of the treasury wall, but not all walls were built fairly.

Inserting himself into the opening feet first, Claud pulled the loosened block of bricks as he entered the treasury, closing the entrance he’d just created.

Infiltration successful. Now, time to grab my loot…

He played around with the remote detonator for the explosives Lily had set up around the Julan main house. It was meant to be used as a distraction, if Claud faced any trouble with entry, but it would seem that he would use it as their farewell fireworks instead.

Snapping out of his thoughts, Claud started to look around the place. His careful planning had paid out; he was in one of the deeper chambers of the Julan treasury. The walls, which matched the colour of his robes well, looked like they were welcoming him, and Claud began to follow the path into the main storage area.

It didn’t take long for him to strike jackpot.

The main chamber of the Julan treasury was illuminated by multiple artefacts, which meant that its walls were covered by a gold sheen.

The master thief’s eyes, however, weren’t interested in the gold light.

Claud was only interested in one thing — lifestones. Not only did they prolong his lifespan, they also carried the greatest value for weight and space. Since Claud didn't have the leeway to grab as many things as possible, he had to be selective with his targets.

Taking out the numerous flammable items from his bag, Claud looked around for his favourite green glow, and his eyes didn’t disappoint.

Making a beeline for the Julan Barony’s lifestones, which had been sorted out by pile, Claud began to stuff the pure-ranked lifestones into his mouth. He trembled as the sweetest of lifeforce, unspoiled by any impurities, flowed through his body.

Unfortunately, there were only so many pure-ranked lifestones in the vault. He had to leave the rest for the others; high-rank lifestones would yield quite a tidy sum for their operations. Schwarz, who knew him well, would give him the stink-eye for days if he returned with just middle and low-rank lifestones.

Grumbling in his mind, Claud swept the others into his bag, and then started to look elsewhere. The gold coins were useless, as was the jewellery, but the same couldn’t be said for the gold notes. Each note was worth a hundred gold, and they were easy to carry away to boot, so Claud grabbed every single note he could lay his hands on too.

Stifling a chuckle, Claud moved on to the artefacts.

Normally, he wasn’t that heartless. Even when he broke into the treasuries of other nobles, he didn’t go so far as to wipe out their gold notes entirely, since that was nothing short of crippling them. Just as how farmers didn’t deplete the soil through over-farming, Claud too did not want to exhaust his source of lifestones.

Lily, however, had made a special request, so…

Claud looked at the artefacts that was sitting on a shelf, and grabbed everything Lily had written down on his list.

There was still some space left in his backpack, however. Claud didn’t quite like the idea of wastage, but he didn’t want to bring back useless junk either.

“Now what?”

His pocket twitched, and a small velvet box fell out of it. Claud caught the little fellow before it could hit the floor, before bringing Crown up to his face.

“Wait, did you find something?”

Crown did a backwards roll, and Claud raised his head to see another small shelf, one that looked similar to the shelf that had held the artefacts sitting in his backpack. He had looked at it earlier, and other than a bunch of diamonds, there was nothing else of interest.

“There’s something there?”

Crown jiggled.

At that sight, Claud headed over to the shelf. “Which one?”

Crown opened a moment later to reveal a Pure-Life gem, which Claud had placed inside a few days ago. Ejecting it onto his palm, in a manner that reminded Claud of spitting, Crown rolled over to a small dull pearl, opening and closing in an excited manner.

Faced with such a surreal sight, Claud could only take the pearl and place it in the opening where his precious Pure-Life gem had been sitting on earlier. Once done, Crown jiggled twice, and then slid down his body to enter his pocket, leaving a baffled master thief behind.