"Excuse me, do you mind if I stay here?" a soft, enticing voice reached one of the evilus spies' ears.
Startled, he turned toward the source, his gaze landing on a young girl draped in a thick cloak.
"O…of course, please go ahead," the evilus spy stammered, scooting over to make space for her.
It seemed a new batch of civilians had arrived, and the girl appeared to be one of them.
'She smells really nice,' the evilus spy thought, stealing glances at her.
Despite her thick cloak, her beauty was hard to conceal; her voice was captivating, and she exuded a fragrance that was the most pleasant scent his nose had ever encountered.
As he was staring, the girl suddenly turned her gaze toward him, their eyes meeting.
Her eyes were a pale gray, mirroring the color of the hair that peeked out from beneath her cloak.
"So, where might your sneaky friends be hiding?" the girl asked suddenly, a silver glimmer flashing in her eyes.
The evilus spy felt an overwhelming sensation wash over him; the moment that silver glimmer appeared, his mind went blank, as though he had been charmed.
"T…there are seven on the eastern side, twelve to the north, our god is waiting on the western side," he revealed, the words flowing from his mouth effortlessly.
In that instant, he seemed to forget that he was a spy.
"Quiet. Do not speak too loudly, and do not look this way. Let no one sense anything strange," the girl admonished.
"I understand…my lady," the man replied, his tone submissive.
Satisfied, the girl urged him to continue, extracting every secret he knew.
Their conversation faded into the background noise of the crowd, barely audible.
Once she had gleaned all the information she wanted, she departed without another word, leaving the man dazed and confused, his memory of the past few moments slipping away.
The girl walked over to a group of men and women standing nearby; they were adventurers disguised as civilians.
"You've become quite adept at using your charms to command others, Lady Syr," commented a young girl with pink hair.
"Thank you, Heith. However, he wasn't an easy man to find. It was only by borrowing our lady's insight that I was able to track him down," Syr replied.
Suddenly, Syr turned her head, her gaze fixed on the uppermost floor of Babel, far out of sight, as though she were sharing a telepathic moment with the goddess standing by the window.
A second later, she felt a sharp blow to her head.
"Ouch, what was that for?" she complained to Heith.
"Care to share the information you acquired?" Heith asked, ignoring Syr's protests.
Syr understood why Heith acted this way; the jealousy radiating off her was palpable.
Syr shared a special connection with their goddess Freya, an enviable ability that any member of the Freya familia would kill for.
"I have written everything down here," Syr replied, handing Heith a scrap of paper.
"Excellent! Now we can hunt those scum before they make an attempt on Freya-sama," Heith said gleefully.
Members of the Freya familia were not merely followers of their goddess; they worshiped her with their hearts and souls.
They had sworn an oath to protect her at all costs, and anyone who dared to stand in their way was considered an enemy.
"Ah, I would like to capture all the spies alive if possible. Do you think you can charm them as well?" Heith suddenly asked.
She had special plans for those who dared to target her goddess, and the others with her shared a similar mindset.
"I can charm the followers, but not the god," Syr replied.
"That's great!" Heith exclaimed, her gaze shifting to the other adventurers with her.
"You all know what to do, right?" Heith said.
With savage grins, the members of the Freya familia silently melted into the crowd.
"Lead the way, Lady Syr. We have work to do." With that, the fate of the evilus spies was sealed.
......…
After taking command, Finn found himself burdened with an overwhelming influx of reports—not only from the messenger system that had been established, but also from people escaping areas he had not yet been able to reach.
However, with his keen mind and support from Draco, Loki, and several other gods on their side, Finn absorbed it all, analyzing the situation and delivering his orders.
Things seemed to be shifting in their favour, but Finn couldn't shake the discomfort in his thumb.
To the north, the Freya familia was in charge, adjacent to them was the Hephaestus familia workshop.
Between them, other powerful familias filled the gaps, sometimes taking orders and other times acting independently.
The various factions in the city were learning to put their differences aside, working together to repel the invaders.
"Seems like the war is reaching a stalemate," a voice interrupted Finn's thoughts.
It was Draco, finally taking a break as the intensity of the attacks began to slow down.
"Yes, it is. We've sustained significant losses, but we can recover if we focus on deploying our first-class adventurers to critical locations," Finn replied.
"True, but this is concerning. The evilus should know that having the majority of the city's adventurers against them would lead to their defeat. Yet they are primarily targeting civilians on the streets. Shouldn't adventurers be their main targets?" Draco inquired.
"I don't know. They should have realized by now that we have countermeasures for their suicidal bombers. Valletta isn't foolish, so what is her goal?" Finn said, his frustration evident.
"Putting Valletta aside, there has been no reports about evilus' secret powerhouses. Shouldn't we be more concerned about that?" Draco asked.
Since the war began, Draco had been vigilant for signs of evilus' three secret weapons.
Although he didn't know how to counter them yet, knowing their locations would be helpful, but so far, there had been nothing.
"I have some first-class adventurers prepared for that, but…" Finn's voice trailed off, lacking confidence.
This same thought had been troubling him, and the ache in his thumb intensified with each passing second.
"Captain, Captain!" the urgent call of a Loki familia member interrupted their discussion.
"What is it, Raul?" Finn asked, watching the young man pant in exhaustion.
"T… the west. Almost every single adventurer in the southwest has been wiped out," Raul reported, his voice trembling.
Everyone within earshot gasped in shock at the news.
"How could this happen? Weren't we turning things around?" one adventurer muttered, their spirit dampened by the disheartening news.
"Is it Valletta?" Finn asked, his anger boiling over.
"No, sir. It was just three people. A man armed with a great sword, a man wielding a silver spear, and a female magic user," Raul stated, his voice trembling as he spoke.
What Raul had seen and heard had been traumatizing; the sense of powerlessness in the face of overwhelming strength was demoralizing.
His fellow adventurers had sacrificed their lives so he could deliver this urgent message.
As the implications sunk in, time seemed to freeze in the camp; everyone's eyes widened in disbelief.
No one dared to breathe for several seconds.
The pieces began to fit together; the seemingly unrelated incidents were connecting.
If what Raul said was true, then the true powerhouses empowering the evilus were finally beginning to make their move.
The war was about to enter its next phase…