Chapter 4: Into the mines

(Later that day – In their inn)

"So, I heard that you accepted a job." Cato said as he walked in the younger male as he looked over maps of the mines and his staff.

"That is correct, just a small request that shouldn't take more than a day." Lelouch, who had taken to the barn for the Inn, replied as he kept his gaze soley on the routes and tunnels the maps said this mine had, he couldn't afford to get lost in there.

"I wouldn't say orcs are anything small." Cato responded as he walked right on in. "Why you even offer to take such a job?"

"The prices for anything metal related were way too high, the fee of 400 silver is also a great deal. Besides, wouldn't that be a good deed." Lelouch responded as he didn't see it was much of a big deal, he practically lived and breathed risk and danger.

"It would, if you didn't have to risk life and limb just for a cheaper bargain. Lelei is far from pleased." Cato reminded him as the young girl had been far from happy with his decision and had spent most of the trip back trying to get him to go back and decline it.

"I know she is, she made that very clear on the way back." Lelouch answered as he gave the man a small smile. "Honestly, I don't want her to worry about this, I've went up against worst and survived."

"Then how the heck you end up in that river?" Cato asked him with a deadpan look.

"That is a story for another time, but I can assure you that it wasn't because one of my many plans backfired." Lelouch didn't falter one bit as I answered that, because it was the truth, his plan was to die and he succeeded….to a degree. 'At least not in the usual, more conventional way.'

"I hope you know what you're doing. You don't have all that experience with magic yet." Cato sighed as he saw that he wouldn't be able to convince the lad to change his mind, despite the fact he only had four months of magical training under his belt.

"I know, but I think I can manage. I didn't survive this long by relying on just one tool." Lelouch assured his master as he had learned the hard way to never rely on one tool, person or plan. Doing so was inviting failure and defeat.

"Is that so?" Cato asked him as he looked the boy over but saw now signs of deceit, so he'll have to take his word for it. "Well then, I'll leave you too it. Goodnight." Cato said as he turned around and walked out of the barn to head back to the inn. It was dark already and he wanted to go to sleep.

"Goodnight." Lelouch answered as he watched the man walk off, hearing him mutter. 'What is up with him and practices in barns?' As he went. Once he was sure he was alone again, he turned back to his maps and continued on.

"At this point, I've learned seven spells, five of which are basic transmutations. I know a minor fire ball spell and a light spell but that's it." Lelouch recited as he went through a mental check list of all the spells he had learned. He knew the basic fire ball but it wasn't that strong. A light based spell could be used to blind foes or illuminate an area, which might come in handy in those dark tunnels. He knew the more advanced form of water purification, a spell for healing plants to make them more nutritious, one for repairing clothing, another for manipulating wood and lastly, one that allowed the user to manipulate stone to a lesser extent. "Normally, that would not be enough but," He thought about the….other project he had been working on.

Though it had only been about a mouth, he had been researching and drawing up plans for something of an ace in the hole. A type of spell he had been working on, what he has been hoping will be his ticket to one day becoming a fully recognised master mage once he finished it and presented his work in Rondel.

"If this map of the mining area is accurate. It would be sufficient to my goals." Lelouch said to himself as like way back when in Shinjuku, he was betting a lot on this but unlike that day, he wasn't betting his life. 'Besides, it not like I can die.' He silently mused to himself as he reached up and felt the Code tattoo written etched into his very being. For the first few months, he didn't know how the feel about it, about having to live for centuries and watch as those he would grow to live or hate, perished from illness or age while he remained. It took some getting used it but it wasn't that bad, he had heard that many species in this world has lifespans much longer then a humans, with the common ones he heard about being elves, they lived centuries on average, aging at a snail's pace compared to humans.

Another group he had heard about where species call classified under the 'zombie' branch of live. Sure the name was misleading but they too had long lifespans, with vampires aging at a tenth the rate of a human. So he could take solace in the fact that he could always move to areas where these races were common and prominent to escape the solitude of immortality. After he resigned himself to his fate, he made sure to make time to experiment with his new found code. He didn't know much about it as C.C. was never forth coming but aside from not being able to die unless a being with a matured geass killed you, he knew of the insane regeneration rate and the ability to feed shock images to a target.

He didn't have time or the opportunity to just test out the shock images thing as he couldn't just grab some random person and they hadn't come across any criminals like bandits yet that he could have used but he was able to test out the healing aspects whenever Cato and Lelei were away or distracted. First come simple cuts and scarps which he could have passed off as accidents if they failed to heal, they didn't last any more than 3 minutes. More serious wounds such as slashes from his dagger healed in about 5 minutes. When he slashed his own wrists, sure he nearly bleed out but his wounds still closed and healed before that could happen. He hadn't had a chance to test out any more ways to die such as blunt force trauma or falling from a high place but he could at least know that he had a healing factor on his side.

Though he would be lying if he didn't think about finding somebody, giving them a geass, making sure they grew strong enough before having them kill him. But each time he got to the part on where he'll pass along this power, he always stopped himself out of disgust. 'Never. I'll never curse someone with this. This is my burden to bare.' He felt the cold night's wind on his skin and he looked up, remembering that it was getting late, he started packing up his stuff and heading off towards the inn.

"Either way. I got to get up bright and early tomorrow." Lelouch concluded as he walked into the building and headed towards the room they were staying in.

(In next day – outside the mine)

'Just as the map said. One entrance.' Lelouch thought to himself as he observed the mine's entrance from the cover of the treeline. It was still pretty early as the sun was only starting to rise but he was used to operating on small amounts of sleep. He also figured that be attacking at dawn, it would increase his chances of succeeding as they could be some orcs that could still be asleep. As he looked around, he didn't see that much to worry about, there was mining equipment all over the plane, clearly left behind in a hurry and not much else. By the entrance into the mine, there were two orcs guarding it, both wearing armour and armed with clubs, their go-to weapon.

'Not as large as I thought it'll be.' He analysed as he looked around again to be sure there wasn't anyone else. But then the thought occurred to him. 'Wait, those orcs. Why are they wearing such armour? There's no way they could make it on their own. Did they abandon their military unit?' he had heard that orcs rarely ever wore more than loincloths or whatever else they could steal off their victims. Seeing how they could never fit into the average size, that armour had to be specially made for them. But the town didn't have orcs serving in its local garrison, neither did ant of the nearby settlements. So where did these ones come from?

Opting to investigate more once he got inside, Lelouch decided to get things started. "Let's get started." He said quietly to himself as he pulled out a parchment from his bag which he had drawn a magic transmutation circle into. He had left a parchment with an identical circle nailed to a tree on the other side of where he was. He placed the parchment down and quickly got himself ready to give the first stage of his research a field test. He placed his hands on the circle and concentrated for some moments until he felt it, he could feel his connection to the other parchment. Once he had established this silent ranged connection, he used the parchment as a small gateway to cast a fireball spell, he feed as much oxygen as he could into it before he fired it.

The effect was immediate as the fireball slammed into a tree and set it on fire. He had been careful to clear any loose twigs or dead leaves from around there that could spread the fire faster and had chosen a tree that was relatively far from the others so the odds of a forest fire were as low as possible. Even then, he doubted that that single fire ball has the power to even cause one. After a couple minutes, he saw that the orcs guarding the entrance picked up that there was a fire and one of them went off to investigate it and perhaps put it out before it become a problem.

'So now's there's one.' Lelouch thought to himself as he saw this would be the best chance he had to get in undetected. He then picked up the large branch of wood he had found along the way along with some extra branches he pulled from a tree and used his wood transmutation skills to create a suitable weapon, a shaft which he then attacked his dagger to. Seeing how the second orc was still gone, he moved around the treeline till he exited from an angle that the single guard wouldn't see him from. He moved quietly and slowly sticking to the hillside to ensure he had as undetectable a profile as possible. He got close to the orc and like he predicted, saw that the rear of the helmet didn't protect the back of the heads.

Getting himself ready and praying that the increase strength he had obtained was enough, Lelouch charged the orc and before the creature could turn to face him, he thrust his makeshift spear as hard as he could right into the back of its neck. The attack worked as the blade cut through flesh, throw the spine and buried itself in its oesophagus. The orc tried to make a sound, to do anything thing but with '

"Even an orc has weaknesses. Now to get rid of this." Lelouch said to the creature before he removed the dagger from the spear and used it to slash its throat to save it the trouble of a slow death. After the orc quickly bled out, he saw that he now needed to get rid of the body to throw off suspicion of any foul play. Recalling that he knew a minor earth manipulation spell, he used it to create a hole in the ground large enough for the body pushed the heavy thing into it. Once the corpse had fallen into the ditch, he then cast the same spell, only this time he buried it with the bloody dirt being the first to go in the hole.

'That should do it, no blood too.' He gave his work a quick inspection and gave it a seal of approval, unless someone bothered to dig a foot(30cm) down, they wouldn't find that one. With that done, Lelouch turned round and quickly entered the cave, being sure to watch his footing and keep his wits about him. Once he entered, it didn't take long for the dawning light entering cave to cease, bathing the area in darkness. There was upside to this as there were torches still it, but not that much. Knowing that he had a goal in mind, Lelouch ventured deeper and deeper into the cave, making sure to stick to the shadows when he could and dodging any orcs he could find. At one point when he entered a small tunnel, he immediately was hit by the smell of decay.

Looking around and seeing that he was along for the moment, he quickly used his staff to cast a light spell to see what the hell he has stumbled upon, and what he had found was sad.

In this small tunnel that no doubt was being mined, he found the bodies of 5 workers with clear signs that they were killed in a slaughter. 'I hope their end was a quick one.' He thought to himself as he felt tempted to pray for them but one, he wasn't religious and two, the God he knew wasn't one to care for such things and would probably scoff at the notion of him praying for those unfortunate men. But as he used the last of the light spell to look them over before it faded, he noticed something strange with these bodies. While all the orcs he had seen so far had clubs or nothing but their bare hands, these bodies didn't show signs of being beaten, bitten or smashed, they looked like they were killed by blades.

Going deeper down this little detour, ignoring the smell of decay and the rats running about, he looked over each and every corpse and found out of the 5 of them, 4 of them were killed via a bladed weapon, most likely an axe going by the fact one of them had his clean cut clean off. Realising that these men had family that were most likely worried sick about them, he made sure to memorise any identifiable features on them before heading back towards the main tunnel he was following. He did that so that he could use the light from a nearby torch to write down these finds in one of his books, including what features or jewellery he could make out on the bodies so that when he got to town, he could see if he couldn't find their friends or relatives.

"Now this is turning into a whole new affair. Who killed those men?" Lelouch thought to himself as this was turning out to be more than simple orc infestation but who knows, he could be over thinking this. They could have bladed weapons he simply hadn't seen yet. With that in mind, he kept his eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary, or as much as he could in this poor lighting. As he progressed through the mines, he found more sights of activity from half-filled mine carts, still near to where the workers were picking and hammering at the wall for iron ore, tools left all over the place and in one case, a plate with the remains of a meal, long since devoured by the rats. All evidence that whatever happened, happened quickly. However, as he was investigating a small puddle of blood, he begun to hear the sounds of approaching footsteps.

'Shit!' Lelouch cursed in his own mind as he quickly turned round to see an orc crossing the tunnel near to him and unlucky for him, even in this low light space with the distance between them, it spotted him. The orc roared at him before it charged him, its mace held as high as one could hold one in this rather confined space. Knowing that he had no chance of beating on like this, Lelouch turned tail and ran, keeping to the routes that he memorised beforehand as he worked to increase the distance between him and the orc. He was thankful for these 6 months on the road as it was what gave him the physical speed and stamina to increase the distance between him and his angry pursuer.

'Okay, think! Think! If those maps were right, then that means that there is a long tunnel coming up which has a dead in. I can use that!' Lelouch recalled that useful piece of information as he saw the route coming up, and good timing too as he was started to get winded. He grabbed the wall of the tunnel with his bare hand, not caring for the cuts he was giving himself as he used the wall as anchor to turn the corner but not before he let out something to make sure that the orc kept up the chance. "Over here, big ugly!" He knew that it worked when the orc screamed something in anger, no doubt that others must have heard them so he needed to finish this quick.

As he reached the end of the tunnel, he quickly turned around and whipped out another one of his parchments with his transmutation parchment, even if this dire situation, he recalled how his spells worked better with one. He didn't waste any more time as he slammed the thing down and started to use his minor earth manipulation to do two things. The first was make a small, very hard to notice ditch around 2 feet deep and 2 feet wide in front of him, he purposely made the end facing the direction the orc would barrel down any moment a little higher so he wouldn't notice it. The second thing was that he created a small but wide area of little spikes which like the trap, he made them hard to notice by standing in front of them, using his own body as cover for the spike trap.

He wasn't too worried about the orc being keen enough to pick up on this though as one, they were in a dark space so his sight couldn't be any better than his own and two, orcs weren't known for their brains. It didn't take more than a couple seconds before the orc that had been chasing him appeared down the path, still charging despite looking a bit winded itself. 'Now I've just have to wait, wait for it….' He waited for the moment of truth before he saw it. 'Now!' He said to himself as he jumped away from both the ditch and over the spikes as the orc trained to grab him. As it reached for him, its foot caught in the ditch and with the loss of balance and its own forward momentum, it stood no chance as he fell into the spikes. Though some of them broke on impact, others didn't as the near mindless creature screamed in pain as over a dozen spikes dug into its flesh.

"Sorry about this, but it's you or me. Nothing personal." Lelouch said to the creature as he brandished his blade and once more, despatched of the creature with a swift stab through the head and brain. As he jumped off the corpse, he noted that he now had hints of blood on his clothing. "Funny, not even a full year in this new world and I've already killed twice." Lelouch mused, not that concerned for his kill count which he had a feeling would only rise. He looked down at the corpse and listened in for any incoming threats and through he could pick them up, he figured that with the echoing those noises were making, they were quite the distance away.

"Gotta finish this quick, no telling who else heard that." He said to himself as he quickly used the same spell as the first time to bury the body and hide any evidence of his presence in that particular spot. Once that was done, he didn't waste any time in running off towards a completely different area of the mines, one that was more open due to the large shafts and tunnels in the area. Once he was sure that he had given any would be tails the slip, he continued on. Now he had to use a different route but he recalled that it would still take him to the heart of the place either way. Though he did pull out his journey to record where he buried that body so that once operation resumed, they wouldn't be in for a nasty surprise. Though he did come across something on his way.

'A busted torch.' He observed as he spotted an oil lamp which had been damaged and leaked out its fuel. He would have walked right on by it but then recalled a homemade weapon from his world that could prove useful in here. He scooped up the lamp and was grateful it was made from clay, he could work with that. 'With some lamp oil, this could prove useful.' He used his skills with transmutation to shift its form into a bottle before using the oil from the other nearby lamps to fill it up. Once that was done, he ripped off a piece of his clothing and stuffed it into the bottle like opening. With his make shift grenade ready, he placed it in his bag and went off to try and finish this little task.

(Later)

'This place is larger than the maps said it'll be. I've been in here for at least two hours now.' Lelouch thought to himself as he kept on moving forward. So far he had made good progress as he a found another 2 broken lamps he fashioned into Molotov cocktails and had avoided the orcs where he could and silently took them out when he couldn't with the use of creative and deadly traps and a quick dagger to the throat or head. Like with the rest of them, he made sure to bury the bodies to leave no real trail of where he had been or where he might be going. So far he had taken down another 3 orcs but going from the numbers he had avoided thus far, there were sure to be many more. Like with the others, he made sure to record where he buried the orcs for future purposes. As he went even deeper into the mine where the tunnels started to narrow down, far too much for a orc so he believed that he was safe from them for the moment. This all changed when he came to corner where he heard some voices.

'What the-!' He thought to himself as he hadn't found any living person in her besides his targets. So to see what this was all about, he turned round and saw two people guarding what looked to be make-shift holding cells. From the smell alone, he could tell that something or someone died in one of them. 'What the hell are regular humans doing in here?' He asked himself as he looked both men over and could spot that they were crude armour and were armed with swords and what appeared to be daggers tied to their sides. What a minute….a swords? Were these the people who killed those men?

"Please, we need more water!" Before he could dive deeper into his observations, he heard someone in the cell those two were guarding cry out for water. They must be the workers that didn't get out in time.

"Shut up! Or I'll come in there and make you shut up." One of the bandits yelled back at them, sounding irritated with this all whole and if there was one thing he knew could lead to someone dying, was the guard getting irritated. He knew this well as he had asked/grilled both Shirley and Milly for details about the hotel jacking. After he had learned that it wasn't just Nina's really poorly timed freak-out but all of them who pissed off that one JLF terrorist, he was rightfully pissed as they broke just about every rule there is in how to survive a hostage situation. Nina's freak-out meant she used a racially charged term, Milly defended her rather than just apologies for it and Shirley didn't make things any better as she joined in by rising her voice against the hostage takers. The only reason all three survived the night was because of Euphemia(May she rest in peace).

"We're begging you, he'll die if he doesn't get more, he's very sick. His wounds are infected." He heard someone different, older sounding in the cell plead. He could tell where this was going so he opted to help them out as he prepped one of his cocktails and his staff. He would have to go loud with this one.

"Then why waste water on him if he's gonna die?" One of the bandits asked as he laughed at his own cruel joke, the other not too far behind as it was clear that they didn't really care if those they were guarding died. Which begged the question, why not kill them already?

"You monsters! How can you be so cruel, we're not fighters, we're miners for Duncan's sake!" One of the screamed in rage and sorrow which proved to be the tipping point for them.

"Oh, you gotta a smart mouth, why don't I fix that?" One of the said as he drew his sword and reached for the door, do doubt planning on using that weapons.

'Screw it!' He decided as he slowly but loudly stepped out of corner into their line of sight. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." He warned them with a cocky smile as he got himself ready for what he intended to do.

"The heck?" One of the said as the other, the one that was about to enter the cage like structure, also paused as they both looked surprised to see him here. Which wasn't that odd, there were in one of the deepest parts of the mine, quite a way into the mountain so one strange guy suddenly appearing must be quite the event.

"Who the heck are you, kid?" The one with a hand on his sword asked as he stepped away from the gate away to face him.

"You picked a bad time to be a hero. I don't know how and why you got in here but this you're not leaving." The other laughed as he drew his own sword, most likely thinking that was a wizard, he wouldn't be able to cast a spell in time to help him out of this but he was wrong, so very wrong.

"Is that right? I was able to say the same thing to you!" Lelouch countered as he pulled the cocktail that he was hiding from behind his back and threw it with as much force as he could. Before the guard would realise what it was, he was hit with the cocktail as it burst on impact, covering his entire front and face with the flammable contents.

"Arg! The fuck, what is this?" He asked as he had no idea that his faith was sealed. Lelouch for his part gave him a rather devilish looking smirk as he cast a low level flame spell towards him. Now normally, this would be useful in combat as the fire was far too weak to harm most but it could be used to light a lamp, kinda like the substance he was doused with.

"Lamp oil." He finished as the small flame made contact with his chest and quickly, the fire started to spread all over it, climbing to his face as the man started to panic and screamed as he was burned alive.

"ARG! It burns, it burns!" The screamed and wailed as he tried to put the fire out but to no avail. Those who watched this was stunned and slightly horrified by the sight and smell of it all. "You little bastard! I'll kill you!" He yelled out as he charged Lelouch, using his anger to dull the pain long enough for him to try and kill him but in his state, he was far from the man he most likely was, so dodging wasn't that hard for the young mage.

"Kinda hard to take that threat seriously right now." Lelouch joked as he got behind the man and plunged his dagger into the back of his neck while he kept eye contact on the second one in case he tried to pull something. "Burn in hell." He said as he pulled the dagger from the limp corpse as it fell to the ground, still burning.

"You sick son of bitch, you think you're gonna get away with this?" The other one, now thoroughly pissed off, drew his sword and go ready to charge him but showed that he was smart enough not to charge him like the first one.

"What are going to do about it? I'm right here, ain't I?" Lelouch asked as he rose his staff up for him to see, the head of the tool faintly glowing as magical energy built up.

"You'll pay for that!" The guard yelled as he drew his dagger and aimed to throw it at him before he could finish the spell, never realise that he had already cast it, the staff was merely a distraction.

"No I don't think I will." Lelouch said as he sparked the spell from his staff. "Summon flare." He casted as the bright light blinded all who saw it, in confusion to this, the bandits took a step back as he tried to clear his vision.

"Arg, my eye-!" He cried out, or would have if his foot didn't catch in the small ditch that Lelouch had silently behind him. It wasn't as deep as the others he made for orcs but deep enough for a man to trip into it. And too bad for him as this ditch was filled with spikes and jagged rocks as he didn't have time to fully complete it but it served its purpose as the man fell in and immediately started screaming in pain as the rocks pierced and cut him in multiple parts like his arms, back and legs.

"I don't have time for this, so just die." Lelouch took his time as he walked up to the pit, using a lit lamp along the way to light a second cocktail as he got to the edge and saw the man trying to claw his way out as it cursed him out. Holding up the cocktail for the man to see, he watched as the man's eyes turned from an angered beast's to a cornered rat's within an instant as he immediately started to beg for his live. Seeing that he was a person that would have killed the miners had he not stepped up, he didn't feel a thing for him as he tossed down the cocktail right onto his chest and watched as he caught fire as well.

He turned around and walked off, towards the cells to where he could make out about 20 people jammed inside a space fit for 10. One of them was laying on the ground, clearly sick. "Who are you?" One of them asked him, making a point to not address the burning corpse and the still burning man as he cried and screamed in pain as the flames took him.

"Someone who wanted better prices for his gear. You the miners?" Lelouch told them as he used his dagger to break through the shabby locking mechanism for the door. Once he did so, most of the people crammed out of the small space while he entered to inspect the ill looking miner.

"Y-yeah, but not all of us. They kept us separate, in small groups." One of them said as he looked the sick one over and immediately spotted the problem, he had a nasty wound that was injected, being in a small damp and cold space most likely didn't make things easier for him. Now, if this was his old world, he wouldn't worry too much about such things as a trip to the hospital to field medic if this were battle would be enough to save him and his limb but in this world, he wasn't too sure. Either way, he figured that it wasn't too serious that he had to put him down but still serious enough that he shouldn't move in until after he finished things up and is on his way out.

"How many miners work here?" Lelouch asked as he got back up and walked out to speak with the rest.

"About 200 hundred but many of us are already dead." One of them said sadly as they had lost many good people.

"What's the situation here? I was told that it was only some orcs that had decided to make this mine their new home but clearly," Lelouch said as he gestured towards the still dying man in the pit. "That's not the case."

"You're right. The real culprits are bandits, former military from what I can tell." One of them told him as revealed what they knew. "They are using the orcs as muscle and to keep up appearances of this being just a simple orc attack."

"Why would they want to do that?" Lelouch asked him, trying to get as much information as possible.

"Well the local guard thought they were dealing with dumb orcs and weren't expecting to find actual plans in place to stop them. Last I heard, they took only 5 prisoners out of the 20 that showed up." One of them said as someone else rushed to get the ill man the water they had been asking for from a nearby container.

"I wasn't asking why orcs, I was asking why they need them in the first place? Why go through the trouble of masking yourself to take an iron mine?" He clarified for them.

"That's complicated." Someone said as they clearly didn't want to talk but he was in a rush.

"And I'm your only real hope of leaving here alive, so why don't you make it simple?" Lelouch reminded them as without him, they'll all be screwed before they ever saw daylight again.

"Okay, okay. They most likely wanted to take the mine because," One of the miners, an older looking man in his 40s started. "We found something down here."

"What?" Lelouch asked them, having a feeling that his day was about to get even more unusual.

"Uru." The man revealed to him, sounding as if they had struck gold or something.

"Uru? What's that?" Lelouch asked, he didn't recall ever hearing about such a material on his travels but perhaps it was a speciality material.

"It's an extremely rare metal. Finding even a small amount if considered a big deal." One of them explained to him as he made the mental note to record this for future reference.

"Rare metals, that'll get someone greedy. I assume that word spread about this?" Lelouch asked them but was confused when none of them confirmed that, saying that they kept tight lipped about and only informed their supervisor who in turn, informed the local lord. Though surprising that they didn't tell many about this, Lelouch didn't think it impossible for world or rumour to have spread through those chosen few who had known. Government officials, especially low level ones, were often bored of their jobs or easily bribed. "Well, at least I now know the why but besides being rare, what is uru even used for?"

"It's highly sought out for three main reasons, one it's around a third the weight of any steel tool or weapons when made right. The second is that it's three times stronger than steel. The last one is that unlike many common metals, it can hold multiple enchantments…" One of them said before he coughed into his hand, as if to clear the air. "Or so the legends say."

"What do you mean?" Lelouch asked from that description, it sounded like that were talking about a powerful material, strong like titanium but could keep as edge better then steel. If his world had such a thing, it would have been as hotly desired as sakuradite it not more so.

"Well, it's known to be incredibly difficult to work with, most smith's don't even have furnaces that can get hot enough to smelt it down. Those who do can never work with the substance." One of them said as uru was notorious for how difficult it was to work with.

"Only a few select smiths outside the Gods themselves are said to be able to craft such tools using it." Another but in, having heard that only the most devout of Duncan's followers could work with such material. Making weapons of any kind made with it extremely valuable and often kept by only the wealthiest of families.

"Either way, those bandits are going to want to get as much as they can before they leave here. I can use that. I need some of you to stay here and watch over the sick guy, someone else needs to show me where the others are so I can let them down." Lelouch informed them as he started walking off to cause some noise somewhere else and draw the attention of any reinforcements that were sure to be coming.

"What about the rest of us?" One of them asked.

"You get the hell out of here and head back to town and tell them this." Lelouch said as he pulled out the copy of the tunnels he made and quickly took out a writing tool to write quick directions on the parchment. "Take this map and you shouldn't ran into any problems but don't let those orcs see you." He said as he gave the map to one of the people that he instructed to leave.

"What about you?" One asked him, to which he simply turned back to where he was going with a dangerous smirk on his face.

"I'll be taking care of things here. I took this job and I'll be damned if I don't complete it, my pride won't allow such an affront." He said as he came here to kill orc and he will complete that task. If he has to take out more people, then so be it. Heck, he'll be doing society a favour by taking them out now.

"Are you sure?" One of them asked, as that job meant he'll have to take care of both the bandits and the orcs.

"I didn't get this far by being inadequate, I'll be fine. I just need to know where they might be." Lelouch answered as he walked off.

(Later)

"Boss!" One of the bandits called out as they ran unto a large area which had been used for storage. At present, it was where the bandits had set up their command as their leader, a muscular and tall man with an axe strapped to his back, sat as he counted through the tax they had imposed on the last desperate fool who came looking to mine.

"What is it?" He yelled as him, showing his irritation at getting disturbed. Hopefully, they'll have news on what the heck those screams earlier were about. The orcs couldn't have been beaten since his last guy said they'll still patrolling, so what the heck was causing his men to freak out and scream their heads off every so often.

"The prisoners, they're gone!" The told his boss as he tried to caught his breath, having ran the whole way back here to tell him back. At the news that their hostages are been freed, the man jumped to his feet in shock and anger.

"What! How they get out, where were those fools I sent to watch them?" He yelled as he had left those damn idiots to guard each group to stop this from happening! When he gets his hands on those useless fools, they'll regret being born!

"They're dead, we've found their bodies." The guy replied as they had come across one such scene not too long ago. "Most of them were burned." That as a hard thing to stomach as he found one poor soul had been burned and stabbed through the neck by whoever was hunting them. They couldn't even track them as they had no idea where this person was going seeing how they were long gone by the time they found bodies.

"Burned? Great, looks like there's a fire user somewhere in here. Find them!" The man yelled as he could only imagine that they were dealing with a mage, a skilled on at that.

"You got it boss!" The guy yelled back as he turned tail and ran off. Though they had no idea that the man they were looking for had been there for some time now. Watching this all from a small crawlspace above the cave that the leader of the bandits sat in.

'Looks like they found those bodies, I was wondering when they'll do that.' Lelouch thought to himself as hadn't even bothered to hide the bodies, but rather placed in in areas he knew would lead them away from any of the miners as they made their escape. It wasn't too hard to take out 11 bandits, he knew how people like them thought, had some training or more accurately, he had watched Sayoko work long enough to pick up some tricks and was a master at getting into people's heads and messing with them. Once you got into your opponent's head, you could use their fear, anger, hubris and even their skills against them and make them dance to your tune. Which brings us back to where Lelouch sat, having to bent slightly as he took out one of his seals and placed it on the ground. He then did the same with two others as he put them on the walls of the small space he was in.

'Sorry, I'm in no mood to entertain some kind of boss battle, but I hope you find this a fitting end.' Lelouch thought to himself as he saw that he was directly over his target. With that in mind, he activated his earth manipulation which normally was too weak to move and dislodge this amount of stone but with his seals acting as amplifiers and equal distributors, ensuring that his magic flowed evenly across the space.

"What was that?" Meanwhile, under him and completely unaware of his presence, the head bandit asked himself what was causing that shaking. It didn't sound too bad for but it could be cave-in somewhere else. Great, now he'll have to send someone to check it out.

"With this," Lelouch said to himself as he felt the spell was nearly complete. "I call checkmate." He finished as the spell finished doing what he wanted it do, which was cause the tunnel ahead of him to collapse while at the same time, his floor(the head's bandits ceiling) had been weaken to the extent that it failed at the same time as the rest of it, sending stones and rock falling down onto his target.

"Wha-No!" The man cried out as he found himself buried in the rubble and most likely, injured by one of the many rocks that had fallen on his head. After some time had passed, Lelouch managed to work himself out of the space and jump down onto the pile he had made. As he suspected, no-one had been close enough to hear that scream since the man had sent everyone off to investigate all his distractions. 'It was rather nice for that last group to tell me of that little crawl's space.' He thought to himself as one of the minors had told him about this place and how it was most likely where the bandits sent up shop. It was quite the boon for him as he didn't even have to worry about some fight he knew it was probably lose. 'He never even saw me coming.'

"Hey, you alive under there?" Lelouch asked out loud, sounding unconcerned about all this as he moved some stones and rocks aside until he found the bleeding head of the bandit that he had trapped. The man was clearly injured and most likely had some form of concussion but with most of his body trapped in the rubble, he was of no threat to him.

"How the hell are you?" The man barked out as he spat out blood that tasted like dirt. He was mostly angry that he was caught by this trap and by the fact that the person that had been giving him all this trouble to begin with, was far from the image of an aged and powerful mage he was thinking of.

"The guy who is more than ready to set your face on fire. How did you find out about this place?" Lelouch started the interrogation which like he suspected, didn't get off to on the right foot.

"Go to hell." The man cursed him.

"Wrong answer." Lelouch grabbed his head and chin and pressed them together so the man couldn't speak before he started to use a little fire magic in the hand holding his chin in place. The man started to spasm as he tried to shake his head free of his fiery grip but to no avail. After what felt like hours but was only a couple seconds, he let go of him. "Unless you want that to happen again, you will tell me what you know."

"I(huff) won't break(huff), you little shit(huff)" The bandit tried to put up a strong front as he calm himself down from his muffled screaming.

"Is that right, how about we take one of your eyes out? Maybe you'll be more willing to talk if I do." Lelouch asked him as he pulled out his dagger and started to twirl it, smirking like the devil when the trapped man looked up to him in shock and slight fear.

"You're bluffing." The said as he didn't think this teen was that ruthless. Pity he didn't know him.

"My foolish bandit, do these looks like the eyes of a man who's bluffing?" Lelouch asked him as he held the dagger up for him to see as he took aim of the guy's right eye. "I supposed a demonstration is needed to get my point across, yes?" He asked him with a smirk that could only be made by someone who enjoyed hurting and killing his enemies. He pulled the dagger back but before he could plunge the weapon into him, he cracked.

"Wait, wait! I'll talk, I'll talk!" The bandit cried as the blade stopped a mere inch from his eyeball.

"Then get talking, I don't have all day." Lelouch told him as he moved the dagger away but kept it close none the less.

"I don't know his face but we were contracted by someone to seize this place and ship them as much uru as we get." The bandits told him as he was notably nervous.

"Who?" Lelouch pressed. Every little bit of information was important. To get his point across, he moved the blade ever so closer to his target's eye.

"I don't know! He sent a middle man, some guy named Titus. We didn't ask questions, he just paid in the 600 silver up front and said we've get another 700 when the job was over! He even supplied those orcs for us to use as muscle!" The man told him as he started to sweat even more.

'That explains the orcs at least.' Lelouch thought to himself as he now knew where these crooks got their hands on an orc pack, those things didn't just take orders, they had to be trained. "So that's all you know?" Lelouch asked him, keeping any emotions off his face to keep this man guessing what he'll do next. "What about where you'll be meeting this….Titus?"

"The-there's a clearing in the woods not to far from here, it overlooks a small lake. That's where we're supposed to meet up with him." The man gave him some real useful information, that he could use.

"…" Lelouch kept quiet as he watched the man squirm like a worm for a moment. "I believe you." He eventually said as he stood up and put his dagger away but then reached for the man head and pulled it closer to him by the hair. "But you have some use to me."

"But you said-!" The terrified man tried to remind him but he didn't let him finish.

"I never said I was going to let you go or help you, just that if you told me what you know, I wouldn't torture you." Lelouch butted in as he watched the fear in his eyes grew to new level. He didn't think he'll ever get tired of it, of watching those who abused their power shake and quiver in fear when that power is stripped from them. "There has been something I've been planning on testing and there is now time like the present." He told him as he looked into himself, searching for that familiar feeling in his mind as he kept the man's head facing him. It didn't take him long to find that oh so familiar yet foreign feeling as both his eyes shifted form to that which had been the nightmares of his both his enemies and so called enemies.

"Lelouch Ja Nemesis commands you," He started as he gave the man his instructions.

(Later)

"Boss, we're here, what's the problem?" One of the thugs asked as they boss had called them all back. They had found it strange but they all still listened and came. They had been worried when they found him injured and bloody but he had told them he had fought off their trespasser and he had fled, injured himself.

"Did you take all the orcs to the cavern I told you to? The one where that intruder ran off to?" He asked of them as he had told one of the first to arrive to go and send the orcs to one of the larger shafts, claiming that the man they were searching for had fled there.

"Yeah, but why the heck. Why would you need 8 orcs to take care of one guy?" One of them asked as they thought that even just two orcs were overkill.

"Wait, 8? What happened to the other 6?" The leader asked his men, who sadly didn't notice the red rim around his pupils.

"One is still guarding the entrance but the other one that was there is no-where to be found. Same with the other 4." Someone told him as they had tried to find those missing five but they couldn't pick a single trace. It was honestly nerve racking as on one hand, those dumb idiots could have gotten lost but on the other….it could mean they were taken out already.

"That son of a bitch! He has to be the one that got them?" The bandit yelled out in fury, though the smile on his face didn't match up as he was secretly happy that his 'master' was able to take out so many of them. He was lucky that he had turned away from his band of bandits and robbers otherwise they would have picked up on that and questioned him.

"But how? How'd he even her this far in with no-one seeing him?" Someone asked as they had been given those orcs to be their muscle, if there was someone here able to take them out, then he'll like to know about it.

"That's not important right now, right now we have something else to think about." Their leader as he turned back round to face the group of 40 men.

"What is that?" One of them asked, what they could never have seen coming was their boss pulling out his axe and with one solid motion, sliced off the head of the closest man.

"How our deaths sill serve the master." He cried out in fanatical glee was he went about attacking his own men, killing and maiming as they all could barely process this unsettling development.

"Our deaths? The hell you talking about? Are you drug or something?" One yelled back at him as he blocked the axe with his blade and managed to punch the man in the face to knock him back and give himself some breathing room.

"For master Lelouch!" Though it seemed like the guy didn't have a sense of pain as he charged another person and started to try and hack and slash at any and everybody that got too close to him.

"What are you doing?! Stop, He's gone mad, just kill him!" One guy screamed as he pulled out his duel short swords. If their leader had lost in mind, then he'll just have to kill him and be done with it, before he kills any of them.

"Oh boys," They all heard someone speak up from the entrance. They all turned round to see Lelouch standing there, the power of his geass shining in both of his eyes as he looked into each and every one of theirs. "Fight each other to the death." He ordered, giving them their death sentence as all of them started to smile and laugh in crazed glee not to different from his first victim back in Shinjuku.

"You got it boss!" Was the most common call as they all turned on each other and the slaughter begun. It was a bloodbath as they all recklessly started to attack one another with weapon and fist, even those slammed to the ground or having missing limbs didn't stop fighting, it was like watching rabid animals to be honest. So as he didn't wish to watch this to the end, Lelouch turned tail and walked away.

'I must admit, I hadn't realised that I still had my geass but I according to CC, you only lose it if you take a code from the person who gave you geass in the first place. Even Charles still had his geass despite having VV's code at the time.' Lelouch thought to himself as he had waited for a moment where he could test out his powers, even if they didn't work, he had others plans to get that poor fool to cooperate or just kill him outright.

"I'll came back later, I gotta go deal with those orcs." He finished the thought as he was really confident that he would be done by the end of the day.

And that's where I'll end things for now. I have to admit, I was a bit scared writing this as the only anime I know about with good cave fights is Goblin Slayer and those fights have tendency to either swing one way or the other, each of those paths being bloody and gruesome. The magic he was referring to, the one that would hopefully see him become a master, is basically transmutation on a different scale with a different, more effective method of use. Yes, he's creating alchemy but at this point, he's slow and still working out the bugs so he won't try to present the idea anytime soon.

With his code, he experimented with it in the same manner that he did his geass in cannon, I thought it logical that once he noticed the tattoo, he'll do his own research on it to learn all he could. With the whole, 'you keep your geass is you take the code of someone besides the person that gave you geass' from other stories and popular fan theories on the topic. I've said many times in the past and I'll say it again, I don't care for the movie so don't even try using facts and information from there to prove me wrong, that movie had such a dumb plot to it that I didn't even bother watching it. Like really, no-one thought about how the nations that gets most of its national income from exporting mercenaries would feel about world peace? How such a powerful force that could even defeat Britannian in battle was never mentioned in R1 and R2?

With the way Lelouch used his magic, I tried to find the balance of practical application which still feel within his limits at this stage. Him making use of pits and spikes was just something I thought would make sense as he needs ways to take down Orcs as those things are really dangerous….to those without powerful magic, apostles or lack modern day weaponry like an assault rifle. BTW, Duncan is the Gate universe God of blacksmithing. It makes some sense that those who mine the ore that is used in blacksmithing would also hold him in high regard as he ensures that the ore they dig up is made into fine tools, weapons and armour.

Now reviews:

JCarrasco: Thanks, I will. Also, from now on, reviews will be answered at the end of chapters rather than in the beginning.

Crazy9087: The gate will open to the cannon universe, to the world that Itami and crew reside in. As you said, a series of omakes will cover what would happen if the gate opened to the CG universe but as they are omakes, don't expect as concreate and evenly paced as story as the main one, I'll only write them for curiosity's sake.

Last Primaris: That remains to be seen, no spoilers.

x-x-TheBurnedMan-x-x: Yes, yes it will but that time will be needed to set things up.

Red Raven 007: You have the right to your opinions and you do make a compelling argument. That being said, you yourself say he's a realist. How or more accurately, why would a realist think world peace is possible? We call WW1 the 'War to end all Wars' but wars still broke out in Europe afterwards. After WW2, people thought that wars would end and the victors would never turn their guns on each other as the human suffering that happened was at levels never before seen but the only thing that changed is now wars begun to be fought by proxies due to the threat of nuclear weapons of the theory of mutual assured destruction, the Cuban Missile crisis is a good example of this. This could apply to the CG universe as they have the fleya, like with the secrets of the nuke, it would only be a matter of time before every major player on the board had their own.

Also something that bugged me after thinking about it, was the information about the destruction of Pendragon suppressed as how the hell would Nunnally get away with re-electing Schneizel as prime minister after that stunt? I wouldn't want a man guilty of blowing up my capital to have any part in running the country, no matter the reasons that he may have had. Hell, he can't say that he was trying to kill the 'Demon Lelouch' as he wasn't even in the homeland but in Japan, having a televised meeting with the UFN. You say he was idealistic yet he never trusted his friends with his real identity, as far back as R1, he hear his thoughts and how he feared that they might put their own interest ahead of his and sell him out.

My point is that yes, his character is very paradoxical and trying to completely understand him is like trying to explain 10th grade chemistry to a toddler but. But, as this is a fanfiction, I will be bending his personality a bit to fit with the story as like with many fanfictions, characters and plot will be created, mended, edited or disregarded to make room for the story.

Vein Bloodborne: And you thought the last chapter was morbid, how you like this one?

DarkRain4Eternity: Thanks for the kind words but my stories still need a lot of work. First and foremost is spelling and grammar as I don't have a beta reader, which leaves me to spellcheck my own work which you can imagine is hard as I already have the story in my head, so reading through it, I don't see errors as they are as my mind doesn't see them as errors and just corrects them. I often don't realise where my mistakes are till it's been some time and my mind is one something else when I read through my work.

OBSERVER01: Sadly, he couldn't show it off now as he wouldn't want a child to see him kill things. That being said, how did you enjoy his work? I tried to make sure he used that big brain of his to think his way out of problems like he normally does.

Dontus -not Donut- Powerus: I'm only going to say this once, Lelei is NOT cannon age! That was the first line of chapter 2, she thinks to herself how she's a normal 14 year old girl! Chapter 3 is 6 months later, making her even closer to 15 years old.

Ghostly: Well he managed, didn't he? Already explained your second question, not going to do it again.

ewertondragon10: There is no chance that he'll ever bring a 14 year old girl to kill orcs if he could help it.

Blaze1992: Well too bad, they'll have to manage without him. Though I doubt C's world would have kept him around for that as that implies it knew that he would be needed.

Darknaru3: Read my responses to the other reviews, you'll read the answer. Or just reread the beginning of chapter 2, whichever you prefer.

XXxxxadisxxxXX: Don't worry, I'll address your review in a PM.