"Well, aren't you a big fellow~." - Garami

  Looking at the mysterious tower, I couldn't stop myself from letting out such a line. After all, reaching this place took way more time and trouble than it should have. Damn those monkeys. How did they find me in the first place? Thanks to them, it took me half an hour to finally reach this heaven-piercing slab of metal. Not that it goes literally to "heaven". More like the ceiling of the cave. Eh, good enough.

  To keep my explanation short, the tower has been built on an open area within this "hot spring inn district fortress" place. There are traces of buildings that have stood here before, so the Chaos Church must have knocked them down to get enough space for this tower.

  And like I expected, the pipes from the Boogeybomb Peppers' stewing baths all lead here. And boy, there's a lot of them. One, two... Over twenty. Getting the right number just feels ridiculous. In short, so much for hoping there were some peppers left for me. And as for why they are all gathered here...

  All the pipes led into a "small" opening in the tower. "Small" here is when compared to the rest of the tower, but in reality, the opening is probably five-six meters high and four times as wide. It goes quite deep into the tower, around halfway in, and the floor is quite a bit below the ground. In short, it acts as a reservoir for the stewed Boogeybomb Peppers soup. All the pipes are belching out their contents into this in-tower pool.

  "And aren't you a big fellow too, hmm?" - Garami

  If that was everything, I'd start to think that the tower really ran on Boogeybomb Peppers, but no sire. There was one other point of interest within this hollowed tower. A huge horse...goblin...thing. It is sitting on a platform in the middle of the reservoir. For some reason, the stewed pepper soup is defying gravity and flowing up some ramps so that they can touch the giant horse-thingy's lower body.

  The horse-thingy is huge, probably bigger than a workhorse, but its form is more humanoid than horse-y. Only its head and body fur gives off the impression of a horse, and that's even when said fur is crimson red. Its body, when looking away from the horse parts, is vaguely similar to a hobgoblin. Or should I compare it to a troll, considering how big this guy is? Those muscular arms and legs scream "power fighter", while its loincloth and fur clothing scream "barbarian". If this guy turns out to be a magician, I'm going to complain!

  This red ogre horse is connected to some sort of tubes that stretch all the way to the ceiling. They're not transparent, so I can't see what their deal is, but considering them and the platform constantly having more soup poured onto it, and there are no signs of the reservoir's water level increasing despite the pipes bringing more juice all the time, you can't come and tell me that this guy ain't related to whatever purpose this tower fulfills.

  Still, what's this guy's deal? I've been watching him all this time, yet he's not even twitched. He's just sitting there, eyes closed, completely unmoving. I don't get it. Meaning, it's time to leave this to the professionals.

  "Bloom, what the heck is that? Is it dead?" - Garami

  "That... I think it is a 'Bloody Glashtyn'. A C-rank fae creature." - Bloom

  "C-rank!? That guy?" - Garami

  "Indeed. They are one of the evolutions for the Glashtyn fae creature. A curious fact is that some faes evolve based on colors rather than attributes or other abilities, including the Glashtyn. In other words, despite having 'blood' in its name, the specimen in front of us does not belong to the Blood attribute."

  "Now that's just confusing. And why colors? Guess I shouldn't expect faes to stick to the norm." - Garami

  "Ehm, from what I can gather, Glashtyns seem to become stronger when they are located in lakes that they make their homes..." - Bloom

  "And in the case of color Glashtyns like the individual in front of us, any lakes with liquids of an equal color to themselves can be considered a home. The Church of Chaos must have artificially recreated such a situation, captured the Bloody Glashtyn here and put it in a petrification state, then used it as a form of pseudo generator. All fae have an incredible recovery rate to their mana values, especially when they are in a home territory."

  "Ah, that makes sense...I think. Good going, Bloom." - Garami

  "Ehm...Master?" - Bloom

  "Yes?" - Garami

  "That wasn't me..." - Bloom

  Huh? What are you talking about? There's nobody else here but the two of us + the living statue over there. My 3D map never lies. I think. Let's just remove this blindfold for a second...

  "Hello."

  WHO IS THIS GUY?!

  "Aha. Now that is a good reaction."

  Ehm, most people would jump backwards and prepare their weapons when an aged rabbit-looking dude suddenly appeared right beside you! Ehm, to be precise, he's human-sized, but still very rabbit-y. An albino rabbit, even. Hey, that's my thing! I mean, who is this guy? He's dressed in a fancy suit with a cloak, a monocle, and a tophat. What Wonderland story did he jump out of?

  "Excuse my tardiness regarding my introduction. My name is Rivert Flamel. It is a pleasure to finally be able to meet the leader of the Nightmare Voyagers, young Miss Garami."

  The rabbit took off his tophat and bowed elegantly to me. At least he has manners, which makes me doubt he belongs to the Chaos Church. Of course, I'm still preparing for a quick escape, should that be needed. This guy's sudden appearance is just too weird not to be wary of.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  "Ehm, yeah, hi. Now, should I know you?" - Garami

  "It would please me if more people knew my work, but alas. Here is my card." - Flamel

  The rabbit guy handed over a fancy-looking card, which I had Bloom pick up while I kept an eye on the dude. The card is made of a shiny white, silver/gold-ish card. Is this platinum? It is indeed fancy. I sort of want one for myself. On the card, the guy's name was written, along with the fact that he belongs to... the Alchemists' Union?

  "Aha. No wonder. Yeah, it makes sense that someone from the Alchemists' Union would be working here in this town. Yup, yup, all those magic tools that are being made aboveground have to come from somewhere~." - Garami

  I have no idea who the Alchemist Union is. I've heard about them, but despite being an Alchemist myself, I've never had much interest in those guys. Being an adventurer alone is more than enough for my palette.

  "Fine enough. This is hardly the place for long explanations, so could I task you to locate the owner of this Hidden Hideout?" - Flamel

  "Owner?" - Garami

  "Ah! I think I got it!" shouted Bloom all of a sudden. The bit about 'Hidden Hideout' did sound familiar...oh.

  "Yeah. Now it clicked for me as well. It's that sneaky guy. It has to be." - Garami

  The same guy with the stealth-type Extra Skill. How could I forget this! Some Extra Skills have the ability to make "Hidden Hideouts"! Essentially "mini-dungeons"! That guy's steam-based stealth Extra must also have had the ability to make this hot spring hotel district, where he and his Chaos Church goons could hide in. Damn, my brain's not been working properly lately. Is this a side-effect of getting Dwarf-ified?

  "From the sound of it, you girls seem to be aware of who your target is." - Flamel

  "Okay, maybe so," I replied vaguely. I still don't trust this guy completely. "But the problem is that this hot spring owner, if it's the same guy I'm thinking about, should currently be Changeling-ified. We've got no clue what they look like now." - Garami

  "That sounds troublesome. Catching anyone with a weird appearance would be a huge amount of work, especially when the opponent is the Chaos Church." Flamel said so, then fell into thought for a moment before continuing. "It seems I have no choice. I have a bone to pick with that fellow as well," he said before taking out two vials with blue-ish powder inside them.

  "And this is?" I asked before trying with [Identification]... Holy molly!

  "To keep it simple, it is anti-Changeling powder. It should reverse the current effects that the Changeling pollen has on you and this 'hot spring owner'." - Flamel

  "Whaaaaat?! I thought there was no cure to Changeling pollen?!" shouted Bloom in surprise. She did say that the only way to remove this transformation was to wait for the effects to expire.

  "There was none, until recently. This is a new product my company has produced. We have yet to widely distribute them, as Changeling Rainbows are quite rare to encounter. Relatively speaking." - Flamel

  Yeah. They're damn common down here, I think, not that the rest of the world cares.

  "A small sprinkle of dust should be enough to cancel the Changeling Rainbows' effects on a person. Use a little on yourself, then throw the rest on anyone suspicious. That should be of some help in uncovering this 'hot spring owner', should it not?" - Flamel

  It would, but I'm still not convinced. Why's this guy so helpful? Sure, the Chaos Church is a bunch of crooks, but there should be no reason for this guy to come down here himself and start helping random adventurers in crushing them. Maybe my poker face is broken, but Flamel started pointing at the tower as he gave a short explanation.

  "This tower here is made out of several stolen alchemy works from our workshops. The energy conversion device this fae creature is attached to is another failed work of our facilities in Shaharin. If rumors start to spread, people might mistakenly believe the Alchemist Union is sponsoring the Church of Chaos." - Flamel

  "Yikes. That's horrible." - Garami

  "Indeed. And it is also to take some petty revenge on those heretics." - Flamel

  Now that's also something I can understand. I'm also a girl who hates not getting a good punch back at someone who's messing with me.

  "Okay, fine then. But if this stuff doesn't work, I'm going to file the complaint of the millennium to your Union," I said while stuffing the two vials into my pocket. No way I'm about to use something so shady on myself without testing it on someone else first.

  "You have my thanks. In the meantime, I will make sure to dismantle this object," replied the rabbit alchemist as he stood and stared at the tower. "This item has caused enough problems for the Sekarot Desert, its people, and its creatures."

  "Its creatures" as well? Meh, whatever. Time to move. And I have a good idea where the "hot spring owner" might be hiding right now.

  ---

  "Well, we found him." - Bloom

  "Not sure if we needed that dust to begin with." - Garami

  Lucky me, my idea turned out to be right. Since the main entrance in the south is under attack, and our group infiltrated from the north, with Noire currently rampaging over there while dragging along poor Lily, the most secure place left for the hot spring owner to hide would be somewhere in the east. So I just looked for anything especially fancy or fortified and scouted those places first. The hot spring owner is just fresh from a failed kidnapping attempt, plus his home is under attack by a small army of justice-fueled adventurers. Anyone would want to find a safe place to hide.

  There was a slight chance that, as a Chaos Church member, his head would be too cuckoo to consider that, but this guy seems to have all his marbles intact. He did sound like one of the more sane persons during the factory brawl yesterday, so I had a good hunch he would do as I expected.

  Still, here I am, grumbling over turning to an itty-bitty kiddy, but this guy is having it worse. He's turned into a mouse! Like, not a humanoid mouse like the rabbit dude who's just a rabbit face and ears, but a literal mouse! Was he really just dusted by the Changeling Rainbow pollen, or was he splashed by some transforming witch brew?

  The hot spring owner is currently hiding in a large building. It looks like a brothel from the Edo period of Japan, with metal bars blocking access to the first floor and an especially tough-looking front door. The Edo period didn't have that back in the days, I'm sure, but this is a Hidden Hideout on Terra Sol. I bet it's okay to expect some deviations from the common sense I'm familiar with.

  The first floor was so guarded that even I couldn't find a hole in the security. The second floor? Not so much. Maybe the hot spring owner doesn't have all his marbles, but the truth is probably that this building's not fully finished furnishing yet. The second-floor rooms are damn empty compared to those in the other buildings I've snuck past and through. They don't even have the doors put up yet.

  There is something of interest here, though. And that is what the hot spring owner is too busy with right now to notice Bloom and me spying on him from the window in the next room. It looks like a giant crystal ball attached to some machine. The crystal ball is glowing, while a weird shadow is moving around there. Either there's something trapped in there, or that thing is a magitech for long-range communication. Probably the latter, seeing how the mice hot spring owner seems to be talking to the shadow.

  "What are we waiting for? His back is wide open." - Bloom

  "Just a moment. I wanna know what he's doing." - Garami

  The Chaos Church's been one big enigma this whole time for us. I'm not going to let the first, and maybe last, chance to get some inside info out of them slip by. Time for operation sneaky-listening~.

  Underground Hot Gates - Thermopylae]