Exiting from the grand Adventurer's Guild building, Aldric and Darius took steps dividing the Arkan City west district streets which began to throb with morning activity. Behind them, the boisterous atmosphere of the hall gradually faded, replaced by the blow of the street wind sweeping the remnants of the border fog. Several adventurer groups who coincidentally crossed paths at the outer gate appeared to secretly cast searching looks toward them. Several of them reflexively gave way while bowing in deference, while others whispered low with a clear anxious expression. The Kirin-masked man now was no longer a strange figure who could be trivialized by just any person in the main hall.However, Aldric did not care about the social dynamics or the searching looks from the people around him at all. His footstep remained constant and rhythmically cadenced heading toward the inn. On the other side, Darius who walked one step behind appeared restless. His mind was still firmly pierced on th

In a grandly ornamented room located inside a secret mansion belonging to the Ravenhart Noble Family in the capital city, the air atmosphere felt extremely cold and pressing. The dim light from a crystal hanging lamp was only able to illuminate part of the room, leaving dark corners filled with a gripping silence. A middle-aged man dressed in luxurious silk with the black eagle faction emblem on his chest was sitting leaning back in his grand chair. His pair of sharp eyes stared straight toward his three elite soldiers who at this time were kneeling with trembling bodies on top of the cold marble floor.The condition of those three soldiers appeared highly miserable. The thick iron armor they were usually proud of was now dented in several parts, leaving deep, terrifying scratch lines. Their bodies were wrapped by brownish fabric bandages hiding the remnants of extraordinarily severe tactical slash wounds. They were the internal assassin squad sent a few weeks ago to the lower distric

The silence of the night repossessed the west district of Arkan City, enveloping the wooden inn room where two humans and a small dragon rested. The cold border wind occasionally knocked on the window gap, bringing along the quiet sound from the streets which were beginning to grow empty. Inside the room, Darius was already fast asleep very deeply, snoring softly with a body curled up due to extraordinary physical and mental exhaustion after hearing the name of the Forbidden Forest as the location of his training tomorrow. Meanwhile, Nero appeared to coil his small body on top of the wood cabinet, snoring faintly in the peace of his own dimension.Only Aldric was still fully awake. The masked man sat leaning back on a chair near the wooden table, staring at the silhouette of his servant who was fast asleep in the darkness. With one flick of his mental fingers, a transparent blue interface that could only be seen by his eyes bermanifested in the air, displaying line after line of Dariu

While Aldric and Darius began their extreme training cycle in the abandoned mining area, the atmosphere inside the Arkan Guild Master's study room tensed up once again. The room, which was usually quiet, was now filled with a stack of new intelligence documents. The Guild Master sat with his forehead closely furrowed, staring at a sheet of logistics movement report newly handed over by Roland Vex.The report recorded the presence of a group of foreigners in light armor who had newly passed through the city's southern district inspection gate a few hours ago.Based on the official manifest document, the foreign group entered Arkan City's jurisdiction using a disguised identity as a party of elite silk merchants and land investors from the capital city. They even brought an official royal-stamped document to avoid tight inspections from the border military faction. However, to the eyes of a veteran who had lived for decades on the front line, that hidden disguise was excessively neat to

Returning to the Adventurer's Guild building, the night began to creep up replacing the remnants of dusk in Arkan City. Inside the dimly lit study room of the Guild Master, Roland Vex had newly stepped inside after leading the Iron Fang faction to shadow the hidden movement of the Ravenhart Family envoys. He directly closed the thick wood door behind him tightly."Master, our intelligence analysis is proven one hundred percent accurate," opened Roland while taking steps drawing close to the grand table.The Guild Master lifted his line of sight from on top of the tactical map. "Then, where is the direction of their scouting sensor movement at this time?""The squalid slave market, the lower district information taverns, and the front-line adventurer bars," answered Roland straightforwardly. "My informants report that those Ravenhart agents are specifically scouring data regarding an officially branded slave who went missing some time ago. That slave is Darius."Hearing that youth's na