The flames exploded in every direction before they simply stopped moving. Arthur's spiritual powers contained the explosion and made it destroy only the man's arm.
"AHHH!" The man screamed in pain as he fell to the ground. Arthur didn't release the explosion from his arm and waited for it to die down.
It was a bizarre sight as if the man grew an arm of flames. The man begged for mercy, but Arthur didn't know what to do for him.
"Please, it hurts! Take it away! AAAH!"
"You're the one who detonated himself, man." Arthur felt a headache. "What do you think would those people in the shop feel once you pressed the detonator?"
With Arthur cutting away the oxygen from the explosion, the flames were short-lived. However, all that was left was a mangled arm.
"If I heal your arm, your pain receptors might regenerate as well. It will be more painful than now, but you have a chance of using it again."
This fact was the irony of burns. If they are deep enough, the pain will be less than if they were superficial. As Arthur looked at the man's mangled arm, he didn't think it would be usable for anything more than daily tasks.
"Please, help me. I have a family to feed..."
The man begged again, despite Arthur warning him it would hurt. With a sigh, Arthur used his Heal-III rune using a large amount of mana.
The healing began visibly, and the man gritted his teeth in agony. However, he couldn't endure it anymore, and his screams made his voice hoarse.
Arthur looked at the man pass out as his arm kept healing. After a while, not even his rune could heal the rest of it. The arm looked scared, and Arthur didn't know usable it could be. As for the broken bones, they mended themselves under his rune.
The explosion wasn't to obliterate the people in there, as some of them were awakeners. The target was either Gruen or the farmers. In either case, everyone would be fearful of buying from their shop.
"Wake up," Arthur whispered, and the man opened his eyes instantly. As soon as he did, he began throwing up. "Tell me, who ordered you to do this?"
The strings of existence tied the man down as Arthur's Art of Creator took hold of his will. Without resistance or begging, the man confessed.
"It was a priest from The Schelera Faith."
'Schelera again.' Arthur furrowed his brows. 'That doesn't make sense. Why would they target the shop?'
"Tell me the priest's name," Arthur commanded again, but the man simply denied knowing. "Where is the shrine, and what did they offer you?"
"It's the Grand Shrine on the east side of the city." The man said before pausing. "They offered me gold."
"Forget what happened today." Arthur gave him the last command as the man held his head and screamed. The Submission Art was erasing the man's memories against his will. As he stood up, Arthur threw a few golds next to the man.
'He's just a pawn.'
Arthur knew that truth from the beginning. The only question was why would Schelera try to sabotage his shop. As Arthur mulled further, he realized it didn't make sense at all.
'Maybe it doesn't make sense for a reason.' Arthur thought as he left the building and walked toward the east side of the city. 'Whoever planned the attack wouldn't leave a trace so obvious in case we catch the man.'
Arthur turned around and hid behind a building. He waited for the man to come out and followed him. The man walked absentmindedly to the lower districts before he went into a shabby old house.
'Whoever hired this man, he won't like the idea of being ignored by him.'
Instead of wasting his time waiting, Arthur sat on the roof of a different house and inscribed artifacts for the next day. Just like that, time went by.
Arthur was immersed in the process of inscribing the vegetation rune. Every line meant something, and as he kept inscribing, his understanding of what they meant improved.
'This line is for germination. This one is for the soil's nutrients. As for this one, uh,' Arthur paused. 'Can it be what provides the plant with life force?' The line had a few traces of life force in it.
[A Rune has evolved!]
[Vegetation-III: accelerate the growth of plants and vegetations at minuscule costs of mana. The area of effect is one kilometer around the rune.]
'The rune... evolved?' The notification made Arthur stupefied. He has forgotten about his runes evolving if he used them a lot because it was a time-consuming method compared to studying. 'As I remember, Gala's tests of the artifacts said that the area of effect was at best one hundred meters.
Ten times increase in the area of effect. The mana cost was 'minuscule' compared to the 'low' of Vegetation-II, which was another improvement in the rune.
'This would sell like hotcakes.'
As Arthur was about to inscribe the new rune, a presence appeared nearby. He frowned and kept away the artifact before looking at the newcomer.
The stealth rune appeared and hid Arthur under its powers. When he looked over the edge, he saw a shadow creep into the man's window.
'What are you going to do?'
Arthur used his detect rune and saw clearly how the shadow took the man from his house. The shadow ran toward the west side of the city while carrying the man like a sandbag.
Arthur followed after them using his Teleport rune. As he kept at it, he arrived at an alley where he looked at the shadow jump over the walls of a mansion.
Instead of going into the mansion himself, Arthur created a shadow and sent it in. As he saw his shadow slip into the darkness, he missed Ruki greatly.
When the fissure sent him to Alka, Ruki was still with Rae as Arthur instructed her. Unlike the case with Lilo, who was still dormant within Arthur's body, there was no bond connecting Ruki to Arthur other than his authority as her creator.
He had no idea where she is, only that she was still out there somewhere. As his mind wandered in thoughts, his shadow reached the room where they kept the poor man.
Arthur shared the vision with his shadow to see three figures in the room. A noble on his deck, the tied up poor kidnapped man, and the person who brought him.
"Why didn't you accomplish today's mission?" The noble asked the kidnapped man after the man the cloth bag was removed from his head.
"Who... are you?" The man asked with fear as his whole body shook. "I didn't do anything, please, let me go..."
"Have you lost your goddamn mind?" The noble banged on the table and roared. "I gave you a task to do today through a priest. Why is that shop still standing?"
"I don't know what you mean. I swear to the Scholar God, I never met a priest!" The man cried as he urinated himself.
"What is wrong with him?" The noble asked his subordinate as he covered his face. "And did his arm always look like this?"
"No, he was fine today." The lackey shook his head. "This arm looked healed. Was he caught and released?"
"Did anyone follow you here?" The noble's face turned into a terrifying frown. "Take him away and kill him. Call out my carriage. I need to meet the duke immediately."
He commanded, and his subordinate nodded. As he witnessed this, Arthur sighed and shook his head.
'He deserves to die.'
Arthur waved his hand and teleported from the alley. He wasn't talking about the poor man, though. As he appeared behind the noble, his dagger shone ominously in the light.
"Who!"
The subordinate ran to the aid of his master, but Arthur's dagger slashed the man's neck. Blood flew out like a fountain as the noble's shocked eyes turned lifeless.
"NO!"
The subordinate rushed forward with killing intent, but Arthur didn't want to waste his time with this guy.
"Cease breathing." He commanded, and the subordinate fell on the ground while clutching his neck. He turned blue until he moved no longer.
Arthur strode toward the man who was crying because of the horror he saw. He crouched in front of him as blood trickled from his chin.
"I'm sorry that you had to go through all of this just for a few golds." Arthur apologized sincerely. "I'll make sure that these nobles won't lay a hand on people like you again."
Even though he said this, Arthur saw nothing but fear in the man's eyes. He saw this emotion before in the eyes of Courage when she arrested him for killing the noble.
"This noble might not be as corrupted as that one, but he was going to kill you. Why should I spare his life when he didn't spare yours?" Arthur talked to the poor man, but the man wasn't listening.
'He's out of it. It's better to make him forget everything that happened today and send him back to his family.' Arthur inwardly sighed as he was about to command the man to forget.
"Thank... you..." The man muttered to Arthur even though he was still afraid. Arthur paused, and a smile bloomed on his face.
"You're welcome. Now, forget everything that happened today."