Somewhere outside the city of Silvermoon. Late at night, a teen ranker could be seen traversing through the forest zone. He was constantly looking at a disk in his hands that had one arrow pointed towards the place the teen ranker heading towards.
‘Hmm. There’s an unknown F-Ranker some distance away from here. Reen, rejoice you’ll get to have your late-night snack.’
Eren said to his demon beast. He wasn’t going to hand the cultists to Marla after capturing them like he was ordered to do. Neither was he going to secretly follow them.
If one of the big shots of the city of Silvermoon was connected with the cultist, he didn’t want to paint a bull’s eye on his back by helping the case in any way. And he had his pet to feed anyway.
‘Erni, don’t use your katars for handling the food. You ruin it with your attacks and waste so much away. Waste not, want not. Let me take care of it nice and easy.’
Reen didn’t want her food getting mutilated by her master. She voiced her displeasure openly while separating herself from his body. She took on the shape of a young girl with just the right features. The demon beast was donned track pants and a hunter’s wear as she shapeshifted right into it.
“Here! Wear this mask.”
Eren handed her a mask and wore one for himself as well. Reen was not happy about the design of the mask though:
“Why do I have to wear these weirdly embroidered masks as well? They don’t look good Erni. I hope you know that.”
“Hahahaha! This style is something I picked up from the guy named Tumko Darata. He’ll get famous for his deeds in the future.
Anyway. The mask is eye-catching for a reason. It’s so that the enemy registers the mask’s design the most and our other detail get blurred as a result. So you have to wear it.
Remember Reen, never underestimate any ranker. They have so many ways to get back to you if you leave any clue behind.”
Eren had worn the mask while saying these things to his demon beast. He had also shapeshifted into Ron Damian to collude his mana signature. The mask was just a decoy. The cynic in him always thought about the worst outcomes and forced him to prepare a few countermeasures.
“Aren’t you going to at least try to investigate as you’ve been told to do?”
Reen asked curiously. She knew her master always did things carefully. If he has abandoned his mission that was given by an Adept ranker, there had to be a reason behind it.
“Not really. The F-Rankers we will deal with won’t know much than what we already know. This combing operation is mostly for targeting E-Rankers and above. The F-Rank small fries are just for the show.”
“But you always say that no matter how low a possibility was, we need to take them into the equation as long as they are not zero.”
Reen asked while keeping the same pace as Eren while heading towards their target. She had already spread her mana sense, ready to pinpoint the food she was craving for so long.
“This is not about the high or low possibility of something, Reen. This is about what those possibilities entail. If we don’t find any lead, we get home safely without getting ourselves involved in the mess.
But if we do find something, no matter what Marla says, we are going to be added to the mess. That is something I wish to avoid. Plus, this girl Lensa suspects something about me. It is better if we get to leave the city without interacting with her again.”
“Hm! Target up ahead, 2 O clock from here. Will you come with me or state here?”
Reen had finally located her target with her mana sense. Her saliva was oozing out as she talked:
“I’ll come. No point watching their move when you can one-shot them with ease.”
“Stealth or frontal?”
“Stealth, always. Remember, stab your enemy in the back when you have the terrain advantage. Don’t waste time in the killing.”
Eren guided his demon beast about their battle plan that mostly relied solely on her. The latter followed his order to a T and decreased her speed and movement sounds.
**************************
“Man, what are we doing here? Are you sure that the person would show up here? We were up all night yesterday and didn’t find any trace of them.”
A guy in his early 20s asked his only partner. They were traversing the same area Eren was assigned to. The cultists were marching straight to their doom without knowing about their grim destinies.
“Well, they say that the person has been contract-bound to help us for a certain number of instances. And the higher-ups have used one of the instances to call that person here and aid us in our mission during these few days.”
The other guy looked to be in his late 20s. He was just a step away from crossing the F-Rank as compared to his impatient colleague who had just barely made it to the solid stage of the same rank.
“Hm. But couldn’t that person tell us exact time and place so that we could avoid such pain-int-ass exploration?”
“Well, if we consider these steps as countermeasures to something, then it means that the person knows we are going to get tracked for our activities. So keep your voice down and focus on the task at hand. We are only supposed to make contact with that person.
We let our leader know right away and retreat from there. I don’t want to…”
“Too late for that.”
The person in his late 20s was going to complete what he had to say but he was interrupted by a young girl’s voice. They couldn’t locate the source of that voice. But they didn’t have to.
Because Reen appeared right in the middle of them with her mouth dripping from saliva. It was time for her late-night snack.
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AN: I believe Reen’s minute behavioral details are crucial in highlighting her growth. But do tell me if the overall pacing of the storyline needs to pick up speed.