A moment later.
Inside Angor’s guest hall, Balba applied some ointment made by Angor on his palm. He always maintained a calm expression. Even the strong alcohol on his open wound did not make him flinched in the least.
With the medicine in place, Balba bandaged his hand up.
Angor offered to help with his treatment but Balba did not let him.
“Thank you so much. If not for your arrival, it’d have been… unpredictable,” said Angor as he thanked Balba sincerely.
Balba did not mind it at all. “It’s nothing. Consider it repaying your favor.”
Balba had been protecting Sailum and Nausica as requested by Angor. However, Nausica was not weaker than him, so he basically had nothing to do around those two people. Now, he was glad that he repaid Angor by saving Angor’s life.
The man was never someone good at talking. Balba stayed silent afterward.
Angor was still terrified at the previous incident. As he said, he would have been dead without Balba to save him. Even if Balba said it was to repay his favor, Angor did not feel any less thankful.
Click.
Nausica, dressed in her usual soft armor, opened the door and stepped into the guest hall.
“He’s dead. Ended his own life. There’s poison hidden in his mouth. Probably a killer sent by an organization. But I’m sure he’s a mortal.”
When Angor fetched medicine for Balba, Nausica stayed outside to interrogate the attacker. “He didn’t spill anything about who hired him, but we can take a safe guess that Hookdick is the one behind this.”
Angor nodded. Ever since he left his home, Hookdick and Fosah were the only people who had grudge against him. But Fosah was not hostile to the extent of hiring a killer yet, so Hookdick was the most possible answer.
“Hookdick can’t take you on openly, so he only used such petty tricks,” said Nausica. She looked calm as she continued, “If he has other choices, he would not go so low as to hire a mortal to kill you.”
Hookdick’s wicked image appeared in Angor’s mind. After visiting Twilight Town, Angor always avoided as much trouble as he could and Hookdick did not do anything special either, apart from giving him malevolent stares behind his back.
This was why when Angor moved away from the underground caves, he let down his guard. He totally did not expect Hookdick to suddenly do such a thing.
Angor grimaced. He could not possibly spend all of his days worrying about Hookdick. As long as that man was alive, troubles would keep coming.
“Sailum said that Hookdick’s mentor is going to take him to some place called Soul Soil to accept baptism. I don’t know what that is, but with Hookdick’s soul-related talent, he’ll only get stronger,” said Nausica.
She continued, “I suggest that you stay put for now. Once you become a supernatural being, Hookdick will no longer find mortals to trouble you. And even if he finds an apprentice to help him, his helper won’t dare to do anything against Sunders.”
Angor understood what she meant. He already planned to stay indoors until he made a breakthrough. Now he further believed that he had to become stronger in order to survive.
“Okay, I’ll get to my training as much as I can,” Angor replied. “This house has protection spells so no one can break in. Thank you again, for your help.”
Nausica winked at him charmingly. “I accepted a quest called ‘maintain safety in Apprentice Town Eight’. I’m just earning some merit points along the way.”
Angor was sure that Nausica took that quest to help him but he did not say it out loud. He silently told himself to repay Nausica’s kindness in the future.
Nausica left while carrying the assailant’s corpse away as well. Balba also bid Angor goodbye. The giant villa regained its tranquility.
Angor repeated Hookdick’s name in his mind again. His eyes glimmered with realization.
…
Nausica took the corpse to the other side of the river and found an open space in the woods to burn it up.
She watched as the body turned into ash. However, in her mind, she was thinking about Angor again.
The boy helped her find spirit power by giving her a piece of advice. By that time, Angor already reached the step to control his spirit power. Now Nausica had succeeded, but Angor did not make any further progress ever since. When she established a basic structure of her spirit model, triggered her mana pool, and finally became a Level-1 Apprentice, Angor still did not achieve anything else.
She was wondering why.
Building a spirit model was not a difficult task. She asked many apprentices about it, and none of them was stuck in this step. So why was Angor having trouble?
The other day, when Nausica was studying from her mentor Fantase, she unintentionally mentioned Angor’s name.
Instead of being surprised at her question, Fantase only said one thing in a plain tone: Sunders found himself a decent student.
Was there some kind of secret behind all this?
Or… was there something wrong with Angor’s channeling method?
Nausica did not tell anyone that she had been pursuing “immortality”. When she became the king of Blackberry Waters, she no longer had to worry about finding enough fortune to enjoy a luxurious life. Treasures and hundreds of fleets under her command gave her both money and power. However, she gave up her superior life which was thirsted by most people and chose to come to the unpredictable wizard world.
Because she wanted immortality.
She had the best chance of finding it here.
Only powerful wizards could achieve something like that. Nausica clearly knew that she had to build a good foundation and worked her way up based on it. That was why she chose which channeling method to use very carefully. She only proceeded with each step on the condition that she had fully mastered the previous one.
However… different channeling methods were divided by their different classes. Did that mean she was also in a different class than others?
Nausica wanted to go back and ask Angor whether channeling methods affected the classes of their users. But she held her urge back.
She was afraid that the question would trouble Angor too much.
She looked up and saw a lump of cloud floating by.
“Maybe I can find something in Cloud Library.”
The corpse was still burning, yet Nausica could not wait. She glanced at the remaining bones and went for Cloud Library without further hesitation.
The fire did not die yet. Hot air carried the smell of burning flesh, causing the grass around the area to waver.
A shadowy figure suddenly appeared beside the corpse.
Before walking away, the figure silently watched as the body became ash to fertilize the earth.
…
In a path under the Cave Field, a mortal walked in one direction while carrying a dish of hot food in his hands.
The apprentices that were passing by did not react upon seeing this mortal. There were restaurants down here that were run by mortal businessmen. And many restaurants provided delivery services.
Thud thud thud…
The mortal knocked on one of the doors.
“Who is it?”
“Your food, sir, from Pineapple Shell Restaurant.”
The door opened up and revealed a bulky man inside the room. The mortal handed over the food dish with a bright smile and left right away.
The bulky man closed the door when someone else spoke in the room.
“Laffitte, I ate too little this noon. I really want some—” The voice sounded slow and peaceful.
A pockmark-faced young man approached the bulky man and checked the food dish. Then he revealed the word “sand” with his lips.
The peaceful voice raised a pitch as he said, “Laffitte, I want some sandwich. Man, I’m SO hungry!”
Hookdick was the bulky man, and Fosah just yelled for sandwiches. Fosah’s helper, the pockmark boy, was Laffitte.
Hookdick rolled his eyes at Fosah and complained in his mind, “That big mouth. Thank god there’s no one else here, or the bastard would totally ruin my image.”
He took a sandwich from the dish and tossed it to Fosah. Then Hookdick revealed a concealed layer in the dish and found a note inside.
Fosah took his sandwich. He was completely oblivious of Hookdick’s angered attitude. He also noticed Hookdick’s note, but the fatty was too busy munching his sandwich, so he glanced at Laffitte.
Laffitte nodded in acknowledgment and pretended to be surprised. “Hey boss, why is there a note in your food? Some woman fell in love with you and offered to spend a night together?”
Hookdick humphed. “Quit it. This is a message from the Pollock Family.”
What the heck is the Pollock Family? Fosah and Laffitte wondered.
“It’s a mortal family run by a bunch of hitmen,” said Hookdick as he gave them a brief explanation.
“Hitman family? Boss, why are you contacting hitman?” Laffitte looked puzzled.
Hookdick revealed a hateful expression. “To kill that arrogant little bastard, you fool. He didn’t register as an apprentice yet, so I can… you know, hehe.”
Of course, Fosah and Laffitte knew who was this “arrogant little bastard”. They all thought about Angor who completely stole Hookdick’s golden poster display back in the resource distribution hall.
They both followed Hookdick’s example and kept giving Angor angry stares. But they were only doing so to satisfy Hookdick’s ego. On the inside, they preferred not to offend Angor too much.
Laffitte took a step back when thinking about Angor’s scary mentor. Fosah was a little mad at Angor because of the incident with Melaner. But when he heard that Angor rejected Melaner’s attempt without a second thought, Fosah felt better.
Just like Laffitte, Fosah did not wish to become the enemy of someone with a promising future, even if Angor was not an apprentice yet.
Fosah and Laffitte exchanged a look and made sure they understood each other.
After reading the note, Hookdick appeared to be disappointed a little. He slammed the paper on the ground.
Laffitte picked it up to read it, “Mission failed. One male and one female were protecting the target. Hitman killed in action.”
The note also described the protectors in details.
“Nausica and Balba?” Laffitte muttered.
“Yeah, them. They ruined my plan. Damn it all!” Hookdick was frustrated. But he quickly brightened up and laughed. “I know the kid was hard to kill. I’m only trying to put pressure on him. I guess he wet his pants and will never dare to step out his door again, ha!
“Still… now I know that bitch is helping him. Even Balba is on his side…” Hookdick curled his lips. He was not afraid of these two people at all. Unlike Angor, they did not have anyone to support them. Hookdick was going to receive a soul baptism soon. Once he was back, he was going to eliminate anyone who opposed him, one by one!