Chapter 170: Confronting Harold
Sitting on the seat Ethan had offered her, Bettie gestured toward the stacked table covered with dissected monster parts. "You look... busy."
Ethan glanced back at the table briefly, let out an amused sound, and turned back to her. "Your texts felt serious." Then he tilted his head thoughtfully and added, "Although I don’t remember when they’re not."
Bettie smiled a bit at that.
Ethan smiled too, then gestured toward her with his hand, as though giving her the floor to begin. "But if this is a straight-to-the-point talk, I’m listening."
Bettie nodded and said, "Okay, um..."
Then she went on to recount her experience with the dreams over the last month. She started by explaining that they had actually begun a few days after she left his house that day.
The first few nights had been restless, and over time they grew worse. She described the entity she kept seeing in those dreams. A monstrous figure with glowing red eyes that stared at her from the void.
And then there were the waking visions.
The grinning reflection in the mirror. The feeling that something was watching her even when she was alone in her room.
At the end of her narration about the dreams and the strange things she’d been seeing in mirrors, she added the most recent occurrence. The short daytime vision she had concerning Princess Isabella.
She described how she saw Isabella slowly submerging her into a space of endless darkness, and tendrils of shadow wrapping around her body.
The last part caused a brief, subtle reaction from Ethan as his eyes narrowed slightly.
Bettie noticed it immediately before continuing. "I don’t know what that means, but I came to meet you because these changes stopped feeling like a coincidence."
She paused, then added, "And speaking of changes..."
She trailed off and stood from her seat.
Ethan watched her with a newer, puzzled reaction.
"Just watch this," Bettie said.
She lifted her arm forward, her palm facing outward and a magic circle appeared in front of her hand, glowing with patterns that rotated in place.
Alongside the edges of the circle’s pattern, arcs of crackling lightning danced and sparked.
Ethan’s eyes widened in amazement. He walked around to get a better view of the circle, examining it from different angles.
She hadn’t fired the spell off yet, but he could recognize the patterns immediately.
This was the Tier 5 Lightning Fury Bolts spell. The same one she had brought to him to study over a month ago. A spell she shouldn’t have been able to comprehend, let alone cast, with only B-class talent.
"Isn’t that...?" Ethan began, his tone asking for further clarity.
She nodded. "Yes, it is."
Then Ethan gained a sudden excited look on his face. "So you reawakened then? Part of the Grand Caster class. Damn."
The excited expression came from genuine happiness for her. Bettie loved spell casting and studying magic. Now she could really pursue it without the limitation that came with having a lesser talent level.
But Bettie shook her head. "No. This feels different. Or at least different from what we hear the experience of reawakening is supposed to be like."
She paused, then added, "I haven’t awakened a special element. And every Grand Caster has one."
Ethan looked thoughtful for a moment. He exhaled and said, "Well, I don’t know about your dreams, but concerning the last thing about Isabella..."
"It’s not a daydream. Something like that did actually happen."
Bettie’s eyes widened. "What was that?"
But suddenly, a voice spoke directly into Ethan’s mind through the summon bond connection.
It was Joe’s voice, calm and measured as always;
[I’ve spotted members of the Black Hearts. Harold’s with them. And yes, they’re approaching the location where you and your guild just closed the breach]
Ethan turned toward Bettie and said, "I’m sorry, but I have to go now...Can I ask you to come by the house this evening? I’ll have Bella over, and she’d be able to explain better. Then maybe something starts making sense."
Bettie went quiet for a moment, then nodded. "Okay."
Ethan nodded back and started walking toward the exit, grabbing his black overcoat from where it hung on a wall hook near the door.
He turned back to Bettie and offered, "So maybe I can drop you off on the way, then?"
"Yeah, yeah," she said quickly, following into step with him.
A permit issued to a guild to handle a breach zone situation in any part of the country only granted that guild a twenty-four-hour priority window after the permit had been delivered.
If the guild hadn’t gone to clear the breach within the twenty-four-hour priority timeframe, then any other guild without a permit was allowed to do so.
These were the rules set by the DSB in the interest of protecting lives and preventing dimensional breaks at all costs.
Of course, the guild who had bought the permit was refunded their money by the DSB.
Clustervayne had suffered two diversions, leading to being refunded for their permits twice. And when Ethan had asked about the guilds that cleared those breaches in their stead, he was told the Black Hearts had done it.
Admittedly, at the time, he thought nothing of it. This was all part of the rules, after all. Permits expired and other guilds stepped in.
But after discovering that Harold Lowther of the Black Hearts was the one diverting his permits in the first place, it finally made better sense why the Black Hearts always turned up to clear their breaches afterward.
This was why, after Ethan and the guild had cleared the breach yesterday, he had assigned Joe to watch the location from a distance.
Because he expected that sooner or later, the same guild would come to clear the breach, not knowing it had already been handled.
And then he could directly confront Harold Lowther, whom he was very certain would be part of the team.
A few moments later, Ethan’s vintage sedan pulled up to the area where the breach had been located yesterday.
Thankfully, it was within close proximity to Clustervayne’s guild building. Maybe a block or two away at most.
From the car’s windshield, Ethan could see members of the Black Hearts Guild. About nine of them, maybe more.
They were now retreating from the breach zone’s location, walking back toward their own vehicles parked along the street.
Apparently, one of the DSB agents still on-site, along with a few magi-engineers running conclusive background checks before declaring this vicinity safe, had just informed the Black Hearts squad that the breach had already been cleared.
Ethan unbuckled his seatbelt. "Give me a second, Bettie. I’ll be right back," he said, already stepping out of his vehicle without waiting to hear the response from Bettie, who sat in the passenger seat.
She managed to get out an "Okay" just as he closed the door behind him.
Ethan walked toward the group with his hands in his coat pockets .
One of the squad members, a man, noticed him first, and motioned with his head toward the incoming figure, alerting the others.
A blonde-haired guy then turned to see who was approaching them.
This blondie was Harold Lowther.
He wore a black suit with a cream-colored dress shirt underneath and a yellow tie. Black gloves covered his hands.
A girl among the group also turned, and her eyes widened in recognition.
"Ethan?" Anna said, her voice surprised.
Ethan reached the front of their group and acknowledged Anna with a brief nod of his head.