Chapter 55: Tension in the Air
Vince, the leader of the Mad Jackals, was currently hiding somewhere far from prying eyes, contemplating what to do next.
After his encounter with that person, he had already expected to find Berthold and his small group back by now, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, he never heard from them again. They simply vanished.
That put him on edge, and he started digging. What he found didn’t reassure him. The person they had supposedly gone to deal with was walking around the city freely, completely unbothered, as if no one had ever come for him at all.
That only confused him further. He tried to dig deeper, but never found any trace of Berthold’s group. Instead, he discovered something else.
The person in question, who was supposed to be a simple E-Rank, was considerably more terrifying than any of them had anticipated. His mission completion rate at the Association was absurd, all of them E-Rank and above, with a significant number at D-Rank, almost all of them hunting missions, completed at a pace that made no sense for someone operating alone.
Vince himself had only recently advanced to D-rank, so he knew just how difficult it was to deal with beasts of that level. Yet this guy seemed to handle such missions at an unbelievable speed.
He tried to learn more about his strength, but couldn’t sense any fluctuations of energy from him at all. Clearly, the other party knew how to conceal his power.
He couldn’t even spy on him during hunts, his instincts told him he would be discovered.
And those instincts were something he had sharpened over years.
He felt a strong sense of danger from that person, so he decided to lay low for the time being.
He didn’t know if that guy would look into Berthold, and if he did, it would eventually lead back to him.
For now, it was better to stay out of sight for a while.
He had already given his final orders to his men, so that matter was settled. Now all that remained was to wait in silence for things to calm down.
"For fuck’s sake... why did all this have to happen right now?" he muttered in frustration, throwing a bottle of liquor against the wall. It shattered into pieces, but he didn’t care.
He was too consumed by a mix of fear, anxiety, and anger.
The way that man had treated him already got on his nerves, and now having to hide like a rat because of some adventurer stronger than him only made it worse.
"Just wait until this damned beast tide is over," he muttered, reaching for another drink. "Then I’ll deal with you personally."
***
While Vince drowned himself in alcohol and frustration, elsewhere in the city, someone else was dealing with a problem of their own.
Elena Greymark, daughter of the duke and a member of the Branleaf Awakened Association council, was currently in her office, a large and fascinating space that radiated luxury from every corner. Carpets, decorated walls, ornamental objects, all of it luxurious, all of it chosen deliberately.
She was a woman who appreciated beauty and precious things, and loved surrounding herself with them.
Right now, however, she had no luxury of appreciating any of it.
The reason was the other person in her office, a tall, handsome man with refined features, somewhere in his thirties and carrying it well. Short silver-grey hair, neatly kept. Deep, dark grey eyes. Clean, sharp facial features that would have drawn at least one look from most people who passed him, particularly from the opposite sex.
His expression was neutral. As it almost always was. There was very little that could get a genuine reaction out of him.
Cedric Blackthorne, a member of the Blackthorne family, one of the three great duchies of the Kingdom of Solren.
He was also the firstborn son of Duke Alaric Blackthorne, widely considered the most powerful of the three dukes, largely because he was an Overlord.
An S-Rank.
The Greymarks were clearly weaker by comparison, their political influence also running a notch below, which had produced more than a few conflicts between the two duchies over the years, all kept within limits, since neither side wanted to attract the king’s attention. But contained conflicts were still conflicts, and the two parties had never pretended to be on friendly terms.
The current scene was proof enough of that.
Cedric looked at the woman in front of him with a neutral expression, as if she wasn’t even worth the basic courtesy.
They were both firstborns of their respective duchies, which meant comparisons between them were constant and rarely comfortable. In terms of raw strength, she was currently on the losing end, and she knew it.
’This pretty-faced bastard... just wait until I reach A-rank. Then I’ll personally rearrange that face of yours,’ she thought.
But the words she spoke were the exact opposite,
"Cedric, you didn’t need to come all this way yourself. The situation isn’t serious enough to require reinforcements," she said, taking a calm sip of her tea.
"Is that so?" he replied simply, not touching his own cup, watching her with the same unhurried composure.
"Yes. Or do you disagree?" she asked, noticing that he had absolutely no intention of making even the minimum effort to keep things civil.
"No, I agree with you. And if it were up to me, I wouldn’t be here. But it isn’t up to me. The King wants to avoid any complications during this period, so he tasked my family with sending support. In other words, me." He said it plainly, without elaborating.
He didn’t need to. Elena understood immediately.
The Calamity Dragon.
Even though more than a month had passed since the incident at the borders of that small barony, tension still lingered across the kingdom, and beyond.
That living calamity had awakened and entered this kingdom... only to disappear without a trace.
Nothing major had happened since, which only made things more unsettling.
Normally, that would be reassuring, but anyone who knew that creature understood that it was anything but good news.
No one knew what was going on, but that didn’t mean they would lower their guard.
The King didn’t want Branleaf to end up in trouble during such a delicate time, so he took no risks and ordered one of the other duchies to send strong reinforcements.
’Tch... what a pain. If they had to send someone, why did it have to be this bastard?’ she cursed inwardly, irritated by the entire situation.
Especially by her father’s reaction.
Normally, he would have been the first to cause trouble upon hearing that his rival had sent his son to assist.
Yet this time, he had remained strangely silent,
Locked inside his training chamber.
She assumed he was in the middle of significant progress toward the next rank, and she wasn’t entirely wrong. But she would never have imagined that the reality of the situation was considerably different from that.