Unsealing Emptiness

Ozul was displeased at first, but then he remembered that if he kept sleeping and missed the day, he would’ve blamed it on Raven as well.

Raven, who was waiting for the harsh words from him, was surprised that he did not mind it and just stood up from the bed.

When the trio walked down the second floor, they noticed that behind the counter, there stood an old man instead of the old woman last night. Both were around the same age, which made the trio guess that they might be husband and wife.

“Good morning~. I hope you had a good stay.”

The old man said with a jolly smile on his face. It seemed that the couple truly cared about their customers, but Ozul, who could sense emotions, knew that the wrinkled man behind the counter only had a fake smile on.

This kind of smile would even fool the old foxes that had played this game for centuries.

.....

But even if Ozul could not sense emotions, he had already noticed the hidden artifacts in that man’s clothes, which indicated that he was not so simple.

“Good morning. The stay was not so good, though.”

Ozul had felt the slight displeasure from the old man, but he hid it quite well and did not let it show on his face.

“Oh, please overlook our rough lodgings. Can you describe the things that you did not have to your likings?”

“No, I don’t have time.”

This sentence finally caused some cracks to form on the old man’s face as his eyebrows struggled not to twitch.

Even the duo behind Ozul wondered what had gotten into the latter to start ‘conversing’ with a random hotel owner.

“Just tell me where the Mercenary Guild is.”

“...You just have to take the left turn from here, and keep walking until you see the big sign at your right.”- Though the old man did not want to answer, for the sake of formalities, he answered anyway with a weird smile on his face.

After taking the directions, Ozul walked out of the hotel, but before he went out;

“Your acting...I like it.”- Ozul seemingly muttered to himself, but the old man who had heard him instantly knew that these words were directed towards him.

The old man’s heart shook since even the old foxes would not be able to figure out his mask, while this kid had so casually seen through him.

Though before he could say anything, Ozul was already out of the building with Raven and Blaze.

‘Interesting... some kind of hidden organization?...’- Ozul only had this thought in his mind.

The concept of some people working under the shadows disguised as regular civilians intrigued Ozul. He would surely look into it in the future.

The duo following him already had no idea what went through his mind, so they opted not to ask anything.

When they walked on the streets, Raven and Blaze could finally see the city in all its glory. The magnitude of the liveliness could not even be compared with other cities.

One more thing that the trio noticed was the increase in the numbers of Mages or mostly Fighters that they had seen.

No one cared about their odd group of three, as it appeared to be a regular sight for unusual people roaming around.

It was an unusual atmosphere all around. For regular people, they could only feel the jovial mood. But for the people who could sense Mana, they knew how dangerous it was roaming in these streets.

Many had smiles on their faces, but only someone like Ozul could perceive the hypocrisy in the air.

Just then, he noticed a man in rugs sitting in the corner with a bottle in hand that reeked of alcohol’s smell.

He had noticed many people that were Mages since walking down the street. But this particular guy caught his attention.

Because Ozul may have dealt with many high-rank Mages, but a Mage of Rank-7 was not something that you would find on streets pretending to be drunk.

The man in the rugs had quite a few Magical Items that concealed his Mana from anyone below Rank-8. Unless the other person also had some Magical Items that countered those artifacts, they would never be able to tell apart between the seemingly drunk man and a regular civilian.

However, that man was still far off in the distance. Ozul naturally did not care about the Rank-7 Mage, so he swept his eyes at the surroundings instead.

Just some distance away from the man, Ozul again noticed something unusual. Well, not really odd, but something different.

He saw a girl around his age, at least she appeared to be. She had silver hair and a beautiful smile as she laughed while patting the head of a kid that was crying because he had slipped earlier.

The unusual part was that the girl was also a Mage and around the same level as Raven! Ozul knew how hard Raven had to train to achieve where she was today, so finding a girl around the same age and the same feat was somewhat surprising.

However, for some reason... no, for obvious reasons, Ozul did not like to look at her. If anyone were to know of his thoughts right now, they’d be cursing him since he was a guy, and he did not like to look at such an angelic girl?!

But then again, his own body and face would not lose to any alluring devil that wanted nothing more than to cloud your judgment just by gazing on his figure.

And Ozul never cared about appearances anyway.

Though what reasons could cause Ozul to have an instant low opinion of someone? It was because that silver-haired girl reeked of the smell that he detested the most-Light. Specifically, Light Element.

“That filthy light...”- Ozul muttered under his breath in such a low voice that even Raven and Blaze were not able to hear his mumblings.

Behind the long, silver-haired girl also followed another woman. When Ozul looked at her, he instantly knew that she was an End-Stage Rank-6 Mage.

It seemed that the girl with Light Element was someone important since a Rank-6 Mage followed her all the time. Moreover, Ozul had also sensed another Rank-7 Mage that hid in the shadows and also protected that girl!

An End-Stage Rank-6 protected her in the light, and a Rank-7 protected her in the dark. It couldn’t be more evident that she was someone important.

However, all of this had nothing to do with Ozul, so he just kept walking forward with Raven and Blaze following right behind as he checked on other things.

Unfortunately, no matter how much he tries not to get involved in some other’s business, his luck always runs out.