The city of spices looked shaky for Ewan, as his conflict with Kiev spiraled, as the war worsened, as the casualties soared, and the words Rain left behind about ‘Pathfinders’ sprinkled the apt spices on his concerns. Even if he got close to the decision makers, he still wasn’t an insider—none of the important news, about the raid or otherwise, made it to him. Not that he expected to become ‘one of them’, but he’d failed to even touch the façade. Especially now that he burned off his bridge to Kiev.
He already smelled something cooking behind this sudden attack, but he lacked information to infer anything concrete. It could be a distraction for accessing the crack, but the details surrounding the raid didn’t agree with it.
“I have another task for you,” Ewan said, walking amidst the stormy forest, climbing towards his villa as the gust almost ate his words. The trees bent to their limits against the nature’s might, and the deafening blast of wind roared in the woods. “It needs discretion, make sure you keep it to yourself.”
“I won't disappoint you, Boss. Just give me the order,” Kidd said, turning the volume up to outdo the storm. He trailed behind Ewan, shielding his eyes against the howling gale, his body pressing forward to force the steps ahead.
“Secure a ship, buy it or steal it, doesn’t matter. Just get a ship that can sail,” Ewan said, extending his Ryvia to ease Kidd’s pressure.
“Are we really leaving?”
“It’s just a precaution,” Ewan said. “We might not need to in the end, but it’s better to be prepared.”
“Got it, Boss,” Kidd said.
Ewan nodded and strode ahead, Kidd scampering behind him to keep up. The trail curved up ahead and ended at his villa. He opened the protective shield when they reached the fog—it churned at its own pace even when the gust thrashed it—and the dense gloomy air inside welcomed them. The fresh breath from the storm outside turned into a heavy and biting gulp that stuffed his lungs.
“B-Boss, h-he’s greeting you,” Kidd said, his knees mimicking the stammer of his words.
Ewan chuckled. “Sketch him, I need it by the morning. Start with the ship tomorrow,” he said and walked inside the house, leaving Kidd alone with his ‘friend’.
His element baths needed stability, but it didn’t have to be in Drarith. If it came to that, a ship could do—with some adjustments and some compromise. Until then, he intended to continue here.
The resting period of the fire-element bath was over, next up was the ice-element. Before that, however, he needed to finish some tasks.
First up was the protective shield on his villa. He still used the one that came with the purchase, and with all that happened, his confidence in it was shaking. He even made a mental note once to change it, it was now time to act on it. So, he combed through the hub and found a protective spell circuit that could guard against powerful spirit interference. It was a necessity, especially for what he was going to do next. It cost him an arm and a leg, but he procured it with his accumulated profits from potions of the last few days.
Once he switched the spell circuit in the basement, as the denser protective fog replaced the original around his villa and roiled with a coral-colored lightning thread streaking through it, he moved on to his next task.
The hub gave him access to the ingredient for the usual element baths—blood of Astylinds—but it failed to serve him for one element. It was also the element Ewan majored in—Mystic. Be it for the completion of ‘Elementalist’ or for not trailing behind in his mainstay element, he needed the mystic-element blood.
He already had the blood, just not in the way he could use it. So, he whipped out his
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Besides that, he also needed to continue his work on studying the runes and other miscellaneous tasks. Not to mention, the additional work Rain left him with—if he didn’t figure out how that man survived his fatal attacks, he could never kill him. All of a sudden, the twenty-four hours in a day seemed so shorter….
…..
[Kidd]
He watched Ewan go inside the house, his lips puckered, then slouched his shoulders and dropped his head with a sigh. Boss told him to sketch the Wraith, so he had to do it. But where should he even begin? First, he knew not a sausage about drawing, let alone sketching portraits. And second, the dumb Wraith didn’t sit still for a second for him to give it a try, the numbhead always scuttled around.
Yet, he must do it.
So, he went inside the house, grabbed a notebook and a pen from Boss’s collection, and raced out. Only to see the idiot Wraith rolling around on the grass, his childish laughter echoing in the yard.
He’s not scary, not scary at all, Kidd repeated in his mind and took deep breaths. His ghastly cackles reverbed in the air, the ambience inside the fog dingier than the gray storm outside. The sharp high note of the Wraith’s last chuckle sent shivers down his spine, his knees almost buckled, and he gulped; the gloomy air gave him goosebumps. But he had to face it, it was Boss’s order.
“H-Hello, I’m Kidd.” He walked up to the Wraith and said, his heart on the verge of bursting.
The Wraith looked at him with his beady eyes and blinked. His eyeballs rotated beyond their limits when his eyelids went up, and his sockets hollowed—he vanished into thin air.
Kidd stumbled back, and a sharp giggle rang near his ears. His shoulder weighed down, a soft chilled breath caressing his neck. He clenched his fist, and hyperventilated, trying hard to control his trembles, sweat droplets trickling down his cheeks. Even the itch on the trail of the sweat bested him and ran amok.
“Oh god of smiles, the god among the gods, the highest god of them all. Please help me,” he muttered the name of the only god he knew. It was popular in the city recently; many people praised him. They said the god of smiles was the bane of all negativities, his name should be effective on this menace then. But the child Wraith just played around him, yanking his hair, tugging his shirt, sometimes poking him, and breaking into a laughing fit that thundered in the yard. Regardless of how many times he uttered the name of god, the menace didn’t even flinch.
“Useless piece of shit. I’ll pee on your doorstep the next time I’m in that area,” Kidd cursed under the breath then focused on the Wraith again. “D-Do y-you want to play with me?” he asked. Defending was useless, so he took another approach.
The Wraith halted before him, looking up at his face, and bobbed his head with a wide and bright grin.
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Status: Injured
Step-0 [9th Awakening]
Name: Ewan Ayres
Species: Human
Vitality: 2.0
Spirit: 19.9
Anima: [Fire – 19.9 | Ice – 19.9 | Blood – 19.9]
Astylinds: 4 [Potential: 0]
Rolling Cat [Toast]: Step-0 [9th Awakening]
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Fire Monkey [Orange]: Step-0 [Level-9] [Grade-B]
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Imp [Frost]: Step-0 [Level-9] [Grade-B]
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Blood Lotus [Iris]: Step-0 [Level-9] [Grade-S]
Equipment: Common Clothes; Yurn [Neck Gaiter]; Moonkeeper [Crystal-Ball].
Storage: Journal; Elementalist—The Path of Anima [Subtype-Book]; Spellbook; Bloodlust [Spell]; Transmute [Spell]; Anima-Crystals [Novas Coins]; Obsidian Dagger; Hub-Connector; Ingredients.
Novas: 65,145
Crelith: 3,887