“Greeting and good morning, I’m sorry that I couldn’t come to the meeting last night. Something urgent had come on the last second. My name is Falvius Saturn, a trader living here.”

A dishevelled, blond-haired man with an easy-going smile was standing in front of the table where Zecruix, Vaneri, Hervan and Varius had seated. He wore a simple burgundy shirt and a trouser of matching red colour.

The entire yesterday group was in Turil Foodhouse.

Zecruix had already eaten breakfast at the inn where he stayed before he came here, so he only ordered plain water. Varius was sitting beside him, eating breakfast. Opposite of them, were Vaneri and Hervan, also enjoying their breakfast.

Only Roschev was late.

After the man had made his greeting, Vaneri stopped her current action and got up from her seat.

“No worries Falvius, here, have a seat.”

She gestured to him to sit where she had sat and she then took a seat next Zecruix. Hervan inconspicuously moved Vaneri’s breakfast to where she was currently sitting.

“Falvius, this man is the demonhunter, Mister Zecruix. It seems that we can end this soon. Both of our woes would be resolve.”

“Ah good, hopefully everything will be resolve soon. I worry that this significant and serious problem would persist.”

Falvius eyed Zecruix with a soothed expression but for Zecruix, ever since he saw this man smiled, he felt there was something lurking in it. It was a calculated and cold of a smile, one that assumed a defenceless and harmless animal but would bare it fangs once you fall into its trap.

Zecruix instinctively decided to keep a distance from this man and only interact with him on a professional level.

The man neatly took the seat where Vaneri had sat. The waitress came but the man didn’t order.

“It’s quite a blessing to have you here; it had been terrible ever since Fathva went mad. The business has gotten slow in this town since that man holds the only transporting company in this village. He neglected the business and brought the rest of us to a slope.”

The man lamented heavily.

“You realized what the problem was on what day?”

“Just two days ago, we entrusted Vaneri, with a Gelta stone to check it for us.”

“I been to meaning to ask this, how did you get a hold of a Gelta stone? It’s quite expensive, so I expected that it belong to the village chief here and he lend it to you people.”

Zecruix leaned forward slightly while putting his arms to rest on the table.

“Three days ago, we were contacted by someone outside the village. We thought it was a demonhunter representative but they made no claim on such thing but they inform us that it might have been a demon-related problem. We were lent by them this Gelta stone and three men to assist us. They told us to wait for the demonhunter to arrive and so we did.”

Flavius was talking as though he was recalling. Zecruix furrowed his eyebrows in doubt.

“Who were these people actually?”

“We do not know but they seem to know about the circumstances. As a merchant, we’re quite pragmatic and sceptical when dealing with someone we never met but they lent us the Gelta stone making us promise to return it after the case was over and sent three men to assist us for free. There was a written contract after all.”

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Zecruix was deep in thought. Why and how did they know about the problem?  Zecruix then was reminded that he was overthinking again. Help was given with no string attached, it was suspicious but it was not really his problem. The only thing he has to worry about was that something unexpected would happen during the exorcising.

So he dismissed the thought of pursuing the matter and just nodded to Flavius.

                                  --

“Sorry I’m late, met my relative in the market. We had breakfast together.”

Roschev bowed slightly to everyone sitting on the table but Falvius had a slightly baffled expression staring at Roschev.

“Koschel?”

“Eh?”

Hearing that name, Zecruix remembered two days ago about his encounter the manor guards. It was brief but he remembered one of the guards were a man. It was also why Zecruix felt the feeling of familiarity when he saw Roschev that night.

“Roschev, by any chance this relative of your, did he goes by the name of Koschel?”

“… Yeah. He is my twin brother.”

“……”

It took a moment but Roschev had now noticed.

“Oh… I see.”

“So you really didn’t know what you brother does for work.”

After explaining the detail, Roschev looked quite surprised knowing that his brother was working as a guard in the manor. Zecruix looked to his left side at Vaneri.

“You didn’t really go into the detail with him? Even though he looks really similar…”

“Well, we didn’t think it would matter that much. I mean the day we met him, we thought he was Koschel too but he had some minor differences, so we thought it was just a coincidence. He asked us for the job, so we told him that we needed him to standby for a while since we haven’t started anything yet.”

Zecruix shrugged after Vaneri had finished and turned his face again towards Roschev.

“I like to ask, you’ve met with your brother several times right? Was there anything odd about him?”

“… Nothing that I know of, he seems to be same just I like remembered.”

What does that mean? There was nothing wrong with occupants on the manor except the owner? Perhaps it was truly just a remnant of unnatural magick. Still this makes things much easier for Zecruix. Just dispel the remnant with Cleansing and wait for the recovery of the owner.

“Well, I think we should begin. Are you all ready?”

Everyone nodded at Zecruix. Falvius got up from his seat.

“Those three men earlier are waiting outside. Let’s tell the three men that we are ready.”

“… Why didn’t they come inside?”

“They said something about disliking being in a crowded building.”

And so they left the table.