In a dark room, a man was nearly laying flat on the ground. Strangely enough, this person had mana of a person far stronger than a Grade B. Even still, this person was on his knees. His head pressed deeply onto the floor. In front of him was another person, he didn’t dare deliver the news to while not staring straight at the ground.

“Has there been news already?”

“Yes. Nobody from the group has been heard from. News came from the spies inside the Gray Wolf Tribe. Their patrol caught the scent of someone from the Blue Wolf Tribe. Once they made their move, they found a caravan heading to the tribe.”

Having read the report, he didn’t need to think and reported the information directly, “Having been attacked on route, once the scouts made contact the perpetrators had already fled. In the attack, there were some problems, and two of the escorts were heavily injured…”

“No one died?” The voice was endlessly cold and held a large amount of fury that caused the room to feel like winter had arrived that very second.

“No… It was said that the group consisted of Grades F, E, one D, C, and even a B. The Grade B and C fled as the scouts arrived, while the Grade F’s and D had been killed in the fight.”

Seeing the man pause, there was a dark fury in his voice, “And?”

“It is said that the two were injured while fighting the Grade C…”

There was a cracking sound as the sound of sand being blown away could be heard. At that very moment, the door was opened from outside. A voice traveled with it, “What is it you wanted to see me for?”

Soon following was a scream, and a yelp. The man on the floor didn’t dare lift his head. He understood that his master was currently in a terrible mood, and didn’t dare do anything without explicit orders. Worse, he hadn’t said all the intel he had received.

“You sent people after her?”

Sounding confused and panicked, “Yes, was that not the plan?”

“The people you sent have failed…”

“What?! Useless bunch… ” Before he could speak again, he was interrupted.

“The only useless one here is you. Not only did they fail, a Grade C injured them…”

“… There isn’t anyway that can trace back to us.” His voice sounded so confident that the man kneeling knew he was clearly smiling.

Choosing this exact moment to continue the news, “While the Grade C had escaped, they sent people after him. The body of the Grade C was found strung up. The word dee was carved into his chest.”

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“Do you still think there was no evidence?”

As if on cue, he gave the last piece of intel at that moment, “Of the surviving Grade E’s. One had a portrait of a woman matching the description of one of the adventurers who was seriously injured.”

…

Jessica was hurt, while not heavily injured. The higher the grade, the more resilient and regenerative their bodies were. Having at the time of passing out been heavily injured. As Grade E’s, the two were already slowly starting to heal by the time the shamans from the wolf tribe arrived.

With the natural ways of the animal tribe shaman’s, the two healed in record time. Unlike the doctors from the south, shamans were more inclined to use ancient methods. Two different ways of handling the same issues. Both had their merits, and deficiencies.

With these methods, the two were able to open their eyes before the sun was able to disappear. Strangely enough, the wolf tribe showed more interest in Saleh. At least, from what the two from the scout team had shown interest in.

Only when the two woke up, the one to be integrated was Jessica. Having no idea what was going on, the investigation soon met a dead end. Having everything lead to the same conclusion meant that the investigation was currently over.

As the four were chatting, Marvin along with the Grade B woman named Joana came into the tent. The atmosphere instantly became stilted as silence overtook them.

Nobody but these two knew the reason the scouts even showed up was because of Saleh, therefore, if they didn’t say anything.

Joana, simply didn’t care, as his identity held no value to her. Marvin, was thankful, yet he wouldn’t say anything. It appeared nobody else knew this, he wasn’t about to be the one to share this.

For one, this could be seen as him repaying his debt. Without the scouts showing up, the damage to his goods was unknown. For a merchant, pros and cons were always the most important. There were no benefits to sharing this information.

Before being able to say anything, Joana spoke. Her tone followed the same coldness it always held, “Do you know any of the people who attacked us?”

Jessica searched the room with a quick glance, outside of Marvin, nobody seemed to understand this line of questioning. Without knowing what was going on, she could only answer a bit lost, “No, why would I know them?”

Laughing a bit stiffly, Marvin took out a scroll from his sleeve. After unrolling it, everyone glanced at it and found an uncanny picture that strongly resembled Jessica.

The picture itself wasn’t the biggest problem that Jessica had. This was not a crystal, this was drawn on a scroll. In this day and age, it was obsolete to do that. So why would anyone go through the effort to do this?

A scroll required a person to write, leaving behind their handwriting. A picture would require the skill with a brush. Again, leaving behind evidence that could be tracked back. Crystal’s could contain a person’s mana. This could trace back to them.

However, would someone doing something dirty like this use that type of crystal? The answer was obviously no. While, it could be a little bit expensive to get a crystal capable of accepting an image prepared, there were crystals that could take from a drawing to images from the brain. The latter was vastly more expensive, but so was hiring a Grade C, let alone a Grade B.

There was one simply advantage that could outright defeat any possible downside of using a scroll. To destroy a crystal was not very easy. While unlikely, it was possible to retrieve bits and pieces of information wiped from a crystal. That is why one needed to be very careful with it.

A scroll could be burned, this would destroy everything. Very quickly, Jessica thought of two people that wanted her dead, or most likely wanted her alive…