Reivan glared into the distance, trying to see if he'd be fortunate enough to see something — anything — that would shed a bit more light on what the ominous storm clouds were.

Unfortunately, his luck was proving to be quite turbulent today, so he couldn't see shit. Just clouds. Very, very dark clouds. Oh, and giant bolts of lightning accompanied by deafening thunderclaps that assaulted his ears every so often. One thing he was sure of was how loudly his instincts screamed at him to get as far away from that as possible. And he wasn't even the only one to feel this way.

Beside him, Mira had stiffened up in fright at the sight of it, like a deer in headlights. The only movement she allowed was a surprised flinch every time lightning shattered the silence. Civilians nearby, who should have been surprised that a young man and a young woman came out of the sewers that should have been out of use for years, were there as well, wholly ignoring Reivan and Mira as they also opted to stare blankly at the dark horizon.

'Are a bunch of Ascendants fighting something over there...?'

That was his best guess.

Mira scooched closer to him and shook his arm. "Wh-what is that..."

“How should I know…? I think we’ve already proven that I’m kind of useless.”

“No, you’re not. Don’t say that…” she managed, even as she stared apprehensively at the darkened skies. “I think we should head back to our inn. I’d like to go back for senior’s body, but we’re out of our depth. Senior battlemages shouldn’t be dying in a shadowing mission for first years.”

Reivan had no qualms so he agreed, and they both moved. They were thankfully in a part of town that Reivan did recognize, so he pretended to bumble around, leading Mira into the main streets, already bustling with people milling about — or they would have, if they weren’t still staring at the dark clouds. Some even started shrieking their heads off in panic, while some tried to take advantage of the situation by doing some very stupid things.

Like robbing a store. Or trying to kidnap people.

With a stun bolt to the face, Reivan knocked out a man who had tried to force a woman into an alley during the confusion. Mira was still a bit out of it, but a woman almost getting raped snapped her back awake and she quickly went around to calm people down, with Reivan trailing behind her as support and to also watch her back. He was increasingly building a better opinion of her in his mind with how efficiently she acted when it actually mattered. Now, if only she would act that way all the time, she'd be perfect.

Still, even with their volunteered services, there were far too many instances of people erupting into panicked anarchy because of fear. Two battlemages who had barely grown to fill their cloaks simply weren’t enough.

And this situation was further exacerbated when a powerful shockwave spread out from the direction of the sea, shattering windows and blowing people off their feet. Oh, the people most definitely hadn’t liked that. Not one bit. Everyone who was only on the verge of panicking fully committed to the whole “I’m gonna die anyway, so I’m going to do whatever I want” schtick.

The giant pillar of water that was caused by monumental levels of force being exchanged in the depths of the sea wasn’t promising either.

Even then, Reivan felt exasperated at the sheer terror the populace was in. Did they not trust their own soldiers to defend them? Surely, there were battlemages on their way to make sure the city wasn’t leveled to the ground. Maybe they were already there, fighting whatever it was that was causing this.

Hells, maybe the storm was a battlemage’s doing? Who knew?

‘Eh. I can’t blame them.’

Reivan wanted to run away too, for unlike the citizens of Arkhan, he absolutely had no reason to trust this nation’s military when he knew so very little about it. And he absolutely didn’t want to waste Frey’s Blessing to block some random event that triggered when he was doing the equivalent of a fetch quest in the starter town.

Thankfully, just as Reivan thought to pull Mira somewhere safe to wait out the apparently intensifying conflict of whatever was out there, the dark clouds dispersed. Reivan’s intuition stopped blaring warning signals too.

Just like that, the calamity was over.

The damage, however, remained. With any hope, the establishments owned by Ouroboros only had shattered windows to replace. There were fires in other places though, and all around, people fell to their knees in relief.

‘This is what happens when Ascendants fight, huh?’

In a fight between gods, mortals were merely collateral damage.

This was also why Aizen tended to sally out and fight foes on their home turf instead of waiting for the fight to be taken to them. The country didn’t want to bring devastation anywhere near its cities and its people. As a testament, there was a vast wasteland just beyond the Wolf’s Jaw, where nothing lived and nothing grew. It was in this place that battles between Aizen and Argonia were usually waged.

“People of Lageton.” A booming voice that sounded oddly youthful suddenly echoed throughout the city, snaking its way into the ears of every man, woman, and child. “Calm yourselves. I am the Gold Cloak. And I am here to inform you that the threat has already been dealt with. Have no fear. Please return to your normal lives and refrain from perpetrating additional crimes. I am not in the mood to be nice and cannot promise leniency if I catch anyone acting up right now. Thank you. And may the cold winds bring warm tidings to us all.”

With that, the announcement — and the crisis — officially ended.

Reivan heaved a sigh of relief and he heard Mira do the same. She had not an inch of laxness on her face, and was an entirely different person from how she usually was. Dependable. A senior. A captain that her squad could count on. Honestly, Reivan liked her a lot in this state. He reminded him of Helen, Elsa, and Gwen. All of them had a purpose in their eyes. A passion. Or a sharpness that made them even more attractive than they already were.

Too bad Mira’s was too fleeting.

“It's over~!” she linked her fingers and stretched them upwards, arching her back a little. “We didn’t die, Clover. Isn’t that nice? Not dying, I mean. I can’t laze around if I’m dead, after all.”

Reivan lost a significant amount of interest when she started talking like she usually did. “I agree. Anyway, let’s get back to the inn.”

“Yup. Let’s go.” Mira nodded as she flicked her wand, and one of her eyes glowed blue. “Darn, that shockwave really did a number on the city..."

They were both just about to start walking toward where they believed the inn to be, but suddenly, they found their path blocked by a young woman wearing battlemage attire, a worried look on her face. Judging by how she suddenly showed up from out of nowhere, Reivan surmised that the woman must have been a silver cloak, though he couldn’t quite tell because all battlemages wore similar battle robes.

The woman seemed winded, which was strange for an Ascendant, and her trembling eyes were locked on Mira. Seeing her squeal in surprise but still manage to draw her wand and fire a spell at the silver cloak, the mysterious battlemage heaved a sigh of relief as she flicked Mira’s spell away with a wave of her hand.

“Ah!” Mira, realizing she’d just suddenly attacked what was probably an elder, quickly bowed. “I’m so sorry!”

“No, no, it’s fine.” The woman shook her head, a tired smile on her face. “What happened to you two? Why is the senior battlemage you were meant to shadow dead?”

Reivan and Mira shared a glance before he eventually won the very short non-verbal argument on who would explain. With a sigh, Mira stepped forward and began to give an account of what happened, shocking the elder into silence.

It was only after a few moments of silence did she curse. “Damn... Just when we were busy too…”

“Elder?” Mira tilted her head and asked hesitantly. “If you don’t mind me asking, what was that storm…?”

The battlemage massaged the bridge of her nose. “Let’s just say it was a very big shark. Even I got called away to help out. Never mind that, are you alright? You don’t look injured, but is there something wrong with you?”

“Oh, I’m perfectly fine. At most, I’m a little hungry and thirsty, but that’s all.”

“That’s good… And what about your spirit beasts? Are they okay? Nothing happened to them, right?”

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“My spirit beasts…?” Mira seemed confused by the sudden concern for her spirit beasts’ well-being but still nodded. “Well, yes. They’re fine…”

“Both of them?”

“Yes, Elder.”

The lady placed a hand on her chest and heaved a genuine sigh of relief. “Very good… I thought the worst.”

Mira’s eyes darted to Reivan for a moment before clearing her throat. “Clover’s doing well too, by the way. Right, Clover? Tell her.”

Reivan adjusted his glasses and nodded.

The female battlemage took one look at Reivan and nodded before seemingly ending that line of conversation. “Your mission is now over. Seeing as this has gotten bigger than it should be for a couple of first years and a second year, this mission is now canceled. We’ll mark it as a success and you’ll still get the rewards. But you are to return to the Tower by next week.”

After saying that, the elder who didn’t really look like an elderly person vanished, leaving Mira and Reivan standing in the middle of the street, suffering under the scrutiny of the surrounding populace.

“Well.” Mira looked at him and he could practically read the exasperation in her eyes. “What can I say? I miss Elder Bernadine already.”

He almost wanted to tell her to shut up since that elder was most definitely still observing them, just from afar. “Seems the Tower places special importance on you.”

“It’s because they can’t afford to lose someone as pretty as me. It’ll be a disaster to mankind!”

Reivan rolled his eyes and ignored her nonsense, sinking into his own thoughts.

Obviously, he hadn’t missed the apparent concern in the Ascendant’s gaze, nor did he miss the disregard for Clover Salwyn’s well-being. For whatever reason, it seemed his squad’s captain had a silver cloak for a guard. And that silver cloak suddenly responded to the threat that eventually caused the ominous storm clouds far out at sea, leaving Mira undefended.

It seems even the attackers that killed senior Crag were an unexpected factor for the lofty Ascendants sent by the Tower.

‘Incompetence.’

A hunter that chases two rabbits can’t catch either one. In this case, an Ascendant had the choice of responding to a threat and protecting Mira. If it was a knight, they would have just secured Mira’s safety first before helping out — depending on Mira’s value as a target for protection.

Because the idiot battlemage chose to abandon her original duty, she almost ended up losing Mira.

‘What exactly is she to the Tower though…?’

Reivan and Mira continued making their way through the city, with the latter chattering on and on as Reivan contemplated her significance. He had just seen her abilities, and acknowledged that she was most definitely an incredibly talented sorceress. But while that would warrant a guard and some special attention, the earlier battlemage’s concern felt… more than just someone looking after a recruit with great potential.

‘Ah. She asked about her spirit beasts.’

That had struck him as strange.

Unlike Reivan, Mira already had a permanent bond with her spirit beasts. And that meant that they couldn’t just be separated by crushing a very durable orb.

At the moment, there were no known ways of slaying or permanently harming a contracted spirit beast. There was some kind of self-destruction function, but even that wasn’t permanent. It would take the spirit beast a very long time to come back, but it wasn’t that concerning in the grand scheme of things.

The only way, of course, was to kill the human they were contracted with.

‘Wait…’

Reivan frowned in thought, tuning out Mira’s idle chatter about how that place looked nice or how that Aizenian tourist was really tall. Somehow, it felt like the silver cloak had been fixated on the spirit beasts themselves, rather than Mira herself. The woman had simply cared about Mira because her well-being needed to be secured if the spirit beasts were to be safe.

‘Right. Now that I think about it, I’ve never seen her other spirit beast.’

He had seen Boop, who was simply the evangelized version of Dippy. But Mira had another spirit beast. Some kind of fox that apparently had a fixation on fighting strong opponents.

‘...Wait a minute. Strong opponents?’

Reivan’s steps halted and Mira just kept walking on without him, unaware that he suddenly stopped. There were goosebumps all over his arms as a possibility was slowly, but surely, coming together in his head.

A strong fixation on fighting strong opponents. That was a quality that was shared by someone he knew.

Dominance. Otherwise known as Dom, the lupine companion he met in the Sanctuary.

And the wolf’s fixation, Reivan assumed, was somewhat related to an ability called [Spirit King Seed] that would automatically raise the wolf to the next realm if he devoured other spirit beasts with the same ability.

‘If her other spirit beast has it too…’

Then that had some implications on why the Tower was so protective of Mira — or rather, Mira’s spirit beast. That would mean they knew about the ability, which would make sense for an organization that worked so closely with spirit beasts in general.

As for why they were so protective of her spirit beast.

‘They’re… Are they farming seeds? And artificially letting one eat the others to raise them to the next realm…’

The thought made Reivan shiver. It was slightly fine if they gathered a few mortal seeds and made an Ascendant. But what if they made another Transcendent? The balance of power in the continent would tip. Arkhan would go from the weakest of the big three superpowers in Sentorale to the unconditional strongest.

‘Good thing that hasn’t happened yet.’

But it could. And this was the type of information he had to relay to his people.

Reivan didn’t know how close they were to another Transcendent, but it was better to prepare or take preemptive action before that happened. He felt the need to just rush out and go home, which would be a lot easier since he was in Lageton, the Arkhanian city closest to Aizen.

But just as he did, he calmed himself.

‘Right. It’s just a hypothesis.’

Honestly, the information felt a little too… convenient. And that made him a bit skeptical. Which was good, actually, since he couldn’t just jump to conclusions. He wasn’t sure of anything yet, simply drawing insight from what he knew and his own impressions of the silver cloak from earlier.

For now, he would shelve the possibility until he found further proof.

“Clover? Hey!”

Reivan was suddenly jolted out of his thoughts by Mira’s very cold, very soft — and for some reason, very fragrant — hands on his cheeks, smushing his face together.

“Let go of me,” he said with a frown.

“You can’t just space out in the middle of the street, vice-captain.” Mira gave his cheeks a pinch before letting go. “You’re blocking the way!”

Reivan looked around and he was, indeed, blocking the street. “Right. Sorry.”

"All is forgiven." She nodded slowly and with great magnanimity. "Now, c’mon. Let’s go. I wanna eat~!”

As he fell into step behind her, he observed her with a hint of skepticism before finally deciding on a course of action. “Hey.”

Mira raised a brow and glanced at him, her steps not slowing. “What?”

“Do you have any plans today?”

Mira stopped. She turned around and looked at him skeptically. “Why do you ask?”

Reivan also stopped, contemplating whether to remind her of what he’d just told him earlier about blocking streets and whatnot. “Nothing. Wanna get something to eat?”

Her eyes widened for a brief moment before she raised both hands to her chest. "You shouldn’t be trying to hook up with your captain, y’know?”

“...What?”

“I said that it’s not okay. Y'know, from a professional standpoint...”

Reivan frowned until he realized that the way he said things may have left enormous room for misunderstandings. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. You said you’re hungry, right? We’re done with the mission, so why don’t we get a bite to eat? Restaurants are empty since the window thing. I bet we could eat anywhere without having to line up.”

“...And?” Mira’s eyes narrowed, still suspicious of his intentions. “That’s still a date. You’re asking me out on a date. That’s not cool, Clover. Trying to seduce your captain? Is Alini not enough for you?”

‘What the fuck does Alini have to do with this…?’

Reivan massaged the bridge of his nose and pushed up the glasses he’d displaced by doing so. “Seems I need to be even clearer. Okay. I have some questions about spirit beasts. I wanted to ask you about them while you’re not whining about being hungry and how your feet hurt. Hence, going to a restaurant. To eat and sit down — the most well-known remedies for the problems you’re whining about.”

Mira pursed her lips and even her ears burned a bit red. "Wh-why didn’t you say that from the start? You almost gave me a fright… I thought I was gonna have to break another young man's heart.”

“I’m older than you though… Whatever. So?”

“I agree with this plan of yours. Food and sitting sound good to me. Lead the way, minion.”

“Vice-captain or minion, can you just pick one and stick with it?” Reivan rolled his eyes and looked around for anywhere good, quickly finding an establishment with a drawing of a knife and fork framing a crab. “You up for some crab?”

“I’ve never had it.”

“I’m not hearing a no.”

“That’s because it’s a yes!” Mira laughed. “I’m curious. I didn’t get to eat much seafood up north. We’re kind of landlocked up there. Preserved and frozen stuff makes it, but my parents are kind of picky with that stuff so they only want the freshest stuff on the table.”

Reivan snorted and gestured at the shop he saw. “Shall we?”

“You paying, vice-minion?”

“No. Also, what the hell is a vice-minion...? That sounds lower than a minion.” Reivan grimaced but remembered that he was supposed to be asking a favor. “Actually, fine. My treat.”

Mira raised a brow at him. “Hey. I was just kidding. There’s no way I could get a junior to pay for me. My senior will never let me hear the end of it if they heard. They'd think I'm bullying my juniors!”

“I’m asking a favor though.”

“It’s my duty to answer questions. That’s how it worked when I was a first-year too. I asked lots of questions. I drove my captain insane. She was nice though, so she answered anyway.”

Reivan hesitated but nodded in the end. He didn’t have much in the way of funds, to be honest. “Alright.”

Mira snickered. “I knew you’d agree.”

“...What’s that supposed to mean? Huh?”

“Oh, you know.” She giggled impishly as she ran over to the store and headed inside without waiting for him, leaving Reivan walking to it on his own.

Come hell or high water, he would confirm his suspicions by the end of the day.

Even if he had to sacrifice his disguise prematurely.