I walked over to the shirtless guy drenched completely in sweat. He still hadn’t noticed me and kept swinging his sword. Since when did he begin wielding a sword? But either ways, the sword looked remarkable. The flash it emitted every time he swung it, blinded any vengeful eyes prying upon it.

Suddenly, the intensity of his swings decreased sharply. It didn’t seem to be voluntary. Wait… he’s falling apart!

I ran quickly and supported him in my arms. “H-Hey, are you okay man?” I asked nervously.

Asher slowly opened his eyes and forced his bleary eyes to focus on me. “Andreas? Is that really you?”

Well, of course. “Yeah, dude.” This was our first meeting after some time. A lot had happened.

I took him inside the giant mansion, and into the infirmary. It was honestly a pain finding it, located deep into the property.

The nurses set off working on Asher after giving me a simple appreciation. But, maybe I’m overthinking this but… why did they kinda sound disgruntled?

I looked through the glass door to check on Asher. I could see the nurses surrounding him and arguing over something. What was happening? Asher looked away and slowly took it all in while sipping some kind of energy drink of sort.

Then, fifteen minutes later, Asher was finally out. He looked sleep deprived and exhausted, so naturally I had to call him out on that.

“It’s nothing,” he said nonchalantly.

“Really, man?” I asked, trying to dig up more from him.

“Yes, just some training,” he began. “By the way, when did you get here? And what have you been doing for the past month?”

“Ah.. I just got here… and..” Do I really tell him I was earning money to be independent? Yeah, nothing’s weird about that.

“Huh? Really? So you were earning money and even managed to buy yourself a system.”

Asher looked at his combat-hardened hands and cast a wry smile.

What is this… he seems so distant all of a sudden…

I had to change the topic before the situation gets even more awkward. “Soo, how is Clara?”

Fortunately, I managed to change his grim expression. “Clara? Hmm.. I really don’t know. I was… doing my own thing, so I couldn’t really afford to observe others.”

Okay, valid reply. But… couldn’t he at least get to know what she was up to? Whatever. I didn’t mind.

“Did you come alone?” Asher asked.

Huh? Wait, now that I think about it, where was Agnar? Ohh… I remember now.

“No, I actually came with an acquaintance, but they left before entering the mansion’s perimeters.”

Agnar had showed the locket with the Latix symbol to the guards to let me in, then he left saying, “I don’t want to enter that mansion. I don’t really like the nobility. Which is why I have chosen this path. Being an adventurer.”

I had completely forgotten about that the moment I saw Asher falling apart.

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We walked for a while in the long hallways of the mansion. Each and every brick seemed to showcase their own interpretation of the Latix history. We walked past the paintings of the previous patriarchs and matriarchs. There were many battle-worn items hung such as swords, staffs and even metal gloves.

Finally, we stopped in front of a door covered by long, thick curtains swaying elegantly. Whose room was this? It looked quite different than the others, and I think it’s bigger too, since there was a substantial space between the two closest rooms beside this, while the others had moderate, equal intervals of space of wall.

Asher grabbed the initiative to knock first. One minute passed… There was no response. Then, five minutes went by… Okay, maybe we are rushing it because it is indeed unreasonable to expect a person to open their doors within five minutes of knocking.

… Okay maybe it’s time to knock again? We knocked a few more times, before Asher got impatient, and barged in without waiting any further.

“H-hey wait man! You can’t just go in like that…” I tried to stop him, but I got distracted midway.

…Huh??

The first view we got when we opened the door was of a bed and a person lying on top of it. There was a big generator box with tubes coming out of it attached to the person. Glowing ripples seemed to pass through the sick person’s body through the tube attached to their hands and chest.

Wait… is that Osiris? I got too startled that I failed to notice the all-too-familiar man before us. There laid the most influential demon noble in all of Tainad, helpless, with numerous tubes pumping mana constantly.

It had been a month, and yet, he was still struggling to refill his mana naturally. Did he completely exhaust himself during that fight with Eldan? Osiris, Asher, Clara and me… All of us tried our best, exhausting our mana and pushing past our limits… And yet… We still couldn’t graze even a single strand of his hair.

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Osiris might be the most influential demon, but right now, there wasn’t a demon who could equal Eldan Wycan in combat in the world.

“He’s still recovering from the fight,” Asher calmly muttered beside me. I nodded in return.

“It still surprises me how strong Eldan was…,” I said in a melancholic tone. “I hope Osiris gets back to normal.”

From this angle, Osiris’ resting face made me feel unknown emotions. Well, he was still alive, so why… Why was I feeling dread all of a sudden?

“Let’s leave, Asher,” I said, clenching his shoulder.

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We walked some more until we reached the Latix Laboratory located underground where we met Heina, who was supervising the investigation of the mysterious barrier placed upon the Progenitor’s throne.

“Ohh, Andreas?? I went looking for you but couldn’t find you.” She noticed me at last. “How have you been this past month?”

“Well, as you can see by looking at me, I’m quite healthy. I even managed to find myself a job to earn a living.” I let out a warm smile. It was refreshing to see her once again.

Heina’s brow rose high as she spoke in a high voice. “Really?? I’m amazed. Well done.”

“Well, what about you? Did you manage to find something related to the barrier placed on the throne?” I inquired.

“Well, yes! We have made massive strides in investigating it. I’ll tell you all about it in just a second. Wait for me in the lounge area outside.”

After a wait of a few minutes, Heina finally popped out of the room. She propped herself down and began to speak. “Well, let’s see. Where do I begin..”

She first gave us a brief introduction to the barrier and the marking on it. It was the marking of an ethnic group called the ‘Heavenly Tribe’.

Then came the important details. It seemed like Eldan was in contact with someone powerful enough to get easy access to barriers from the Heavenly Tribe. He had supposedly instigated Eldan to look into the given prophecy and acquire the throne.

Well, from that alone, we can tell that the instigator is not a demon and someone either within the Heavenly Tribe itself or someone from the undiscovered part of the world. From Heina’s predictions, it’s someone from within the tribe itself, but it is ambiguous. It could be someone from the already known part of the world too.

Next, they have researched the barrier’s type. It does indeed have a time limit like they had initially suspected, but the barrier won’t automatically disable itself when the time runs out. Instead, it’d signal the nearby demon families to try and get them inside the Elva temple to access the barrier and possess them to sit on the throne. When this happens, the person who had initially placed the barrier would be able to control the possessed person like a puppet, controlling the Demon continent indirectly.

Plus, the barrier technology is nothing like they had seen before. The top-tier technology had been sparsely investigated, yet had left them with multiple ambiguous information.

After hearing this, we left the laboratory to look around some more.

“I want to rest, man. The day has been tiring since morning.” It had turned night time already and I was exhausted.

“Okay, then, let’s go to the dining area.”

“Ohh, dinner time?” Asher nodded in return with a smile.

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I could smell the delicious food from miles away. It was way too alluring, but I had to control myself because this was a noble mansion. I can’t go around barking like a caveman about how good the food smells.

Contrary to my initial assumption that nobles dined together in one long table. That didn’t seem to be the case here. There were separate tables spaced evenly across the humongous dining room.

We went around searching for a suitable spot to sit. “Hmm… there doesn’t really seem to be any free spots with no one around.” I muttered loudly. “Okay, nevermind, we can just sit with someone.”

I noticed two table with free spots, but each of them had people occupying them. But, there was a difference, and the difference made it easy to choose.

“Hey, Asher.” I tugged at his sleeve, and he turned to look at me. “If we.. If we are gonna sit with people, why don’t we…” God, this is going to be awkward. “If we are gonna sit with some people present on the table already, then why don’t we sit there?” I pointed to a table on my right.

“Honestly, you never change, man.” Asher couldn’t help but face-palm at my important suggestion.

The difference with the tables was that one had a cute girl eating alone and the other one was all men with only two spots left. It was a no-brainer to sit on the right one. I mean… it’s not like I want to sit there because there is a girl.. No! That isn’t the reason. I’m a gentleman after all.

We both sat down, and Asher went to fetch us both food while I saved our spots. The girl didn’t mind us sitting. Rather, she was too preoccupied savoring the delicacy her plate offered. I mean, it was reasonable. I would do the same too.

She brushed off her cherry-red hair past her ears everytime she took a bite off the meat. Her prim lips struggled to hold in the drool as she munched without a care in the world.

Man… I’m full just by watching her eat. Asher! Bring the food quickly, man!!

Moments later, I could see Asher balancing two plates in his hands and walking to my side.

He's finally here!

I couldn't wait for him to take his time walking over to my side, instead, I ran over to him, grabbed my plate filled to the brim with delicious meat and hurriedly propped myself back down.

I lifted the silver spoon, submerged it in a meat stew of sorts and drank it.

Woahhh!! This.. This is amazing!

“This is some good stuff.” Asher muttered beside me.

“Sure is!” I replied as I took another sip.

Now time for the bread. What if I dip it in the meat stew?

…

Oh. My. God.

Am I in heaven?

These weren't the only delicacies offered. There were different kinds of meat prepared in numerous ways suited to your taste.

I never thought I would come to say this, but this might just surpass our old world's food.

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As Andreas and Asher continued to chow down their food, they chattered for a bit.

“So.. you don't plan on staying in this mansion?”

“No, I want to explore the world, particularly the human world, Tainia.”

“Andreas.” Asher spoke with a sense of reminiscence. “I'm not the same weak Asher you knew—”

“But you were never weak, idiot!” Andreas interjected.

“Let me finish!”

“Okay, okay, go on.”

“I have actually trained in these…”

As Asher explained his days of hardwork to Andreas, a certain someone who had lost focus of their food, began eavesdropping.

Huh?? A-Andreas?

Her face flushed a she looked at the guy sitting in front of her.

Wait , which one is Andreas?

She noticed the tall, muscular guy, calling the relatively scrawny but attractive looking guy as Andreas.

S-So that’s Andreas??

Maybe because she stared at him too hard, but Andreas turned his face toward the girl. Was she just staring this way?

He looked at himself. Yeah.. there's no way.. Then, he looked at the hunk sitting beside him and laughed. Aha! So that is it.

He cast a sneering laugh toward the Asher who was giving a serious speech about his activities during their days of separation.

“Andreas, I'm going to slap you.”

“I'm sorry, sorry!”

“Were you even listening to me?”

“Uh.. I was! I was!”

The girl silently absorbed Andreas face as he became flustered.

She curiously gazed at each and every part of him as if he were some kind of newly discovered animal.

Andreas… We finally meet.