Karise and Orin run into the nearby crowds in order to get away from Ajax. Orin has a light bruise on his neck and lost both his sword and a dagger. Karise as well lost her own daggers. The sword and her magic daggers were expensive. She and Orin stumble upon a group of three guards patrolling.

"E-Excuse me, sir! There was a man over in that direction who tried to attack me! I-It was a race traitor who was in a group with two other beastkin! Please help the people still over there! They’re trying to kill people!"

Karise's expression turns anxious, a perfect damsel. This group of three guards immediately rushes off without a second thought.

"...That was dangerous, you know? The leader told us to minimize any interactions with the city guards." Orin looks at her carefully.

"It was an emergency, a way to prevent him from coming after us. Even if they can’t identify him, they’ll at least see that he has a wound in his thigh and stop him. More time to get away. Anyways, those morons aren't so wary that they'll doubt the word of a human woman like me. Calm down, would you?"

Karise smiles, satisfied. Her face twists into a frown when she recalls their confrontation with Ajax. As she and Orin calmly walk through the crowds, they decide to figure out their next steps. What can they do now that will benefit the Twin Moons?

"We need to inform the leader about this." Orin tells Karise.

"Ugh… I'm going to get scolded. Couldn't we just tell him about our lost weapons after the plan is completed?" She would rather their leader learn about their mistakes after the happiness of triumph satiates him.

"Not about that, we have to warn him."

"Warm him? About… wait, that guy?" Karise raises an eyebrow. "Do you think he's going to tail us? Or come out there? He seems pretty… I don't know, naive, don't you think?"

"I think a lot of that persona he wore was an act. If he does try to track us, I fear that his senses… well, what if they're not limited to his hearing alone?"

"What, so… he could watch us from a distance, and we wouldn't notice him."

"He might be able to sniff us out too. He had me in a headlock for a while, he could have grabbed a hair or something. Maybe that was why he headlocked me in the first place…"

"Ew, haha, you think he was sniffing you when he headlocked you? Though, who knows with these race traitors, I'd be surprised if he wasn't a sodomite… he honestly looks like he'd be some kind of pervert, but a sniffer though?" Karise chuckles to herself.

"I'm being serious, Karise… do you have any idea who he is? Does he… does he look like any noble you've ever seen pictures of?"

"Hmm. His strength… Was he really that strong?"

Orin stares up at the red moon. It’s getting closer to sundown.

"I'd say… Yes, he was. When I was struggling against him, I might as well have been fighting that diamond statue in the middle of the square. His hold was unbreakable. You'd need a strong magic weapon to fight him. Assuming he doesn't just destroy it, like with my sword…"

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Karise and Orin make their way out of the square. They walk down the road until they see the side street leading to the apartment complex. They walk into it.

"How the fuck did he do that anyways? How did he break your weapon like that?" Karise didn’t see what had happened there.

"..."

"You sure it was him who broke it? It wasn't just faulty craftsmanship?" Karise argues, slightly frustrated with Orin's stoic demeanor.

"No, my weapon was not badly made in the slightest.” Orin takes pride in his weapons and respects the smiths who made them. To make such fine weapons, Karise has no right to slander them. “I… I saw him… freeze the blade."

"...Are you sure that's what he did, Orin?" Karise asks, bewildered.

"Honestly, I don't know. I've never seen metal freeze brittle before. I have seen certain plants become brittle when frozen in the winter air. I wonder if it's similar to that."

"Yeah, I've never seen a mage capable of making temperatures cold enough to do something like that, to shatter metal. That's the heroic realm of magical prowess at least."

"Only in the worst case, he could still be a proficient commoner or something. Well, it almost doesn't matter, I still don't see a possibility that I could defeat him in single combat even if he is just a commoner like us."

Orin and Karise watch the slowly building crowd of human supremacists gathered around the apartment building as they walk through to see their leader.

"...Do you think he'll actually come out here to get in our way? I'm skeptical that he’d be able to follow us all the way here, Orin."

"I'm not sure if we can disregard a factor like him so casually until we know for certain. You don't understand because you weren't in his grasp. His arms became cold as ice within seconds. He was holding back some kind of ice magic spell, and he didn't chant anything."

"Wait, wait… you're sure it wasn't an artifact on him?"

"Someone with the little mana he had wouldn't be able to sustain multiple artifacts on his body at once. Do you mean there's one artifact for his reflexes, one for his strength, one allowing him to freeze things, one allowing him to not feel pain, one allowing him to heal? Impossible. He can only handle one at a time, if even that." Orin answers.

"So, basically… he at least has four out of five traits that make him an unsurpassable opponent. What if… Oh! What if his mana was being constantly drained by the artifacts?"

"Then, I would have felt the mana in his artifacts. At least I think I would have, especially when he froze my sword blade."

"How exactly did he shatter it anyways?"

"I was right in front of him, swinging down at his head. I saw him touch it for a moment before the blade struck his head and broke. I don't know what exactly he did, but he did it extremely quickly, so quickly that if I'd blinked, I might have missed it. Even then… I don't know what he did to my blade to shatter it like that."

"Orin, what exactly is that person? What the fuck is he?"

Orin scoffs.

"I have no idea. But, a factor like him is dangerous. Even when he was holding me in a chokehold… I could tell that he wasn't expending any energy at all, he was hardly even trying. His arms were solid like magically enhanced night silver… the only way I could see myself approaching his strength is if I used my maximum body enhancement spell."

Karise grimaces. She has heard him mention this ability before. It is a last ditch effort that when he used it in the past, he nearly died every time. A spell with a high cost of usage. She sighs.

"If he has some kind of trick that prevents him from getting hurt too easily, you know, besides his heroic level reflexes, he definitely needs to be accounted for."

Karise and Orin made their way back to their leader, the old man. He was sitting within an alleyway receiving a status update from two other members who were slightly more senior than either of them. However, what they had to say could not wait.