"Where is Josh today? He would be the first to come to us to take the orders but it looks like he is nowhere in the vicinity of the café." Darrick asked the new waiter who came to take their order. This place was Darrick and Leon's usual place since the start but now it was for all four.

"He took an uninformed leave. We didn't try to contact him because there could be some urgent emergencies but we will know after a few days what to do." The waiter said after he took all of their orders.

"So what do we need to talk about here? I'm all ears." Darrick asked looking towards Leon and Jasmine when the waiter left the table.

The group was in their usual spot of discussion today too. It was already well past two o'clock, the time for the third period to start but like what repeated this week many times today also a class was cancelled. It was spell craft class today and they were informed by Professor Wargel last minute.

Classes are being cancelled so much and it's only the first week, hope this doesn't continue for the next weeks to come.

"I talked to Jasmine about the situation in detail so we came to an agreement that we will suspect everyone you say are the terrorists but we just have to do a lot more research on them before putting them in danger list. How about this?"

It was Leon who talked. They had talked and Leon had convinced Jasmine to suspect her idol for a while, somehow. But Jasmine was probably still a bit angry with Darrick as she wasn't talking.

"Is there anything else I need to hear? Did we miss anything?" Darrick raised his eyebrows while staring at Jasmine and she was looking down hiding her face, maybe because of anger or embarrassment. She muttered something, something very inaudible.

"Did someone say something? I couldn't hear it. Please speak loudly to state your case." Darrick said as held his palm behind the ear to help him hear better. He was gesturing for her to speak loudly.

"I said sorry, okay? I just yelled at you unnecessarily yesterday. Are you happy now?" Jasmine yelled at him again today with a teary face which Darrick couldn't help but pity for a whole ten seconds before snickering.

"I'm beyond happy and also I noticed something else today in the class. That observation made me panic a bit but it is what it is, so do you guys wanna hear it or not?" Darrick started with a big grin on his face but ended the sentence with a serious face.

"I also noticed you were a bit panicking there and you said afterwards so I'm also pretty interested in what you are about to say so just spit it out quick." Leon urged impatiently.

"I'm completely sure that I sensed that bad aura on Professor Wargel and I don't have any doubt about that but today I couldn't sense it. I can smell that stench with just a whiff but today there was not even a bit of stench remaining. Just gone like that." Darrick said as his face contorted.

"So... Are you saying Professor is innocent or they have something that can mask their aura?" Jasmine asked expectantly but Darrick shattered her expectation with what he said.

"Second one obviously, I'm very sure the professor has something to do with them but this new discovery of them masking their aura throws off our plan too much. Can you imagine there being so many people who slipped up from our search? It would actually bring disaster faster when we are trying to prevent it."

"You're looking too straight at the situation. Our plan would still work based on every evidence till here. The first person you sensed was that black market woman, who did not mask her aura for some reason, maybe because she didn't care or she didn't know how to do it. Whatever it may be it does not matter." Leon cracked his knuckles as he spoke.

"The next persons were the dungeon raiders we met at the goblin cave's entrance. They were also oozing the aura albeit weaker than the women. Here I don't think there are any options, looking at the task they were assigned to they were probably disposable pawns so obviously nobody bothered to teach it to them."

"Now our newest addition to the suspect list, Professor Wargel." Jasmine's face soured when she heard the name and Darrick almost laughed at her expression but barely held it back, Leon didn't give attention to it and continued his breakdown of the case.

"According to what little Darrick mentioned, Professor Wargel had an abundant amount of the aura but there was none today so we have somehow already concluded that everyone can mask their aura and our plans may fail to achieve our wish, right?"

Darrick nodded. According to him if they couldn't catch someone significant enough then all of the things we do would just be unsuccessful overall as all they do was only postpone the inevitable. If the head remains standing then it would rise again.

"You're technically right but we can stop what's right in front of us currently if we thoroughly follow the plan. We do not have the luxury to plan too much when we know almost nothing. If you didn't forget we are just speculating their motives and targets." Leon said as he leaned back in his seat. The others didn't have any rebuttal so all just nodded simply.

"As I was saying earlier," Leon pointed at Darrick as he said, "You didn't mention anything more about Professor, if you got something additional to add then spit out everything before a concrete plan forms in my head."

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Darrick shook his head as he answered, "Nothing more from me. I witnessed Professor Wargel first at the lab saying something like he could hear the voice of materials and our second encounter was today but there is one, I may be reaching with this one but still, it's a viable option."

"Professor called everyone with you, him and her but me in particular was called upon with my name. I don't know what that means but it must mean something because I clutched my nose in front of Professor yesterday which could be a cause of this."

"Are you stupid? You as a first-year ME student with no real experience in artifact making were creating artifacts yesterday, you succeeded with less than five tries and the Professor saw your achievement. That would be enough to observe you closely, not just by Professor Wargel but the whole faculty so that was just some common background check on a very talented student." Jasmine said annoyed at the assumptions.

"You are the stupid one. If that smell was not sensible then Professor wouldn't have bothered to mask it, he saw me clutching my nose yesterday and probably knows I can also sense it, it's so simple." Darrick retorted back.

"That's not simple. That's just a convulsed assumption with barely any logic." Jasmine also shot back at him. Darrick and Jasmine entered a glaring contest then and there. Then Leon who was interrupted while talking interrupted them.

"Don't bring your stupid argument when I'm talking. I just lost flow when you guys interrupted so I'll just say it. All others Darrick sensed except Professor Wargel were doing chores so they are all probably minions and Professor is probably an executive member." Leon said as he was cleaning his glasses. The steam from the coffee had fogged the vision.

"So minions probably can't mask aura so we can easily catch them all and their plans will be ruined for the time being, after all the minions are the ones who will carry out tasks, right? So lack of manpower and raiding their bombs storage would force them to take a step back. Then we can involve some 'people' for the next time."

"But it became way more dangerous for me since someone who I wouldn't recognize with their aura could catch me off-guard and I wouldn't even see them coming. So is the plan of me being bait still valid or not?" Darrick asked.

It was a new problem that popped into Darrick's head. Finding some small fries wasn't the real problem but after finding them spreading misinformation to bring out some big shot was the bigger problem.

"Our plan actually worked on the fact that we have to catch the head with the tail but in this situation, we would never find heads so I think it's better to scratch out this plan and make a new one based on the current workings."

"I agree."

"Hmm."

"Same. We are clearly a bit free from risks but our workload has increased severalfold. We can't just one or two minions and be done with it, at least 60%. That's the bare minimum otherwise we won't be stopping shit. We also need to track that black market woman somehow."

The other two agreed to scratch the old plan and Leon suggested a new plan. It was a natural course of planning and everyone was doing their best to come up with the best strategy with minimum risk and highest reward.

"We should ambush the woman when she receives her order and do something to block the dungeons, either by killing everything inside or just making sure they wouldn't come out." The silent healer suggested.

"That's right, we can do that. It involves risk but so much less than finding big shots. You three may survive the encounter with them but I would die a horrible death by getting dissolved into a puddle of bloody mess."

Hell yeah, not the bloody part but the risk part. If I reach the peak of Tier 2 at level 19 then we can do this. It's not like I'm alone in this. For this specific reason the others may fasten their development then the fighting won't be too much of a hassle if everything goes well.

Then Darrick recalled the exhilarating feeling he felt when he last fought goblins in the dungeon. It was such a memorable feeling, his heart wanted to live through it again and again but his brain was denying such feelings because of the dangers it held.

Damn it! Those weird mixed feelings are back again. How does this even work? There is literally no way it's just some random passing emotions, this thing sometimes almost drives me crazy but sometimes feels so liberating and after all this, I don't know where it comes from. I would have embraced it with open arms if I knew what it was. Haa...

Darrick sighed in his mind, thinking he was a bit distracted from the original topic but when he was focused back to return to the conversation it had already ended. Darrick was only absent in the conversation for a few seconds and it had already died down but Jasmine picked up something else as she asked,

"Hey Darrick, what were you even doing making those two so uncomfortable?"

"You mean Aulia and Quadath? If yes then it's so obvious, how have you not noticed?"

"What's so obvious about it?" Surprisingly it was Leon who asked. Darrick never expected Leon to ask this at all and today in class it looked like he understood what was happening but turns out he didn't.

"Those two are crushing on each other and Darrick is trying to do matchmaking," Jasper said as he was done with his drink and placed it on the table.

"I'm surprised that it was us singles who recognized what was going on and you couples were oblivious to it. On one side Aulia herself said to me that she liked Quadath and other side I just figured it out."

"Quadath peeks a glances at her so much and does not have the confidence to look eye to eye. That's clearly young love and I'm just helping them to fasten the process. They are gonna be a cute couple hehe." Darrick said with a big grin stretching over his face.

"I really didn't notice. Am I weird for that?" Jasmine asked with an expression of disbelief on her face even though there wasn't any reason to be surprised.

"Nah, not really. It's probably because I have seen a lot of these kinds so just experience. To be honest, most would think those two hate each other with how uncomfortable they were acting but it's the complete opposite."

"I thought they were acting too weird when all they did was sit with each other. So there was actually a reason for it." Leon rubbed his chin while contemplating.

"They were just acting cute unknowingly. They do that even after they start dating for a few days," Darrick pointed at Jasmine and Leon's direction, "It's you two who are a bit weird for not acting lovey-dovey."

"Jasmine is really cute but that side is only reserved for me," Leon smirked.

"Shut up! Don't say embarrassing things!" Jasmine said as she gently slapped Leon's shoulder. Darrick couldn't help but chuckle and others also followed the same as they were having fun with each other's company.

Haha, friends really do help with coping in the new world. I can make a lot of friends here and we can all help each other until I return, how fun, right?