Glenn drank silently from a small flask he bought after the old man's passing. Strangely, neither sodas from his mini-fridge nor alcohol tasted good in his mouth these days. There was one exception to that rule, which was cider. Bittersweet cider, which he had bought in a liquor store. It was expensive and didn't taste as good as the cider that a friend once gifted him, but Glenn couldn't care less. The young man stood alone in the Northern Town's graveyard, staring at a plain tombstone amidst many others.
A name was carved in the basalt.
Redan.
Right below the name, there was a small line of text.
[A WOLF WITH A HEART THAT WAS ANYTHING BUT ICE]
Glenn corked the screw back on his flask, putting the drink away after having his fill. He continued to stand like this for a while, his hands in his pockets and his eyes stuck to the gravestone. The sky was bright and blue as if to mock him. His black Imoogi suit flapped in a small, gentle breeze, the only source of noise in the morbid silence. Glenn rubbed his eyes, tired, before turning back and heading for the graveyard's exit.
Redan's funeral welcomed quite a few individuals, some Glenn knew, some he didn't. Among those, he recognized Sir Reginald, the gentleman Cleaner, Monsieur Maron of the Maron Company, and Mary, the sadistic teacher. There were also a plethora of individuals armored in light-blue armor, the symbol of a white wolf painted on their back that attended the ceremony. A dozen elderly people, most of whom looked like veterans, donned armor specially designed for the occasion.
Giselle had also been able to come to the funeral, thanks to Maron and Reginald pulling some strings. When Glenn told her of Redan's passing, she only turned away and went to lit a cigar, asking him to leave her alone. Glenn had obliged. When she came to the ceremony, her eyes were bloodshot and her fingers were covered in yellow nicotine, proof of the countless cigars she smoked in the meanwhile. Sahro had been unable to come to the ceremony, still stuck in his "secret" mission for the Cleaner's Workshop. Glenn didn't need to visit his friend to know that he was probably as affected as he was.
Mary looked like she had been crying a lot too, but she left right after the casket had been buried. Glenn didn't even have a chance to speak with her. As a matter of fact, he couldn't speak to anyone. Giselle left as soon as she could, as did Sir Reginald, in a hurry. The gentleman Cleaner was exhausted, as the dark circles under his eyes proved, but he didn't allow Glenn to ask about them, leaving too fast to answer any questions.
And now here he was, leaving the graveyard and the corpse of his first teacher behind him. The young man shook these thoughts away. There was no need to leave another layer of guilt over what he already felt, was there?
'I suggest heading to the Dormitory and digging into that Mana Sight thing,' Diamanes' voice rang in Glenn's mind, suggesting a proper use of his time. The young man disgruntledly changed direction to the Cleaner's Workshop. He didn't want to do anything, but he knew that doing something, whatever that something was would allow him to think about something else.
Turning the page was hard. But he'll have to do so eventually. Rather sooner than later.
It didn't take long for Glenn to arrive at the Cleaner's Workshop, and then at the Dormitory. He climbed up to the Dark-Gold floor and entered his suite, headed straight for the training room. There was no one around; it seemed like the girls had understood he needed his privacy for a few days. They liked hanging around, mainly to use the mini-fridge, but also to meet Glenn and speak of their latest bounties.
Not today, though, and maybe not tomorrow. Certainly not yesterday.
The young man closed his eyes for an instant and remembered the sensation he felt back when he first opened his Mana Sight. It had been a very painful sensation, of course, since his Mana Sight had been forcefully opened by staring at some kind of eldritch-maybe-godly eye in the Cursed Book of Doloratrox. Now, there had to be a way to open this thing again without inflicting himself with psychic damage, right...?
Glenn slowly opened his eyes, blinking a few times as he adjusted to the change of scenery. The whole room had changed colors, covered in brushes of hundreds of hues, gleaming and humming gently. The young man winced as he felt pain in his eyes, and he willed for his Mana Sight to be less potent. Sadly, just "willing" for it wasn't enough, and nothing happened. Glenn gritted his teeth and concentrated, analyzing the flow of Mana in his body. He could feel it, like always, ready to flare up and fuel his spells, but...an insignificant, negligible part seemed to be lost to the void. Glenn followed the flow and found the leaking point: his eyes.
'Mana Sight is alimented with Mana; this makes sense so far. So, if I lower the Mana usage...' Glenn carefully reopened his eyes to see most of the colors fading away, leaving place to a world of grey and deep blue. The walls, training dummies, the furniture, all of those were gray, dead, while clouds of blue floated around here and there.
"...What are those...?" Glenn questioned no one in particular, frowning. He reached with his hand and grabbed at the blue cloud, but he just passed through it without interacting with it. Glenn's eyebrows creased as he concentrated further. The blue cloud swirled and moved, giving off a feeling of...lies? It was hard to explain, but...the blue cloud felt like treachery, betrayal, illusion...Illusion!
"Ah!" Glenn exclaimed, losing his concentration at the same time.
"So this was the remnants of Milena's magic...She must have trained here lately..." Glenn muttered in understanding. He drew a deep breath and reactivated his Mana Sight, approaching another Mana trace. Upon inspection, he discovered this time a feeling of freedom, of speed and sharpness, of levity. This probably was what Liara left behind with her Telekinesis spell. Glenn smirked and aimed at a nearby dummy, effortlessly shooting a Solar Laser at it. The dummy caught on fire, a part of it already in ashes as the rest was slowly burning. In Glenn's eyes, though, it looked way different. The spell had shot out in a bright, orange light, and that orange light was now lingering on the dummy. But, as time passed, the orange light disappeared, leaving only a blue Mana trace.
Glenn rubbed his chin, "...So, the active form of the Mana is different than how it is later on? How far away can I peer in time? I'll have to ask when was the last time Milena trained in this room..."
The young man deactivated and reactivated his Mana Sight, finding the action to be way easier now. The more he trained with it, the easier it was, but then, this was true for everything.
Glenn sighed and stopped playing around with Mana Sight. He sat for a second, rubbing his hands together. His heart still felt heavy, despite his sorry attempt to take his mind off the recent events. After a short deliberation with himself, he left the training room, freezing in his steps when he found Kevin sitting in the dining room, his notepad in front of him. He looked up when he heard Glenn and adjusted his glasses.
"Oh, hello Sir Glenn. I apologize for intruding, but I heard you wanted to take care of some bounties from Sir Reginald?" The assistant asked inquisitively.
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Glenn frowned, "I didn't..." He paused and thought for a few seconds, before nodding, "...Alright, show me what you've got."
Kevin's face lit up and he flipped the notepad around, pushing it to Glenn across the table. The young man pulled the notepad to his hand with Gravity Manipulation, giving it a quick read.
"Due to some internal issues privy to the Cleaner's Workshop and given the recent events, there has been a restructuration of the manpower distributed over the town," Kevin began to say as he pushed his glasses back up. Glenn frowned, finding a few things out of order. Rifts that weren't taken care of in time, monsters that weren't properly executed, areas that were ignored by the Cleaner in charge... Those were all bullet points highlighted in red, with a quick sketch of a map next to it. A district was circled in red, Rampart Street. Glenn's heart froze as memories of a warm bakery surged up from a deep hole in his brain.
He shook his head and kept on reading.
"Blorg...? Is that even a name?" Glenn thought out loud with a frown. Kevin nodded and grimaced.
"Yes, this is the new Cleaner in charge of Rampart Street. We're encountering a few...issues, with him around, but we're forced to keep him. There's no one to take over for him with his skills..."
'Huh,' Diamanes said, 'Seems like even your assistant dislikes that guy, Blorg.'
Glenn shook his head and handed the notepad back to Kevin.
"So, you want me to clean up his mess, is that right?"
The assistant nodded wordlessly, his cheeks flushed red with a bit of shame. Glenn shrugged, before grinning coldly.
"...Do I have permission to kick his ass if I meet him?"
Kevin paused, before smiling in a rare show of wickedness, "Yes, you're free to act as you like. You have been granted the order of the Blood Cross, after all. Take the medal out and you'll be able to prove your rank."
Glenn's hand sunk into his dimensional pouch and he took out the small emblem in the shape of a shield, with a red cross and a pearl containing a black flame in its center.
"...I always forget I have this thing..." He muttered before pinning down the emblem on his vest.
Kevin smirked, "And that's probably why they gave it to you."
Glenn glanced at the assistant confused. Kevin cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses.
"Hrm, anyway, should we go then?"
The young man nodded.
"Let's get to it."
----------------------------------------
One clean-up after another, it didn't take long for Glenn to realize why the Workshop was having him clean up behind this Blorg's mess. Usually, a Cleaner's job is to assess a situation, and depending on the urgency of the threat, either take care of it or send the bounty to the Fixer network. This was to allow the Cleaner more facility of movement and a better distribution of the jobs, but it did depend on the Cleaner's goodwill to report the threats he left behind.
Usually, this never caused any problems, but...as Glenn went to every site Blorg was called upon, he found half-killed monsters, collapsed houses with families still trapped in them, and even worse stuff down the line. To make it short, Blorg was doing such a terrible job Glenn was even tempted to call it sabotage.
But with him spending so much time behind the new Cleaner, what needed to happen did happen, and he met Blorg, in quite a surprising scene. Glenn had arrived at the target, a large Rift spitting out Gold-Ranked creatures, some Steel Wyrms. They weren't that dangerous as they had simplistic minds and a lack of strange or mystical attacks, but their scales were as hard as steel, hence the name, and were usually about 20 feet long. The main thing that made it a Gold-Rank was how tough it was, but for Gold-Rank Fixers with above-average offensive capabilities, the Steel Wyrms were just helpless sheep.
And yet, here they were, snaking around happily as they broke through the houses and chasing after the inhabitants as a gorilla of a man was lazily fighting the smallest of them. Glenn's anger almost flared up right away when he saw this spectacle, but he chose to first get rid of the Wyrms. A few Carbon Blades and a Solar Laser later, all that was left to do was to destroy the Rift and take care of the aftermath. Glenn dusted his hands off as he looked at a smoldering carcass in front of him when a pair of angry, heavy steps made themselves known by running at him.
Glenn turned around just in time to see a large, steel-clad fist try to crush him. The young man didn't even react and left it to the Saturn Rings to take care of. He always had the spell active whenever he fought monsters these days, just as a measure of precaution. The fist was caught in the Rings and pulled away from Glenn's face, alongside the rest of the Gorilla's body. Glenn squinted as he realized that his attacker was the dumbass that bothered him some time ago.
'Didn't you accidentally break his Dark-Gold identification dagger?' Diamanes asked without a shred of doubt. Glenn sighed and stepped back, his arms crossed.
"The fuck are you doing here, Gorilla? Didn't learn your lesson last time?" Glenn blurted out with a hint of fatigue. The Gorilla picked himself up and pointed at Glenn angrily.
"You bastard! Do you think you're safe? I'll break your skull like you broke my dagger, you son of a—" The Gorilla's lips and tongue kept on moving frantically, probably to curse every single one of Glenn's ancestors, but the latter couldn't be sure. After all, with the Silence Curse muting the sound, and the fact that he couldn't read lips, there was no way to tell. The Gorilla closed his mouth when he realized that no sound was coming out of it, his face flushed in a dark red color. He charged at the young man with a silent roar, angrily swinging his massive fists at him.
Glenn watched in amusement as the attacks effortlessly slipped on the Saturn Rings, even when a brown Aura covered the Gorilla's fists to empower them. It seems like he was a Rank 3 Aura practitioner at the very least, but not a particularly strong one. Or was Glenn just that much more powerful than him?
'That probably is the case, yep.' Diamanes agreed with a laugh, enjoying the spectacle of the Gorilla making a fool out of himself. Glenn sighed and finally dismissed the Curse on the Gorilla's face while using Gravity Manipulation to raise a rock in front of his foot and make his trip. The Gorilla crashed down loudly, rolling a few times before pushing himself up.
"ARGH! Fucking, cheating bastard! I'll skin you alive and break your bones into paste, before pushing the whole stuff down your throat!" The Gorilla's eyes were bulging out madly as he spat copious amounts of curses and saliva in Glenn's face. The young man grimaced and muttered a quick Aqua Mundare to get rid of the filth.
"...So, do you care to answer me? What are you doing in a Cleaner's area of business, Gorilla? Did you get clearance from Blorg?" Glenn asked with a bored voice. The Gorilla paused and looked at Glenn for an instant, before bursting in laughter.
"Did I get clearance from Blorg?" He repeated in disbelief, before laughing even harder, "...Hahahaha, I am Blorg, you stupid fuck!"
Glenn looked up and down at the Gorilla — no, Blorg and whistled with an impressed air.
"Oh, so you're the Blorg. I see...This does make more sense now."
Blorg's grin grew even wider and he ripped away the brown cape he was wearing, revealing a complete set of white armor, covered in blood-red crosses.
"Yes, and I'm a Cleaner now! Just try and keep your shield up," Blorg threatened as his lips pulled back, "...If you'd like to lose your Fixer license that is."
Glenn looked at Blorg for a moment, before using Earthquake on the floor he was stepping on. A huge crack swallowed Blorg in an instant and closed back on him, leaving only his head out. The Cleaner tried to get himself out of the trap, but Glenn's careful use of Gravity Manipulation made it impossible for him to do so.
"Well, guess what, Blorg," Glenn began as he crouched next to the dumbass' head, "...I don't give a single fuck that you're a Cleaner. I see that you're doing a very poor job, and I'm forced to clean up behind you. I don't like cleaning up, so you better start doing your fucking job."
Blorg spat to the side and grunted, "Or what?"
Glenn smiled widely and he placed his foot on top of Blorg's head, "Or I'll kill you. Simple as that."
Blorg opened his mouth but he hurriedly closed it when Glenn shoved the emblem of the Blood Cross in his face. The cocky Cleaner paled and gulped whatever sentence he was about to spit, realizing the error he just committed.
"Yeah, you understand now, don't you? Now, I'll be taking care of this mess, but if I find that you've been doing another botched job, I'll be personally coming to help your throat meet my best friend," He pulled his longsword and pushed it against Blorg's throat, "Deal?"
Blorg gulped and hurriedly nodded, his eyes glued to the sword, "D—Deal!"
Glenn smiled and sheathed his sword before turning away.
"Excellent. Hopefully, I won't be seeing you around, Blorg. Goodbye." He left the scene in no hurry, waiting to be far away before laughing widely.
'Haha, I just loved the look on that guy's face!' Diamanes exclaimed amidst his laughter, 'The moment he realized he fucked up: pure gold. Hahaha!'
The young man grinned, but that grin faded away little by little. Hopefully, he won't have to meet Blorg again, even though he did have him to thank for taking his mind off Redan's death for a while.
Too bad it was only for a while, though.