It has been only 1 hour since we started our journey from the village, with our destination insight in 10 minutes. We would have reached our destination much earlier, but his highness ordered all of us to move slowly so as not to use too much energy from travelling.
It has already started getting dark, but the moon's light hardly reached us through the thick trees and the cloudy night.
The grey zone is only able to be destroyed during the night because, it is during this time that we as living beings, emit the most negative thoughts, thus making the grey zone the most active.
The captain of the protection squad has already set up a light source, using magi, to let us see ahead.
I looked in front of me where his highness and his personal bodyguard Ellis moved. His highness as expected was stoic not even showing any emotions on his face, while the rest of us were very apprehensive and quick to respond to the tiniest of sound.
Even Ellis the 2nd weakest in the group in terms of abilities seemed not confident about the danger ahead, and occasionally I saw him wiping the sweat gathering on his forehead.
However, his highness showed no concern or fear on his face, despite being the most incapable of dealing with dangers. Either he is good at holding back his emotions or he is really not aware of the dangers ahead.
I was debriefed by my superiors to assist his highness with his expedition to the grey zone. I was very reluctant and still am in doing this mission, but unfortunately, the moment I swore to serve them and accepted the award, I had abandoned my freedom.
I have no idea of what his highness has planned for the grey zone. I had seen recordings of previous grey zone expeditions done by an exorcist, and from that, I have a clear idea of how terrifying they are, especially the ghosts in a grey zone.
Well, the only good thing about this expedition is that we don't have to directly deal with the ghost, and I don't have to focus on his highness' survival in the grey zone.
Whatever his highness had planned to do with a ghost I had no desire to know or wanted to be anywhere near it when anything happened.
When Ellis, had wanted someone to go in with him, I had felt like punching his face in for suggesting something suicidal. Luckily his highness was against that idea.
A small gentle breeze blew towards us and left us.
Suddenly his highness stopped moving forward and turned around. His eye went through each one of us, behind him, before landing on someone behind me and slowly a smile formed on his face.
"I am sorry it's nothing lets carry on." He said as he turned around while his black tied up hair waved around as he moved forward while riding on his Whizz board, with his umbrella hiding behind his hair.
I had heard that his highness had a very weird sense of hairstyle.
Originally his highness had a very big afro hair, which he had not bothered to cut and let it grow, however that changed just before the end of the plague. It was very weird seeing someone not getting a haircut and just letting their hair grow. I mean not including how out of fashion it is, how does someone even maintain a hair like that?
After the plague, there was a rumour that his highness had a change in his hairstyle. Everyone once heard this had presumed he must have finally decided to get a haircut, but apparently that was not the case. Instead of cutting his hair, he decided to straighten his black afro hair like a woman.
Even ladies I interacted with found that a hair that long was too much for any women and unsightly.
This brought among another topic in the empire that everyone enjoyed talking about. And that was about how his highness John, had a terrible fashion sense. This was especially confirmed after everyone saw his new cloak.
Usually, someone when buying cloak would look for something beautiful or intricate that displays a sense of awe or their glory, but instead, his highness brought a cloak that was torn and tattered, and not to mention the said material for the cloak was rumoured to have been taken from the beggars.
From that moment onwards it was generally agreed if his highness had a weakness then it was his sense of fashion.
I shook my head to get rid of these thoughts as I had to focus. I turned to look behind me to see who his highness was looking at. As I turned my head around while walking forward, there was no one there.
Hmm did his highness notice something behind us? But that is not possible since we who have superior capability simply couldn't detect anything or anyone.
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I was walking quietly for the whole mission with his highness. Only occasionally looking at his highness feeling deep hatred and guilt for what I am about to do.
I debated over myself many time whether to do this or not. However, that old man had promised me to tell me about the person who tipped us off to Phil.
I was shocked at the fact that there was even someone like that. I had never expected someone would purposely destroy my life.
Did they do all that for money? If so I would have gladly slaved under him as a rank 1 magi for the rest of my life, in return for my mum's life. But no he/she wanted to just see my ruin. What harm had I done to them, for them to wish this upon me?
I wanted to find that son/daughter of a b*tch and personally torture and make them suffer.
When I first knew about it that night, I was enraged but I slowly got my emotions under control. I thought about the old man's offer and wanted to reject it as I could ask his highness for help to find that person.
However, as I was thinking about rejecting the old man, he told me if I were to even think about rejecting them then they would make sure that I or no one else will never see that person who destroyed my life and they will proceed to make sure that person enjoyed his/her life while I suffer in search of him/her.
I was really furious and wanted to beat the crap out of him for what he said, but I kept the calm that I trained and built up inside the game realm. I had to play everything carefully otherwise this man, who is able to infiltrate into the residence of a commandment would actually do what he said, and let go of one of my targets. I don't want any of them to escape, I wanted each and every one of them to suffer 10 times what I did on that night.
I thought about what he said delicately. All I had to do was carry a recorder inside the grey zone when I went with his highness and in return, I would be able to know who it was that ruined me and my mum.
After I know who it was then I would confess everything to his highness and apologise to him. Thinking up to this I decided to accept their deal much to the surprise of the old man.
After that meeting with him, I would feel a sense of guilt whenever I saw his highness. I felt disgusted about what I was going to do. What difference was there between me and that person who betrayed me and my mum? We both betrayed someone else for a reward, which I expect that arse who betrayed me had already received.
But I convinced myself that I would come clean about what I did to his highness, and that will be the difference between me and that basta*d.
Currently, I was wearing the recorder as one of my buttons while I was walking to the grey zone.
I was truly never aware of what a grey zone was until I was told about it roughly 1 week ago, in fact, I didn't even know something terrifying like that could even exist as something very natural in this world.
From this, I became aware of two things: 1- the empire made sure to keep us very safe from every possible form of threat, 2- the empire also hid important things from their people.
At first, I was very angry at the fact these kinds of information were withheld from the people, and the danger it could pose to the ignorant. As I was about to object to Archer, who was the one who taught me everything about the grey zone, he told me a story. The story goes like this;
One day as death was walking towards a village to collect the soul of a person, whose time in this world was done, he encountered a villager of that village. Death was stopped and asked about his intention about going to the village. Learning from death that someone was going to die today, the villager ran towards his village to inform everyone there, that death was coming to get someone.
Abruptly the whole village was cascaded in fear and terror, not knowing who was to die. This caused the people in the whole village to run about and escape from the village before death arrived.
By the time death had arrived he smiled at the scene before him. He had arrived to collect one soul but in the end, he had received much better treat, as he could now collect the soul of the whole village.
I had thought about how it was possible for a whole village to die out when it was only supposed to be one person who was meant to die.
Archer must have guessed what I was thinking and explained to me in his very serious face how each of the villager not wanting to die, started to run out of the village. This caused many to be trampled to death in their rush to get out, some to be mauled by the beasts hidden outside of the village (from which they were hiding from) and the rest from the evil people inside the village seeking to exploit the people in the moment of chaos.
Archer finished off his story and left, while I who was left behind slowly understood why sometimes certain things had to be hidden from people and not be told.
The panic and chaos ensured by telling people who were living close to a grey zone can be imagined.
Suddenly I had to put a stop to my running thoughts as his highness, who I was moving beside me, stopped moving forward and turned back. We all paused and turned back with his highness. Only to see him shake his head and apologise before turning around, while smiling.
There seemed to be nothing behind us other than the empty and dark forest. It seemed behind his calm face his highness must be panicking as well.
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As the group of people moving towards the grey zone, a figure who was in a white tattered wedding dress turned visible behind them. Its face wasn't clearly visible due to a veil covering its face.
The figure walked right behind the group as it tasted the delicious flavour of fear and negative emotions in each of them.
As the figure enjoyed its meal collectively from all of them, it abruptly sensed an odd one in the group. It gazed at the odd one in the group strangely as it stretched out its hand with elongated and thin fingers, towards him.
Suddenly the odd one stopped and turned around and looked about before looking at where the strange being stood, who had turned invisible to the naked eye.
The figure found the odd being even more odd as it looked it in the eye and smiled before turning back and moving forward, while other members around the odd one looked at where the odd one looked only to see nothing.
Suddenly the being felt a rise in negative emotion, it sensed this emotion to be known as anxiety and alarmed, from everyone except the odd one.
Although it wanted to stay and eat more, it realised that these people were going towards its sanctuary. So, it decided to move ahead and get ready to welcome these people to its home, where it can fully bring out the flavour of its meal.
As it moved past the group, being invisible to their eyes, a slight breeze was felt among everyone, while the odd one traced the path of the breeze through his eyes, from his still smiling face.