When comparing Millef to Naiccos, the difference was the same as between heaven and earth. The size of the population, the density, size, and number of buildings, the available services, entertainment or otherwise, and so on.

Needless to say, Millef’s economy couldn’t even compare to Naiccos’, with the former relying mostly on selling monster parts gathered by the bounty hunters. As such, the Bounty Hunter’s Association stood as the most important pillar of the city’s stability and prosperity.

And heading such an organization was Joseph. He was usually described as shy and quiet by most people, while in reality he hid his fangs and had many under-the-table dealings going on.

After all, many people would call the amount of money he received as the head of the BHA branch in Millef laughable, so it was no surprise that it couldn’t satiate his gluttony and ambition.

He dealt with many people. Corrupt nobles, high-standing military officials, and greedy merchants. They used him, just as he used them. It was a give-and-take kind of relationship he had with most of his contacts.

Even while taking his greed into consideration, he couldn’t ask for more, simply because of the sheer amount of influence each of his contacts had. If not for his negotiation skills, even this arrangement would’ve been no more than a pipe dream.

Of course, such business called for no small amount of shrewdness on Joseph’s part. Otherwise, he’d be left vulnerable not only to the attacks of his personal enemies but also to the enemies of his contacts.

Joseph himself wasn’t much of a mastermind capable of establishing such a network of powerful people himself, though. He was part of an underground organization known as the Velvet Veil Society.

His position, which was at the bottom tier, didn’t grant him many benefits aside from direct contact with other people of power, but that sufficed. He didn’t even know who the boss of the Velvet Veil Society was or their name.

Still, paranoid as he was, he always had a handful of people guarding him around the clock. Various subordinates also served him, and these were the people who suffered the most because of his ambitions.

They received many difficult and near-impossible orders in the past, resulting in many of them dying and being replaced. Joseph only trusted his long-serving subordinates, who somehow managed to fulfill his mad orders.

Luke had met both of Joseph's most trusted subordinates in the past; one was the succubus, from whom he got the fire elemental, and the other was the shadow elementalist, whom he and Lala nearly killed in Obron village.

Joseph had a habit of staying up late and working in the BHA building well until early morning. This night was no different.

That very same shadow elementalist was the one guarding him tonight as well, as he didn’t have many options left. And he also proved to be reliable in dealing with Joseph’s enemies multiple times.

Joseph didn’t like interacting with someone who had such a rotten personality, but he put up with it because the shadow elementalist was currently the most powerful weapon in his arsenal.

Well, he was supposed to be.

“Hey, fucker,” a robed figure said disdainfully, standing only a few steps away from Joseph’s desk in the BHA building.

On the other hand, Joseph stared at them in panic. He couldn’t see their face because the black hood of their robe covered it. The only thing he could see was the person’s curled lips, and that was only thanks to the lone lit candle on his desk.

Noticing Joseph’s lack of an answer, the robed figure continued speaking in a playful tone.

“The silent treatment, huh? That’s also fine…”

Black ink stained Joseph’s broken quill and nearly half his desk. He must have knocked over his inkwell without even noticing.

Gulping audibly, Joseph looked at his table. He currently couldn’t afford to care about the messy state of his desk.

As if on cue, the ink started dripping from the opposite side of the desk.

Each time the sound of the ink hitting the ground resonated within the hall, Joseph mumbled to himself almost inaudibly.

Drip.

“Did I make a miscalculation?”

Drip.

“I couldn’t have pissed off anyone powerful… All of my plans are thought through to perfection, so there are no possible mistakes to be made in the execution!”

Drip.

But this time, the robed figure spoke instead.

“Let me make myself crystal clear. You have not miscalculated anything.”

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Joseph’s body shook as he looked at the person in front of him. He didn’t even realize he was mumbling and not talking inwardly. And in his ignorance, Joseph could only surmise that the robed person could somehow read his mind.

The person took a step forward, making a small noise as they stepped into the black puddle of ink.

They leaned in towards Joseph and took off their black hood, grinning in a condescending manner, their face lit up by the red flame of the candle.

When Joseph saw their face, he couldn’t help but cringe. He knew who this person was. But that didn’t make his panic fade; instead, it rose.

“I’m simply an unknown variable.”

At that moment, Joseph shot up from his chair and electrified his hand using his thunder elemental, carrying his momentum into an uppercut.

The robed person easily avoided such a desperate attack by simply leaning back.

“You’re gonna have to try a bit harder than that,” the person in the robe said with a derisive snort as they relaxedly took a few steps back.

A vein bulged in Joseph’s forehead as he gritted his teeth and kicked his desk, leaving only small splinters and pieces of wood behind.

“Ooh, feisty! Come on, then!” The robed person spread their arms wide open as they said that, inviting Joseph to attack.

“Stop laughing, you puny bastard! You could barely survive one of my attacks before running away last time, yet you dare come here to challenge me!? Luke!”

“I’m flattered that you remember me!” Luke said it in a clearly sarcastic tone of voice.

Clicking his tongue, Joseph augmented his legs using his elemental, white sparks of thunder zapping around them all the while, and appeared in front of Luke in less than a second. With his left hand, he shot a small thunderbolt into one of his thighs and tried grabbing onto his head with the other.

Thanks to his training, Luke’s senses reached new levels, including his reaction time. It was also thanks to his training that Luke could even hear Joseph’s mumbles from earlier.

Pointing a finger at the thunderbolt, Luke jumped backwards and shot out a small orb of wind at it, effectively canceling it and dodging Joseph’s grab at the same time.

Joseph stared at Luke with wide eyes. He probably thought something along the lines of, ‘How is he so fast!?’ or ‘What happened in such a short time!?’

But it mattered not. Luke didn’t attack and simply waited for Joseph to try once again, while looking at him with a sneer.

He was confident he could win, so he decided to play around a bit with Joseph and to pay him back a hundredfold for everything he had done in the past.

Joseph extended both of his arms as mana swirled around them. Two short swords started taking shape in either of his hands. They had a uniform body, having both the hilt and blade made out of Joseph’s metal elemental as a one-piece.

White thunder gathered around his body, and the sound of the sparks crackling could be heard constantly. This thunder extended throughout his skin, muscles, and bones, finally reaching the short swords.

In response, Luke pulled out a rectangular glass object out of his storage elemental.

“Hey, can you charge this for me? I’d like to take photos, but it ran out of battery…”

In Luke’s hands was his trusty uPhone. He used it to take random pictures from time to time, but it eventually ran out of battery. Luke chose not to throw it away, as it may have been possible to recharge the battery in the future.

And just now, a power bank stood right in front of him.

Joseph had no idea what Luke was talking about, and he just charged at him with all his might. He realized he shouldn’t underestimate Luke based on their previous encounters.

“Ah, that’s a no, isn’t it? Oh, well.” Luke put away his phone with a saddened expression and jumped into the air, performing a front flip with the help of his wind elemental.

Two swords cut through the place he stood at just a moment ago, leaving white thunder behind.

Turning around, Joseph swung at Luke’s exposed back as he was landing, but to his dismay, instead of puncturing him, a metallic clang rang out as steel met steel.

Luke blocked Joseph’s two short swords with a sword of his own. It was a common bastard sword with nothing ordinary about it.

He was able to block Joseph simply because he was faster. Speed and agility were the main strengths of the wind elemental, and Luke made sure to make full use of them.

But Joseph didn’t stop. He continued swinging his short swords at Luke with a barrage of attacks. Each time their swords met, an electric bang rang out, along with the expected metallic clanging noises.

These didn’t do anything to Luke except annoy him. It was just the result of the electricity’s flow.

Even though Joseph had an extra sword, Luke still managed to keep up and block all the attacks. As Joseph kept swinging, he quickly grew angry, realizing that this would be far from enough to penetrate through Luke’s defense.

He jumped away and clicked his tongue.

“Fine, you really did grow stronger, I’ll give you that. But when it comes to experience… You are still a little child in my eyes!”

Joseph threw one of his swords away, opting to extend the remaining one into a bastard sword, similar in size to Luke’s.

Atop his now-free hand danced a ball of thunder.

He threw it in the air and, at the same time, rushed at Luke.

Surprisingly, the ball of thunder remained floating in the air, as if it were stuck there. And now that Joseph had one sword less, Luke had an even easier time parrying his attacks.

Joseph was annoyed that Luke still didn’t even try hitting him a single time, but was also glad, as he was confident that that would be his undoing.

After a minute passed, the ball of thunder became two balls, and two balls became four. It multiplied like that until there were 64 balls of thunder floating above the two of them.

Luke forced Joseph into a clinch with his sword and asked while looking down on him with a disdainful expression.

“Hoh, and what will you be doing with those?”

Luke’s actions served to further infuriate Joseph. But contrary to his emotions, Joseph started loudly laughing instead.

“Hahahaha! I will show you! This is the part where I’ll be sending you to hell!”

As he said that, thunder exploded around Joseph, with the shockwave forcing Luke to break off the clinch and back away a few steps.

The moment he was out of the clinch, Joseph pointed at the ceiling with his hand, and as he clenched it into a fist, the balls of thunder came to life, combining back into a single ball. Although this time, the ball didn’t stay the same size as when it had split. Instead, the balls combined together into an increasingly bigger and bigger mass.

“Oi, oi, oi, what’s that overpowered move supposed to be!?” Luke said in a slightly nervous yet still mostly relaxed voice as he looked at the combining ball.

‘Maybe I should take this a bit more seriously?’ Luke thought as the white ball of thunder grew almost big enough to swallow the entire hall they were in.