They would not move aside.
Judging by the red cloaks draped over their shoulders, they were certainly mages, but why did it feel so strongly as though they had approached him deliberately?
‘Did Letra send them?’
Rud carefully worked his mind.
If their target had been him from the beginning, they would not have spoken to him so openly like this.
The looks in their eyes suggested they were after something else.
In the current situation, there was nothing to gain from provoking mages.
However, Rud had to find Shuran now.
The lifespan was moving farther and farther away.
Judging by the direction, it seemed to be leaving the village. If Rud missed Shuran here, he did not know when he would encounter him again.
‘I cannot ignore these two either…….’
He had to choose his words carefully.
If he showed even the slightest suspicious behavior here, he might immediately invite suspicion.
“I am sorry, but I am rather busy right now. I appreciate that you are trying to help, but I must politely refuse for now.”
“That is why we are saying we will help you.”
Even though Rud had refused as kindly as possible, whether because she was dense or simply persistent, she clung to him stubbornly.
“We are absolutely not suspicious people. I am Shairin from the Magic Association, and this thing beside me is Didia.”
“This thing?”
Perhaps angered at being treated like an object, Didia glared sharply at her, but the white-haired mage did not pay the slightest attention.
“So please just tell us! We will help you with anything.”
The best help you could give me would be to disappear from my sight.
Rud barely managed to stop those words from coming out of his mouth.
Why did they have to appear at such an important moment and act like this?
Shuran’s lifespan soon disappeared.
Rud knew the direction in which it had vanished, so he would be able to find him if he followed it, but for now, it seemed he had to shake these two off first.
‘Is there no good method?’
While Rud briefly thought about it, he felt the lifespan of a dark mage from inside the alley on the right.
It had appeared suddenly.
The distance was close as well.
Rud immediately cast his gaze in that direction, but no one stood inside the alley.
‘Was he hiding himself and watching me?’
The number was only around 150 years at most.
He was a dark mage Rud could deal with lightly, but since he could not move freely now, Rud decided to use him.
Pretending to be a victim, Rud spoke cautiously.
“Actually, there has been someone secretly following me for the past few days. I do not know who they are, but even after reporting it to the police, it has not been resolved, so I was trying to find them myself. It has been rather difficult.”
“Oh my, are you being tailed?”
“There have been many cases lately of dark mages harming ordinary people. Hmm. I think I can help you with that.”
When Didia opened her palm, a red weasel appeared as though it had been hiding there from the beginning.
“Kyria, if there is someone nearby hiding with magic, could you find them for me?”
As though it understood her words, Kyria nodded and hopped down from her palm.
‘Summoning Magic, is it?’
Now that monsters had become rare, people who handled Summoning Magic were exceedingly uncommon.
Moreover, taming them was extremely difficult, and if one made even the slightest mistake, one could be attacked in return, so it was also a discipline people tended to avoid.
Rud spoke as though he were fascinated, like someone seeing magic for the first time.
“Wow, so you are a mage who can summon monsters. How fascinating.”
“Haha, thank you.”
“Is this your first time seeing a monster?”
Shairin asked. Rud paused briefly before speaking.
“No, I have seen them a few times in the mountains.”
During Gared’s training, Rud had once hunted a monster by himself that was five times larger than his own body.
He had barely managed to catch it after a desperate struggle, but even now, his heart still sank whenever he thought of that time.
Kyria, the red weasel, raised its head and sniffed the air.
It seemed to be searching for something. Seeing that, the dark mage tilted his head.
‘Why are those mages trying to help a dark mage?’
Perhaps it was because they did not know his identity.
The dark mage had no intention of becoming deeply involved in the relationship among those three, but recently, a strange rumor had been circulating within the police.
It was the unbelievable story that a dark mage had entered the police.
Naturally, it had to be a baseless rumor.
Most dark mages denied it as well, saying it made no sense, but there was exactly one person who sincerely believed it.
Shuran.
He was an intelligent man.
He had eyes that saw through lies and truth, and he had wisdom as well, so he never did anything meaningless.
‘It seems Shuran did not say that for no reason.’
Watching the scene unfold before his eyes, the dark mage received an intuition close to certainty.
The police and the Magic Association were famous for having a poor relationship.
They were always competing to bring more talented mages over to their side.
But when necessary, they were also in a symbiotic relationship in which they cooperated and helped each other.
In other words, if that white-haired man truly belonged to the police, there would be nothing strange about him making contact with mages from the Magic Association.
‘I have to tell that person about this at once……!’
The red weasel, which had been walking along the street and sniffing, stared directly at him.
Their eyes met.
A chilling shiver ran down the dark mage’s spine. The red weasel stared straight through him with eyes full of murderous intent.
‘D-did it come looking for me?!’
The white-haired man must have detected his lifespan and told the mages.
The dark mage could not believe it. He had only released the lifespan he had been suppressing for a moment, yet the man had caught that instant immediately?
‘Y-you monstrous bastard!’
His senses seemed several times sharper than those of others.
If someone like that had entered the police, he would certainly go around hunting them in earnest.
The dark mage was currently using Air Mode, which made his entire body transparent.
Because of that, people’s eyes could not see him at the moment, but it had the fatal weakness of not working against animals with a keen sense of smell.
The red weasel assumed a hunting stance.
The dark mage instinctively sensed a threat to his life and slowly stepped backward.
In truth, catching a single weasel was nothing.
The greatest problem was those three.
Two mages and one dark mage.
No matter how he looked at it, this was an unfavorable fight.
He had to run from here.
He had to tell that person about this at once.
The dark mage carefully turned his back to the weasel.
“Screech!!!”
The red weasel spewed fierce flames from its body, closed the distance to the dark mage in a single breath, and hurled itself at him.
THUD!!!
“Guh……?!”
With a dull sound, the dark mage’s transparent body collided directly with the wall in front of him and collapsed helplessly.
His clothes caught fire.
When his body collided with the red weasel, the flames had spread directly to him.
SIZZLE……
His clothes burned hotly, giving off dark smoke.
As they did, the unconscious dark mage’s form gradually began to appear.
The citizens cast their gazes into the alley, asking what had happened.
Kyria, having finished the hunt, climbed calmly back onto Didia’s hand as if nothing had happened, and Shairin waved the onlookers away with her hand as she muttered.
“Air Mode. I cannot even imagine how many things he must have done with that.”
“It is not quite dark magic, but it is magic whose use is strictly prohibited by law. I think it would be wise to hand him over to the police.”
When Didia lightly gestured with her hand, the flames burning his clothes vanished completely.
Rud quietly looked down at the dark mage lying facedown on the ground.
He had seen Rud speaking with the mages.
Rud ought to kill him, if only to silence him, but the two mages did not know that this man was a dark mage.
He could not tell them either.
The moment he said that aloud, it would be no different from confessing that Rud himself was a dark mage.
Things seemed to be twisting more and more strangely.
Forcing himself to ignore the ominous feeling creeping over him, Rud thanked Didia.
“Thank you. I do not know how to express my gratitude for this.”
“Not at all. I only did what I had to do.”
“Then I will be going……”
Rud turned around and was about to leave the alley, but Shairin blocked his way again.
“Excuse me. Since meeting like this must be fate, would you like to go somewhere and have a meal with us?”
“A m-meal?”
“Your urgent business seems to be over now, so a little leisure should be fine, should it not? Ah, and we will pay.”
It was closer to a one-sided notice. Rud barely managed to stop his expression from twisting.
‘As expected, these people must be the mages Letra sent.’
Otherwise, they would not be trying so actively to keep him tied down.
He had thought too little of this.
It had become awkward to refuse.
After all, the two mages had caught the person secretly spying on him.
Here, accepting the proposal, if only out of courtesy, seemed to be the only choice.
Rud forced his tight throat open and spoke with difficulty.
“I-I would be grateful. You helped me, and now you are even buying me a meal. I feel terribly sorry.”
“It is all right. This, too, is a kind of connection. Ah, on that note, do you perhaps know a mage named Letra?”
“Letra?”
When Rud familiarly asked back, Shairin wickedly curled up the corners of her mouth.
“She said she owed you a favor yesterday. That is why she wanted to thank you.”
“Ah……”
His head throbbed.
Rud desperately wondered whether he should run even now, but in the end, he had no choice but to nod.
“Wh-when is she coming?”
Didia, who had gone to look for Loeb, sent word.
―Senior, we found Loeb! We somehow succeeded in keeping him here, so please come quickly to the place written below.
Letra checked the address written beneath the letter.
It was closer than she had expected. Perhaps he had gone to rest briefly after leaving the village, because it seemed he had not gone very far.
She was lucky.
Letra sent the owl that had brought Didia’s note flying back into the sky, then picked up the clothes hanging beside her.
‘If I hurry down, I should arrive within ten hours.’
The current time was 5:20.
It was a dangerous hour for a woman to enter the mountains alone, but no dangerous monsters lived in this area, so it should be fine.
“Oh my, are you going somewhere?”
CLACK.
The house owner’s wife opened the door and came inside.
She had heard a sound from within and had come to check whether something had happened.
Letra spoke while changing her clothes.
“Something urgent came up suddenly. It may take a few days, so I am sorry, but could I ask you to look after Darren until then? I will leave the village as soon as I return.”
“You must be very busy, being a mage. We will take good care of Darren, so please take your time coming back.”
“Thank you for your thoughtful consideration.”
Letra bowed her head deeply and left the room. Then she walked straight toward the front door, and Darren, who had been eating in the living room, spoke to her.
“Huh? Auntie, where are you going?”
“I am going out for a while. Until then, you must listen carefully to the lady of the house.”
“How long will it take?”
“If it is quick, about two days.”
Two days was a length of time he could wait well enough.
Darren nodded as if he understood and spoke.
“All right. But when you come back, you have to buy me something delicious, okay?”
“Yes. Just trust your aunt.”
Leaving behind a gentle smile, Letra quickly left the house.