Chapter 103
With a body as still as a statue, a translucent grayish-white aura drifted like wind before forming into a transparent box jellyfish, vanishing from sight in an instant. Its jelly-like tentacles nearly brushed the back of the man's neck, ready to inject venom and kill him immediately.
Meanwhile, Aaron's face stiffened as he stared at the man, his chest rising and falling unevenly.
He let out a breath, trying to stay calm as he answered, "That... was the performance after the story of 'The Unfortunate Prince.' We were talking about that, and I was really impressed by the actor."
Aaron paused for a moment. After quickly glancing around and realizing no one else had overheard the conversation, he looked toward the heating furnace before immediately adding;
"If I'm not mistaken, the title was..."
"A tale about a man who retired from work and decided to become a monster hunter, only to end up being hunted by the very group that protected those monsters, right?" the man continued calmly, though the hand hidden behind his back trembled violently along with the slowing beat of his heart.
Aaron immediately smiled while scratching his cheek.
"Yeah, that's the title. Ah, I still clearly remember the scene where the man was terrified after realizing that group had discovered his hiding place."
The man lowered the bowler hat he had been wearing. A bitter smile formed on his lips as he slowly shifted farther away from Aaron, who had suddenly crouched down.
"Ah, that one," the man muttered, closing his eyes. "My apologies for intruding on your happiness and conversation."
He immediately stood up while pressing the bowler hat against his chest as a gesture asking permission to leave. Then he turned around, putting his hat back on as every step he took triggered his adrenaline to keep surviving after interfering with dangerous people.
The people in the same room quickly moved closer to the heating furnace, which crackled from the burning wood followed by black smoke splitting apart before rising into the chimney.
Realizing the man could ruin his plan to stay in Minehold for several more days, Zavi immediately stood up and followed him with silent steps while another formally dressed man walked by with a cane that produced deafening sounds with every step.
Out of the ten people, only six remained in the room including Aaron, while the other four, including Zavi, were walking toward the exit.
Aware of Zavi's actions, Aaron immediately stood up. He dusted off his trousers and coat before following behind him.
The air in the room that had previously felt suffocating now faded away, and the atmosphere became lively and warm again after the two of them left the room. As if the two of them had been angels of death waiting for the perfect moment to claim everyone's lives there.
On the other side, in a corridor with elegant clean gray marble floors, every step felt luxurious as people walked across it, leaving no rustling sound when the tips of their shoes gripped the marble surface.
And the candles hanging along the corners of the walls gave the corridor a majestic yet peaceful atmosphere as their orange glow seemed to warm every corner.
The man's steps grew heavier with every stride, his breathing ragged as though he were fleeing from a predator. The moment he turned a corner, he touched a wall with rough intricate patterns and stopped to catch his breath while glancing behind him, afraid the two men from earlier were following him.
'Is he really the person I think he is?'
After thinking it through carefully, he came up with a plan to enter the building where the final party was being held, realizing it was his last chance before the event ended at one in the morning.
Then he continued walking again, this time with measured and light footsteps, his shoulders broadening once more as though he had finally escaped the pressure weighing down his mind.
Several seconds passed. After exiting one corridor and entering another, not far ahead, a glimmer of hopeful light calmed his heart and eased his mind when he saw a large white door left half-open with two guards standing beside it.
The man removed his bowler hat, placed it against his chest, then passed by the guards and entered another hall, which also served as a gathering place for people waiting for the theater performance to begin.
Meanwhile, Zavi and Aaron stood not far from that door, leaning their bodies along the same passage connected to three corridors leading elsewhere.
There, he merely watched the man, nothing more. Thinking the man might be a spy, though perhaps he was only an ordinary civilian.
"Why are you so eager to chase after him?" Aaron asked while slipping his hands into his coat pockets.
Zavi wanted to dodge the question, but seeing Aaron stare at him with a look that irritated him, he decided to explain his reason.
"Just making sure, nothing more," he answered calmly.
After sweeping his gaze around the area and confirming no one else was passing by aside from the two guards standing ahead, Zavi finally decided to ask for information regarding the supernatural, the incident in Sanerva including the murder of the Avvalen noble family, and the chaos in the same place.
"There's something I want to ask... Can you answer it willingly?" Zavi looked at Aaron with hopeful eyes.
Aaron leaned his body against the corridor wall, around four meters away from where Zavi stood against the same corridor wall.
He drew a breath, thinking the questions in Zavi's mind right now were extremely complicated and definitely not ordinary questions, realizing that the man was truly cautious in every action he took.
Aaron raised his hand, a simple gesture showing that he agreed and telling him to speak.
Zavi fell silent for a moment, regulating his breathing and calming himself without any lingering sense of vigilance.
"Is it true? That you... know the details about the killer named Lamena, the one known for being impossible to find, to the point that even expert detectives can't locate him? Including the riots that happened in the capital, Sanerva?"
'I think the information you've gotten is way too exaggerated,' Aaron thought while tightening his leather belt.
"Maybe," Aaron answered uncertainly. "The rumors about that killer suddenly disappeared around the fourth month, a few months before I arrived in Moran." Aaron said only what he knew and did not hide anything at all.
Zavi stayed silent for a moment to think. The corridor felt fairly warm, making it a comfortable place to talk, very different from the previous room with the heating furnace, causing Zavi's vigilance to slowly fade as time passed.
He let out a breath and prepared to ask Aaron several important questions, since he himself had never once left Havanuheta Province.
"About the murder of the Avvalen nobles?"
The sentence was cut short when Aaron signaled for him to stop because two people were walking toward them.
Zavi agreed to the request. A few seconds later, a couple calmly passed by the two of them, or rather, they paid no attention whatsoever to their presence as they were too absorbed in flirting with each other.
Zavi glanced at the couple after they entered the hall. For a brief moment, his gaze shifted left and right before he continued their previous conversation.
"I don't remember the incident clearly, but after reading the newspaper that day, I felt there was something strange about those deaths."
"What do you mean?" Aaron frowned as his eyes locked onto Zavi in confusion.
"It was planned. There were infiltrators, and there was a conspiracy behind those deaths," Zavi answered, following his instincts. But remembering the news board at the intersection back then, his previous statement was highly likely to be the actual truth.
"How much do you know?" Aaron asked to make sure, shifting slightly aside to check if anyone else was passing by because this conversation deeply interested him.
Zavi grinned when something strange crossed his mind.
"As far as the eye can see across the vast ocean and the empty heart of a young woman," Zavi said half-jokingly.
Aaron clicked his tongue as he half-turned and started walking back toward their previous spot.
"Stop joking around. Tell me what you know." Aaron realized he really did not like jokes like that.
Zavi crossed his arms as he spoke without the slightest hesitation. "From experience and the way this world works, of course."
"What did you say?" Aaron's intelligence seemed to drop whenever he talked with him.
With a swift yet measured movement, Zavi pulled a pistol from his jacket pocket and pointed it directly at Aaron's head without hesitation, his index finger ready to pull the trigger.
The two exchanged gazes as the air in the corridor thickened, sinking into the tension between them, before it shattered when the faint sound of footsteps became clearer with every passing second.
Zavi sighed while lowering his arm, still holding the pistol before slipping it back into his jacket pocket.
"I don't know what else to say," Zavi said, taking a step toward the large white door guarded by the two guards. "But you, Aaron. You didn't say anything when I asked you, and you're hiding something from me."
Aaron felt that he had already answered the previous question.
"I should've already answered your question, shouldn't I? And I'm really not hiding anything from you, that's the truth." Aaron formed a vow symbol dedicated to the goddess Nagreitta regarding his previous words.
Realizing the vow symbol, with the fingers lowered together as though begging forgiveness, Zavi immediately understood that Aaron was a follower of the Goddess Nagreitta.
"So," Zavi said while exhaling softly. "Tell me who you really are. If you don't want to answer, that's fine. But tell me about the details related to the supernatural, including the series of deaths on Saturday, October 20th, 1543."
"I don't know where to begin, but I truly don't know the real facts behind those serial deaths."
Aaron took a breath for a moment as his thoughts drifted back to when he was around eighteen years old. That horrifying incident was still vividly visualized in his mind to this very day, even now at the age of twenty-five.
Zavi looked at him with a hint of suspicion.
"But I'll tell you everything I know," Aaron said with the expression of someone on the verge of death.
"You're right, I was hiding something from you. We only just met, and we're both fugitives, that's all. I don't trust you. My vigilance and indifference started fading while traveling together with you and those two women.
"I'm not from this place, and I don't have any home I can remember except Tafox in Vinohoshi."
Aaron's lips trembled, his heartbeat rapidly increasing as he didn't know whether continuing this was a good idea or not.
But after thinking it over more carefully, he finally decided to reveal it while also seeking advice from Zavi.
"I lived there for about six years because I was being hunted by a secretly operating order, Soas Repena. Even though that city is known for being cruel if you don't have money, strangely enough I managed to survive there while escaping their pursuit. Living in fear and forced to cast aside my humanity just to survive, I managed to kill many of the envoys from the Soas Repena Order, too many for me to even remember how many I killed.
"From living such a miserable fate, I became a Receiver of Exorscist at its first level, and I immediately mastered its second level after killing a man with my own hands at what was still considered a very young age. Fifteen years old."
'Fifteen years old? That's the age when someone should be playing with friends and studying for a better future.' Zavi had no idea what kind of internal struggles Aaron had gone through back then.
"Is that enough for you to know about my origins?" Aaron asked to make sure.
Zavi nodded sympathetically in response.
"You're probably wondering how I was able to master Exorscist without carrying out the three important requirements to become a Receiver, right?" Aaron finally spoke again because he knew very well that his previous statement would confuse Zavi.
"Yeah, I don't really understand about Receivers and Hollows like you explained back in Huween." Zavi waited for Aaron to explain.
Aaron let out a breath as he crossed his arms and glanced around before speaking.
"I'm not too sure about what I knew back then, but they said that supernatural abilities, from the fifteen that exist, can be transferred to another person under a condition that I still don't know to this day.
"As for Hollow, I don't think that needs explaining anymore since you already know that Exorscist truly is a nuisance to them." Aaron smiled mockingly before continuing, "With your intelligence, you know the reason why I became a fugitive, right?"
"Yeah, becoming a natural obstacle and killer to a Hollow," Zavi answered with feelings he could not put into words.
"Exactly." Aaron snapped his fingers with a faint smile.
"So that's why you're being hunted by that order? Hmm, I see now."
Aaron thought for a moment before speaking, wanting compensation for the information he had shared earlier;
"So, why did you become a fugitive in the underground world connected to occultism?"
"Interfering with their ritual," Zavi answered in disbelief, utterly speechless afterward.
Hearing that directly from Zavi's mouth, Aaron maintained his usual indifferent expression, but inside, he was laughing hysterically because he could not believe such a trivial reason had drastically changed Zavi's status.
"Is that really true?" Aaron asked to make sure.
"Yeah, it's true," Zavi answered with the same expression as Aaron, shocked and confused in disbelief.