Chapter 600: Following Clues
Wallace’s student?
Wallace was an influential level-2 wizard in Brute Cavern just like Sunders. But as Wallace was more of an “academicism” wizard, many of his ideas and standards were different or even against Sunders’ style.
Angor looked at the mentioned students.
They moved their heads to look at Angor but without turning their bodies.
“Praaaise the queen, praaaise Shava, praaaise Yorks.h.i.+re!”
Upon finis.h.i.+ng their song, they bowed to Angor politely and bounced away as if they were being dragged by invisible strings.
This wasn’t a strange sight to Angor as he had encountered such clownish behaviors for more than once now.
Sunders waited for the clowns to go away before he moved toward another direction.
“We’re not taking them with us?” asked Angor. He knew they should leave everyone be, but those two were Wallace’s students as well as apprentices of Brute Cavern.
“We should let Wallace take care of his own students.”
Angor glanced at the disappearing duo and followed behind his teacher.
On hastened steps, they quickly headed to the center area of the outer city where, according to Filo, the sound of a strange instrument was heard.
Sunders planned to eliminate the “fox harper” that escaped from Twilight Auction House last time, and at the same time, he wanted to search for Greya.
Of course, killing that fox meant getting his hands on its harp.
It was not easy to bring Mystery items from the Nightmare Realm to the wizarding world, but since such an item already appeared here…
“Do you have something to tell me?” Sunders suddenly gave Angor a curious glance.
“Did I make it too obvious?”
“Well, you’ve been looking at me while pretending that you weren’t.”
Angor chuckled. Nowadays, he no longer felt embarra.s.sed in such situations. “I’m thinking about checking Brute Cavern’s office in the city.”
Sunders nodded nonchalantly as he had already seen through Angor’s mind. “You’re going after that student of Ness? His name… Hookd.i.c.k, who fused the Bloodline of a Succubus, am I right?”
When Filo mentioned seeing Hookd.i.c.k in the outer city, Sunders easily noticed Angor getting distracted by it. Sunders expected his student to bring this matter up.
“That’s right,” Angor admitted his plans. “It’s such a good chance. That guy almost killed us back at the Sea of Purification. I tried finding him in Brute Cavern, but he ran off to somewhere else. Now that he’s nearby…”
Sunders gave Angor a thoughtful look.
“Go. I don’t think there are many men or beasts in this darkness who can harm you.”
“Um, there’s something else. I think a friend of mine is trapped here as well, and I want to help her.”
“Do as you wish. But make sure you can take her out of this darkness by yourself.”
Angor realized that Sunders meant to tell him that no one else was allowed to use his gravity garden. The gentleman did not help Wallace’s students probably because of the same reason.
“I’ll try my best, sir.”
“Good. Do note that taking somebody else outside with you might bring you unexpected trouble. When that happens, adjust your tactic wisely.”
Sunders then p.r.i.c.ked his finger; a drop of blood came out.
Angor was terrified to see that the small droplet of blood contained more mana than his entire mana pool. In other words, if Sunders wanted to, the gentleman could easily shatter his body and soul with minimum effort.
Next, Sunders lifted the bleeding finger. The blood condensed into a glowing red sphere and floated onto Angor’s hand.
“Bring it with you so that I can sense your location at all times,” Sunders said. He put a hand on Angor’s shoulder before his body became transparent and disappeared.
Angor checked the strange gift left by his teacher and felt comforting warmth coming from it.
“Sigh… let’s go,” he said to Toby. “We go find Hookd.i.c.k first. Maybe we’ll run into Lady Greya along the way.”
Toby fluttered around Angor carefully.
“Don’t wander too far. I’m afraid those parasites will try to take your body as well.”
They exchanged a determined look and activated their gravity power at the same time.
They then bolted into the distance.
Using their enhanced speed, they arrived at the office building of Brute Cavern within a minute.
Angor stayed afloat above the structure and looked down. From his position, the only thing distinguishable was the glowing emblem of Tree of Eternity; all other details of the building were covered in shadows.
Everything was quiet. Angor waited for a while and did not hear anything, not even the strange songs of the mad clowns.
They slowly landed on the ground. Angor took out an oil lamp from Toby’s Snowy Feather so that they would have a light source. Since his own bracelet stayed inside Sunders’ gravity garden, and he couldn’t cast any spells in his soul form, he had to rely on simpler means.
Thankfully, he prepared enough miscellaneous tools in Toby’s storage.
The simple lamp couldn’t provide much light, but it wasn’t a serious problem since Angor’s soul form could see relatively well in the dark.
Soon, he found marks on the ground left by battles as well as dried bloodstains.
His improved senses also allowed him to find energy residue around the area.
Whoever caused them had left a long time ago.
“Geez. I can easily track them with spells if I have my body…” Angor shook his head. “According to Mister Filo, Hookd.i.c.k and s.h.i.+liew battled right here. The blood must have been left by them too. Hey, Toby? Can you check the blood out?”
Despite being reluctant, Toby still listened to Angor’s command by approaching the stains, which obviously didn’t smell good.
Angor watched Toby with a hopeful look. “Can you follow the smell?”
“Tweet!”—I’m not a dog!
Angor let out a silly chuckle.
This had left him with only one choice, which was to follow the blood trail with his eyes.
However, this wasn’t so easy when there were bloodstains everywhere—in the middle of streets, on top of buildings, hidden among gra.s.s and flowers… Angor couldn’t find a definite direction to go after.
While searching, a broken wall drew his attention. Precisely speaking, it was the swirling marks left on the wall that attracted him.
There might be many people in this world who could make their attacks spin, but for now, Angor would consider this trace as something left by Nausica’s mechanical arm.
While mentioning the Helix Rune to Mithra, the old alchemist claimed that he never heard of such a rune before, which meant one would be hard-pressed to find similar things around the southern wizarding regions.
And this probably meant Nausica was here fighting Hookd.i.c.k.
He also saw large footprints, which definitely did not belong to humans.
Gank and Shan.
It seemed that Nausica’s team left Brute Cavern three months ago in pursuit of Hookd.i.c.k and ended up in this unexpected mess.
Angor shook his head and put all unnecessary concerns aside. If Nausica was here, he had to get her out, one way or another.
With the oil lamp in hand, he entered Brute Cavern’s building.
A brief tour-around suggested that the building was completely abandoned. There were various objects scattered on the floor but nothing that indicated a fight.
He left the building and planned to follow the battle marks outside as much as he could. It soon proved to be impossible because the trail was cut off not far from the building.
Considering how the outer city was full of parasites, it was likely that Nausica’s team was already possessed, in which case Angor had to run around the city while hoping to b.u.mp into them by some miraculous coincidence. After all, the clowns tended to wander into every random corner that they could find.
Angor sighed. Since he didn’t have any other choice, he was going to look around as best as he could. Thankfully, his soul form could move swiftly and scan through the outer city fast enough, as long as the ladies did not hide and make his job harder.