Bloodbound Codex: I Grow Stronger in Secret

While Atlas was increasing his attributes again, In Lumivale, something else was going on...

Two people walked along the path that led to the Guild in Lumivale city.

They wore matching Explorer attire, black and green, nothing that would make anyone look twice. One of them had a small hat on his head. His face carried an easy, open expression as he looked around the city. He was looking at everything with the kind of interest that fit someone who had just arrived somewhere new for the first time. Anyone watching would see exactly that — two travellers who had just reached the city and were taking it in.

”Well Levin, here we are,” he said. ”Now should we figure out our objective for today?”

An Angel merchant passed by them on the path just as he spoke.

The man with the hat raised his voice slightly. ”I think our objective today is the Hollow-Rank Ruin, right Levin?”

It was a sentence that meant nothing on its own. Two Explorers discussing which ruin to visit. The merchant walked past without reacting.

Levin nodded without saying anything.

They walked a little further. When the merchant was far enough behind them and there was no one else close enough to hear, the man with the hat turned to Levin and dropped his voice to something much lower.

”Hoho~ These Angels are really fools to the core. They think treating commoners and nobles equally will do them good.”

The man said with amusement, he had been looking at the city around him since they entered, at the way the people here moved and interacted, at the absence of the separation he was used to seeing between those with status and those without. It struck him as a weakness, not a virtue.

Levin’s jawline stretched slightly as he spoke in the same low tone. ”We should get our job done quickly before the King begins the ’Operation’, Feras or we might get swept into it ”

That was the actual reason they were here. The Operation had a timeline and Veyron expected the variable to be removed before it started. Every hour they spent here was an hour closer to that deadline.

Feras nodded, the cold smile still on his face. ”Though Veyron gave us a relic to locate him, we can’t find him unless we know his face. So we have to find our supposed target first, hehe.”

That was the problem with the mission as it currently stood. The locator relic Veyron had given them could track a target once they had enough information to link it. But linking it required identification. A name alone was not enough. They needed a face, a confirmed location, something concrete that connected the name Atlas Crosswood to a physical person they could follow.

He spoke that last part directly, no longer keeping up any particular pretense. His senses had already confirmed no one was nearby.

These two were Josh and Mullark.

They had reached Lumivale a few hours ago, and before entering the city they had changed their entire appearance. Different clothes, different faces showing, different names ready. Nothing about them now matched the two assassins who had been running through the forest in full black the day before.

The change had taken them only a few minutes. That kind of preparation was something the Martial Cleavers trained for from the beginning. Blending into a place before anyone knew they had arrived was as basic to them as movement or combat.

As they walked toward the Lumivale Guild, both of them slowed slightly.

”That must be the Guildmaster,” Feras said quietly. ”An S-rank in just a Branch?”

They had felt the presence from outside. It was not something they had to focus on to notice. It sat above everything else in the building and made the rest of the presences inside feel smaller by comparison. A single S-rank stationed at a Branch Guild was not something either of them had expected to find here. It was also not something they could ignore. They had to be more careful now.

Levin said nothing. He walked into the Guild and Feras followed behind him.

The guild hall paused for a moment when they entered, the way any guild hall does when new faces come through the door. A few heads turned. Then everyone returned to their own business. Levin and Feras moved toward the receptionist counter without looking around.

When they reached the counter, the Angel receptionist looked up at them and smiled as she took in their clothes and guessed they were human travellers.

”Welcome to Lumivale Branch Guild. How can I help you, travellers?”

Levin spoke first. ”We would like to register as Explorers. We are also searching for a friend. He had last contacted us from here, so we thought this would be the right place to ask about him.”

Registering gave them a reason to be standing in front of the receptionist. It made the question about Atlas feel like a secondary purpose than making it he first one and become suspicious.

The receptionist looked at both of them. Nothing about them stood out to her on the surface. Their attire was plain, their manner was calm, and their reason for being here was simple enough on its own.

”What is your friend’s name?” she asked.

Feras answered this time. ”Atlas Crosswood.”

The receptionist’s expression did not change from the outside. She kept her smile and turned toward Feras as if she were simply processing the name.

But her mind had already started working.

She knew Atlas. Over the past few days he had come to the guild more times than she could count. She had watched him enough to understand the kind of person he was. He wore a mask and kept his hood up whenever he was here. He kept to himself. He did not talk to people unless he needed something specific, and he never gave the impression that there was anyone outside the guild he was connected to.

He did not have the kind of behaviour that came with having friends who sent letters and travelled across continents looking for him.

She put that together quickly.

’Maybe these men are the reason he hides? I have to know the full situation before I decide anything.’

She did not have the full picture yet. She did not know what Atlas had done or what had been done to him. She did not know which side was in the wrong. There was a possibility she was reading the situation incorrectly, and acting on a wrong conclusion could create a problem she didn’t need.

Then she thought about it from a different direction.

These two had come in asking for the info. of a man who, as far as she could tell, had no one familiar to him at all. And they even called him a friend? That gap between what they were claiming and what she had observed of Atlas herself was too large to ignore.

’No...These men are clearly in the wrong.’

She had already made her decision. All of that had passed through her mind in only a few moments. She kept her smile exactly where it was.

”Atlas Crosswood? He has visited the guild a few times, yes. But we have a rule here, travellers. We do not disclose other Explorers’ private information. If someone tries to force that, the Guildmaster handles the matter personally.”

She said it plainly. Not as a warning, just as fact. The mention of the Guildmaster was deliberate. She wanted them to know that the presence they had felt above them had a direct connection to this counter and what happened at it.

Feras and Levin both let their perception move upward past the ceiling for just a moment.

The Guildmaster’s presence was still there.

They clicked their tongues internally and brought their attention back down.

Levin nodded at her and smiled. ”We understand. Then could you let us know when he next comes to the guild? We can wait at the Inn nearby in the meantime.”

He reached into one of his attire’s pockets and placed something on the counter in front of her.

It was a circular locket on a chain. The surface had three lines across it, each running in a different direction.

”This is a relic called the Amber Locket,” Levin said. ”It can send three messages to its paired relic, which we have with us. When he comes in, you can use it to send us a message. We will come straight here.” He paused. ”For now, we would also like to complete our registration.”

The locket was a practical solution to the problem the Guildmaster’s presence had created. They could not stay inside the guild and wait, it would definitely feel suspicious.

The receptionist looked at the locket, then picked it up and placed it in the drawer beneath the counter.

”Of course,” she said. ”State your names, your origin, and your preferred method for the new registration protocol. We now require either a fingerprint or a blood signature on the form. Which would you prefer?”

Levin and Feras went still for just a fraction of a second.

Their eyes moved to each other, then back to her.

For two assassins operating under a false identity in a foreign city, this was a clear risk with consequences they could not manage to get padmst, after the fact.

The receptionist, Bella, kept her smile.

She had planned this nasty trick the moment they finished their sentence.