"So, he insulted adventurers, and that escalated to a fight?" Given the scale of the conflict, Haruki had expected more of a dire reason to stab someone through their body.
"Pretty much yeah, but I've heard he does that everywhere," Kane replied.
"You've heard of him?" Haruki asked, intrigued by Kane's reply.
"What you haven't?" Baffled that Haruki didn't know about the man, Kane's brows furrowed in confusion. "He's a military general for the emperor, you've really not heard of him?"
'Military general? The only one I know about is Michael since I had to work under him.' Being passed a drink by one of the waitresses in the adventurer's guild, Haruki's chain of thought was broken abruptly.
"I thought the emperor liked secrecy, so why would his military generals cause so much ruckus?" Being under the impression that most of the emperor's closest aides were masked in mysteria, Haruki couldn't understand why this person would bring so much attention to themselves.
"Not everyone is like that, I mean, this Razor guy he's just a narcissistic jerk who likes to beat up inexperienced adventurers," picking up his own mug, he took a heavy sip and let out an exalted gasp. "God knows what his problem is, but I had to give him a taste of my blade."
From the edge of his eye on the same table, Haruki noticed Asuka stopping the waitress to order some food, even though she hated the food outside the castle.
'She must be tired, we really should head back, Margarette and Riley must be done with the treasurer too.' Taking a moment to fill up their bellies and relax, Haruki and Asuka spend their time with Kane until the rest of his party joined him for dinner at the guild.
"You can't be serious…" Muttered Lucy, casting a healing spell on Kane even though he didn't need it. "Fighting a military general, what were you thinking?"
"Don't worry about it, not like I would've died," Kane replied, laughing to himself.
"Yeah, because Razor really cares about adventurers, right?" Growling at him, Diana glared at him down with burning rage in her eyes. "He's rumored to have killed adventurers before, just be thankful we're treating you and not going to the duke to report a murder by one of the emperor's finest."
"Well seems like Laria's finest chased away emperor's finest-" slamming her staff on Kane's head, Diana stopped him from completing his sentence.
"Anyways, thanks for the help mister…" Extending his hand towards Haruki, Arthur was waiting for him to tell him his name.
"Arnold, I'm Rise's boyfriend I think you've met her before," pointing to Asuka, Haruki made her blush with the comment again.
Looking back and forth between the two, Arthur let out a laugh before shaking Haruki's hand.
"I didn't know Miss Rise had such a ragged taste in men," although he meant to give a compliment, what left his mouth managed exactly the opposite. "Don't get me wrong, but you're one rough-looking man Arnold, have you worked as a soldier before? That look in your eyes is too much of a tell."
Reading right through Haruki, Arthur wasn't far away from the truth. But shrugging his shoulders, Haruki left Arnold's past open to interpretation.
"Anyways, we should get going, it's been a long day for both of us," receiving heartfelt thanks from the silver storm and waving bye to the clovers, Haruki and Asuka were both on their way back to the castle.
Tired from the events of the day, they kept on walking with no sense of precaution. Even Asuka's senses were at an all-time low.
'Who the hell is this guy?' Following them through torn spaces, Razor Alumnibolt was quite intrigued by the duo. 'Those abilities he used were from completely different magic affinities, how did he manage that?'
While engaging Razor, Haruki used not only the dark magic ability to clone but also the illuminating power of light magic. Had it been any other combination, Razor would've just taken him as a gifted person, but being able to use those attributes of magic was impossible for humans.
"Unless…" Mulling over a sinister thought, Razor kept following them back to the castle.
After meeting up with Margarette and Riley by the gates, Haruki changed back into Snow and Asuka transformed back into her wolf form as well. Watching from afar, Razor's interest in the matter escalated further. He knew something was off about the two, but he'd never expected them to be the duke and his infamous maid.
'Is it really him or is this clone as well?' Now the only question in his mind was whether someone else was pretending to be the duke or if the duke himself was some shapeshifting demon. 'I need to f-'
All of a sudden sensing a direct gaze on him, Razor noticed Riley looking right in his direction. The very next moment, as Riley disappeared from his sight, Razor quickly teleported away to avoid any complications.
"What?" Riley whispered, appearing back up in the place Razor had been hiding. "I thought I sensed someone here."
Looking around the place, however, he wasn't able to find any trace of someone being there recently. Coming rushing to Riley, the three others gave him confused stares. Not knowing what had happened all of them were a bit lost and that even included Riley herself.
"What are you doing here?" Asked Margarette, grabbing Riley by the arm in her worries.
"We have to get back into the castle, don't wander off like that!" Complained Asuka.
"Sorry, I just thought I sensed someone from here," Still looking around, Riley's answer made all of them a bit concerned.
"Are you sure?" Realizing his flaw in changing appearance without any caution, Haruki cursed himself internally.
"I'm not sure, there's no trace of a person being here so…" Shaking her Riley pushed the confusion out of her head. "It could've been a mistake."
Left without any certainty, Haruki wasn't sure whether to keep looking for this unknown stalker or take it that Riley made a mistake and head back into the castle.
"We should use the dungeon to change appearance from now, doing it haphazardly is eventually bound to cause trouble," offering the advice, Haruki closed his eyes to have them all be consumed by the dungeon. "Send us all to our rooms."
With that said, four individual holes opened under them and consumed them whole. After going through a small tear in reality they were spat out away from each other and into their assigned rooms.
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om