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As the day went by, the restaurant kept having great sales.
?
The sun slowly faded into the horizon, and the brilliant moon emerged atop the starry black night.
Ervas and Veronica closed the restaurant at 9 PM, as it was not a bar nor a tavern, and they intended to sell food, not alcohol with some snacks, so their time of work had already finished.
Most people that did not manage to get in walked away rather disappointed, although many of those that managed to eat inside were incredibly refreshed as if they had been born anew.
This was not just the good food and drinks, but the food and drinks made by Ervas and Veronica contained large positive effects to anyone that ingested them, which were mostly the effects of the meat of Anir, Ervas' blood, and Veronica's metallic dust and phantom flesh.
Although it was hard to believe that metallic dust would even be possible to digest, this metallic dust was special and modified by Veronica to be dirigible and even capable of nourishing people.
The group closed the doors and windows of the building and began to count the money they made.
"It is indeed easier to simply produce ores and sell them, but this isn't half bad," said Veronica.
"Well, it wasn't our intention to even make money off this, just to build reputation," said Ervas.
"As long as we build more reputation and become widely known, our main goal will be set," said Veronica.
"However, the money is not bad," said Ismene.
"I-Indeed… twenty gold pieces could be exchanged if we use all those bronze pieces we earned," said Anna.
"That's a lot of money, but we will also sell a ton of other stuff, so the restaurant earnings won't be the principal source of income," said Ervas.
"For now let's wrap this up," said Veronica, saving the pile of bronze pieces, which had the shape of a coin, inside of her soul.
The party decided to walk back to their home in the Seashore town alongside the kids and Bartholomew and Jose, as Ervas and Veronica noticed that the spies had been watching this whole time began to follow them, with a few staying behind.
"This is getting pretty annoying," said Veronica.
"Indeed…" said Ervas.
Meanwhile, as they walked through the streets and reached the hill near the graveyard where the Haunted Manor was, three of the spies sent to watch over the split souls glanced at the building.
"It seems that there is no one inside," said one of them to the other two.
"Very good, let's get in and find some clues about their origins or what they are even… Let's take some of their food too as payment, heh," said another.
"You shouldn't really do that, that's not our work, and if lord Allan finds out that you were goofing around, all our pay will be lowered," said the third.
"Tch, you guys are no fun," sighed the second.
The three jumped over the ceiling of the building, looking for some kind of opening to get inside, there was the chimney for the oven in the kitchen, which seemed unguarded.
The men were wearing completely black clothes, with black leather pants and covering their faces with black masks that enhanced stealth, their weapons of choice seemed to be knives, and all of them were at least equally to C-Rank Adventurers in strength.
"Alright, I will go first…" said the first of them, getting inside the chimney and getting into the oven, which was now turned off, and getting inside the building successfully, although covered in coal.
Later, the other two descended at his die, as they began to look around the kitchen, it was all clean and washed, and no dishes were left with food over it.
Alongside this, they were not able to find any snack or food stored, it was as if they had stored the food outside the building.
"There isn't even flour… How odd…"
"So did they store everything in some kind of… other building?"
"We never saw them do any of that…"
"Perhaps it's upstairs?"
"Let's go investigate…"
"Alright."
The three men roared the building, getting near the stairs, and walking up…
"I remember that this place was incredibly dusty before… now it looks like a completely new building, they did an excellent job… eh?"
"Stop making stupid comments and keep going…"
"Hurry up, why are you taking so long to walk upstairs?"
"Oi…"
Suddenly, the two men talking noticed that the one that was always talking a lot in front of them was missing.
He had just disappeared.
As if he were never there, to begin with.
"What?"
"This…"
The two were left in surprise, they could swear that a second ago, the guy was just in front of them.
Yet, now, he was nowhere.
They did not felt his footsteps.
However, one of them remembered that he stood up glancing at something before completely being erased out of existence.
"He… he disappeared?"
"No… Something… took him…"
"Eh? That's impo-"
Suddenly, the man that spoke last glanced back at his companion, who had not finished speaking.
He was gone too.
He could barely see what happened.
For a split of a second.
Only that it took him to be dragged by something and disappear out of thin air.
"No… What… what kind of… monster…" he muttered, glancing at the nearby window… he had to run away at all cost and tell Allan about this being… this being that could control space like this!
However, it was too late.
Cold sweat began to drip from his neck, as he glanced at what had emerged from nowhere in front of him.
As if the air, space itself opened, cracking like glass, something emerged from it.
This something was formless, and as it was completely dark, the man could barely discern what this truly was.
But indeed, its form was… grotesque.
To the point that it resembled a mass of flesh, tentacles, and eyes.
He was in shock.
Not in his entire life has he ever fought against such a monster.
Even more, a monster capable of manipulating space as if it were its backyard.
In less than a second, the space distorted and it opened a path to a Pocket Dimension.
Before the man could make up for what his situation was, he was dragged into this pocket space, and disappeared out of thin air…
Kireina who was walking with Ervas and Veronica at the side of Ditoyle informed Ervas and Veronica that her Clone had caught three spies that infiltrated the building.
"I got three guys, do I eat them, or you want them alive? They're knocked out…" she asked.
"Don't eat them, let's interrogate them for now, bring them here," said Ervas. As space, itself broke and Kireina's True Body Clone emerged a second after, she seemed to have moved here before he even gave the order.
Amidst the darkness of the night, Veronica expanded her abyssal soul and sucked up the three men inside of her internal space, the spies that were following them had suddenly stopped walking because something else had caught them already.
A green breeze flew towards Ervas and Veronica, bringing two knocked-out spies.
Feroya and Sevapheso were Wind Ghost, capable of camouflaging as air itself.
Like this, they could not be detected at all before they lowered the oxygen around the two spies' mouths and noses, making them fall unconscious, grabbing them with their phantom forms, and bringing them to their masters.
"Good job, we got even more interrogations to unfold, I suppose," said Ervas.
"I guess Abraham will get happy about it," said Veronica.
"Oh yeah, I guess we could use them to experiment while we try to interrogate them, if that doesn't work, we brainwash them and make them spit every last bit of info," said Ervas.
"That sounds terrifying! But it is fine because they tried to get inside our building, that's very rude," said Jason.
"Indeed, they were intending to eat whatever food we left too, such rascals," said Kireina.
"What?! Damn, so they are indeed bastards!" said Gaius, who was the chef, he got angered over people stealing his ingredients.
"Yawn…" said Mitiliph.
"It seems that the children are sleepy, let's hurry back home," said Anna, as the party agreed and walked faster back to Selene.
-----
The hours went by, and it was already getting close to 6 AM, yet Allan's spies were not coming back with new info.
This was odd.
He had made sure to employ very high leveled spies who had already changed to four stealth-related Jobs, some even five, all of them were equivalent to C-Rank Adventurers.
However, even then, they were not coming back.
Just where had they gone to?
Allan Westearth was a wealthy aristocrat that manages part of the bank of Seashore, surprised over Willian's constant purchases of resources from Ervas and Veronica.
Due to possessing a strong authority over the merchant city, he sent spies to watch over Ervas and Veronica, in fear that they might be using strange methods to acquire materials, which he wants to find out for his own profit-making desires.
However, against his expectations, the spies he sent never came back and did not answer the calls from the magic accessories he gave to them to communicate from long distances either.
He also could not sense their presence anymore through another artifact that connected to the artifacts which he used to communicate with them.
The items didn't simply drop into the floor accidentally or something, they were completely gone out of the globe.
It was as if they were sent to another dimension.
Or well, destroyed.
Allan began to sweat cold sweat, worried about what these beings could truly be, and about the safety of his city…
However, as he worried, a shadow figure emerged within the window of his office.
"As useless as ever, mortal… Need our assistance? Our lord has anticipated your failure at seeking information from the oddities."
"Bloodsuckers…" muttered Allan, gnashing his teeth as he glared at the figure of a bat in the window.
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