Chapter 435: Fated Reunion II
"...how?"
The girl could not be blamed for her reaction. After all, she had believed that Arthur had died alongside Ger and the others when Duskhand’s Inner City was attacked by the ’Silver Demon Summoner’.
But here the silver-haired and black-eyed boy was, chilling in the Mercenary guild with drinks in hand. (Arthur used contacts for his eye colour.)
Seeing Rachel, Arthur wondered what sort of fate twist this was.
One of the Mercenaries with him looked up at Rachel and posed a question to Arthur.
"You’ve got friends in the Army?"
"Yeah, I know a few people in the Army."
Arthur’s reply could be taken either way. He did know people in both Armies who were fighting for the planet, after all.
"Seems like you guys have not seen each other in some time. Go catch up with her."
The men heartily laughed as they pushed Arthur towards Rachel, while the girl was still looking at him as if her eyes were deceiving her.
"Sergeant."
It was only when someone called up to her that she snapped out of her daze and turned around. It was one of the soldiers who came in with her. They had finished their business with the Guild and now wanted to leave.
"Oh wow, you got promotions?"
Arthur’s voice rang out as the boy stepped in close and observed the Insignia on her uniform.
’She was barely a Private Rank a month ago, now she’s a Sergeant? What the hell happened?’
Taking a moment to recall the information he got from McEnda III at Torten, he remembered that the Demon Army suffered some small losses on the Frontlines recently and guessed she might have been there.
The soldier who was talking to Rachel frowned and wanted to speak up but a single glance from Arthur sent a chill down the man’s spine.
Rachel didn’t notice this though.
"Go on without me, I’ll return to Starlight later."
"...yes, Ma."
As the soldier left, Arthur dipped his hand into his subspace and pulled out what appeared to be a magic staff.
"I know you have questions, but here’s not the best place for them."
True, talking about the Duskhand Tragedy here was just going to attract unnecessary attention.
"Come with me to where I’m staying. I’d have to be moving around a lot so it’s only a temporary residence."
He then spun the staff around and infused it with divinity, causing it to release spatial power that wrapped around the both of them.
With a flash of light, they disappeared from the guild building.
◇ ◇ ◇
Arthur and Rachel reappeared right in front of the Noble Baron Hotel and the boy tossed the staff back into his Subspace.
"Where did you get that?"
"Someone gave it to me."
Indeed, someone in the form of his mother.
The boy didn’t say any more and walked into the Hotel lobby, immediately being spotted by a nearby Attendant who rushed up to him.
"Welcome back, Mr Arthur."
"Thank you. Keys?"
"This way, please."
The signing-in process went pretty quickly as the Hotel personnel didn’t want to waste the time of a high-value customer like Arthur—he did rent out a whole Suite after all.
Rachel on the other side was surprised when she saw Arthur’s Suite, which was basically a full three-bedroom apartment.
"Surprised? Being a Mercenary pays a lot so I can afford this kind of luxury."
Arthur walked into the kitchen and pulled out some juice before returning to the Living Room where Rachel was still standing in silence.
"This might take a while so It’d be best if you sat down. Here, a drink."
Thinking about it, Rachel nodded and sat down while Arthur poured a drink into a glass.
"Congrats on your promotion. That’s a lot of ranks up in just a month. Did you wipe out a platoon of demons on your own or something?"
Though he said it jokingly, he didn’t know how close his guess was to the truth. She didn’t answer his question though, instead asking one of her own.
"How are you alive?"
"Ouch...First time seeing each other in over a month and that’s your first question?"
Arthur feigned a hurt expression which Rachel easily saw through. She narrowed her eyes and once again repeated her question with a more serious tone. Arthur glanced at her hands and saw her clenched and trembling fists, before sighing and replying.
"I’m guessing you thought I died along with everyone else on Friday the 13th. Fortunately, I left Duskhand that night. It was under the books though."
Technically, Arthur did leave Duskhand that ’night’—after wiping out tens of thousands of soldiers first.
"You know how Major Ger used to advise me about my Divinity and all. He and I had a little talk that night."
They did talk, just that the circumstances of that ’talk’ were far different from what Rachel was imagining.
"After it, there was a ’small’ incident and Ger was pretty busy, so I left afterwards."
Pretty busy running away for his life. Didn’t end well though since the man was still sealed in Arthur’s subspace.
"I left Duskhand after that. And not long after, I had left Gledea as a whole."
"Wait! You left the Continent?!"
Rachel couldn’t help but be surprised as Intercontinental Travel was pretty restricted during this Wartime. One didn’t know which ship would be carrying Demon spies hidden in it, after all.
"Yes. I was not on Gledea for quite a while.
My return was pushed back as I was embroiled in the fight that led up to Zefesh’s current state. It was quite brutal and you can see the results from my current level.
I had recently gotten to the Inferior Stage and after that battle, I advanced to the Intermediate Stage."
Rachel thought Arthur was talking about the Inferior and Intermediate Stages of the Grandmaster realm, but the boy was talking about his actual Legendary Existence Realm.
Once again, he hadn’t said a single lie. He just said things and let her ’figure other things out’ on her own.
"After getting to the Intermediate Stage, I spent some more days on Zefesh and then I returned to Gledea."
"You were able to leave Zefesh? With the current fighting?"
"I left Zefesh before the fighting began. I only found out the Demons successfully made landfall on the Continent after I returned."
He then sipped some of his juice before continuing.
"Wanted to take a little trip back to Duskhand, only to find out the City had been evacuated because a ’demon’ wiped out half of it. I was shocked to hear that."
Indeed, Arthur was shocked to hear they evacuated the whole city for the sake of rebuilding.
"It was then I made the decision to abandon the whole Army thing and become a Merc. And here I am, Day 9 of being a Mercenary.
Four successful missions and I’ve raked in quite a bit of cash."
When Arthur finished his narration, Rachel went silent for some time. He allowed her to digest the whole story while he went to the kitchen to fish out some snacks he bought before.
Upon returning, he then asked her about her own story.
"What about you? Where were you posted to after the whole Duskhand business?"
"Starlight Fortress."
"Starlight...?"
Arthur took a moment to scan his memories and recall all the details he had read about the Starlight Fortress. It was a place on par with Duskhand and was situated quite close to the frontlines of the war on Gledea.
"What about the promotion?"
"I was involved in successive battles. The promotion is a result of my efforts in those ones.
Though I would not deny part of it is due to the gross loss of Holy Magic users in Duskhand."
"I see..."
Arthur had wiped out all the Fake Divine Humans and Elves of Duskhand, which was a pretty big blow to the Aramisians Coalition Army in the Githal Region, considering how difficult it was to make them.
In the end, it was because of this that Rachel had seen more battles and was able to go from Superior Master to Inferior Grandmaster.
"I’m quite happy to see you. I knew you all weren’t harmed since the attack was aimed at the Inner City, but I didn’t exactly have a means of contacting you. I also didn’t want to waltz up to a military base.
Me leaving Duskhand was indeed under the books, after all."
"..."
Seeing her grow silent, Arthur leaned forward with a concerned look on his face as he asked.
"The others...they’re okay, right?"
"Yeah. The others in our batch are okay. But Ger..."
"..."
Arthur saw a teardrop glisten on her eyelids and he went silent for a moment before taking a napkin and cleaning it off for her.
’I’m not good at this kind of thing, especially since I’m the one who caused it in the first place.’
The boy thought about what to do after eventually unsealed Ger. He wanted to get the location of the other Fake Divine factories from the man but he hadn’t thought about what came after that.
