After saying his piece, Richard left Arnold behind on the balcony, with the boy saddled with the fate of being a 'Hero Killer' staring up at the night sky in silence.
'Perhaps the knowledge that 'Evansen' is not here anymore, has affected my actions and the way I view things more than I had expected.
And Richard has noticed it.
For him, Laurene is the sister he's very close to, even if she has the memories of another existence in her head, the one in control is still 'Laurene Hayes'.
Even if the worst-case scenario pans out, his first thought process would not be anything that would cause her harm.
That's how things normally would be in the case of close siblings…but because I know my real brother isn't here anymore, my thoughts are on the opposite end of the spectrum.'
Arnold remained in silence for half a minute, before heaving a light sigh and jumping down the balcony railing, about to take his leave when he heard the voice of one person he most certainly did not expect to hear.
"Sup Bro."
"?!"
The fifteen-year-old's eyes widened in surprise as he turned around to the side and saw Evan casually walking up to him.
'What?! How didn't I sense him?!
Even if he has a concealment skill, it should be impossible for him to hide from me as far as he has a Hero title!'
His mind instantly went back to the conversation he had with Richard a few moments ago, a light frown appearing on his face as he began considering worst-case scenarios.
'How long has he been there?... Was he listening in on our conversation? If so, how much did he hear?'
Despite his inner turmoil, Evan only casually walked up to him and rose a wine bottle in the air before asking.
"Refill?"
"…"
After a moment of silence, Arnold held out his now empty wine glass to Evan, who collected it and filled it up with wine from the bottle in his hands.
Watching him do this, Arnold was still trying to rack his brain around how he could not sense Evan's approach earlier.
As a possessor of the 'Hero Killer' title, a title that resonated whenever he came close to a 'Hero' title bearer, it was nigh impossible for anyone with the latter title to hide from him, regardless of how much stronger than him they were, or how good their concealment was.
In reality, the reason he had not sensed Evan's approach was simply because of a third party's interference.
A third party with the name of Artemisia.
As the goddess was involved in designing the 'Hero Killer' title and its effects, she knew more about it than Arnold himself did.
Part of her attention was on the ongoing party, and thus she noticed Evan moving towards where Arnold and Richard were and took action to prevent Arnold from sensing Evan.
The reason being, there was no way that Arnold would not have reacted to sensing Evan, something that would have been strange, given that Evan was indeed using his concealment skill, and Arnold was not strong enough to sense him in his concealed state.
Evan also knew Arnold did not possess any skills that could see through his concealment that was nigh-invincible against lower levelled opponents, and thus the boy would have instantly gotten suspicious.
Seeing as Laurene was already suspicious of Arnold and Richard, Artemisia didn't want another suspicious hero added to the mix, not to talk of the other 'Irregular' Hero on the Beta continent who was so close to discovering the existence of the Hero Killers.
On a side note, when Evan got stronger, he was also going to gain a similar ability that allowed him to detect those with the designation of 'Enemy of Aidos' within a certain range of himself.
Returning to the two 'brothers', Arnold was thanking his stars that he had restricted the effect of his unique skill's passive ability.
His 'Anti-Mimicry' skill was specially designed to combat Evan's 'Mystic Eye of Mimicry', meaning, whatever Evan's mystic eyes could do, Arnold's skill could weaken, partially negate, and even completely nullify it.
And weakening the effects of Evan's passives, was one of his skill's passives; something he had taken note to restrain the effects of as there was no way that Evan would not notice a whole 12.5% decrease in skill efficiency or the fact that his ability to replicate techniques and certain low-level magic without his skill was not as effective as before.
Arnold swirled the wine in his glass for a moment, taking a sip right after and raising an eyebrow when he noticed the flavour.
"Strawberries?"
"Yep. They're my favourites."
Evan replied as he poured some wine for himself and silently sipped it, before turning to Arnold who was looking at him strangely with a questioning look on his face.
"Since when?"
"More than a year now.
When I left the Ducal Mansion and was making my way down to Geto, I stopped by a town where I discovered my dormant love for the fruit."
He casually lied with a shrug, finishing his drink before asking Arnold.
"What about you? What's your preference?"
"Me? I'm a pineapple person."
"Pineapples, huh?"
The young hero echoed Arnold's reply as he put his hand into his inventory and started searching for something.
"I could have sworn I had one of those left from Kasteblum…. Aha! There it is!"
He then pulled out a mini fridge with one hand, placed his glass on a void step and opened the fridge to pull out a bottle of chilled pineapple wine.
"….
Two questions;
How large is your inventory?
And why on Aidos do you have that in your inventory?"
Arnold clearly could not keep up with the current developments as he saw Evan casually toss the entire fridge back into the black hole that was a metre wide in diameter.
"There was this particular restaurant in Kasteblum where I got a random extra fruit wine bottle for every six strawberry wine bottles I bought.
I got grape, I got pineapple, orange, avocado…"
"…Wait, there's avocado wine?"
"Yep. It's a real thing."
Evan replied as he passed Arnold the bottle, with the latter collecting it and expressing mild surprise at how chilled it was.
"Wait up…that does not answer why you have a fridge in your inventory!"
"Oh, that?
I like to make myself comfortable when I travel.
It's powered by ice magic stones so all I have to do is replace them when necessary and viola! My inventory has a never-ending supply of cold wine, sodas…and milk."
"Ignoring that extra at the end, don't you have more important things to put in your inventory? I highly doubt that your skill has an unlimited amount of space."
In response to Arnold's question, Evan fished out another bottle of strawberry wine and poured it all into a larger cup before replying.
"True. It's not unlimited; its size is directly proportional to the amount of energy I have. And said stat is currently…"
Opening his status board, he checked the stat and called out a number that made Arnold nearly drop the bottle of wine in his shock.
"Oh…A-."
"A what now?!"
Evan burst out in laughter as he saw the look of genuine shock that appeared on Arnold's face, while the latter only dropped the bottle on the floor after pouring his wine and asked.
"You have an 'A negative' energy stat?"
"Yep…it's at the very bottom, though."
"Bottom? I don't get it."
"Hmm…. lemme explain.
It's something that only those with FULL appraisal can see.
For example, let's take the 'B' rank stat for example. We have the B negative, neutral and positive, styled as 'B-', 'B', and 'B+'.
When you gain a B- stat, you are at 'B- Level 1'. With every main level increase, your 'B- Level' increases, eventually reaching Level 100, whereupon, you gain the 'B Level 1' stat.
Take that to 'B Level 100' and you gain the 'B+ Level 1' stat, and so on.
You get that much?"
"Yeah."
Arnold had to admit that the way Evan explained it actually made a lot of sense. Of course, the speed at which the stat level increased depended on your race, class, and other factors, but this was the general case.
"So, when you have 'B+ Level 100', you gain 'A- Level 1', and right now, I'm around 'A- Level 10'. That's why I said it was at the bottom."
"Oh…Anyway. Level 10 or not, it still does not change the fact that you have an 'A-' stat while not a grandmaster.
That's something very few are able to attain."
Evan's face turned smug as he beat his chest and replied.
"I AM a talented genius, of course, I'd attain such distinction."
Turning to Arnold, he appraised the latter and continued.
"You also have a 'B+' stat despite the fact that you have not reached the level where attaining that becomes normal."
"True. You have been through quite a lot of things that made you level up a lot so it's not really strange."
"Touché."
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