After around ten minutes of walking through the underground corridor, which was secretly been watched by those shadow guard guys behind the walls, Daimon saw the end of the corridor, which of course didn't lead to their final destination, but to a spatial array.
Reyne took a scroll out of her ring and then let a drop of her blood fall on it, to then throw it into the spatial array, the scroll burned into nothingness, she placed her hand on a specific spot of the right wall and only then the array activated.
"Are you hiding the secret of eternal life in here, or what", mumbled the crazy girl, her smile widened a bit when she felt the arrows and knives in the darkness aim at her.
Reyne bitterly smiled as she retrieved her hand from the wall.
"Please don't play like that, miss Priscila, those guys might not listen to me, but I would prefer to keep them alive, also while I don't mind these kinds of things my father isn't so easy going so…", she said.
Daimon inwardly sighed, Sarah didn't show any respect even to Abaris, so expecting her to behave was asking for too much, best case scenario she would just be indifferent.
On the other hand, it's not like she was dumb in the slightest, she was trying to test waters here, so Daimon couldn't get angry at her for that, and of course he wasn't going to ask for forgiveness.
Which of Reyne expected, and now felt somewhat worried, but ultimately, she decided to mediate if things went south, because she really wanted her family to meet these two interesting people.
She just walked into the array and beckoned to Daimon and Sarah, so that they followed her, which they did.
The array on the ground lit up and they then disappeared, making the corridor fall in silent and darkness once again.
Daimon had previously scanned the array to make sure it wasn't a trap, so the travel was quite short and without any inconvenient.
A few seconds later the scenery changed from that obscure underground corridor, to a spacious and well illuminated room, where two women were waiting for them.
Well, it would be more accurate to sat that there was one woman waiting for them, while the other was observing from the shadows.
"I'm back, mother", happily said Reyne as she walked towards the woman who was openly waiting for them, who looked like a slightly older version of Reyne, having also dirty blond hair and dark green eyes, if there was really a difference between them, would be their fashion sense.
While Reyne wore a simple but elegant one-piece black dress, her mother was wearing a more vibrant outfit, which consisted in a white dress with green decorations, despite her lively outfit, her expression was rather emotionless, besides a small smile that appeared when she saw Reyne walking towards her.
"Welcome back", she limited to say, but that seemed to make Reyne pretty happy as she hugged her mother, their personalities truly contrasted with each other.
After that little exchange, the attention of the mother naturally went to the unknown couple of people that appeared at the same time as her daughter, since this was an extremely restricted area, that led to one of the safe escaping routes prepared just in case.
"And who these pair of young friends might be?", she asked, to which Reyne cleared her throat before saying.
"Ahem, mother, don't forget to introduce yourself first", said Reyne, it was as if she was the mother, and the older woman was the daughter.
"Oh right, I'm Jeanne Valleris, it's a pleasure", said Reyne's mother as she raised the sides of her dress.
"I'm Gabriel and she is Priscilla, we are survivors from a now extinct settlement in the wasteland, who happened to cross paths with Reyne", casual but properly answered Daimon.
The moment Daimon referred to Reyne without honorifics, he noticed the gaze of the woman in the shadows, becoming sharp, it didn't carry any ill intent, but she was clearly not happy about it, still Daimon simply met her gaze with his own, which made the woman's eyes widen a bit.
Reyne felt the atmosphere tense up a bit, so she immediately stepped in to talk to the air, since she didn't know where the woman was in the room.
"Please calm down aunt Emily, they were able to detect a variation of four-headed variation of a sandworm on the early stage of the Arch rank and killed it with a single attack, so it's normal that they can see through your camouflage, but I can assure you they aren't enemies", she said with a calm voice.
The space blurred in front of Reyne as a woman with long dark gray hair with a mouth mask, wearing a large black and red dress appeared, her eyes had some wariness lingering in them.
And with a proper reason, the two women were both middle stage Arch ranks, while Reyne's mother was a mage, the woman who was previously watching in the shadows is a Knight, and yet a Lord ranked member of the young generation saw through her camouflaging martial art.
"Little girl, you know the situation in which we currently are, I don't doubt your judgement, nor accuse them of anything, but the timing is indeed strange", said Emily.
Daimon didn't really pay much attention to that comment, his eyes glowed behind his mask as he felt a slightly familiar sensation coming from her, one that probably only he could notice in the whole Kerrol.
'She is a Ghoul… no only part of it', he thought, at the same time a fake notification appeared in front of him.
[There are many families plotting a rebellion, cooperate with the Church of Justice to eradicate them all]
As always, Daimon found these fake notifications lacking, there was no explanation, options, or rewards shown on it, it was as if something was trying to boss him around, which he of course didn't like.
The crazy girl was marveled at the sight of the notification though, but Daimon decided to leave that for latter, since right now there was a more urgent matter in front of him.
What surprised him, is that he couldn't detect any lies or ill intent from the dark gray-haired woman, so unless she was as skilled at deceiving others as Erin, she genuinely cared about Reyne, so there was obviously some backstory here, not to mention that he didn't know whether the notification marked them as "allies" or "enemies", not like it mattered since that is something he will determine with his own eyes.
"Don't worry aunt, I almost had to drag them here, or they wouldn't have come to the castle, also they could have kidnapped me if they wanted to, because I travelled alone with them in the same carriage, so they aren't a part of "them" I'm sure of it", said Reyne with her gentle calm voice.
"You what!", both Jeanne and Emily exclaimed in unison, as they both felt the urge to strangle Gary, since he was supposed to watch over Reyne, but they calmed down the next second.
They knew Reyne wouldn't lie about something that involved the lives of practically everyone in this castle, and if that was the case, Daimon certainly had all the chances in the world to make his move on Reyne before, but he accompanied her home, so the chance of him being an enemy was practically non-existent.
That or he trusted he could do as he pleased even within the territory of the Valleris, which was something they naturally couldn't believe.
"Fine, but you have to tell that guy about it, otherwise things will get troublesome", said Emily referring to Reyne's father, in other words Tiria's City Lord.
"In that case, why don't you guide your friends to a guest room, so they can refresh themselves so they can accompany us for a meal", said Jeanne.
As Daimon was about to refuse since he wanted to go get the information he needed as well as to get rid of those prisoners, Reyne turned to see him with a sweet smile to say.
"The "black market" starts functioning at 5 PM, to make up for it, you won't need to wait in line for anything you want later, so why don't you two join us for a meal, also after almost a day in the carriage I bet a nice rest isn't a bad idea".
As random as always, the crazy girl's eyes sparkled when she imagined being able to spy on Daimon as he bathed, or being chained so she can't do it, both scenarios were fine for her, so she agreed on the spot.
"Deal!", she said with an enthusiastic voice, which took Reyne a bit by surprise, she couldn't understand what was happening in the mind of the crazy girl, little did she know that she was lucky, because Daimon could tell what her intentions were, on the other hand a bath didn't sound like a bad idea after travelling through the wasteland for more than twelve hours.
"We kindly accept", he said, making Reyne clap a couple of times, happy that her invitation wasn't rejected.
"Follow me please~", she happily said as she walked out of the room, followed by Daimon and Sarah.
Once they had left, Jeanne turned to see Emily before saying.
"Your senses are better than mine Emi, so what do you say?", she asked as she took a seat.
"They are dangerous, especially the masked one, when our eyes met, my body tensed up on its own, I'm sure he is neither an Arch rank or a flesh eating demon, and yet I felt like that time when we were attacked by that Blood Duke, so unless he is the Blood King in disguise in which case we are screwed, even with your grandfather joining us, they probably achieved the impossible and escaped a human farm", answered Emily with a contemplating expression on her face.
"I see… I thought Reyne brought him as a reinforce, but she doesn't seem to have the intention of involving him at all, maybe she just wants to repay him for helping, which is for the good, I don't think someone like that can be forced to anything, so them being neutral while having a good impression of Reyne is probably the best result possible", said Jeanne.
Emily nodded and then her body blurred as she disappeared from plain sight, the two of them then left the room, since they had other things to do now that Reyne has returned, everything will start with the meal that was about to come.
With Reyne leading the way it wasn't long before they reached the guest area, Daimon used his infinity eyes to look at where they were from the outside, the transportation array, brought them all the way from the merchant district which was located at the southeast area of Tiria, to the central area.
The place in which they were was visible even from outside, despite the fifty-meter-tall wall, it was a huge castle, which one would expect to find in any major noble family of the Clear Water kingdom.
And yet this castle wasn't in the most central spot of the city, there was mansion which didn't lack in any sense when compared to it, that should be the mansion of the City Lord, while this was the castle of the Valleris family, besides that, there was a giant cathedral which Daimon could already guess to which force it was affiliated and also there were other relatively smaller buildings, that belonged to important people.
It's worth mentioning, that there was an inner wall surrounding the central area, and then both the castle and the mansion had their own private walls too, all the other buildings didn't have a wall including the cathedral.
This gave a rough picture of what was the power balance in Tiria, leaving that aside, Reyne finally stopped in front of a large wood door.
"This is the best guest room in the castle, I hope it is up to your liking, I'll come back in an hour to pick you up, if you need anything you can call me through this", said Reyne as she handed Daimon a device that looked like an older version of his Sigil Lector, which made sense since it was based on human magic technology, modified by dwarves and then by the beast races, and also the key of the room.
Daimon nodded as he accepted the thing, there was only one contact there and it was Reyne's, of course he checked to see if there were some hidden tricks but that wasn't the case, so he kept it in his inventory and then opened the door just to be temporarily froze on the spot, after noticing that there was only one bed in the room, it was quite big though, as it could easily accommodate at least eight people.
The crazy girl smiled and then jumped on the bed, without further ado, while Daimon turned to see Reyne just to see she was softly laughing.
"Enjoy your stay~", she said in an amused voice as she left to her own room.
Daimon inwardly sighed and then closed the door, he also moved sidewards dodging Sarah who just jumped to try and hug him.
"Take your bath and don't take long, so I can take mine, I have a couple of things to tell you", he said.
"The best way to save time is that we bath together so let's go~", said the crazy girl as she started undressing without any care on the world, she moved as fast as she could and her skirt was the first thing to fall, to reveal the black panties she was wearing below, she was about to take off her panties, when Daimon flashed to appear next to her.
With his right eyebrow twitching, he grabbed Sarah by the collar of her blouse and threw her towards the door of the bathroom, which Rita opened with her shadow threads, to then close the door once the crazy girl landed inside.
"Don't let her out until she has dressed herself again", casually said Daimon as he let his body fall on the bed to have a well-earned rest.
'Mm', with a small sound of affirmation, Rita followed her young master's orders, that being said her eyes had a strange glow in them as she observed everything from within Daimon's shadow.
'Ah, I'm starting to miss mom and the others', thought Daimon as he closed his eyes to wait until Sarah had finished her bath.
…
While Daimon and Sarah prepared to have their meal with the Valleris, to ease up their way to the information they needed, to narrow Jasmine's search, at a place far away from Tiria, there was a barren land with volcanoes surrounded by a petrified forest, the smell of sulfur filled the air, making it toxic for living beings not apt to the environment.
And in the middle of that area there was black hill, surrounded by people with black robes covering all their bodies.
Even if their attires were similar, there was a clear division between them, forming two major groups, with many smaller divisions between them, in total there were around sixteen of them.
A tall figure with a black worn-out robe, came from one of the sides, just to be met by a short slender figure coming from the other party.
"Were you useless idiots able to retrieve that thing, or are you still losing our time?", sarcastically said the tall figure.
"Shut it, unlike you who laze around, since you casually found your "key", we have to fight for it, we'll tell you when we are ready, if I even hear of any of you near our territories, you'll have to pay a hefty compensation so don't test our limits", said the short figure.
"Humph, beg that we don't meet in the Red Plain battlefield, otherwise I'll crush all your family soldier's necks!", said the tall figure as it turned back to leave.
"Same here", answered the short figure as it returned with its own group, the two groups then started floating and they all soon left the area, which returned to its silent state, only interrupted by the random trembling volcanoes.
Without them noticing, there was someone observing the whole thing, from within the black hill, or more accurately from within a black cage that was trapped inside the black hill, right next to an open cave which was overflowing with all kinds of precious materials, magic herbs and other valuable things.
A pair of light green eyes could be said faintly glowing in the darkness flooded cave in which the black cage was, followed by the sound of metal being slowly grinded by something sharp.
Which then stopped, as the sound of footsteps came from outside of the cave, before a genderless voice could be heard.
"So, are you enjoying the show, if you accept the deal I offered to you, we can end this and move on, what do you say?", asked the voice only to be yelled back.
"Screw you, just try do something bad to me if you dare, do you really think I couldn't notice the uncomfortable sensation around you, which appeared not too long ago, he is coming, who knows, the next time you blink you might not open your eyes again!", answered the one in the cage, this time it was obviously the voice of a young girl.
The owner of the genderless voice snorted and then left the cave, not without saying.
"It seems you haven't experienced the cruel reality yet, but don't worry, I'll show you the decadence on other people's hearts".
Listening to the footsteps fading on the distance, the pair of light green eyes which shone with unbreakable determination appeared once again in the darkness, as the sound of metal being grinded slowly making it almost unnoticeable, could be heard once again.
'Twenty thousand and fifty… even from afar he is protecting me, how can I just sit and be a burden', thought the little figure inside the black cage, as it used an accessory on her wrist to wear out the floor of the black cage.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m