"Well…" Ibra cleared his throat, trying to absorb such a weird atmosphere and brisk change in that old man's attitude, "he wanted to go to the Scorching Lands, do a mission there."
"Hmm… Scorching Lands is a big place that many want to go and visit. What mission? Gathering herbs and ores? Or something like serving others? He was a porter after all, hahahaha!"
They all mistook his words as an insult to William, not just saying things casually and carefree without any hidden or deep intentions behind them.
"We are going there to kill and hunt down dark spirit masters!" Berry couldn't take such an insult, forgot all about the huge gap in power between her and that old man, shouted in pure rage as if she was a grenade that exploded.
And as if she just let that grenade explode while she held it in her hands, her face turned ashen white the next moment. She knew she overstepped her boundaries and spoke in such an improper way to such a scary figure.
"Oh, what a high and great target this is," the old man didn't explode in rage as she and others expected. He simply and calmly smiled, not showing anything on his face, "but tell me, how come a bunch of weak spirit masters plan on doing something even I would hesitate to do?"
"..."
When he said it this way, by adding himself in such a way, everyone didn't know how to answer him.
They got such a thought before when they heard about the mission for the first time. But after going through a lot with William, it seemed that they started to grow a kind of trust in William, enough to wipe away any earlier doubts about their mission.
But when that scary spirit master said his last piece, that old doubt got revived, shocking even themselves about not thinking about such an issue. And they got more shocked to realise this was all thanks to William's effect on all of them.
"Never mind, I'll ask the man himself when I'll meet him," the old man got that none here knew what William's true plan was, "by the way, where is he right now? Why isn't he with you?"
"This…" and when Berry recalled where William was, fighting that scary monster all by himself for all this time, she couldn't help but tremble in panic and worry.
"He… He broke free from us back there," Sara gave Berry a deep glance before adding, "we met this monster, one that he recognised and identified as a deadly threat to all of us. So, he stayed behind, to keep that monster busy while we'll all run away."
"And you just ran away, leaving such a brave kid back alone facing that monster?" the old man raised an eyebrow, while his words held some sort of disapproval towards their actions for the first time since meeting them.
"It wasn't up to us to do this!" Berry couldn't control herself anymore, exploded this time with tears, "he gave us the order to retreat, and made sure that we'll all listen to his arrangements. We planned to return and save him half an hour later but got strangled and threatened by the stupid monster swarm that appeared out of nowhere!"
"Oh, these are all my doing," the old man focused his eyes and froze them over Berry, "tell me young girl, what was the name of that monster? Did he tell you about its name?"
"Why?" Berry didn't get what the old man wanted to do, missed all the hidden intentions of that dark gold spirit master. She got her own doubts before, and when the old man confirmed he was the one who caused all this, she couldn't help but bite her hands with her nails, controlling herself to not explode again on his face.
"He called it the Nightmare monster," but Ibra and others didn't miss what that old man truly meant. He said that all this happened because of his actions. And if such a formidable spirit master admitted a mistake or responsibility towards something, then it meant he planned to correct this by himself.
In other words, that old man decided to go out there, either on the head of a team or by himself, to find and rescue William. And no matter how anyone looked at this, it was indeed great news.
"The Nightmare monster? What the hell is that?" but it was more shocking to hear that such a formidable and experienced spirit master being ignorant about such a monster, "tell me everything you know about this monster, tell me everything that kid told you about it."
Per his request, Ibra started to tell him about what William said about this monster. And once he finished, that old spirit master didn't say a single word, kept moving his fingers across his long white beard, as he was lost in deep thought.
"A monster that I never heard of, one that's active just nearby and I never noticed it. And yet, that kid knew such valuable intel about it… You mentioned that he got a master who taught him everything. Is that master part of your academy? What's her name again?"
"Well…" Ibra paused and looked back at Sara and Berry. He just met William at the doorsteps of the academy and got to learn about William's mysterious master from the dude himself. But he didn't know more than that.
"She isn't part of the academy," Sara was the one who spoke first, as she knew more than everyone about this topic, "even my grandfather, the Aspire academy's headmaster, tried to know her identity and failed."
"You are that stupid's granddaughter? And he did let you get out of there with that kid? That's totally not his style at all!"
"You know my grandfather?!" Sara was surprised by this.
"Of course! Your old man is quite strong, not as strong as me for sure. But he got a name for himself in the region."
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