"That's enough Moon, there's still someone else here you know."
"You've gotten carried away again. Don't forget this is still a job."
Sigrid and Sigrun had no choice but to stop Black Moon before he went too far over something like that.
"a�?Ah? Punk, she's become like this because you keep indulging her!"
Bam's face immediately went red as he felt his mistress body press on his armor that he found it difficult to refute Black Moon.
"That's not-- there's no way someone like me can indulge the Princess..."
To Bam, even if he wanted to indulge his mistress's every wish and spoil her, thinking she deserves it, there was no way he could even go about such a thing.
"Don't listen to them Bammy, you can surely spoil me all you want. I wouldn't mind being pampered by you you know."
At this point, it looked as though his head would explode, a reaction that caused Black Moon to almost face Palm himself thinking this kid was too easy.
"No, no, that's not right, that's something that absolutely mustn't happen."
"Really, but why not? I wanna be pampered by you all the time, come on..."
At this point, even the two sisters felt bad for the kid as they watched his fragile heart being jerked around like a string in real time. It was to the point that Black Moon was forced to cut them off.
"Ugh, I'm really stupid for mentioning that. Let's just move on. Princess, try not to just randomly ask people to tell you their innate ability, especially Hunters. You might end up being mistaken for a spy and killed on the spot, no one would care who you were in certain instances."
"Is it really that dangerous?"
Currently, it was no secret to high-level Hunters that the Great Five, especially the Brimstone family, were interested in gathering people with useful or dangerous innate abilities, either to enlist them or get rid of any potential threat.
There have also been reports of missing people, especially Hunters suspected of possessing innate abilities. However, these cases were immediately suppressed making the information itself dangerous to speak of with individuals that weren't Hunters.
While most common folks were unaware of the details of the Great Five's innate abilities, they all knew the reason for their continued dominance over the demon continent was because of how powerful those abilities were in the right hands. Hence why the value of innate abilities was so high.
There was also a minor rumor that the Brimstone family was at attempting to figure out a way to steal the innate abilities of others to use in their expansion for the sake of becoming the next Demon King family.
Of course, this was just a rumor that could not be proved and thus, too dangerous to speak out loud so Black Moon went for a simpler explanation instead.
"Of course. An innate ability is our ace in the hole and some of them are even capable of reducing an entire city to dust. With the Great Five desperate need for power, carelessly revealing it is almost a death sentence."
There seemed to be a terrible weight in Black Moon's voice as he said this.
Still, Bam was unable to fully concentrate as a baffled "Hm?" made its way up from his chest. He wanted to look down, but if he didn't, his mind might not be able to handle it.
He thought about pushing Athena away, but after considering her soft and seemingly fragile body, he did not know how much force he should use and couldn't possibly bear the thought of hurting her.
As Bam's heart continued pounding, the conversation continued without him.
"That aside. It seems working for nobles has become increasingly dangerous lately. I heard all the high-level Hunters of an entire city, accepted a mission from their city's Lord, and have yet to be heard from since then."
Not wanting to dive deeper into the matter anymore, Black Moon quickly changed the subject while doing his best to ignore Athena's blatant advances towards Bam, who was about to burst at any moment.
"Really, when was this!?"
"About a month back now. It's a city under the Great Five no less."
"Winged City right?"
" Oh... Boy, so the kid has heard of it as well."
"I only know the basics. I hadn't expected to hear they haven't been heard from giving as that city has more high-ranked Hunters than Radiance City."
"That's true. Given as we are not from this city that statement is valid. Although they don't have any Quantium-ranked Hunter amongst them, they had a decent amount of Duranium-ranked ones."
"Is that so? If that's the case, just how dangerous was the quest they had accepted."
"Not sure. The city is keeping a tight lid on that information."
" Seriously. Do they not have any intentions to rescue them."
" Well, they are just Hunters to them you know."
"What, that doesn't matter! Hunters or nobles, you can't just leave your own citizens to die if you can help! "
"Well don't tell me, tell them."
" Sorry. "
" That's fine kid. I know what you mean. Still, those Hunters are very valuable to a border city like Winged City so they are preparing to investigate this situation. I heard they contacted the Magicians guild for their help although the details of their intentions are still unknown."
" Oh yes... We heard the mysterious Mr. Lix and Ms. Lilith was also invited to join their investigation along with three Rank 7 Magicians teams."
" Oh yes. I think they're going to be the ones leading the charge. How cool is that."
The sisters' expressions might not have changed but their eyes and tone had suddenly shifted as they mentioned the names Lix and Lilith. Speaking of them fondly and with stars in their eyes.
"Huh... I believe I may have heard of this Lix fellow. He was a merchant, right? A VIP one if I recall correctly."
"Yes. Please don't mind them. They simply went on a trade mission with the Merchant guild of Winged City because of the rare materials they've been listing recently, ever since this Lix joined their ranks and only passed them on the streets inside their carriage. Yet, for some reason they found his mysterious figure to be perfectly gallant and are now big fans of them."
"Fans? Like admirers?"
"Something like that. We're lucky they hadn't left us and joined one of their obsessed fan groups in the city, I heard there is a lot of them in the city, and spreading fast. The whole thing is weird."
"Fufufu... How amusing."
Athena smiled as she finally loosen her hold and Bam had taken some interest in this story. However, there were two people that didn't take kindly to Black Moon's summary of the situation.
"Weird, don't you dare disrespect--"
"--Mr. Lix and Ms. Lilith like that, and besides--"
"We didn't just pass them on the streets, we met them in the front of the gate--"
"--And even when the Talking Bull Girl was being rude to them, he never lost his cool and mysterious charm."
"Yes... he's so calm and cool. The perfect demon."
Sigh... "We've lost them."
Black Moon was at a loss for words as he could clearly feel the excitement oozing off the bodies of these two usually emotionless girls as though they were teenagers.
"Only problem was--"
"--We didn't get any chance to meet him because --"
"--Our evil leader forced us to come back that same day."
The sisters sighed in defeat simultaneously when Sigrid suddenly thought of something and become rather serious in an instant.
"Oh right... Moon, I remember you and the devil leader went to the Darknar city's opening ceremony last week. We've heard the story of how it went but we must know, can you take their Demon Lord?"
"Yeah, do you think you can take him down? Or stand a chance?!"
"What do you mean by that, Sigrun?"
"I mean, if you were to come face to face with him in a one-on-one duel, can you kill the Darknar family's Demon Lord?"
Black Moon froze. His previous excited expression drained completely as the demeanor of the highest-ranked magic caster at the level of a demon lord. In raw magic power alone he was superior to even Aurora, as vast magic body capacity was his inheritance from his dark elf side.
For him that had lived far longer than anyone here and had reached the peak of his potential, there weren't that many people that could match him and that included Aurora. Not even most Demon Lords could match his raw power.
"Normally I will never admit it but that's impossible. I may be capable of taking on most Demon Lords with my innate ability but the exceptions are obviously the Great Five and the Seven Primordials. Which was why I utterly refused to believe those rumors about him and went to Paragon city myself. However, what I witness there only confirmed the worst. If nothing, those rumors utterly downplayed how ridiculous that guy is."
The air shuddered.
"For someone like Mr. Black Moon to say such things. Just how much of a monster is he? "
Athena's face twisted in agony.
"From what we heard about the undead war. The Darknar lord had a force of less than 3,000 strong and utterly decimated an undead army of more than 30,000 strong. Our family had sent a group of spies to monitor the fight but amongst the 100 skilled rogues, we sent, only a handful were able to make it back alive. And even then, they were so mentally scarred that we could barely get any information from them."
Remembering the faces of the spies the Jaxith family had sent to the Darknar region before and after, Athena's mood sank as she couldn't even fathom what had happened to them that they had ended up in that state.
"..., I can see how they'd end up like that. From what I heard, none of the scouts from the Great Five even made it back alive much less in one piece..."
Sigrid and Sigrun nodded their heads in agreement as they spoke at the same time.
"Understandable..."
"Don't say it like that! Someone like the Darknar Demon Lord is already at the level of the Great Five and the Primordials. There's no way someone like me or our crazy leader can hope to stand against him. Given the tone in which he spoke to the Vampire King, I reckon he may even be beyond that level. He may already be at the level of the gods."
"Is that even possible?"
"Who's to say? I heard he even has a real Devil under him now, what a monster."
"A Devil huh? If only it belongs to the Chaos Lord, then we might have a bargaining advantage."
"Bargaining?"
"Yes. Our family also sent representatives to Paragon city's opening ceremony and have initiated a trade talk with them so we should be expecting an emissary from the Darknar family soon. With how foolish our representative had been, we will need all the advantages we can get in a negotiation that is sure to go beyond a normal trade talk."
"Oh... How interesting. Unfortunately, I won't be there to see it. Don't want to cost an international incident or something."
"There's no way someone as creepy as you will be allowed there in the first place."
" Yeah, no way. Moon is too creepy for such things."
" Why you little--"
Just as the mood in the carriage began to change, there was a knock on the tinted and engraved glass which separated the passenger compartment of the coach from the driver's seat, before it gently slid open and Blane lowered his head to speak.
"We'll be reaching the Jaxith castle soon princess."
As she heard his words, Athena slowly rose to her feet and locked eyes with the three Hunters seated before her.
"Today, I have received your care in various ways and you have indulged my whims. When Aurora returns, I will thank her properly, but please, allow me to express my gratitude to the three of you first so would you be able to dine with me?"
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