'Well, for now, the initiator should be these two high-class foes. If I'm guessing correctly, they must be planning to either investigate me if they're lenient, prevent me from ever getting near Deia again if they're neutral, or outright assassinate me if they're cruel.' Darius pondered with a thoughtful smile.

He then swirled the smoothie before him and sipped it slowly, his eyes sharpening with a glint of malice he usually kept contained.

'So, devout followers of an enemy deity, what sort of performance shall it be?'

.........…..

On the other side, Deia had just gotten out of Darius' sight when the pope leaned towards the Inquisitor.

"Inquisitor Davian, do you perhaps know who that fellow is?"

The handsome and well-dressed inquisitor frowned deeply, his hand passing through his silver hair and his dark blue eyes glinting with discomfort.

"Apologies, but I don't have the habit of keeping tabs about random rabble by the roadside, Your Excellency."

The pope's lips twitched, his oily face from being under the sun stretching. "Well then, it seems we have a problem. We'll have to investigate this fellow and see if he poses a problem to our Lord's plans."

The pope's eyes then became cold as ice. "If that seems to be the case, then we'll have to get rid of him, for the glory of our Lord!"

Inquisitor Davian still stared darkly at Darius, murmuring the phrase he had memorized since childhood.

"For the glory of our Lord!"

..........

Darius finished his snack and paid for it. He had seen all he needed to on this trip to Elysium, so now it was time to acquire that restricted knowledge and quickly return to Fallon to make some preparations.

Vena wanted amusement, right? Darius would give her that. He had originally planned to calmly raise chaos in Faust while keeping his hands out of it, but with Deia in the mix, Vena had forced Darius to go from a spider slowly spinning its web to a leopard that roamed the treetops.

They were both patient predators for sure, but the fundamental difference was that a spider was passive in hunting. It spun its web and lay there until unfortunate prey was captured.

A leopard though, actively sought out prey and monitored them closely before striking at the perfect time to get an instant kill.

The cute server from before cleared up the table and was about to strike up some conversation with the handsome fellow, but before she got the chance Darius smiled politely and left.

This left her confused and sad, because it had looked like he had been somewhat interested in her just a few minutes ago. Could it be she had read too much into him just being polite?

Coincidentally, Darius had just made up his mind to speak to Portia and Jorge about the change in circumstance. He was aware of their feelings and the ambiguity between them, but so far he had never clarified it, simply because he had been undecided.

Of course, this revelation had changed everything!

It was best to inform them as kindly as possible so that there would be no unnecessary drama. Darius didn't want any of that interfering with his relationship with Deia in Faust.

It was always better to break the heart early rather than later, so that the healing could begin earlier, and so too the moving on. Only an immature child would delay that after knowing that there was someone he wanted.

Darius reached the inn they stayed at and remembered that today seemed to be the day of the event at the Beloved Auction House. His goods would be sold off to the highest bidders and judging by the quality of what he put, the bigshots should be on their way.

'Come to think of it, that was also the direction where Deia and company were headed.' Darius realized.

However, this left him feeling strange. From the timing of his meeting with Deia, it appeared that everything was pre-planned and set up perfectly.

In that case, didn't it mean that his own actions had created the event?

Once again, this made Darius wonder whether Vena could look into the future to see what he would do and plan around it, yet in that case why even bother having him act out this play?

She could just spawn any 'actor' she wanted and peek at their possible future for entertainment and smack them away, then bring the next.

Of course, all of this was assuming that Darius's speculation that Deia and her group were headed to the Auction House was correct.

Whatever the case, Darius didn't have plans to visit the auction. He simply wanted his cut so that he could make some moves in Elysium before he left, just to lay down some foundations.

He entered the suite room he stayed in with Gunner and noticed that the fellow wasn't back yet. Both his Branded Servants had been left to their own devices till nightfall, so Darius would have to wait.

In the meantime, Darius lay on his bed meditating calmly. After becoming a Journeyman, he had begun trying to develop his magical abilities out of the system, or to add to the system.

After all, skills weren't limited to what he could acquire from a skillbook. He could either be taught by someone or teach someone, as well as develop his own skills after training.

Darius knew that most traditional mages, aside from practicing and reading spell manuals to increase their Intellect, also meditated. This was especially prevalent once they became Journeymen.

A Journeyman mage of average talent would have two elements, one which they awoke with and one they had acquired upon climbing the stage. They would also have their passive magical defense spell active based on their chosen element before leveling up.

So every Journeyman mage would have some amount of magic defense, but against their opposite element, this would turn into an elemental weakness. For Darius who had access to all elements, he would be even stronger against Journeyman mages than he was against Amateurs.

Then again, Darius had hardly fought sentient enemies in battle, hadn't he? His nature as a merchant usually had made him befriend the opposite party wherever he could, so he really didn't have any enemies so to speak of.

But now, everything would change…