Knock Knock!

"Enter."

A deep and low voice resounds from within the room in response to the knocking on the door. If any normal person were to hear the voice in person, they would be scared shitless no matter how strong they are as the voice seemed to hold some kind of invisible power within the voice that caused people with a weak will to cower in fear at the presence of the owner of the voice. 

"Excuse me."

But the person entering the room didn't cower and went into the room in a silent and refined manner that put a certain famous butler to shame. 

"Do you have something to report? As you know, I'm quite busy at the moment so I hope you can be quick on the matter."

"Yes, it won't be long per se. It was just that, it seemed that girl, Mia, wanted to leave the Mage Association."

The man sitting at the center of the room raised his brows in surprise before nodding his head in an understanding manner as he spoke.

"It should be about time, after all, it has been five years since then. In fact, the girl should be praise at how strong her will and determination is, as none was like her. We have seen how much effort and tears she put into trying to graduate from an apprentice yet it seemed the god didn't allow such a thing. Even a person with a strong will would eventually fall under such circumstances."

"Yes, that was indeed the case."

"Then, there shouldn't be anything worth mentioning, does it?"

"That would the case if not for the information I had acquired sometimes ago."

The man leaned forward and put his hands on the table before letting his jaw rest on top of the back palm of his hand, spoke with interest in his voice.

"I see, you should have said that from the beginning. So, what was it?"

"Yes, from the information that has been gathered by my subordinates, I have found out that the girl was planning to stay at A District for a short break, or so she said."

"Hmm? From all the places she could go, why chose there? And why is it now?"

"I don't have the information about that as of now. Perhaps, I could figure out something if I send my subordinate to secretly trail behind her."

The man muttered softly to himself and though he received a response from the young man standing in front of him, it didn't reach his ears, however, as the man has fallen into deep contemplation. The A District, the region around it, has been regarded as dangerous due to a certain incident that was reported by the mage living there. What was written on the report was, on a certain evening, all the mages associated with the Mage Association there was horrified at suddenly being overwhelming by an invisible pressure for one split second before vanishing completely as if what they had experienced was nothing but an illusion.

If it was only a single person were saying it, no one would have believed it and assuming the person was speaking nonsense instead. But it's a different story when literally every mage over there reported to experiencing the same thing as the others. The Headmaster of the Mage Association has recalled them back before sending a group of people to investigate the cause of the sudden incident, yet it bore fruitless. They couldn't find anything regarding the mystery behind the incident and instead gained one but important information that they didn't expect.

A few years have passed since the Pope position was overtaken by someone completely unexpected, it seemed the church has started making their move now. Although the information gathering couldn't find any information regarding their visit, they did know that the one visiting was the Saintess. And now, her group was living peacefully in a hotel like any ordinary rich person, without doing anything suspicious that would attract their attention. That itself is enough for them to be brand as suspicious yet the investigation team couldn't do anything to them since there was no opportunity to act without attracting attention to their group.

As far as the information goes, it seemed that the Saintess is a friend of a daughter of an Elder of Ernest Family. And from the information gathered by the young man in front of him, the daughter of the Elder, Angelica Ernest also seemed to be a friend with Mia. It was quite ironic as the three background was actually nemesis and if any of them were to meet each other, they would pick a fight like a cat and a dog. It would be an interesting sight to behold if the three were to meet each other but that's not the point here.

From what the young man said, Mia had visited the A District before she decided to leave the Association for good. She was having an outing in the restaurant with Angelica and another girl following them. It seemed the girl have a normal background which makes them concluded that this was just a girls' outing and decided to put a distance as they are not interested in it. If they had decided to stay for a while, they might have witnessed Sheila conjuring fireball with a single snap from her fingers.

"So, what you were saying is that the daughter of an Elder from Ernest Family, Angelica Ernest is recruiting Mia and camouflage their discussion as a normal outing?"

"Yes, I believe so."

The man heaved a sigh before pinching the bridge of his nose, he couldn't believe after all the effort put into making an elite for information gathering seemed to bore yet another fruitless tree. Why would an influential family recruit the poor girl like Mia? Although she had a higher density of mystic power within her body than average, her skill in magecraft is absolute rubbish, second to none. What good would it do if one can't even conjure the most basic spell of magecraft even with the sizeable pool of mystic power? It's like having a luxury car without an engine to power it, there's no way it would run.

"Do you really think so?"

The young man flinched at the cold word muttered from the man seated in front of him. He doesn't even need to look at the latter eyes to know that the man was disappointed in his team's work. Although he was angry at them too, he has no other way than reporting it since it was part of his job, after all. At most, he would only get penalized for a few days since his merit is pretty high considering his past deeds. 

As for his subordinates, they would have to get through his wrath first before being punished for their ridiculous work. Unfortunately, he couldn't kill them as it's not easy to train another one to elite, no matter how ridiculous their deduction is, they are still elite in gathering information nonetheless. 

"No, sir."

The young man honestly responded. 

"That's right, isn't it? Considering your past contributes to our community, I will let you go for today. Go out yourself and gather that information for me, you only have a week from now on. You should know what would happen to you if you're unable to complete it?"

"Yes, sir. I promise the information will be on your desk in two days!"

"It's good to be confident. Now leave, before my mood sour even further."

The young man bowed his head toward the man before taking his leave as quietly in a refined manner as he did when he entered the room. Before he leaves, the young man eyed the nametag on the desk.

Frank Lloyd - The Headmaster of Mage Association