Ian and Jay were back to eating after the soldiers arrived.

“How can you even eat after seeing something like that?”

“Does it bother you that much?”

“Gouged eyes, carved shape on the skin, blood everywhere. Hell yeah, that bothers me.”

“He usually was putting the roses in the eye sockets. He changed his style, I guess.”

“Do you know him?”

“He is a renowned serial killer. He was supposed to be in prison. It might be a copycat, though.”

“Is he strong?”

“He is also SS-Rank, as far as I know.”

“Wow…”

Ian paused for a second.

“So, are we not going to do anything about that?”

Before Jay could answer, someone hurriedly entered the tavern. He was a soldier, carrying a bunch of papers in his hands. He quickly reached the counter, said something to Ian’s mother, and gave her some papers. Well, to be more precise, those were wanted posters. After he hurriedly left, Ian’s mother looked surprised and scared. She quickly put the posters on the wall behind the counter so that everyone could see those. Like every curious person in the tavern, Ian and Jay quickly went there. When he saw those, Jay understood what was going on. Eleven highly dangerous psychopathic killers were on the run.

“Look, it is that guy!”

Ian pointed out one of the posters. It was the guy Jay was talking about, ‘The White Rose Murderer.’ Ian began to read the content of the poster.

“Rank-SS, kill count 324, dead or alive, bounty…”

Ian’s eyes widened.

“What?! 120 golds!”

“Don’t be that surprised. An SS rank mission’s reward is around 100 golds.”

“…”

Jay shrugged.

“I guess I could use 120 golds. Let’s do some investigation tonight.”

Ian looked at his mother. She seemed really scared.

“I’m concerned. Maybe we should stay here to protect them instead.”

“Don’t worry. He has patterns, one girl aged between 16 and 24 a week. He is some sick pervert.”

After glancing at the other posters, Jay turned towards Ian.

“Let’s go do some training.”

“At where?”

“Every kingdom has its training grounds.”

“Can anyone use it?”

“In exchange for some coins.”

“Nice.”

Then they left. The training grounds in the Odiria Kingdom were not far from away from the tavern. After a few minutes of walking, they reached there. It wasn’t much different from the academy’s training grounds. One part had the training dummies, and the other was empty for combat training with a partner. They paid ten silver coins per person and entered it.

“Alright, you said you wanted to create your fighting style, right? Let’s start with that.”

A blade appeared on Jay’s hand.

“Attack me with everything you got.”

Ian’s hoodie disappeared and left him with a t-shirt.

“Damn, that felt good. It was getting hot.”

And he took out the blades he got from Arkhaar. Pitch black blades, longer than usual. There weren’t many people training at this hour, so they had a large area to use. Ian quickly began to attack. Jay was easily deflecting the attacks with one hand and correcting Ian’s mistakes at the same time.

“Your attacks are too wide.”

“You are fast, but it loses its effectivity because of your unnecessary movements.”

“Trajectory of your attacks are too obvious.”

Since they found the dead girl behind the tavern, Ian’s dad was with the soldiers, telling them when and how they found her. He didn’t have much sleep last night, so he was tired. On top of that, the situation made it worse. They weren’t adventurers or soldiers. Even though they could use mana, they never trained with it, so they were just average humans living their everyday lives. Thus, protecting themselves against dangers was hard for them, and now a serial killer appeared under their noses. After he was done with the soldiers, he bought something for breakfast and headed home. He was lost in thoughts on his way, but some collision sounds distracted him.

“Ah, man, who trains this early in the morning.”

He turned his head towards the training grounds.

“Hmm? Isn’t that the guy who is staying with us? Was his name Jay?”

Then suddenly, someone appeared in front of Jay. A young kid with black hair and ice-blue eyes. He attacked Jay and disappeared again. He only saw Ian for a second, but his eyes widened, and he dropped the bag he was holding.

“Sir? Are you okay?”

A bystander asked. Ian’s dad shook his head and picked up the bag he dropped.

“Ah, yes, yes, thank you.”

Then he hurriedly turned back to the tavern.

* * *

“Weren’t you supposed to train that kid?”

Naomi pointed to Eldron from the window. She and Aaron were sitting in their room. She was drinking tea while Aaron was writing something in a notebook. He raised his head.

“Victor…”

He paused for a second.

“Wilbert… Why the fuck did he even decide to change his name? Anyways he is preparing them physically before the actual training.”

“Poor kids.”

“Oh, by the way, we will have visitors.”

“Who?”

“I guess Wilbert told the kids about the escaped prisoners. Eldron came to me and said that his parents couldn’t fight, and he was worried about them. So he asked me if I could host them until they got caught again.”

“Aww, look at you, trying to be a nice teacher.”

“Hey, he is my first student, and we have plenty of rooms.”

“Oops, Neil collapsed again. Impressive, he lasted twenty minutes longer than before. I’m going to go check on them.”

She put the teacup on the table and left. After a while, Aaron stopped writing and took a look at the notebook.

“This looks okay.”

He was writing a guidebook for Eldron. About how to use glaive, how to use fire element efficiently, and fundamentals of battling. He got up, stretched, and went after Naomi. She was crouching next to Neil and poking his cheek. She was probably teasing him like she always does.

“Come on, show me, you fucker!”

Wilbert shouted to Eldron, who was doing push-ups. His body was covered in sweat, and his arms were shaking.

“I don’t know!”

He shouted back with teary eyes.

“It is inside you! All you have to do is let it out!”

“How?!”

Eldron finally collapsed too.

“Damn, aren’t you pushing them too hard?”

Aaron said while looking at breathless Eldron.

“Elius was doing this when he was ten.”

Wilbert said with a smirk.

“I feel sorry for Elius… Get up, Eldron. Your parents are about to arrive.”

“I can’t.”

Eldron raised his head and said. It was the only body part he could move.

“Yeah, they lay like that at least for an hour. Man, kids are weak these days.”

“Don’t blame kids. You are the weird one here.”

Aaron grabbed Eldron’s leg and dragged him next to Neil. Then they sat next to the kids and chatted for a while until the palace’s gates opened. Soldiers were escorting someone, the people who came looked clueless, surprised, and scared at the same time. They were Eldron’s parents.

* * *

Idarin’s group spent the whole day exploring the city. Unlike the Mohan Empire, Dwarven Empire didn’t have different kingdoms in it. Only one big city under an emperor.

“Phew! People are so small here.”

Elius said while lying on the bed.

“At least we were able to find a place to stay.”

Ruvyn was watching outside from the window. They were all staying in the same room.

“Yeah, what were those little houses.”

“Little house for a little man, Elius.”

Idarin said without raising his head. He was writing something again.

“Damnit! These midgets are so greedy!”

Liam threw the pouch in his hands to his bed.

“The starting prices are ten golds, and that is for just a small dagger!”

He turned towards Elius.

“Just a little dagger!”

“O-okay, why are you yelling at me.”

“They are the best at blacksmithing, and they are aware of it.”

Idarin stopped writing.

“Can we focus on getting the ring thing?”

Ruvyn took out the map and checked the area where Algor marked.

“What is the rush?”

Elius took out Julius’ grimoire. Everyone was thinking about different things right now.

Idarin was thinking about the escaped prisoners and where they could be. Elius was trying to reach stage two on basic elements, Ruvyn wanted to get the ring that Algor told him about as soon as possible, and Liam wanted someone to forge him a weapon.

‘Okay, let’s pour some mana in this.’

“I hope it reveals some valuable information.”

‘Hope not…’

Elius poured his mana and waited. Just like what happened before, instead of a spell, pages of information appeared.

“Nice!”

‘Ugh… It is all for you.’

Elius was about to close the book after Elly scanned it, but he read the first few sentences.

“I know, I know. You just want to jump to learn spells.”

‘Yes, I do.’

“I assume you already know how to create a spell, maybe even mastered four basic elements. I know it can be frustrating sometimes to work on a spell for a long, long time. Sometimes you’ll just want to create the spell you imagine in seconds. Unfortunately, it is impossible. But! There is something that can massively increase your speed for creating a spell. But! There is always a but. This thing can’t be achieved easily. You’ll need to reach at least an S-Rank level, or you’ll need to find someone to help you on that level.”

‘Then why do you tell me this now?’’

For the first time, Elius was intrigued. Elly has already done scanning, but he didn’t stop reading.

“Then why do I tell you this now? Because there are few requirements. First, you need to know how to enter the flow, don’t worry, I’ll also teach you that. Secondly, you’ll need to find a really rare material called ‘Doomfur.’”

‘Damn, even just the first two requirements are out of my reach. Elly, analyze it well.’

Then he closed the book and straightened in bed. He was going to work on his spells.

‘Earth is the closest one to reach stage 2. I should finish that quickly.’

But before that, he wanted to ask Idarin about this material.

“Mr. Idarin.”

“Hm?”

“What is ‘Doomfur,’ and where can I find it?”

Idarin smiled. He instantly understood where he was getting with it because there was only one reason for a wizard to look for Doomfur.

“You sly bastard, did you learn that from the book?”

Elius nodded.

‘I became a little suspicious because that book instantly closed when I tried to look, but I might’ve underestimated the real owner of that book.’

“I’m assuming your next question will be ‘How do I enter flow?’, right?”

“M-maybe…”

Elius surprised.

“I don’t know who gave you that book, but what you are trying to achieve isn’t common knowledge, plus you don’t need to enter flow for that.”

He paused for a second.

“Only high-level wizards know about it, and they don’t want to share it with the others.”

Elius was surprised even more.

“And yes, I know you don’t have enough patience to wait before reaching a higher level rank.”

He smiled again.

“So I can help you. That sounds fun.”

Elius didn’t even know yet what they’d do, but he was getting excited for some reason. He hurriedly closed his eyes and focused on his elements. After getting those elements out of the way, he wanted to learn more about flow. Elius suddenly felt a change in his heartbeat. An unfamiliar feeling went through his body. It was his hunger for knowledge that he wasn’t aware of yet. Unconsciously, deep down, he was also like Elly.

“So, we are not that different after all.”

But the only one who was aware of that, for now, was Elly.