An agog Lily was staring at the eastern gate with shock when Claud, stumped by the insignificant change, returned to her side. His skill deactivated as he patted her shoulder, and to no one’s shock, she didn’t say anything. Claud couldn’t blame her. The three-headed snake had been obliterated with a single good punch of his, and no one knew what had just transpired.

Patting her shoulder again, Claud said, “What happened?”

Lily hiccupped, and then turned to him. “You know those artefacts you ran off to get? Yeah, there’s no need to use them anymore.”

She let out another hiccup, and her cheeks flushed lightly.

“Why? Claud asked, trying to look suitably curious. “And…right, where’s that dang snake?”

“Um. Well.” Lily shuffled her feet, and Claud wanted to laugh at her response. It was nice to see someone — and the tens of someone-s at the eastern gate right now — try to internalise what he had done just now, and it helped that he was in the very position to actually ask her about it without being too suspicious.

“Go on,” Claud prompted, hiding a smile.

“Well, that snake just exploded, a minute or so after you left.” Lily shook her head. “Like, bang. Whoosh. Bam!”

“Very descriptive, eh?” Claud chuckled. “Who did it?”

“That’s the thing. It just exploded out of nowhere. I wasn’t paying all that much attention, but I’m quite sure it just turned into minced meat out of nowhere,” Lily replied, her forehead scrunched up. Her current expression was a rather hilarious one, and as she rambled on about how the snake just vanished into thin air or something, Claud found himself wondering if he should make more mysterious phenomena happen around her.

To be honest, however, it had been out of character for him to act this directly. The emotions and thoughts whirling around his head had reached its peak, along with the unnatural compulsion that had consumed him earlier. Had he waited for another time, or went off to find and finish that snake by himself, Lily might have gotten suspicious.

The crowd at the gate began to dwindle as the ones right in front ran out of the city to check the murder scene. Claud remembered the scene quite well, since it was still fresh in his mind. There was probably no proof left behind, given that he’d pulverised the snake, and then burned the surrounding area into fine glass with an immense amount of mana.

He had to check to see if he’d left any glaring clues behind, though. He’d done the above in a second or so, and while the chances of anyone actually capturing his appearance in detail in the half-second of Presence Nullification being deactivated from that attack were really low, Claud might have left some clues behind.

“Want to check it out?” Claud asked.

“Check what out? The carcass has vanished. There’s nothing much to look at,” Lily replied. “I wish I could have seen that snake explode all over again, though. That was satisfying. The reason why we were even stuck in this town dying such a death felt so good, I want to give that person behind that a good long hug.”

For a moment, the master thief wanted to cash in that hug, a thought he promptly dismissed. Revealing that he had the ability to punch anything into oblivion was by no means a bright move, and being starved of physical intimacy wasn’t really a need he had to fulfil by all means necessary either.

He was struggling for an excuse that would convince her to check the area out without making himself look suspicious when the crowd now assembled outside the gate made a ruckus.

“What’s going on now?” Claud asked.

“It seems that they discovered something,” Lily replied. “Let’s go check it out, then!”

Now that the danger had passed, with the possibility of a frenzied stampede nearly zero, Claud didn’t mind joining in the fun. Of course, he and Lily still made a wide berth around the crowd, and it didn’t take long before he realised that the ruckus was actually about the shimmering, shiny ground he’d scorched out when he attacked earlier.

“Moons above,” Lily muttered, her eyes on the glassy patch of land. “I’ve heard about this legend before!”

“You and everyone else, young lady,” said a nearby mercenary, whose eyes were practically glowing. “It seems that Emperor Grandis has heard our prayers!”

Claud stifled a smile, and then went to admire his handiwork. To be fair, it did resemble the Emperor’s warning to all monsters; even the glassy ground resembled the description bards and storytellers gave whenever they sang or talked about the Emperor’s warning.

Looking around the place, which was smoking hot, Claud tried to locate any clue that he might have inadvertently left. Fortunately, the sudden onset of the crowd as they cooed over the glassy land had probably destroyed anything he might have left behind, assuming he did in the first place, and the master thief returned to Lily’s side shortly afterwards.

“If only I can be this strong too.” Lily squatted down and stared at the glassy ground. “The ground became like this from absurdly high temperatures. A lot of mana was probably directed onto the ground over a very short period of time, thereby creating such a sight.”

Her analysis drew some nods from the mercenaries around her, and Claud found himself inwardly alarmed by Lily’s words. Still, to be honest, it was probably quite obvious that a lot of power had gone into the sudden destruction of the poor snake. Even the sword and spear that had been embedded into the monster’s other heads were missing, although Claud didn’t know if that came from his punch or the clean-up he did.

Either way, punching that snake had been very therapeutic for him.

“Right,” said Claud, “how many folds must a mana-user have to output such high temperatures?”

“How many folds?” Lily repeated.

Claud nodded. It was a good chance to see if Absolute One could really grant him infinite mana, or if it was gated by something. Skills didn’t have a description, and his own personal claim that it was infinite came from his observation. His earlier use hadn’t shed much light into the true power of his skill, but Lily was an experienced mana-user.

It was possible that she might be able to give a good estimate of Absolute One.

“Let’s see…actually, I have no idea.” Lily shrugged. “If I saw the whole thing up close, I might be able to give a good estimate, but as it is, I’ll just be lying if I said I have a good guess.”

“Oh.” Claud felt something in his body deflate.

“Well,” said a rather irritating voice, “scram aside and let the big boys check, girl.”

Claud and Lily turned to the source, a blue-haired fellow who went by the name of Hulid. The fellow had a title, a Named. Claud didn’t know the particular exploits that this Edgeless Night had done to be conferred such a title, but he knew that each and every one of them were not people to be trifled with.

Placing a hand on Lily’s shoulder, he gently steered her back. He had a feeling that she was on the verge of losing her temper, and the master thief couldn’t blame her. In fact, he was beginning to feel some regret at using his Absolute One earlier; it would have been even more therapeutic to blast this arrogant Hulid into smithereens.

Dispelling that impossible fantasy of his, Claud cleared his throat gently, so much so that only Lily could hear it. Her shoulders trembled, and she took a step back. The Edgeless Night had quite some space to walk through to begin with, but apparently, his personality was the kind that sought to create trouble anywhere he went, through the worst kinds of words possible.

In essence, he was the exact antithesis of Claud himself.

“Hmph. It’s just a lowly snake,” Hulid snorted. Behind him, his party members were apologising and sliding through the gaps, but the damage had already been done. “Let’s see here. What exactly happened—”

A choking cry cut the rest of his sentence off, and the man crumpled over, white foam dribbling out and spilling onto the ground. Fortunately, Hulid didn’t fall over onto the shimmering patch of land, or else he would have suffered burns, but that didn’t change the fact that he had been incapacitated for some reason.

“Hulid?”

“Leader!”

“What happened?”

The rest of his party ran over and turned him over to face the sky. Hulid’s eyes were glazed over, and Claud couldn’t help but glance at Lily.

The person Claud had dubbed as Mister Mellow stood up and looked around. “What happened to him? Did anyone see it?”

Everyone shook their heads, and the mercenary that had spoken earlier stepped up to recount the events that had occurred earlier. After a while, however, nothing came out of it, and Claud watched as the Dusk Daggers carried their leader back.

“I think that’s enough for one day,” Claud muttered. “Let’s go.”

To his side, Lily bobbed her head up and down quickly.