Owari took a few steps to kill his momentum as he soared past the final member of the three thieves to fall. He turned just in time to see his body slump to the ground. Owari wondered where his magical beasts were, but when he saw a dozen silver shelled beetles scuttle away from the man shivering in fear his curiosity was satisfied. As for the other two, he didn't even know if they had any so he didn't bother to think about it. He swung his blade to remove the blood and resheathed it in one smooth motion. Then he walked over and started to rummage through the man's stuff.

Some might wonder about how killing people for the first time felt for him, but he wasn't affected in the slightest one way or the other. He had already killed a number of magical beasts, and seen many people die at the train crash. He had killed these three because they tried to kill him first, it was no different from how he or anyone else hunted magical beasts. He had even given them two separate chances to back off and they refused. They had dug their own grave and all he did was deliver them to it. If he hadn't killed them they would have gone on to kill others who might not be as strong as Owari and who could protect themselves. He didn't even feel the need to justify his actions to himself as he calmly looked through the man’s stuff.

After grabbing the man's slightly crumpled pack from when he got sent rolling across the ground, he had found nothing of value in his pockets. That being the case Owari quickly went back to his own pack and disinfected and bandaged up his wounds. Although they weren't much on their own, if left untreated he would definitely bleed to death. Not to mention he had counted over three dozen total across his left side as he patched them up. His arm had about 15 cuts, while his torso had another 12, and his leg had 16. When he finished covering them all with gauze and patches, he had covered his entire arm and leg and his chest was wrapped up leaving only his right shoulder exposed. He found this annoying as it got in the way but he knew that was the point so he wouldn't tear open his wounds again.

He then put his shirt back on and inspected his haori. The left side was filled with thin cuts which could be stitched pretty easily. However the lower left side was shredded to the point that about a fourth of the lower part of the entire thing was gone. On top of that the left sleeve was in a similar situation and only a strip on the bottom side was still intact as it had been facing away from the silver light shards. The rest was a mess of cloth and a lot of the material was scattered to the winds. Seeing that Owari wasn't disappointed, he just folded it up and put it in his pack.

After sorting that out he went through all three of the people's packs and picked out the things of interest. One thing that caught his attention was that each of them had a mystic arts manual with them. For a moment he was shocked at this because of how expensive they were yet three had just shown up. However it made sense, who would leave something like this at home? Not only was it expensive but to most hunters their whole future rode on learning what was within it. Other than those he found some materials that were of decent value, but none stood out as being worth switching his own materials for so he tossed the edibles to his moth and read a bit of the three manuals out of curiosity. He had no intention of training any of them, though he was certainly curious about that metal affinity art after experiencing it himself.

The woman's mystic art was of the water affinity and focused on making continuous fast-flowing attacks with the rapier, meanwhile the big guy had a fire affinity art focused on using the explosive force of fire and his hammer to blast through obstacles. The brown-haired man's metal affinity art made use of the metal affinities powerful offensive capabilities to shred everything in its path. Owari felt he would gain some insight into mystic arts in general with these so he kept them to read later. Even if he didn't intend to learn someone else's mystic art he wasn't afraid to take lessons from them to develop his own in the future.

As expected when Owari reached the city again late that night they didn't suddenly become aware that he had killed anyone. The guards on duty even asked if he was okay seeing his clothing and bandages, and after he reassured them it was only superficial wounds he made his way home to get some rest. His lungs felt like they were on fire and his muscles hadn't been this sore probably ever. Using his physical body, no matter how powerful it was, to fight back against a true mystic art was very taxing on him. Not to mention he had caused a backlash in his body by forcing his body to act when he wasn't ready. He would need to work on that in the future, it was way too big of a weakness to not be able to respond as fast as possible when needed.

For now though he was exhausted and in pain so he just passed out. He had even gotten back much later than usual because of the pain when he breathed making it hard for him to move at full speed. When he woke up he wasn't really feeling much better but he couldn't just sit around doing nothing just yet. He went and checked if anyone left him any messages and found that nobody had stopped by while he was gone. This didn't surprise him since Lance was gone, he and Rebecca already had plans to meet after he got back, and he knew that Noel was going to be pretty busy soon and wouldn't have much free time since she needed to put some finishing touches on somethings so she can start going out and doing her actual training. Since that was the case he made his way to a textiles shop and bought some grey cloth that fit his haori’s texture. He planned to use grey to fix it up to represent the metal element that had torn it.

When he got the materials he needed he went back to his place and started to fix up his haori. It was quite damaged and would need a decent amount of work. Luckily it wasn't the most physically intensive labor so he wouldn't risk stimulating his wounds by doing it. Of course it was still difficult especially with wounds hampering him but he made do. He did his best to recover over the course of the day, and as the end of the day approached he managed to finish his work. Since he had a little time he did some light reading on kid care and got a much better understanding of the way kids think by the time he got up and left to go to Rebecca's house. Even if he was a bit injured his plans wouldn't change. He got up and made his way over, and when he knocked on the door the one who answered was the little blonde girl. When she saw Owari she didn't say anything and rushed off into the house back into the living room area. A few moments later Rebecca walked out with the girl by her side. "So you really did come huh?"

"I'm not really one for lying." Owari shrugged.

"The honest type huh? Did your coat change?" She seemed to notice this as she got a bit closer and was surprised.

"It got damaged so I fixed it." Owari answered back before gesturing at the kid. "Still in charge of the kids?"

"Yeah, the preliminary investigations will be done soon. Then I'll be going out to get some experience so they'll be left with the usual caretakers." She didn't give away how she felt about the matter and used a rather plain tone.

"I see." Owari only nodded in response and Rebecca led him into the house where he proceeded to sit in the same spot as he had last time.

When he walked into the room the kids all seemed to notice, especially Erica who stared at him for a bit before going back to reading something. Rebecca started to talk as soon as they had sat down. "So how have you been doing since the train incident? I never really got the chance to ask you how you handled it."

"What do you mean? It happened and then it was over, not much else to say honestly." Owari didn't really think much about it, he wasn't one to get held up in the past.

"I see. Well at least it hasn't caused you any issues. Some of the people who survived it refuse to leave the city, a few of the backliners from back then even gave up and looked for more secure work here in the city." Rebecca seemed to empathize with them.

"What about you? Does it frighten you?" Owari felt she was different from himself regarding combat and danger in general, he could sense her hesitation. This came from both his aura sensing from the ghost eye moth and his intuition as combat maniac.

"I'm not afraid of fighting." She didn't look like she was interested in showing her real feelings and she immediately became more guarded.

"Alright." Owari didn't push it, he wasn't sure what he would do even if she admitted it so it was better to let her go at her own pace in this type of thing. Not to mention they aren't really all that close.

After that the atmosphere was slightly off, but luckily Rebecca was a good conversationalist and got things rolling. In the end both of them were a bit unsure of one another, after all among the four of them these two had the least in common. However she was someone who was used to interacting with people she didn't know much or even like so this was easy. As they talked about random stuff the kids started to get antsy, the game they had made last time was nowhere to be seen and they hadn't found anything to distract themselves with. Eventually they started to crowd around Rebecca and would interrupt their conversation to ask her for things to do. Eventually they just started to interrupt her anytime she tried to talk at all and she was starting to get annoyed. She wasn't their mother and she had been watching them everyday for over a week, and she looked ready to explode. It was a bit much to ask someone nnot even in their twenties to look after a bunch of kids she didn't know well without much warning.

"You might want to stop bothering her." Owari warned the two boys who were in the middle of trying to tell her about how talented everyone said they were for the seventh or so time.

"And why should we listen to you?" The blonde kid asked smugly.

Owari thought about it for a bit, even he could see Rebecca slowly losing her cool and he was also slightly annoyed with these kids. He had even gone out of his way to promise to come back and have a proper chat with her and these two kids were getting in the way. He also noticed it was whenever Rebecca tried to talk to him which showed they were purposefully trying to get in the way. "A fast way to make someone hate you is to get in their way when they try to talk to their friends." Owari decided to take a page out of the books he read earlier. Supposedly it was better to go about teaching lessons indirectly since it led to kids making their own conclusions which makes it easier for them to remember and more personal.

"She wouldn't hate us." The bigger boy said this like it was a fact.

"And why is that? Is she your mother? Your sister? Have you known each other long?" Owari asked curiously, wondering why the boy was so sure.

"She's like us." He answered back after a few moments, seemingly having no other answer.

"Is that so? How come you don't get along with Erica then?" When he heard the answer he wondered what that even met, but he guessed it meant they were all raised by the Sapphire agency.

"She doesn't get along with us." The blonde boy jumped in. "She always ignores us."

"Just because someone isn't talking doesn't mean they are ignoring you." Owari felt kids were quite dumb honestly, going about things in such a roundabout way just to teach them a simple lesson was tiring. But he knew if he just explained it to them, with their pride they'd ignore him.

"But that's what all the adults say." The bigger boy jumped back in when he started to regain his confidence.

"Do you always listen to adults?" Owari raised his eyebrow at that, after all if they did he wouldn't be in the situation.

"Of course." The blonde boy said with confidence.

"Then how come you keep arguing with me and not letting Rebecca talk? The two of us are adults you know?" Owari watched as the two kids thought about how to respond and failed. "It seems you only listen when adults tell you what you want to hear. But you want to know something about me?" Owari asked them this as they were about to throw out some half baked excuse as kids usually do.

"What?" They both asked back a bit apprehensively.

"I don't care about your feelings. And I'm not afraid to tell you how things really are." Owari answered back honestly. "I don't like you, in fact I find you two intolerable and too much like one of my old friends. The reason I say old friend is because I no longer consider him a friend. Do you know why?" Seeing Owari being so openly rude to them when they had always been treated nicely caused the two to go speechless. When they heard his question they just shook their heads. "Because I can't stand him. He is full of himself, thinks he's better than everyone, and constantly thinks everyone needs to pay attention to him. Just like you two. People like that don't have friends, they have people who pretend to be their friends while secretly hating them. Do you want to be like that?" Owari didn't bother to sugarcoat his words, even if he knew he should do so for kids, he wouldn't.

The two kids just stood there looking at him for a bit, unsure of what to do. They had never met anyone who was willing to talk to them like this. Not even their own parents would be so mean to them. After a little over half a minute of silence they started to tear up and ran off. Rebecca looked over at Owari completely stunned. "That was very rude of you."

"People need negativity in their lives. Not everything is kind and happy. Sometimes things go wrong and if you don't know how to handle it then you can only fall apart. Now it's your turn, I'm not good at talking so I couldn't teach them the lesson they need to learn. You'll probably be able to do it though." Owari had a few plans for how to deal with the situation based on how the kids responded, this had luckily been one of them so everything was fine. He mostly just didn't feel like dealing with them anymore.

"What is this, good cop bad cop?" Rebecca chuckled as she heard his explanation.

"I just don't feel like dealing with them anymore. They aren't my problem now that they aren't bothering me." Owari answered honestly, getting a faint laugh out of Rebecca. She hadn't expected that to be the answer.

"I'll go talk to them, you can leave if you get bored of waiting. I have no idea how long it will take since I've never done anything like this." Rebecca sighed and stood up before leaving the room to chase the kids.

Owari thought for a bit and walked over to Erica. "Have you been studying the notes I left?" When she nodded he was slightly relieved. "Have you already memorized them?" She shook her head. "Then how come you aren't studying them now?" She didn't respond back right away, and instead she looked up at Owari with some uncertainty. "Are you stuck on something?" He wondered aloud, getting a nod. "Show me."

When he said that she brought out the notes from just beside her and started to point out a few terms and phrases. "I don't know what these mean." She finally spoke up for the first time to say this.

"Alright, I'll help you out. Respiration is the act of breathing in and out..." Owari quickly got to work explaining some of the more complicated terms and phrases before moving onto technical instructions. She was also having trouble with getting the timing right on certain exercises. He had to explain that it was because she needed practice and to build up lung strength. Unlike Owari who spent his whole life training this stuff she had only just started and needed to build up the basics. It turns out she was actually surprisingly impatient as she skipped some steps. He had to impress upon her the importance of the basics. After about twenty minutes suddenly Owari heard a voice from the side.

"How long are you going to stay here?" Looking over he realized the little girl from before had been here all along being quiet. He was surprised she had stayed quiet so long,

"Good question. I should probably go, it would be rude to stay longer. Erica, if you need me to help you again just ask Rebecca and she can bring you over." Owari said this and then left with Erica showing some unwillingness and the little girl being quite surprised. She hadn't expected him to leave just because she asked and she wondered if she upset him. Little did she know that Owari was just being considerate of Rebecca so she was left wondering for nothing. Luckily kids don't tend to dwell on things and she forgot about it shortly after.

He walked back home and laid down to sleep early, his wounds still needed some time to recover. He figured it would take three or four days to get back on his feet fully recovered. Going out before then would be dumb so he'd be stuck in town. In the end he decided to just spend the next few days meditating and reading the mystic arts manuals to pass the time. The next day cam and Owari woke up early as usual, he didn't bother dressing up and only wore a light shirt and pants. He immediately got to work on reading, he was quite interested to see how mystic arts worked. Although he got a slight overview from Noel she had never shared much of the specifics because of her family rules.

According to the manuals the most important part of using a mystic art was having the ability to detect and feel your internal mana. This was easy for Owari who had a lot of experience detecting mana. Once you could feel your mana it was all about learning to detect changes within it, specifically when it came to learning from a preexisting mystic art it would be about learning to match up the movements of your body and mana to match the changes needed to perform specific techniques. For example the silver arc of metal affinity mana that was used to attack Owari. In order to use that technique as you swung your sword the mana and metal affinity inside you would be stimulated and when they reached a boiling point of sorts it would rush forward. Then all you had to do was swing your sword and the arc of silver mana will be released.

Of course how you stimulated your mana and affinity is different for each technique. Some techniques required stillness and then a sudden movement to force the mana into action, while others required constant action to slowly bring the mana into action. However the thing that remained the same is that it was a combination of physical movements and mental focus that brought mana into action. Unless you actually focused on your mana it would never move even if you made the right motion. Owari for instance never focused on his mana, so he had never felt it react regardless of the movements he made or actions he took. Moving past the mana side of things and into the physical aspect, every technique required specific key actions to release the attack. Owari recalled that a lot of Noel's attacks for instance required her to cross her gloves in front of her chest.

For the silver arc it required the swing of a sword, and for that silver line it required you to stab your sword into the ground. Owari felt this was a bit unfortunate, after all what was the point if you had to telegraph your attacks all the time? But mystic arts were quite powerful, and for most people they were necessary to fight magical beasts, so they had no choice but to be used. Owari decided to develop a mystic art that is as untelegraphed as possible. He actively disliked making his movements easily read even in exchange for a stronger maneuver. After all he could easily dodge or block an attack if he saw it coming. For instance that silver line would have killed him had he not noticed the very obvious signs of that guy using some big move and stabbing his sword into the ground.

As he was going over all of these things and as noon started closing in, Owari heard a knock on his door which caught his attention. He walked over to the door and checked out through the peephole to confirm who it was and opened the door to reveal Noel standing there in her work attire. "I didn't expect you to show up, I thought you were busy at work."

"I had some time off for lunch today so I came to see if you'd like to join me. Food is better with company after..." Her words trailed off as she narrowed her eyes. "Did you get injured?" She asked as she looked over the bandages on his arm.

"Nothing serious, it'll be healed in a few days. Because of that I'll be in town a bit longer than usual this time to rest. As for lunch I wouldn't mind joining you." As he said that he walked over and grabbed his haori and swords, at the same time his room was open to view. There were books scattered open across the floor and a stack off to one corner, meanwhile other than that it was spotless.

"You're quite the reader huh?" Noel calmed herself down and became relaxed again. She wasn't too worried about his injuries, they were both hunters after all and danger was part of their lives. She had been forced to face that a bit unexpectedly and had worried for a moment when she realized he could easily die without her even knowing it out in the wilderness, but she decided not to think about it. This was the life they had both chosen and enjoyed, so she wouldn't interfere.

"I like to make sure I'm properly prepared for anything." Owari put his stuff on and walked towards the door.

Before he got to the door Noel was casually glancing around the books to see what kind of stuff he was preparing for when she noticed a few books by the foot of his bed that caused her to be surprised. Sitting there were a couple of books with titles like 'On Childcare' and 'How to interact with children effectively'. Seeing them she wondered what it was he was reading books like that for and she couldn't help but look at him strangely for a moment. However she chose not to mention it as they left and went out to the usual place for lunch. Although she could easily have her mind run wild with thoughts of this and that, she didn't think too deeply about it. It wasn't her style to worry about these things, not to mention Owari didn't come off as the type of person to think about that stuff. He was likely reading them for some other reason she wasn't aware of and if it was important he would just tell her. So she quickly let the books leave her mind and enjoyed this little date of theirs. She was already stressed and worried enough about work let alone this.

The two walked along as Noel shared her past few days, it was a relaxed and enjoyable walk as always though a bit shorter than usual. They sat at the same table as always and prepared to eat. The girl behind the counter was a bit surprised by Noel's change in attire as she had worn a sundress and straw hat the previous few times she was here. This time however she was in a pair of stylish slacks and a button-up suit top. It was very handsome, and although it was more fitting as men's formal attire she wasn't the type to try and appeal to her womanly charm so a dress wouldn't fit her as much. In fact the only reason she dressed the way she did for the day's out with Owari was because of the compliment he had given her back before they had arrived in the city.

They ordered the usual and although Noel was a bit more careful to avoid ruining her work attire, the two ate as quickly as usual. After that they sat back and talked for a short bit before having to separate. Honestly they were both a bit unwilling as they were used to spending much more time together when they actually came together. Even Owari was less accepting of the separation than he expected as they went back to their own things. It felt like they had barely had the chance to even talk before they were off again. However even though neither was happy with it they also weren't children who would throw a tantrum about it.

They quickly reset their moods and did their best to get back to work. Owari had a lot more to research in regards to mystic arts, and Noel had some final preparations to make before she would regain a lot of her freedom and could go out to explore and fight as she had originally wanted to. Like this they both continued doing their own thing, though after what happened they both found themselves thinking of the other slightly more often than they had been before.