Noel and Owari had an easy time laying the trap. Owari posted his moth at the entrance that Kent took to leave the city. That way they would know when Lucas left. As for making sure he knew they were in town, that was easy. They attracted attention wherever they went and were the talk of the city whenever they went out. Because they only walked around town a few times people had all kinds of speculations about what they did whenever they weren’t on their dates.

It only took about twenty minutes for Lucas to sneak out of the city under Owari’s watchful eye. He smiled slightly and looked at Noel. “He’s as stupid and full of himself as always. Though it seems he will be somewhat troublesome.”

“Why’s that?” She asked curiously.

“He has a white tiger.” Owari chuckled. “Seems to be low platinum. I figured he was only gaining his hunter rank based solely on his own ability.”

“So he really is talented. Too bad the world is about to lose that talent today.” Noel didn’t show any signs of regret however.

“Let’s go.” Owari declared and the two moved out and followed Lucas from a short distance. It wasn’t hard for skilled hunters such as them to fool the senses of Lucas, and because his tiger was so strong as long as they didn’t give off the presence of strong people it would ignore them.

The two of them tailed their target well into the forest. The white tiger was able to parse out Kent’s scent somehow and was tracking him. Owari sent his moth ahead to locate Kent. When they started to approach him Owari and Noel jumped into the trees and jumped down in front of the tiger and its master. When he saw the two of them Lucas was shocked.

“Weren’t you two in town?” He asked in disbelief.

“Of course, but now we aren’t.” Owari smiled.

Lucas looked around for a second and breathed a sigh of relief. “Seems you didn’t bring along whatever platinum ranked beast helped you obtain your rank. My white tiger will make short work of you.” He sneered.

“Can I take the tiger?” Noel asked casually, ignoring Lucas entirely.

“Not this time. This is an experienced beast. It might have the power of a low platinum rank, but its fighting skill easily makes it mid platinum. It’s also a top-class predator.” Owari carefully eyed the beast. His initial estimate was off it seemed. It was at this moment that the beast let off the pressure of an apex predator which it normally reigned in. This caused everyone but Owari to freeze for a moment. Noel sweated a bit but she recovered quickly. Ironically it was Lucas who panicked the most.

“I get it.” Noel shook the stiffness from her arms.

“Attack them already.” Lucas ordered. He had been mentally ordering it this whole time but it refused to budge. It could sense the danger from Owari and it dared not act rashly.

“Seems that the beast is smarter than you. Not that I’m surprised.” Owari mocked him.

Before Lucas could respond however Kent came out from the bushes nearby. “Did I miss it?” He questioned, only to see the white tiger and feel its aura. He froze for a few moments before acclimating.

“Seems they’ll be harder than initially expected. You can face Lucas. I’ll take the tiger. Noel you can watch out for him.” Owari quickly gave everyone the battle plan and the fight began.

The white tiger couldn’t sit by any longer. It may have had the patience to keep the stalemate, but its master’s insistence ordering for an attack overcame its instincts. It opened its mouth and light coalesced inside of it. At the same time metal energy surrounded Owari’s blade as he used his spirit art silver wave to gather energy.

Owari swung and released the wave as the ball of light shot forward at high speeds. The raw energy of light and metal collided and the mana within mixed as they clashed between the two attackers. This caused energy to fluctuate in the air and everyone felt a tingle on their skin before the two energies swelled and mixed before dispersing into the air harmlessly. This meant the two attacks were equal in power.

Lucas was shocked and more than a little afraid. Meanwhile Noel and Kent were equally as shocked, the power behind those attacks was immense. While Kent was a little scared, Noel knew she was very close to achieving the same power herself. Owari and the tiger silently agreed to move the battle and soon the two were off into a nearby clearing where they could both make use of their full ability. Meanwhile the other group stayed behind among the trees to fight.

Owari smiled bitterly as he entered the clearing with the tiger. It might seem like they were equal but that was untrue. Metal is inherently more powerful than light in terms of raw strength. The fact that his attack canceled out along with the enemies showed he was on the weaker side. On top of that the gap between low and mid platinum was too high to just overcome it like he had been doing so far. The platinum rank was a lot different than the previous ranks simply because the gap between platinum and electrum was massive. In order for that gap to be overcome the various levels within a rank also have a bigger gap between them.

Owari knew he wouldn’t be able to win from the very start. His only hope was for Kent to kill Lucas and to call it a draw between him and the tiger. It was a time trial for survival. With that in mind Owari dodged to the side as a light bullet fired at him. He used his phantom affinity to obscure his movements as he dodged bullet after bullet. A few grazed him and singed his skin but he was otherwise fine.

Realizing this wasn’t working the tiger chose a different method to attack. It flashed forward in a beam of light and swung its claws at Owari. Owari used his silver wave to collide with the attack, killing a lot of the momentum before reinforcing his body with earth mana and being swatted backward. As he rolled across the ground he reversed his grip on his blade and struck it into the ground as he got back to his feet.

Luckily the raw force of this tiger was only low platinum, it was mostly mid silver because of skill. It quickly flashed forward again, but this time Owari knew better and used his dark speed step to dodge to the side. This continued a few times with the two of them moving at light speed, one trying to attack and the other to dodge. Eventually the tiger realized this also wouldn’t work and gave up. Unfortunately for Owari he was quickly running out of mana. While his reserves had reached a massive quantity compared to when he first began hunting, it was still limited.

The tiger charged another attack from its mouth however Owari had a bad feeling and suddenly used wind step to jump into the air as the tiger roared and sent a beam of light out before sweeping it across the ground. As it saw Owari dodge up it also pointed the attack up at him. He quickly jumped to the side making the attack miss as it used up the last of the light.

Owari used the spirit art version of wind step, which he called wind walk, to stand mid-air as he thought about what to do. However he wasn’t given much chance as the tiger flashed forward and appeared in front of him. He enhanced his body with earth mana as the lightspeed attack hit him and sent him flying at the ground. Having no way of killing his momentum mid-air he smashed into the ground tearing away large swaths of dirt and kicking up debris.

The breath was knocked out of him and his body ached. He had broken a few ribs and dislocated his shoulder. He quickly reset it as he rolled to the side dodging another light speed strike. At these speeds you have to rely on instinct and not sight or hearing. As he stood up he reinforced his body with water mana alleviating some of the pain in his body.

The tiger looked at Owari curiously for a moment, no longer just attacking. It seemed amused, but not in a deriding way. It seemed it had never been able to go all out on an opponent like this. It had merely been taught how to fight and sent out to help Lucas. This could be seen in its linear attacking method that left little to the imagination. It was too mechanical in its attack methods.

Owari stood still as he shared a look with the tiger. He had as deep a respect for the strong as any magical beast would. He respected his opponent but he also wanted to survive and to win. He stepped forward with dark speed steep and used dark steel fang to split open its leg as he flashed past it. Unlike him it clearly did not have the instinct to dodge light speed attacks. Realizing this, Owari found his opening. He flashed past one more time and split another leg. The tiger yowled in pain.

It looked at Owari with some anger and flashed towards him. Owari dodged to the side, but not at light speed. The tiger attacked as soon as it reappeared but it was shocked to find Owari gone, then it felt pain in its side as Owari sliced into its flank. The tiger swiped towards that direction only for Owari to roll forward under its body and split the other flank before using dark speed step to put some distance between them.

It was at this moment the tiger suddenly stopped as though it sensed something. It looked over towards Lucas and Kent’s battle before trying to flash away. As it did though it felt an immense sense of danger. But it was too late, Owari used the gap in its attention to flash forward in its path and used dark steel bite.

The area the tiger passed through was now filled with razor-sharp blades which it flew straight through. It materialized a short distance away and rolled across the ground spraying blood across the forest floor before smashing into a tree and snapping it in half. Owari chuckled as he watched the tiger shakily get to its legs.

“You should never take your eyes off the enemy.” Owari chided it.

The tiger was in no shape to humor his words though. It was covered in numerous cuts all across its body, some even as deep as the bone. It had lost an eye and an ear, and it's front left leg was barely hanging on. It collapsed shortly after barely managing to give a hateful glare to Owari as if it was daring him to try and kill it.

However Owari also collapsed to one knee and used his sword to prop himself up. He had burned into his vital mana to use that last attack. He was unable to continue to fight using mana. He had used too much mana at the beginning of the fight trying to delay the fight. The tiger suddenly yowled happily and tried to stand once again but failed. It was at this time that Noel came over while dragging Kent across the ground by one arm.

“Can’t you be more gentle?” He whined.

“Only to Owari.” Noel joked. When she saw the scene of the battle she sighed. “Was it that hard?”

“I should be dead.” Owari smiled bitterly. This was in no way his victory. If not for that opportune moment he would be dead. He had too little mana to keep up the fight any longer. He was lucky to be alive. “Go tame that guy.” He told Noel.

Noel walked over after unceremoniously dropping Kent and approached the tiger. It looked at her venomously, however she ignored it and began attempting to tame it. Instead of threatening it she was slowly coaxing it and reassuring it that she was a better master than her last. It was hard because she still had to remove the other brand. Owari used this chance to consume a bottle of blood restoration medicine. Then he used silver wave to burn almost all of his mana causing his body to feel like it was on fire.

“Almost done.” Noel told him.

“Alright.” Owari nodded and walked over to Kent. “What happened to you?”

Kent smiled bitterly. “I couldn’t kill him. He’s still over there. But he at least has only one leg.”

“Did Noel not do it?” Owari was surprised.

“She said she didn’t want his blood on her hands or it would make her feel disgusted. So she said to come and get you to do it.” Kent struggled to talk.

“Why are you so weak? What happened?” Owari asked curiously.

“He used some kind of paralyzing agent coated needle and tried to kill me with it. According to Noel, without her medicine I would have died from heart failure.” He was still scared by it.

“So you let your guard down and got bitten by the cornered rat? I thought I taught you better.” Owari looked at him with sharp eyes.

“You did, I just had a momentary lapse in judgment!” He didn’t want to be punished. Considering what their help was like he didn’t want to see the opposite.

“You’ve been punished enough, and hopefully learned your lesson.” Owari stood up and made his way over to Lucas.

He rapidly approached and reached Lucas who was trying to crawl away while semi-conscious. He had lost a lot of blood, but his wounds had mostly sealed, probably thanks to some kind of medicine. As he approached he went around and stood in front of his old friend without a hint of pity.

“You...” Lucas looked up in shock. “You wouldn’t kill an old friend would you?” He smiled forcefully, trying to appeal to Owari.

“You burned that bridge when you met me again.” Owari said with a cold voice before reversing the grip on his sword. He walked over and stabbed it down unceremoniously piercing Lucas’ heart.

“I…” He tried to speak one more time but died before he could finish.

Owari didn’t bother going through his stuff. He wanted nothing to do with this person ever again. He walked back to Noel and Kent and his frown turned into a light smile. There was no need to let that event get him down. Why think so much about it? He killed his enemy, nothing more and nothing less.

“You seem to be in a good mood.” Noel noted as she finished taming the tiger.

“Am I?” Owari wondered out loud. Why would he be in a good mood? Shouldn’t he be sad or regretful?

“It seems you hated him more than you thought.” Noel had gotten used to the various mannerisms of Owari, and she knew without a doubt he was happy.

“I see. If you say so it must be true.” Owari looked at the sky with a frown.

“Is something wrong?” She asked seeing his frown.

“No, I’m just taking in the scenery. You know, I’ve killed a lot of people. I never enjoy it, but I don’t feel anything about it either. It’s not about liking it or hating it. It’s just that it’s something that happens. I now understand how weird that is.” Owari had only just now for the first time experienced something while killing another person. What terrified him was that apparently he enjoyed it.

Noel walked over to him and hugged him. “Don’t think about it so much. It’s not like you.” She could see the uncertainty on his face. It made her uneasy. She had never once seen him afraid.

“You’re right.” He sighed. “I suppose if I killed someone I really cared about I’d feel the opposite right now.” He decided to rationalize it to make it easier to accept.

“You sure are scary.” Kent said from nearby. “You’ve killed a lot of people?”

“You tend to have to do so in this line of work. If not for the fact that you are still new and have had me and Noel around for a while you would have had to do so as well.” Owari still recalled all of the people the Howling Wulf Agency had sent to kill the three of them.

“Oh.” Kent didn’t say anything else about it.

“You feeling better now?” Noel asked.

“Yeah, thanks.” Owari sighed.

Noel separated from him after a few moments. “Let’s all go back.” She ordered overly seriously.

“Sure.” Owari laughed.

“What about me?” Kent asked pitifully.

“I’ll get you.” Noel ‘graciously’ offered.

“I’d rather stay here.” He refused.

“I got this.” Owari walked over and grabbed Kent’s shirt and lifted him like a sack of potatoes and threw him over his shoulder.

“I’m not sure which is worse.” He sighed.

“How much longer do you think he’ll be poisoned?” Owari ignored the whining Kent and asked Noel.

“Probably a few hours. I’m not a doctor.” She shrugged.

“Well let’s just take him to his house and dump him off.” Owari half shrugged.

“Wait you aren’t taking me to a hospital?” Kent asked apprehensively.

“Unless you want to pay a massive bill then yes. I’m not paying this one.” Owari chuckled.

“I’m fine with going home.” As always people would obviously want to suffer through than go get an expensive bill.

Owari laughed. “By the way Noel, how’s that tiger doing?”

“Pretty good. It has good vitality so it’s already back up and moving. You’d be dead about now if I hadn’t tamed it.” She was a bit shocked when she said it, he came so close to dying just a bit ago.

“As expected. I’m not strong enough for a mid platinum huh?” Owari just laughed it off. No use rushing things. He was still young.

“Seems not, though you’re close.” Noel wanted to get stronger more quickly to keep up with Owari. There was no way she’d be satisfied being the weaker one all the time.

Owari had an idea of what she was thinking so he didn’t say anything. No matter what he said it would probably dampen her mood. The best thing to do would be to say nothing. It was things like this that allowed the two to be so harmonious. They were not only good at reading the other’s mood, but also of knowing when to stay quiet and when to talk. It also helped that the two felt very indebted to the other and want to be very supportive of them. It was easy to acquiesce when you owed your life or your happiness to someone.

Kent who was sitting on Owari’s shoulder was rolling his eyes as the two of them had their own private moment as if he wasn’t there. Eventually though the group quieted down and made their way back to the city. When they got back they dropped Kent off at his budget inn, which was a lot like the Owari stayed at but a bit worse, and separated from there. Owari and Noel took some time to walk around and enjoy a full date.

Of course first they rented out a temporary space for the tiger. “What should we do with it?” Noel asked Owari though she had a few ideas herself.

“We could always ride home and drop it off there. It’ll cut into the trip, but we could always sightsee on the way to liven things up.” Owari suggested.

“It’ll also be the perfect chance for me to bond with it. He still seems a bit jumpy around people. He was probably treated pretty poorly.” She sighed.

“That’s par for the course for Howling Wulf. They don’t care about the feelings of their beasts most of the time.” Owari also sighed.

“I can see that, poor thing.” Noel felt it was quite pitiful, being so powerful yet subject to such poor treatment.

Owari chuckled. “They are quite stupid huh? I suppose that’s normal for people who have such big egos though. Everything is beneath them, even their source of power. Only fools and arrogant brats join that agency.” He said this aloud, not caring at all who overheard him. Nobody openly challenged him however.

“I’m still wondering one thing, shouldn’t Lucas have known you were strong? After all the Howling Wulf Agency members around here would have been told about you. Why was he shocked to see your rank?” She couldn’t help but wonder.

“He probably assumed it wasn’t me, either that or he never paid attention to begin with. Maybe it didn’t connect with him until after you showed him my hunter license. Either way if you recall he only went after Kent because we weren’t there. Obviously he had an idea that we were strong. It probably just didn’t sink in that they were talking about me. They don’t really know my name after all. It’s not like anyone who knows my name would hand it out to them easily.” Owari was also curious but this was the only answer he could come up with.

“True enough I suppose. Seeing how he acted he probably only half paid attention when they explained it to him. That’s probably why he thought you used a beast to get your rank” Noel laughed.

The two walked around for the rest of the day and soon night fell. After going to sleep they woke up and did some walking around again as they discussed when they should leave. In the end they decided the next day would be for the best. So they made their way to Kent’s home to tell him. When they knocked on the door it took a moment before he opened the door.

“Thanks for last night. I would have hated to die because of such a dumb mistake.” He sighed.

“It’s fine. Our job as teachers is to help you learn from your mistakes after all, not let you die pointlessly.” Owari replied.

“As for why we are here today, it is to inform you that we intend to leave tomorrow.” Noel interrupted to get to the point before they got sidetracked.

“Is that so?” Kent seemed a bit disappointed.

“We will see one another again in January should you attend the party.” Noel felt like he looked like a pitiful puppy so she reassured him.

“What’s it like?” He was with interest.

“Every year in January at the end of the month is a meeting between everyone below the age of twenty who has reached gold rank. It’s filled with geniuses of all types. The details depend on who is holding the event. Here.” Owari handed him a crystal bank card. “I gave it enough money to reach there and back, don’t use it on anything else.”

“I won’t.” Kent reassured him.

“Good.” Owari didn’t waste words. “As for what to wear, try not to be too casual.”

“You don’t take me as the type to care about that stuff.” Kent was surprised.

“It’s an important day. Plus Noel and Morgana wouldn’t let me go like this even if I wanted to.” Owari chuckled.

“I guess that makes sense.” He nodded.

“You should be able to figure out the rest. By the way I have something to do with you today before we leave.” Owari smiled.

“Please don’t tell me it’s more training. My body is still stiff.” Kent smiled bitterly. The poison proved stronger than expected and was still affecting him.

“No, I have someone to introduce you to. It involves that aquila you tamed the other day. Of course if you don’t want to, I understand.” Owari answered.

“Who is it?” Kent asked curiously.

“The local Aquila family representative.” Owari smiled as he saw Kent’s shock.

“Why would you do that?” Kent was unable to hold back his surprise.