Semilir City, Syata, Cander Street. There stood a simple multi-story rental house with brick architecture in the style of the Sheak Empire; inside, it was equipped with adequate facilities for living and offered at an affordable price for them.
The brown-eyed man sat in an armchair with his legs crossed, reading a newspaper with a serious expression. He paid no attention to the three other people nearby until a strange piece of news, though seemingly trivial, caught his attention.
"Another death," he said with a sigh, folding the newspaper and looking at the three people sitting before him.
A blue-eyed woman with black hair tied into a bun responded to the statement with a serious demeanor.
"How many victims have been identified?" she asked, leaning slightly forward.
Arvrenda Guelhram blinked.
"Seven; each victim died in a different manner," he answered while straightening his legs and crossing his arms over his chest.
Zaharon raised an eyebrow, his fingers tapping his chin in a steady rhythm that echoed in his mind. The previous reports alone were enough to burden his thoughts, especially today, the day when the ruler of the city would emerge from his lair.
"You heard it, right?" Zaharon muttered for confirmation, his gaze sweeping across the three of them.
Arvrenda and Zeta, who were sitting before him, nodded, while Aurora raised her hand; she appeared impatient to know where this conversation was heading.
"I'm not entirely certain," Zaharon said in a somewhat skeptical tone. "But our friend said there's a 'Hollow' roaming around Semilir City. This news came alongside reports about James Moriarty, a criminal who killed a man believed to be Zavi Actitus and was involved in the conspiracy behind the disappearance of that bandit group."
Lately, the atmosphere at night in Semilir was no longer as tense as before. Workers and pedestrians often discussed the disappearance of the bandit group as well as the parliament's strange maneuvers, which had aroused suspicion among the citizens.
However, not everything was bad; considering the riots two years ago, it was unlikely that the citizens would be provoked into repeating a similar incident. Government corruption had disgusted the people; even parliamentary campaigns attended by the city's high-ranking officials were often targeted by activists opposing the ridiculous policies of the city government.
Reports of criminal activity were simply ignored, leaving citizens to struggle through days filled with both criminal and supernatural threats, while officials sat comfortably in their rooms, laughing together within their circle of inevitability. Now, things had changed. The criminal group was gone, and James Moriarty had become a target of the authorities; however, the citizens who had once benefited from his actions continued to support him by spreading newspapers to other cities and uniting to overthrow the city's corrupt leadership.
Even so, not everyone took part in this struggle, considering that every individual had obligations and loved ones, especially family, whom they had to take care of.
"Corruption isn't just about money," Zaharon said with a cynical smile. "There's some truth to that, isn't there?"
"Yes," Arvrenda replied indifferently.
As a doctor in Moran City, she understood very well that the culture of corruption had taken root for centuries.
The division of the Sheak Empire and Leh'en, which had once been united, had triggered a civil war, which subsequently gave rise to various powerful rulers who governed the newly formed territories.
"For now," Aurora said, "we're going to leave this place, because the city is going to..."
"Riots again," Zeta interrupted.
All three of them looked at him simultaneously, their pupils widening, not from surprise, but because they could not deny the fact.
How could they know? The answer was simple: the group led by Ferrera Ammense had sent information to Team Two through an intermediary, Zaharon Kavatusce.
....
Makoli City, Verce, Dahsu Street.
On Tuesday morning, after returning from the scene, Albert and his fellow comrades found themselves facing several problems at once.
Sodet had fallen ill with a high fever and cough, rendering him unable to continue the investigation into the prolonged sleeping sickness.
"What now?" Luke asked, occasionally glancing at Sodet, who lay weakly beside him, delirious.
Albert blinked, then looked at Sodet before turning his gaze toward him.
"Just leave him," he replied in a somewhat indifferent tone. "Personally, I don't want to risk stopping this search."
Luke fell silent for a moment, his heart pounding as he sank into his thoughts.
'Feyne isn't here. She went with Albert's subordinate... I don't even know what I'm actually thinking, constantly worrying about her condition. Is this what they call love? There's no way she'd be willing to go through all this trouble just because of a debt problem.'
After pushing those thoughts aside, Luke looked at Albert with pity, hoping this tragedy would soon come to an end, and not wanting to return to that habit at all.
The story of Vinora Forn's transformation crossed his mind once again. Luke remained silent, contemplating how Resse, a being resembling an Evil Spirit, could cast such a horrifying curse upon a human like that woman.
Luke knew that out there, people could disappear without a trace; some died in occult-related incidents; some became victims of the prolonged sleeping sickness epidemic, known by various names in different places, while individuals with supernatural powers roamed freely throughout the same world.
Luke had briefly thought about the role of city officials and the government in handling these problems, but that hope faded; "they" simply did not care about their own citizens, enjoying wealth built upon the people's hard work.
"Capitalist rats," Luke muttered, his voice carrying a mixture of frustration and anger.
Albert raised an eyebrow, staring sharply at him.
"Did you say something?" Albert rose from his chair, picked up his bowler hat from the table, and deftly placed it on his head.
Luke pretended not to hear before answering,
"You're in a bad mood. I didn't say anything."
Albert slowly shook his head, then walked closer while sinking into his thoughts.
'Was he talking to himself?'
"I suppose so," Albert said with a shrug.
"Yeah," Luke replied.
After taking only three steps, Albert froze. A strange sensation passed through his mind, and a fleeting shadow was caught in the corner of his eye as he quickly turned to the left.
His breath caught, and cold sweat dampened his forehead; he stared intently without blinking at Sodet, who lay weakly on the bed.
'Was I hallucinating just now? No, I clearly saw a shadow pass by beside me just now.'
After thinking it over, Abert quickly swallowed as his body tensed, his fingers clenching tightly into fists and turning his knuckles white.
"What's wrong? Did you forget something?"
Luke's hand froze on the doorknob, his body halfway turned as he stared at Albert with a sharp and scrutinizing gaze.
A moment later, the door swung wide open on its own, causing Luke to instinctively retreat several steps.
The two men stared at the figures standing in the doorway; their eyes locked as the atmosphere in the room became tense, despite it being early in the morning.
One of them, a woman, took two steps forward from where she stood.
"We've found the person," the woman said, her gaze cold unlike what they knew of her.
"Good work."
Albert pressed his bowler hat firmly onto his head before stepping past a subordinate who was bowing in the doorway to make way for his master; the three of them then followed behind him.
....
North of Minehold, Racon, six people walked across ancient ruins, the remnants of a vanished civilization and silent witnesses to a dark tragedy when important buildings in the cities of Havanuheta Province were destroyed by irresponsible people.
The place was silent, where only piles of ruins formed a natural work of art, while the songs of birds and rustling leaves around them brought profound peace to their trapped hearts.
"Why are we going to this place?" asked a blue-eyed man in a somewhat indifferent tone.
Another man, wearing a bowler hat and possessing blue eyes that seemed to have lost the ability to see the world clearly, chuckled softly.
"Of course, to find that trace," he answered in a tone as calm as the atmosphere of the abandoned place.
Not far from them, another blue-eyed man observed his surroundings with undisguised amazement.
"This place has existed since that era," he said. "We're here to search for traces of the underworld and get out of this city."
Hearing such nonsense, Ren walked away, leaving his leader behind and approaching the person he trusted within the group.
"What exactly is that man's plan?" Ren asked seriously, as though he did not want his curiosity to eat away at him from within.
Karl turned toward him, looking at him with the usual relaxed expression he displayed, adjusting the position of his glasses as he blinked.
'I want to ask you the same thing, damn it. But this mouth... including them, they'll definitely become suspicious of the two of us. Is there any way for me to distance myself from the others?'
Although he had known Elmer Michelle for a long time, even being friends since childhood, Karl Vairanz felt deeply uneasy when he awoke several days before arriving inside the body of the Avatar he had created months ago, an Avatar that had disappeared from his sight for some time.
He seemed to have discovered Elmer Michelle's hidden motive, yet the motive itself refused to be known.
There was only one way he could think of.
His cloak.
Smiling inwardly, he turned around, looking at each of them one by one before gazing back at the trees stretching as far as the eye could see below.
"...There is something I want to investigate. You can do whatever you want while I'm gone."
Without giving any further explanation, Karl's figure shot into the air as his feet kicked against the air flowing around him, before his body disappeared from their sight.
His cloak briefly flared up rapidly with a brush of his hand, giving Ren a perfect illusion that massively affected his soul and body.
The others watched the action in confusion, including Elmer, whose gaze remained fixed on Karl's unusual behavior. Realizing that division within the group could hinder their journey, Elmer turned toward the two women and two men before sitting atop the ruins of a staircase; there, amid the rubble that seemed to resemble a hunched figure, he sat beside it while wrestling with his chaotic thoughts.