บท 97: The Place of Sunrise

"Give me the plant and fruits on the list you harvested.", Allen went straight to the point.

After spending a few more hours on the fields around the Ryon City, Allen and Edwin met back at the entrance of the city right before sunset.

Edwin took out a knapsack containing the plants that he obtained on Allen's list and gave it to him; afterwards, the latter hid it in his own satchel.

"Do you want to eat dinner in a tavern or restaurant?", Allen asked.

"No, I want to go back to the villa immediately.", Edwin shook his head.

"Alright, I'll eat by myself then.", Allen said and looked away from him.

"Sorry, sorry, hehe...", Edwin thought Allen was angry and slowly backed away from him, he finally ran away when he got a certain distance from him.

'What's wrong with him? Is he really in love?', Allen thought.

***

Edwin returned back to the villa, went straight to his bedroom, locked the door, closed the curtains, and even turned off the magical glowstone on the ceiling. The only source of light now was the weak golden glow of the sunset.

He pulled out the Mortal Plane's Codex and turned it to a new section he got authorization of. There wasn't anything important written on the page except for a drawing of a map.

From how the map was drawn, it seemed to start from the eastern region of the Trigurniburg Kingdom on its left page and to the western lands of the Medea Republic on the right page.

"What should I do now?" Edwin asked the book.

Then the illustration of the Mendia Republic shined brightly that it lit up the whole room.

"Go there?" Edwin asked again.

-bam-

In an instant, the codex closed and crushed Edwin's hands.

"Ow! This piece of..." As he was about to finish speaking, the mark also glowed and electrocuted him to the point he jumped backwards to the wall which resulted to cracks appearing on it.

Edwin stood up with the support of the wall while holding his head. His hands already slipped out of the grip of the codex.

***

Allen strolled around the city after he ate dinner. He was somewhere in the residence district where many houses were lined up neatly along the concrete road.

He activated Energy External Sense and covered the whole living area.

Inside one of the big houses, he perceived several men gathering for a meeting. While in another room, there were another group of male enjoying somebody of their opposite gender.

However, Allen still acted indifferently and continued to wander in the area. He was about to deactivate the technique when he spotted a figure landing on top of the roof of the house.

He stopped walking and turned towards the direction where that house was. Allen stepped in a dark spot and after light reached it he was nowhere to be found.

...

Appearing on top of the nearest building where that house was, Allen was now wearing black robes and his hood shadowed his whole face, making him look he came from the care of darkness.

"Ahhh!" A pained shout came from the house and woke up the nearby people.

After that, the sounds of weapons clanging on each other reverberated out from the building causing the people who were already awaken by the earlier shout to panic.

The echoes of battle immediately dispersed as soon as it began, and a figure came out from the top of the said house and jumped towards the roofs of the buildings, escaping in the distance.

On the other hand, Allen glued his sight on the figure and followed in pursuit.

From far away, Allen's eyesight pierced through even the blanket of darkness and spotted the figure, who was wearing a mask and carrying a saber.

The figure then went down to a dark area; nevertheless, Allen still followed and landed there too.

As soon as he stepped his foot in that location, he stepped to one side and evaded a saber strike.

"Who are you?", Gavin pointed his saber towards Allen, but the latter didn't answer.

Seeing that Allen won't answer, Gavin instantly gave his all to his attacks. Afterimages show up as he aggressively assaulted.

With his hands on his back, Allen evaded the onslaughts without making any major moves.

-clang-

As if materializing out of nothing, Allen pulled out his curved sword from the sleeves of his robes and parried the saber away.

Although caught off guard by the sudden appearance of the sword, Gavin still didn't back off and continued the repeated attacks.

However, Allen kept his unperturbed posture and after a few minutes of fending off Gavin's attacks, the latter seemed to get exhausted and his strikes slowed down.

Gavin backed down and retreated a few steps away from Allen. Even after all of his explosive assaults, he didn't even see the other side getting fatigued nor creating an opening while defending.

Now, he was starting to get worried about the black-robed man's purpose on following him, who he didn't know was Allen.

He inwardly speculated that the man was sent to finish him off for bothering too much in the operations of the group he was taking care off.

In a blink of an eye, Gavin saw Allen's vacant hand getting a small black throwing knives from under his sleeves and did a few tricks and gestures with it and its number multiplied like magic and he readied to throw all of them.

Alarmed by the abrupt increase of knives, Gavin's eyes under the mask widened and raised his saber to block the knives.

But Allen unforseenly changed the trajectory of the knives and sent them away towards the air above Gavin.

-pshew-

"Ahhh!", pains of shout came from the darkness and three bodies landed to the ground and blood began leaking out of them. However, they were still breathing.

As if knowing what was happening, Gavin also slashed the space behind him, and blood unexpectedly spurted out of it.

A man whose blood flowing out of his throat became visible and his body laid to the earth.

Gavin then began to look around him and further heightened his senses. Finally, he slashed somewhere to his side, and a human body fell again.

Allen slid his sword back in his robes and sent out more throwing knives towards the darkness. Each time he launched a knife, a new victim was always disabled.

Other than the yells of the first three men, the succeeding battle was so quiet that one could only hear the sound of weapons whooshing through the air.

When the battle was over, Gavin killed the ones that were disabled by Allen.

Some time later, a lot of bodies were already lying dead and the pungent smell of blood permeated the air around them.

"Thank you.", Gavin said.

Allen slightly looked towards him, then rushed forward and caught the latter's wrist. Gavin was startled by what was happening and only got to collect himself when he was already pushed over a wall.

The other hand of Allen got hold of another throwing knife and pierced Gavin's wrist and pinned it to a wall.

"You! Sss... who are you?", Gavin hissed in pain as blood trickled down from the pierced wrist. Allen then dropped a flower to the ground, the same flower that Gavin gave to Edwin earlier.

After which, Allen silently left the area, ignoring more of Gavin's questions and curses.

***

Arriving back to the villa, Allen peeked quietly inside Edwin's room. Seeing that the latter was already sleeping, he closed the door.

He went to the kitchen and prepared himself some tea, after that, he carried a cup of tea and entered a room which seemed to be like a library.

The library wasn't that big, but it's enough to accomodate chairs, tables, even a podium, and a lectern on the raised platform. The setup of the furnitures inside the room made it seemed like it was a little courtroom.

He walked around the library, looking at the books displayed on the shelves.

Allen went in front of the lectern and saw an opened book on top of it. It was a bit dusty, indicating it was left behind for a long time. He then closed the book to its front cover, and saw its name.

"King Daniel Santos II's Laws of the Trigurniburg Kingdom? I think there's such a book back at the house.", Allen turned the pages of the book and looked at its contents.

Reaching the final page, it was almost totally blank except for a handwriting on a paper sticked on the cover. It was written as:

Property of William Morgan of Crescent Town, Prince Artenai Santos' aide and advisor. Whom shall ever possess this book without the authorization of the owner shall be prosecuted for Theft and Stealing/Tampering Government-owned Documents and other criminal charges by the Guards of Public Documents, National Army, and National Guards in the Name of the King or Queen of the Land; under the warrant of the Imperial Court, Supreme Court; and the Sanctity of the Imperial Throne.