Chapter 165 - Ghost Town

With some coarse and substandard fabric blankets, the son and daughter-in-law covered Emery's body which was only slightly damp from the cold weather, the novices looking too confused to say anything.

"I think these are new people in the church, they seem to have lost their way" one client commented, seeing the novices look around with confused eyes.

Bryan, despairing to find himself surrounded by a crowd and exposed, his body shook, and he wanted to jump away when Emery put his arm around his shoulders.

Unfortunately, Emery's new strength was too great for Bryan to just get rid of this stranger's arm.

"Please, if it's not too much to ask, you can find a blanket for my assistant… The poor bastard must have joined the other novices to look for me."

Emery said keeping his expression unchanging, but his voice was too pleasant to hear, the women blushed a little and even the men felt a little enchanted.

Seeing this happen, Bryan, who was much more sensitive to the environment than Emery, wanted to get out of there, but could not make any sudden movements.

"Oh, so you're some nobleman who came from the Frontier of the Aurore Empire or something… Dark elves are not very common in this realm" another customer commented, he looked a little strange, that's when Emery saw the dog's tail swinging.

"Ah, George is from the Kingdom of Chantel he lived a long time in a border town with the Kingdom of Beastmen, no need to be so surprised. Here in this old inn, we receive all species equally" the old woman spoke introducing the man-beast who had a dog's tail and taking off his sleeping cap showing the ears of a German Dobermann.

"I'm a mixture of two different breeds," George said, a little embarrassed by Emery's serious look at his ears and tail that didn't look like they belonged to the same breed of dog.

Carlos brought another blanket and Emery covered Bryan's body, bringing the black elf to him. Bryan was still shivering, but much less now that there was a fabric separating him from Emery.

"Let's go in for a bit for some tea and whiskey… Oh, I don't think the novices will be able to come in…" the daughter-in-law asked gently, they were cold and had already forgotten why they had woken up so early and descended in the morning mists.

"Well, let's go inside for a bit. I'll be responsible for them later," Emery said, motioning for Naill and Mattias to follow.

Clearly, they would follow Bishop Darcy, they themselves did not know how they got to such a place and what they would do. It would be best to keep everyone together for now and try to get as much information as possible from these people.

Mattias looked at Bryan, who looked at him with a bit of agony, he could only shake his head and follow the two of them closely.

Already beside Azarphy, Arabeth and Giovanni were walking through the abbey looking for Emery.

Poor Bao had followed into the forest with his small size, it would be easier for him to do the search without being noticed by the others.

"Why can't I feel his presence?" Arabeth muttered again, he can feel Emery alive but not where he is.

"My powers don't reach him either at least we know he's alive," Azarphy said looking indifferent, but he was the first to go out to look for the human, but there was no sign of the human.

Strangely, Naill and the spirit of Light Anael disappeared too, there had been the first one he went looking for, after all, Emery only knew these two, for some bizarre reason he could be there.

Only Emery was nowhere to be seen.

"You know where he is, right?" Azarphy cornered Nature God Aillil in the garden, where he had reappeared looking at an ancient hut that was used as a storeroom.

"A temporal rift has opened, taking him and the other humans," Aillil said in a tired voice.

"Temporal rifts don't appear out of nowhere, there's something else you're not telling me." Azarphy couldn't just accept that randomness.

How much bad luck would Emery have to be sucked into a temporal rift?

"I'm really hiding something from you… Have you ever heard of the City of Sefyrou?"

Aillil didn't seem bothered by Azarphy's anger, he looked at Arabeth who looked like some kind of pale and weak ghost, with his master away there was no way the demon was okay, especially after the day before.

"Yes, the city that disappeared 100 years ago. One of the most technological cities in the Wizard Republic, but how does this relate to Emery's disappearance… If it were something like Emery, everything around me would have been falling down up by such a space rift".

"What about the city of Belcato, have you ever heard of it?"

"Yes, an intriguing case of a city not so far from here… That was mysteriously blown up… Don't tell me Emery might be in one of those cities?"

"Well, there are other cities in our timeline that have become space fragments trapped in a long loop of time, but the closest is Belcato and the rarest is Sefyrou. In Sefyrou's case, it would be the only one who could pick up selected people…" Aillil said regretfully in his voice.

"Selected for what?"

"To break the time looping curse and set them free," Aillil said with a bitter smile.

"But if, so far, they haven't been able to break free…"

"Yes, the possibility of Emery getting stuck in the city is huge," Aillil said with a long sigh.

"But since Emery was chosen… It's because of the strange gathering of his powers, isn't it?" Azarphy questioned, even knowing the answer.

While Azarphy and Aillil talked about Emery being lost forever, Yani and Giovanni also talked.

"Is it possible to save Bishop Darcy?" Giovanni asked Yani if he came from a temporal fragment and had his soul intact.

"Well, I can try to help. The problem is whether it's the city of Sefyrou or the city of Belcato… After all, in a city like Sefyrou, we're just going to be stuck there with our forces at the moment." Yani said thoughtfully, he was being very pragmatic when responding.

"But…" Giovanni still tried to speak, but Yani just remained silent, his point was already pretty clear, he couldn't help Emery and risk getting trapped in a ghost town.

He had a mission to find the avatars of the gods to advise of Kronos's plan.

Yani thought he could talk to Aillil, he would have to find some time to talk to the nature god, but the timing didn't seem now.

"So a ghost town kidnapped my master?" Arabeth spoke suddenly, he didn't look too good with his pale face and dark circles under his eyes.

"Well it's a possibility, actually the best possibility, the worst possibility is that Kronos kidnapped these people… Hahaha… But that can't be true if that happened… It's better not to talk about such dark things" Aillil started talking to laugh nervously and dismiss that kind of theory.

After all, Kronos was not such a trivial thing.

Azarphy: (…)

Arabeth: (…)

Giovanni: (…)

"If we're lucky, Emery might be in Belcato, a smaller ghost town, and we can pick him up… As soon as I get someone on my side to answer my request" Aillil said, seeing the surprised faces of the others and trying to console them.

"Well, now we really have to go get Bishop" Yani suddenly muttered.

"How will we do this?" Giovanni asked, hopefully.

"Well, there's an item inside the abbey that would allow us to open a time rift, but we're too weak to wield the item's power"

"So…" Giovanni inquires more nervously, hoping that Yani could solve the problem.

"So what? So, we're going to have to sacrifice a great power… The Plague Lord is still around, isn't he?" Yani said with a smile that carried an evil that Giovanni had not yet seen.

On the other hand, in the city of Trieste, at the Jiang-Li Hotel, Louis is being looked at by heavy serious eyes of a pale blue tint.

"Second Young Master Darcy, this is Theo, Young Master Emery's future butler," Louis spoke, bringing Theo closer.

Charles Darcy, unlike the two brothers, had a much more masculine face, with coarser features and a more dangerous look, so different from the intellectual Darius Darcy and the pretty face of Emery Darcy.

His short red hair and thick eyebrows made him look sharper and less noble, his blue eyes much less kind than Emery's.

Although Charles was wearing a blue coat with a white waistcoat, which made him look very dignified, his strong body showed the presence of a well-trained knight, which made Theo a little uncomfortable.

The knights who went to the orphanage in order to "protect" the children did badly and strange things at night, he heard moans and cries coming from the hallway which made him and the other children afraid.

Then Theo saw wasn't knights, but the civil guards who looked after that poor neighborhood, where they got kids to sell on the black market and some entertainment in those parts.