Chapter 190 Quiet Indifference

Walking into the association, Jay glanced at Margaret.

She glanced back at Jay without a smile or a hello and quickly went back to her notes.

Jay was glad that she wasn’t replaced by a black-armour guard, but she was acting very differently, and Jay decided to mimic her distant and detached behaviour.

“Hello. Who are these new guards?” Jay approached the desk and asked quietly.

Margaret didn’t look up for a moment, and Jay thought it was quite rude, but he soon understood why.

“These are the safety bearers. They protect us from people who become monsters or get dangerous classes. Isn’t it good that they’re here?” she said, stressing the words ‘dangerous classes’, “We’re safer than ever.” she added.

Jay stopped his breathing for a moment as he knew they were both being watched, and that this was a warning; he was one of such monsters which would be hunted by them, and since Jay knew her, it was clear to him that she didn’t believe those words at all.

He quickly thought of something innocent to say after nodding for a little too long.

“Oh, good, but doesn’t that mean there will be a monster coming?”

“Well, if it does, I’m sure we’ll be in good hands; anyway, I have work to do, so what do you want, adventurer?” a slight smile appeared on her face before it disappeared just as quickly.

“Ah, nothing else…thanks.” Jay tried to say as casually as possible.

“She probably doesn’t want to talk much around them…” he thought as he walked to the hallway.

“And showing me any favouritism or friendliness might be suspicious I’m guessing.”

Jay had to pass by another guard as he walked to his room, and as he walked by he tried to keep his breathing as calm as possible.

Now that he realised these were soldiers specifically equipped and trained to hunt and kill people like him, they had a completely different feel about them..

If they flashed killing intent at him as an innocent civilian, they would definitely not hesitate to execute him on the spot if he was any sort of threat.

He felt like each of his footsteps were way too loud as he walked down the wooden hallway past the guard.

Finally he reached his room and after he closed the door he couldn’t stop himself from breathing more quickly and feeling dizzy. He almost felt like his face was red, but there was no way to tell; he was having a mild panic attack.

He leant against the door for a moment as he got his breathing under control.

“I need to leave Losla.” he whispered to himself.

“But first, I need to calm down and think.” he thought as he sat on his bed and began to try and control his breathing.

As he calmed himself down, he noticed an envelope on the bedside table.

“Huh, it’s from Sullivan?”

Without waiting a second longer he tore the envelope open and began to read.

[Jay. The guild isn’t safe for you, and it never was.]

“Yeah, no shit.” Jay murmured as he kept reading with a frown.

[I know somewhere that you will be safe, and this is where I am sending you and Anya.]

[You will soon be contacted by someone named Lannister. Trust them to take you to this safe place and do everything they say until you get there.]

[I may or may not see you again, so please take care of Anya. I have risked my life to protect you, so protect her in exchange.]

[With that being said, I have left you with one last gift under the bed. I hope it serves you well.]

Jay checked under the bed and found a large folded up dark-brown leather blanket.

“Huh, a blanket? …Is he implying something?” Jay was confused for a moment.

He analysed it.

<[Noon-leather Blanket]>

[Blocks mana flow]

“Hm.. blocks mana flow? Interesting.” Jay gazed at it carefully.

The blanket was leathery on one side and soft on the other, so he was glad he had a water-proof warm blanket.

Jay was tempted to test its mana-blocking abilities, but he wasn’t sure if mage hunters could detect his necrotic mana, and didn’t know what capabilities the mage hunters had, so he decided not to; this was his first time learning about noon-leather and coming across the mage hunters after all – both of these would rarely ever come to such a small and irrelevant town.

After storing the blanket in his inventory he had calmed down and read the rest of the letter, though there wasn’t much more other than a ‘goodbye’, and a ‘please destroy this letter after reading it’.

Still, Jay stashed the letter away.

“Perhaps it will come in handy someday, or perhaps it will help to light a fire, who knows.” he shrugged.

Jay was realising now that if he left Losla, he would have to survive in the wilderness, but now that he learnt of this ‘safe place’ that Sullivan was talking about, he put his plans to buy survival materials aside.

It wasn’t like he would need much survival gear anyway though, as he did have his swag (small tent), cooking utensils, and other comforts such as his chair which he scavenged from his own house.

Either way, he knew he had to leave – and he could only hope this ‘safe place’ was very, very far away from these mage hunters.

Slowly, he realised his whole life was about to get turned upside down. He came here to train today and now all of this was happening.

Jay still had low mana after all the crafting he did in the cave, so before leaving the guild to plot his next moves he decided to meditate and bring it back to being full.

– – –

Viladore was almost chuckling in his room as he saw his cube growing; it meant one thing – Jay was back.

Now all he needed to do was provide an excuse to have him imprisoned here, or even gifted to him as a research subject.

While researching on live humans was illegal in this kingdom, Jay would not be considered a human if he was simply too powerful, and Viladore’s first idea for a lie was that Jay was an F-variant class.

“But they will check his class after they arrest him… dammit. How do I get around that.” he pursed his lips as he tried to come up with ideas.

He needed the mage hunters to arrest Jay without killing him or checking his class.

Soon however, he was distracted by his cube. To him, watching it grow was mesmerising – though he knew it would soon stop when Jay left, and so he got right back to scheming once more.

– – –

Jay was quietly meditating in the room; his heart calm as he nourished his mind with mana.

“Jay?” a woman’s voice broke the peaceful silence from somewhere in the room.

Jay immediately opened his eyes, startled as he looked around.

“What the hell was that?” he saw the door was still closed, he was sure he was alone.

“Perhaps I just connected to some spirit?” he wondered.

Again, a female voice sounded from somewhere in the room.

“Hello, Jay?”

Jay looked around immediately but couldn’t find the source of the sound, though he cautiously replied back.

“…hello?” he slowly said.

“Hello, Jay. Are you enjoying the room? How is your stay going? By the way, what was your last name?”

“Uh… Yeah it’s alright? And it’s Hart, Jay Hart.” he answered, wondering why he was being asked how his room was.

Lara was the person behind the womans voice; she had to ask such questions to confirm that it was actually Jay she was talking to – after all, they had never met.

“Good. I am Lara, Sullivan may have told you about a safe place and I -”

“Well, he mentioned a Lannister.” Jay cut her off.

“…” Lara shook her head, disappointed that she wasn’t mentioned.

“…Lannister is my colleague and we are here to recruit you – but time is of the essence. Please come to the stink-rat marsh as soon as possible.”

Jay didn’t reply as he thought for a moment.

He hesitated to trust strangers, but Sullivan’s letter urged him to trust them, and he was without any other options for the moment other than to flee into the wilderness.

“I’ll be there.” he bit his lip and sighed as he replied.

“Come as soon as you can. Also, grab the items I left under your pillow. You’ll need them.”

“Right.” he nodded as he tossed his pillow aside.

He found a strange hexagonal silver ball which had polished sides; each of them were like tiny mirrors.

The other thing he found was a purple crystal.

“Add mana to the crystal until it disappears.” the voice said.

“Uh… so… I’ll do it when I leave the guild.” Jay said slowly; he was still unsure if his necrotic mana would trigger some sort of advanced mage hunter alarm.

“Ok, well just hurry up and leave, we don’t have much time.”

Jay stashed away the items instead of analysing them; he decided to do it while he walked to Losla to save time.

“Be quiet, I’m about to open the door.” he said quietly to where her voice was coming from.

Lara disconnected from the crystal and turned to Lannister.

“He’s on his way.”

“Good,” he nodded as he stood up, “It’s ready, we just have to trigger it. I’ll set up more minor teleport traps in the forest, just in case.”

“Good. Anya should be here soon too.”