Unsealing Emptiness

The other Mercenaries generally tried to avoid being close to the duo. They did not want to associate with them.

The situation did not bother the duo since they didn’t care anyway. The only reason Blaze and Raven were even Mercenaries in the first place was because of Ozul.

After just walking for half an hour, the convoy was already near the outskirts of Capital City.

The Mercenaries did not know what route they would be taking or when they would be taking rests during the journey, but no one complained. Their job was to protect from any danger, and so they only had one thing in their mind-be vigilant of the surroundings.

Some newbies were relaxed since they didn’t think much of a danger in the face of so many Mercenaries and not to mention that the group had at least two known Rank-7 Mages.

However, the veterans were all on edge. They understood that if so many of them were together on the same mission, it must also be that dangerous.

.....

It could also be that the Royal Family just had so much money that they hired extra security, but being careful doesn’t hurt.

The group was led by Clive, who was a Mid-Stage Rank-7 Mage of Fire Element and Barry, who was at Initial-Stage of Rank-7 with Wind Element.

Unknown to the Mercenaries, the 3rd Royal Carriage also had a Rank-7 Mage, Sir Hanry. He was the personal bodyguard of Clara.

Overall, the formation of the convoy seemed to be impenetrable by normal means. Unless a Rank-8 Mage was involved, it didn’t seem that anyone else would pose a threat to them.

Ozul knew better, however. He wanted to sleep in the cart as soon as he could, but he couldn’t do it because of the thoughts in his mind.

‘I knew it from the start that something was up for them to hire Mercenaries.’- Ozul thought.

Though the Mercenaries were a neutral organization, many of the other influential organizations wouldn’t hire them. It was to maintain their superiority among the masses.

Not to mention that such influential organizations had enough means to take care of their business themselves. They wouldn’t need some Mercenaries to jobs for them.

So the Royal Family hiring many groups of Mercenaries to escort some important guests of theirs, was undoubtedly suspicious. The only other reason might have been that the guest wasn’t so important so that they could entrust the task to outsiders.

However, from the looks of it, the guest was a significant individual.

‘They are still following us, huh. I was right.’- Ozul thought when he felt that Rufus was still following their convoy, followed by some other Rank-7 individuals.

Others in the convoy could not feel their presence since all of them were at least Rank-7 Mages. The only other person who even had the chance of sensing them was the lone Rank-7 Mercenary from the Wind Eagles.

As for the other two Rank-7 Mages? Ozul was sure that they knew about the presence of those hidden in the shadows.

“So... we are just a bait for the fish, huh?”- Ozul muttered to himself with an amused expression on his face.

“Let’s just see how it plays out...”

He nudged the pointed hat to slide onto his face, blocking as much sunlight as he could since the cart was open from the backside.

Just as he closed his eyes, however, someone else came to disturb his peace. He could hear the footsteps reaching the back of the cart.

‘Ah! They just had to come at this time?!’- Ozul thought with annoyance since he did not want to get off the cart now that he was already in a comfortable position.

“Huh!?”

“Who are you and why are you here!?”- A sharp voice came from outside the cart.

He removed the hat from his face only to see two women looking at him. One of them had fair skin with brown hair, and she looked at Ozul with an angry expression on her face.

The other woman, however, looked calmly at him without any annoyance. She had tanned skin, the shiny luster on it was the only proof that it was not pure chocolate. Her maroon hair color only complimented her beauty further.

Ozul sensed no other emotions from her except for curiosity, unlike the brown-haired girl who kept glaring daggers at him.

“I’m Ozul. You?”- he innocently asked as if nothing was wrong.

“Huh! You have the guts to introduce yourself?! Tell me what are you doing here?”- the brown-haired girl yelled at him.

Ozul did not mind the rude behavior and just turned towards the other woman. He kept staring at her and said nothing, completely ignoring the fuming brown-haired girl beside her.

“Hey! Don’t you dare ignore me-”

*Sigh*

“I am Orsella, the leader of the Blue Petals, and she is Tephi, the vice-leader. If that helps.”- The maroon-haired woman introduced herself and the woman next to her after being stared at Ozul for so long.

Orsella could somehow guess that they wouldn’t get anywhere if Tephi kept yelling at the guy in front of her.

“Can you tell us why you are here in our cart?”- Orsella asked calmly. She wasn’t angry or anything, but she knew that this person was part of the famous trio.

So she was curious as to why he had hopped on their cart.

“Oh-” Just as he was about to answer, Ozul noticed Raven and Blaze arriving on the scene.

The convoy was still moving, so only Ozul laid in the cart while the others had to keep walking at a fast pace to talk with him.

The duo was marching together with the rest of the group, but all of their attention was only on the cart in which Ozul had hopped in.

And when they saw the women going towards that cart, they hurriedly followed behind them.

Ozul looked at the duo, giving them the stare which translated to, ‘Explain, because I’m not going to do it.’.

“Hello! He is with us. Is the cart yours?”- Raven took the initiative to ask since Blaze didn’t know how to deal with such a mess.

“Yes it is, I was to rest since nothing interesting is happening anyway. But when we come here, we see your companion here in our cart. What is this supposed to mean?”- Orsella asked while squinting her eyes at Raven.

Though Raven knew that the woman before her was more powerful than her, she didn’t back down from the stare.

“Ah, forgive us. It’s just that Ozul wanted to sleep and we forgot to bring our own cart. This one looked empty, so...”- Raven explained patiently.

She wasn’t embarrassed since she had dealt with many such situations when living with Ozul all this time.

“Oh? This man just wanted to sleep? Well, it’s fine.”

“But big sister-”

“It’s fine, Tephi. The man just wanted to sleep. They meant no harm.”

Tephi did not want to let them go so easily, but Orsella was a calm woman. She did not wish to start meaningless fights while they were on an important mission.

“...Uhm, You see... we still don’t have a cart. Can he sleep in your cart? We can pay you too if you would like?”- Raven had no choice to ask after being stared at by Ozul.

He was already in a comfortable position, leaving now was not an option!

“Eehh?”- Orsella did not think that they would still want to keep using their cart, so she was surprised a bit.

She turned to look at Tephi beside her and saw that she was about to explode with anger. Orsella then turned towards Ozul. When she looked at him, he stared right back at her.

Though his expression remained stoic, when Orsella looked at his eyes, she felt as if he was pleading her to let him stay!

It was as if a small kid was looking longingly at a candy that did not belong to him.

*Sigh.*

Another long sigh of defeat escaped from her mouth as Orsella turned towards Raven.

“You don’t need to pay; he can just rest inside.”

“But sister! Why do you have to share with this unknown guy!?”- Tephi finally couldn’t take it anymore.

“It’s fine, Tephi. It’s not like I actually need sleep. And the cart doesn’t even have seats, so there is enough space for many people.”- Orsella calmly tried to reason with her vice-leader.

*Ughh!*

Tephi fumed in anger but did not try to argue back. She just left the scene after seeing Orsella hopping in the cart.

Blaze also left the scene, but Raven on the other hand was reluctant. She did not want to leave Ozul with another woman.

In the end, however, she dejectedly left when Ozul went back to sleep after waving a hand at her.