“Eh? You were kicked out instead of being pulled out?” The little butterfly fluttered its wings. “No wonder I got flung so far just now!”
Saul rubbed his chin and roughly described the dream he just had.
“It seed like my dream was split into two layers. One layer had hostile attacks, and the other was just alone in an upside-down city. After I burned the branches wrapped around my feet, so force kicked out of the second dream.”
“So, the first dream was aggressive, but the second one… hard to say. Judging by how it kicked you out the mont you detected sothing wrong, the second one might actually be relatively peaceful,” Agu added his own analysis.
“Wuuuu…” Ann was acting a bit out of character. She simply clung to Saul’s arm and cried.
“We still can’t be sure whether that strange dream was caused by pollution or if soone was attacking .” Saul tried to pull his arm out from Ann’s grasp, but failed.
He had no choice but to pause the analysis and turn his head to look at her.
Because she was using a dead body, Ann’s crying didn’t produce tears, but her expression showed genuine sorrow.
“Ann, why are you so emotional?” Saul sent his ntal form into An’s consciousness to check if she had been contaminated as well.
But no—Ann’s ntal realm was still clean. It was just that her emotions were unstable.
“I just feel like I failed to protect you…”
Now both Agu and Morden noticed that sothing was off with Ann.
Unlike the other consciousness projections, Ann was a patchwork of soul fragnts who had developed a new self. Because of this, her condition wasn’t as stable as the others, and the chance of an accident was higher.
Even though an initial check didn’t show anything wrong, Saul still decided to have her return to the diary.
Regardless of whether her soul was contaminated or not, as long as she returned to the diary, everything could be reset to factory settings.
Ann pouted, clearly reluctant. “Master, you’ve just encountered danger. I should stay out here to protect you. Who knows if that dream was a warning?”
Saul believed that having her return to the diary and summoning her again later, while a bit troubleso and draining in terms of magic and ntal power, was the safer choice. It would protect Ann and allow him to further examine her for any anomalies.
But Amn wasn’t willing to go.
At that mont, Agu spoke up, “Then let her stay out here. If she returns to the diary, we’d have to remove the spider legs and reattach them later—tedious and ti-consuming.”
Saul looked at Agu and, seeing the latter’s firm gaze, finally agreed to the suggestion.
Just then, a black vine-like tentacle slithered in through the door, approached Saul, opened its mouth and grabbed a pen, and wrote a single character on paper: “Iz.”
“There’s a reaction from Izzy?”
This was part of Saul’s arrangent with Little Algae—to have her send out a clone to follow Izzy. If there was any further sign of a wraith near Izzy, Little Algae was to return imdiately and report.
Though Saul and Shaya had agreed to follow up on his lead, Saul also wanted to act on his own simultaneously, so as to avoid relying too much on a potentially one-sided conclusion.
“I just had a strange dream, and now sothing’s happened on Izzy’s end. Are the two connected?” Saul pondered. “If soone attacked in the dream, then who was the attacker?”
“I had just returned from Shaya’s place when the attack happened. Could it be that our agreent was leaked?”
If their recent plan to secretly investigate the charred wraith and Kent had already been exposed, then Saul would have to reconsider whether to proceed with their current actions.
While the others continued to discuss what Saul had seen in the dream, the communication device in the corner of the room suddenly buzzed.
Saul picked it up, and Shaya’s voice ca through.
“…My lead moved. Get to the clinic on Fifth Avenue as soon as you can.”
Saul tightened his grip on the communicator and made a quick decision. “I’m in the middle of a crucial experint. I’ll need so ti before I can head over.”
“Eh? You’re not thinking of backing out, are you?”
“Or you could co here and watch run the experint?” Saul replied, deliberately annoyed.
“No need for that. Fine, how long will it take you? If you can’t make it in ti, White Hair and I will go first.”
Saul knew Shaya didn’t want to ntion Julie’s na over the communicator. But seriously, calling her “White Hair”—who wouldn’t know who he ant?
“Half an hour.”
The voice on the other end let out a breath of relief. “Half an hour should be fine. We’ll head there first. If the location changes, we’ll leave a mark at the clinic door.”
Shaya ended the transmission.
Saul turned back to the others in the room. “Agu, keep working on assembling the second soul armant. Morden, you’re coming with to check on Izzy.”
Finally, he looked to Ann. “Ann, stay here and assist Agu. Stay alert for anything suspicious.”
Little Algae and Penny naturally went with Saul.
Especially Penny—she flew straight into the diary.
Saul’s dream made her lose confidence. She wanted to stay inside Saul’s ntal realm to avoid being lost again.
Everyone split up. Saul and Morden also parted ways halfway, planning to observe any wraiths near Izzy from different angles.
Izzy, the one under Saul’s watch, was still unaware of what was happening to her.
Her roommate had recently disappeared, and though the city guards had co to inspect the room and took away all of her roommate’s belongings, that was all.
Izzy, as the roommate of the missing person and the last one to see her, had only been questioned for half an hour before being let go.
After that, Izzy’s life seed to return to normal. The city guards never ca back. Even the landlord had already put up the listing for the vacant room again. No one around her was talking about the missing girl—people seed to forget about the neighbor overnight.
Everything was moving along in an orderly fashion, but to Izzy, who was at the center of it all, it was terrifying.
“How can everyone be so calm, even cold?”
It reminded her of so rumors she had heard before coming to Caugust.
So people said that if you got too close to wizards, you’d easily encounter dangerous and eerie things. Ordinary people should live in ordinary towns or villages. Don’t think that being near a wizard ans you can beco one. You’ll only attract the attention of demons.
But those words mostly ca from the elders in her village. The young people, on the other hand, were all eager to chase the urban life described in storybooks.
Add to that the occasional tales of those who returned from Caugust boasting about how convenient city life was and how much money they made—most people yearned to move to Caugust City.
But after entering the city, Izzy realized those stories weren’t false, just incomplete. Everyone conveniently left out the unpleasant parts of life.
The long, monotonous workdays, the rigid and repetitive schedules—it all made her feel suffocated.
And now, with her roommate’s disappearance, Izzy, for the first ti, firmly decided she wanted to return to her hotown.
That very morning, Izzy used her once-a-month leave to go to city hall and apply for resignation and return-to-hotown clearance.
She hadn’t expected that resigning would be easy—it only took three days to process—but the application to leave the city would take three months.
The clerk’s explanation was: “To investigate Izzy’s records in the city. If she has debts or other unresolved obligations, her information can’t be sealed and she can’t leave the city.”
In other words, they wanted to make sure she wasn’t running away after causing trouble for Caugust City.
(End of Chapter)
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