SSS Talent: From Tra Chapter 528: Toward Thal’zar

Chapter 528: Chapter 528: Toward Thal’zar

The next day ca quickly.

By the ti Trafalgar arrived in Velkaris, the city had already fully woken up. He was on his way to the Gate Hub, the one positioned beside the train station as always, and the whole place was as busy as ever. People moved in every direction with that familiar sense of urgency Velkaris never seed to lose. So were rushing to catch trains before the doors closed. Others were weaving through the crowds with the obvious intention of getting ahead in the queue for one of the Gates. The noise of footsteps, voices, rolling cargo, and mana chanisms all bled together into the kind of atmosphere that only a city like Velkaris could sustain without ever seeming exhausted by it.

The mont Trafalgar stepped into the Gate Hub, Caelum appeared behind him as if he had been there the entire ti and reality had only just decided to acknowledge it.

His hair was slicked back with the sa severe neatness as always. His yellowish eyes remained calm, and his gloved hands were clasped behind his back in the posture he so often carried.

"You’ve arrived, Young Master."

Trafalgar turned his head slightly.

"Good morning to you too, Caelum." His gaze shifted past the moving lines of people, toward the several active Gates at the far end. "Which one are we taking to see Darian?"

Caelum answered imdiately.

"The one in the far right corner, where most of the lycans are gathering. That is the one." He paused briefly before adding, "The city linked to it is near House Thal’zar’s main territory. As you know, Gates are not directly connected to the primary residences of the Great Families."

"Yeah, I know."

Trafalgar glanced toward the line.

"Fine. Let’s go queue."

Caelum’s expression did not change, though there was the faintest trace of sothing almost amused beneath the surface.

"Oh, no need for that, Young Master."

They began walking, Caelum half a step behind him as always. By the ti they reached the Gate, the lycan managing it had already seen them approaching. His posture changed imdiately. He straightened, recognized Trafalgar on sight, and quickly gestured them out of the ordinary flow of travelers.

"Please, co this way, Trafalgar du Morgain."

Trafalgar did not waste ti pretending surprise. At his level, and with everything tied to Darian’s ssage, this was the least strange part of the morning.

So he simply stepped forward.

The lycan lowered his voice slightly out of courtesy.

"We were inford that you might appear in the next few days. Once you cross over, there will be a driver waiting on the other side to take you farther in."

"Understood," Trafalgar said. "Thank you."

He flicked a gold coin toward the man without ceremony.

The lycan caught it, stared for the smallest instant as if his hand had registered the weight before his mind had, and quickly bowed his head.

"My thanks."

He returned to his work right after, though the surprise had not quite left his face.

Caelum inclined his head toward the Gate. "You first, Young Master."

Trafalgar stepped through.

The transfer only lasted a mont.

One breath in Velkaris, one shift of light and mana, and the next instant he stood sowhere else entirely.

The city on the other side did not resemble Velkaris much at all.

It had a dry aura to it, sothing harsher and broader, the air carrying dust instead of moisture, heat locked into the stone even though the day had not fully climbed yet. The surrounding land leaned toward desert rather than forest or mountain, and the color of the place reflected that. Sand-toned streets. Broad structures built from pale stone and darker mineral blocks. Tall buildings rising in deliberate layers, severe and imposing rather than elegant. It did not look poor or undeveloped. Quite the opposite. Wealth was there, but it had been shaped by a rougher land, the kind that made grandeur feel heavier.

A second later, Caelum stepped out of the Gate behind him.

Trafalgar studied the city again before speaking.

"Are you sure this is the right place? I don’t rember anything like this being near the Thal’zar castle."

Caelum answered without hesitation.

"During the war, Young Master, you were assigned to the main castle, but the Thal’zar territory is vast. This city belongs to the Thal’zar territories, just like Euclid to the Morgains."

Trafalgar reached up at once and pulled a hood over his head. Even here, in a place where he did not expect most eyes to know his face imdiately, he saw no value in being recognized before he needed to be.

Once they stepped away from the Gate, the man waiting for them was already there.

He bowed the mont he saw them.

"It is an honor to receive you." He corrected himself quickly, more careful than the lycan at the Gate had been. "The road is long. By the ti we arrive at the castle, it will be the following day."

Trafalgar gave him a calm look.

"That’s fine. I understand." His tone remained even, but there was a deliberate edge beneath it. "But here, I’m not Trafalgar. Try not to forget that again."

The guide lowered his head more deeply this ti. "My apologies."

He led them out from the Gate district without delay.

The transport waiting for them was not a carriage. Not a train. Not anything groundbound at all.

It was a flying ship.

Trafalgar’s gaze lingered on it for a mont.

It was respectable in size, built sturdily rather than elegantly, and clearly expensive enough that no ordinary local official would move around in sothing like it. Even so, compared to Alfred’s vessel, it looked like a miniature.

’It feels tiny next to Alfred’s monster of a ship.’

He stepped aboard with Caelum right behind him, and not long after that the vessel rose into the air.

Trafalgar remained outside once it had stabilized, standing along the edge of the deck while the city slowly receded beneath them. Caelum positioned himself at his side, as if it had been decided in advance and by forces older than speech.

From above, the region looked even stranger.

The desert spread out in long ochre waves broken by black stone ridges, watchtowers, and the occasional fortified settlent built like a wound carved into the land. Roads ran through it in disciplined lines. There was order here. House Thal’zar’s order, scarred by war but not erased by it.

After a while, Trafalgar spoke.

"Are you sure you can leave the castle like this, Caelum?" he asked. "Won’t my father suspect sothing if I’m going to et Darian?"

Caelum’s answer ca as smoothly as ever.

"I left a clone in the castle. And Lord Valttair is occupied. He is not there at the mont."

That drew Trafalgar’s attention more fully.

"Oh?" he said. "What is Valttair doing?"

"He is training in a rather distant location."

Trafalgar turned toward him now.

"Can I know why? And how long he’ll be there?"

Caelum’s gaze remained ahead, on the horizon.

"I believe he is preparing for what is coming. Valttair is not a careless man. He is preparing for the worst." A brief pause followed. "Before leaving, he told

to take care of you for the ti being."

Trafalgar let that sit in the air for a mont.

"Take care of , hm." His voice carried a dry note now. "Do you think soone from the family would try sothing while Valttair is away?"

"The possibility always exists, Young Master," Caelum replied. "And with your current position, it is more likely now than before that soone may wish to remove competition."

Trafalgar did not look especially disturbed by that.

"But Valttair knows what’s happening in the world right now, doesn’t he?"

Caelum answered at once. "Yes, Young Master. I keep him inford at all tis about everything that is happening." His tone remained as steady as ever. "Naturally, that does not include your own movents. On that front, I always report other things."

Trafalgar glanced at him.

"Thanks, Caelum."

That was enough to ease sothing in him.

The ship continued forward, cutting through the dry sky toward Thal’zar lands with steady force beneath its hull. Trafalgar let his gaze drift out across the desert again, over the vastness of it, over the harsh stone and buried roads, toward the territory Darian was now trying to hold together under the eyes of Morgain and Sylvanel alike.

In a little while, he would see him.

And more than anything else, Trafalgar wanted to know what had been important enough for Darian to send a ssenger into the middle of a night like that.