Chapter 75: A Lone Pebble (Part 2)

Seeing the person he has been waiting for arrive an hour late, Spectre Dyne says in an annoyed voice.

Dyne: "Took you long enough!"

Walter: "… Yeah!"

However, unlike his usual stupidly calm and somewhat annoying demeanor, Walter Schmidt makes a serious face as he seems to be contemplating on something.

However, before the Ghost General could ask,

Walter: "Well, sorry about that!"

Walter regains his usual attitude after a long, deep sigh.

Walter: "There are plenty of things I'd like to update you about, and I am sure there a good amount of things that I need to be updated by you about as well,"

Seeing Dyne nod, Walter says,

Walter: "But first, I want to meet with him, the ruler of the Ghost Nation."

Dyne: "You seem quite serious. What the hell happened? Did you lose your virginity or something?"

Knowing that his friend's sense of humor is not his greatest quality, Walter merely sighs.

Walter: "I lost that a long time ago. But, to answer your actual question,"

His drooping shoulders lift as he makes a tense face.

Walter: "I had an encounter with someone who might be trouble."

Dyne: "…"

For the strongest man in the world to appraise someone as 'trouble', they would at least be as powerful as a highly-skilled Spectre.

For a moment, Dyne's mind flashes back to a nightmare he was shown by Barry a few days prior.

It was nightmare where even this man standing in front of him, a man who can decimate mountains with but a kick, had died. Or rather, it seemed like he had been killed. Defeated.

Along with his corpse, there were corpses of the Vampires. The Spectres were there as well.

It was an atrocious sight, one that the Spectre has tried countless times to pass off as just something shown to him to scare him and not having any chance of ever coming about in reality. But, despite his efforts, he hasn't been able to get that horror out of his mind completely.

Walter: "Everything alright?"

Seeing how Dyne went silent all of a sudden, Walter asks so.

Dyne: "Yeah, just remembering something."

He says, and tries to skip over the topic, but with a man as skilled as Walter Schmidt, that is not the easiest thing to do.

Walter: "You really are being bothered by something ever since you fought Barry on the island. It's plain as day to see."

Dyne: "…"

Walter: "Listen, if you ever want to talk about it, I'm here."

Dyne: "Hah!"

Hearing so, Dyne sighs quite plainly.

Dyne: "I'd rather not risk becoming the laughing stock by telling you something like that."

He says, turns around, and starts walking, before Walter can say anything.

Dyne: "Follow me! You want to meet with the head of this nation, don't you?"

Walter: "Hah! Yes, I do."

And so, he starts following Dyne.

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For a good five minutes, Trisha has been trying to Scry to find someone in the entire world who knows the location of the Psychic Library.

It's reasonably taking this long.

If she were to just scan the physical world, then she would have probably been done by now. But, she has to specifically scan through all the deceptions and mirages and check the memories of every person in every supernatural part of the world.

She'd have to Scry past the illusions around the many seas, mountains, volcanoes and such and find the dragons living within them to scan their memories.

She'd have to Scry past the intricately deceptive network of Vampires.

She'd have to Scry past the materialistic world and then re-scan the entire world just so she can scan the memories of all the ghosts in the world.

Aurals, Spirit-users and Psychics would probably be easier to deal with since they have an easier time disguising themselves as normal humans and so, they don't live among these hard-to-spy-upon settings.

Finally, when it seems like she's done with all of it, she breathes a long sigh.

Trisha: "That was exhausting!"

She says weakly.

Abgere supports her by hand to help her lean back as she gives us the results of her Scrying.

Trisha: "It seems I really was being manipulated into thinking this was beyond my bounds. I should have tried this before."

Ethan: "I doubt it would have worked before."

He says plainly.

Ethan: "That bastard has become too busy now to be able to keep a check on every single supernatural activity in the world. However, before things got so heated up, he probably would have been able to detect that you were Scrying for something like that and misdirected you."

Trisha: "I don't know who you are talking about but can someone out there really be that impressive?"

Well, the person he is talking about is known as 'God' these days. That sounds impressive enough?

Trisha: "Anyway, it seems two people know about the location of the Psychic Library."

Out of the near 8 billion people, millions of Ghosts, and thousands of Dragons, only two people know about it, huh?

This Psychic Library really is quite a legendary place, isn't it? I was a real ignorant fool to not have known about it all these years.

Sona: "Well, who are these two?"

Trisha: "I can't tell who exactly they are. If I had tried to Scry that deeply, they may have been able to detect me."

I see. Well, as long as she can give us a general idea, this trip would have been worth it.

Trisha: "One of them is a human, a simple human."

She looks uncomfortable as she says so, probably making connections.

Ethan: "That bastard!"

In a rarely spiteful tone, Ethan grits his teeth and tightens his fist as he mutters those words.

A human, a simple human - the strategist of the Vampire Kingdom is a simple human. He has literally no supernatural abilities at all. And still, he seems to be a bigger enigma than most supernaturals out there. And, it seems that he even knows the location of the Psychic Library.

But anyway, she said there were two people. Then who's the other one?

Trisha: "The other, well, seems to be a Psychic. And, he seems to be really powerful."

Sona: "Please tell me it's not Walter Schmidt!"

I can relate to that sentiment.

Trisha: "No, it's not that man. But, this man might be second only to him in terms of the sheer psychic potential he was exuding."

… That description … only fits for one man in the entire world.

Abgere: "I see."

The rage buried within him for a good while now, bursts out on his face. However, he tries his best to keep himself calm, as is made clear by him not outright screaming the words he just said.

Sona: "Man, we were just running in circles, I guess."

She says so.

Before coming here, we were planning to go to the Phoenix, Reid Vezalius Rosevelt, to get to the location of the library. And now, it seems we are going to have to resume that plan of ours.

After all, the man second only to Walter's psychic prowess can be none other than the Phoenix himself.

Ethan: "Well, not exactly."

He says, denying Sona's earlier statement.

Ethan: "Before, we were just hoping that he'd know about it. There were some things to base that hope on, but we couldn't be certain that he knew the location of the library. Now, we know for sure."

I guess, coming here wasn't completely pointless then.

Abgere: "What are you people going to do?"

He asks, his darkened expression being terrifying enough to make me think he is ready to kill a person.

Ethan: "We'll go to that where that bastard-"

Abgere: "No!"

Surprisingly, Abgere's face manages to turn even scarier.

Abgere: "I meant, what are you going to do about Aunt Trisha? Now that she has done something that 'white-haired man' didn't want her to, how are you going to take responsibility of protecting her from those Vampires."

Asking that, Abgere stares coldly at Ethan.

Ethan finds himself surprised to be asked that. Trisha tries to stop him, maybe scared that I will act like a mafia boss and behead Abgere for his attitude or something, but,

Ethan: "Hahahahaha!!!"

Abgere: "The hell!?"

Yeah, the hell?

Ethan: "My, my, Mr. Abgere. Is that the face of a guilty person I am seeing right now?"

What?

Ethan: "Are you telling me that you somehow helped these Vampires and the 'white-haired man' some time ago and now are feeling guilty about it?"

What! That … happened?!

Abgere: "Tsk! Maybe … I did."

Ethan: "Oh?"

Abgere: "I can't be sure if he's the same man, but my gut tells me he is."

Quite conflicted about his emotions, Abgere says so while doing his best to maintain some form of composure.

Ethan: "I see."

Ethan smiles half-irritated and half-surprised.

Ethan: "Well then, I think we'll have to think of a way to keep your aunt safe now, huh?"

As he says so, his expression turns from sarcastic to excited half-way through, as if he realized something while talking.

Abgere: "…"

Ethan: "Actually, now that I think about it, this might be a good time to pay a few allies a visit."

We have allies?

Ethan: "Well, I guess, it'd be more accurate to say that they are acquaintances."

Sona: "Who exactly are you talking about?"

Abgere: "You people don't know either?"

Probably thinking till now that we knew who Ethan's talking about, he asks with a baffled expression.

Sneha: "Well … I might know who he is referring to."

Sona: "You HAVE been with him for the longest time, so that would make sense. But, please make it clear for the rest of us!"

Yes, please do that.

Ethan: "Well, simply put, we are going to go meet a few Aurals."

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