Chapter 15 – Options and Consequences

At this time, he had a surprised expression experiencing the different spectrums of light; his mouth was open, forming an "o" shape. His eyes were stretched wide open, taking in as much light as possible.

Then he looked around. He wanted to experience seeing different shades of colours and people.

He turned to his side. His eyes had not adjusted yet from the brightness of the light, and he saw three shadows.

Two were standing, and the third one was kneeling down. Of the two shadowy figures, one was relatively close to him.

His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness of the cave, and he noticed a middle-aged man with a bit of silver in his hair.

He had black coloured eyes with a bit of yellow mixed with them, making his eyes look captivating.

He had shoulder-length hair and a bit of short stubble. His face had a friendly and inviting look.

He was taller than average. His clothing was a neat black suit, knee-length, with well-tailored grey pants. He could be considered an above-average, happy-looking middle-aged man.

He was Hunter. There was a scar on his left hand showing that he was indeed a warrior, if not for that people could mistake him for being a scholar of the court.

The most eye-catching thing was a ring on his left hand. It had a unique design which was three daggers placed in a circular setting resembling a windmill.

The ring looked very expensive.

Fully observing Hunter, Aile's eyes adjusted more to the darkness of the cave.

He saw a kneeling man shrouded by blackish-grey fog. This fog gave off an evil aura.

Another man who looked very good, was standing opposite the kneeling man.

He had short brownish-black hair, dark green eyes, a small moustache and a well-kept goatee. He looked like he was in his mid-thirties.

He had an average build and was dressed in a long black overcoat with red patterns on it. He looked very high class.

Currently, he was releasing the greyish-black substance from his hands that shrouded the kneeling man, who Aile assumed to be Marcus.

Aile looked at Duke White, who did not look like the evil he was portraying at the moment, and one thing came up to his mind to describe Duke White as, "a cunning fox."

This was a perfect description of Duke White as no one could perceive him to be this person Aile was seeing. Aile was analyzing his future stepping stone and a major challenge to overcome.

Suddenly Duke White had noticed someone observing him, and he looked around and met Aile's eyes.

Aile quickly changes the direction of his gaze. His heartbeat was getting faster.

This clearly showed the high vigilance of Duke White.

At this time, the blackish-grey energy seeped into the neck of Marcus and formed two short black lines around his neck, starting at his shoulder blade and stopping at his collarbone.

Aile Knew that Duke White would put on a submission seal on Marcus and assumed that was what he was looking at.

He tried to find out its functions, but he could not guess it from just observing it from a distance.

Thus, he gave up and looked at Marcus for the first time.

If he could describe him in one word, it would be menacing. He had a proportional face, but it had a few scars.

This hair was not too long and roughed up, he had a sharp gaze and a frown that looked natural on his face.

He had a strong muscular build highlighted by his stretchy clothing.

He did not have any facial hair. Marcus had an eye patch covered his right eye. If not for the scars on his face, he could be considered handsome.

He was currently gritting his teeth, Aile was unsure if this was because of the pain he received or the manifestation of his anger for being in the current situation.

At this time Duke said in a relaxed tone, "This settles things here, we will be leaving Marcus, see you soon at Ferli if you face any troubles on entrance make sure to tell them you are my men."

At this time Duke tossed a badge, a unique white zig-zag line on a purple plate. This was Duke White's Badge that his trusted subordinates had, as a proof of identity and status.

Ferli was Duke White's fief, he was the owner and responsible for the city. The kingdom does not impose control over its noble's fief.

As only nobles that have greatly contributed to the betterment of the kingdom gets a piece of land.

The fact that the White Family have their own city shows that they had been a great supporter of the kingdom to be trusted with so much land.

Each fief has to pay a fixed amount of gold as tax, and the kingdom does not care as long as they achieve that.

At this time, Aile had another surprise he could hear. Up to this point, he would translate people's speech based on the movement of air and people's lips.

However, hearing for the first time really surprised him, Duke White's voice was in a relaxed tone, and this had entranced, Aile. He was wondering how he would sound.

After some time he heard sounds of movement. This was when Marcus got up, he shifted his gaze and heard Marcus's voice next, which was rougher.

Marcus had a forced smile and said, "Thank you! Boss."

Aile was enjoying the different distinct noises, tones and voices at this point.

Then Hunter moved towards Aile and picked him up.

Without looking back, Hunter, Aile and Duke White left the cave. Marcus had to deal with the aftermath and carry on Duke White's plan.

Aile had been paying attention to every detail and action and noticed that Hunter was very gentle with him.

He took every action with extra care and concern.

This gave him a good impression of him, but this in no way acted as evidence to conclude he was a good person or trustable.

The three of them stealthily got out the cave, after exiting Hunter along with Aile came to the southern side of the mountain to see the dust that Marcus mentioned.

Here they confirmed, that there was indeed a lot of dust from the southern direction and had gotten a lot closer now.

Hunter quickly went back and said to Duke White, "Duke, a group of 6 people are coming from the southern direction. They will reach here in half an hour, by the time we get down, they will probably notice us leaving."

Duke White was not too bothered by this news, he simply shrugged, "Since it is just 6 people we can deal with them easily if they are unlucky enough to spot us we will just deal with them."

Then Hunter brought along Aile, and Duke White quickly descended the mountain. On the way, they changed into robes hiding their features.

They got on their horse-like creature and brought the other two that belonged to the two mercenaries that were killed, along with them.

They left one of the creatures for Marcus, they rode further north to avoid meeting anyone that was coming for the revitalizing grass.

After a while, they turned and took a less known route out of the mountains.

They were not worried that someone would be on this road, as anyone that had heard about the news of the revitalizing grass would take the shortest route to it.

This was one of the longest routes to the area of the revitalizing grass.

However, Hunter said to Duke White, "Duke, the group of 6 have decided to follow us."

Duke White nodded and muttered, "There loss."

He then looked at Hunter and said, "You guys continue, I will be back."

He then turned his mount around and slowly disappeared.

Five minutes had passed when he returned with a calm expression as if nothing happened.

He nodded to Hunter, and the journey continued.

They did not meet anyone else along the way.

They were travelling back, but this time in constant silence. The only things heard was the rhythmic huffs of the horse-like creatures against the ground.

———

Duke White was contemplating how to best utilize the revitalizing grass and inflate its value in the eyes of the royals.

———

Aile was thinking of how to take over the body's connection. From the Voice, he had come to understand two ways to do this.

The first method would be to change his elemental alignment.

This method is doable by a torturous process.

Which is to injure the soul, and then let it heal.

Once the damaged part is healed using a special-technique, it can become neutral.

One can change the neutral to the desired element, in this case, as light affinity to match his body and then repeat this process until the whole soul transforms.

Now that he also had a soul law, which would aid him in healing, this became an actionable solution.

As normal soul wounds take a very long time to heal without external help.

However, there will be the drawbacks in changing the soul to its polar opposite.

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