Safety

Christine had just escaped her pursuers, and fell into an alleyway where it appeared a young man was being attacked by someone.

She intently scanned everyone in the area. Her spy was vomiting his guts out, as he was rather weak from the space turbulence.

The suspected attacker, a sharp faced middle-aged man, spoke to her.

"Who are you people? How did you get here?"

Christine didn't want any trouble, so she made her intentions known.

"We don't wish to fight. We have already escaped from a tough battle."

Suddenly, the young man spoke uneasily.

"Um, that man is an Immoral Wizard. If he's as important as he showed himself to be, maybe you could get a reward or something to heal your injuries by turning him in."

He pointed to the middle-aged man as he spoke uneasily, as the older man glared at him.

Christine was internally screaming at the words the young man said.

The Nine Towers of Purity had recently sent out a wanted notice for all Immoral Wizards. If they found out that somebody knew an Immoral Wizard and didn't do anything about it, they would be imprisoned and sentenced.

It was rumored they even brought out archmages to help with the investigations.

Christine knew even with her father recently breaking through to the Earth Immortal stage, they wouldn't stand a chance against the Nine Towers. They had about three Sages, more than enough to destroy her entire family.

So, with this in mind, she put on her most forced smile, and agreed to help the young man.

…

Once Joe heard the words, "I'll help you," he was filled with hope. Although he didn't exactly know the strength of the woman, he felt like he could live to see the next day.

Suddenly, a light flashed out of the corner of his eye. The woman was gone from her initial position!

Rhad seemed to be slightly shocked, but he didn't seem too surprised. He waved his arms, and the pavement uprooted itself from the earth, and surrounded himself.

The woman raised her thin arm and smashed it onto the earthen dome.

Crunch!

The dome caved in, but Rhad was nowhere to be found.

"Argh!"

A groan came from where the portal used to be. Rhad was standing there next to the man in black who was vomiting.

"Take another step and this man dies!" Rhad shouted across the alleyway.

The woman stopped and stared at Rhad from the other side of the alley.

"You shouldn't say things you don't have the ability to do."

Rhad shouted furiously in reply. "What do you mean I don't have the ability? I'll kill him right now for you!"

By the time he looked back down to where his hostage was supposed to be, he realized there was nothing there. Rhad was an external Wizard, controlling magical elements from the air and not storing them within his body, making it as fragile and flimsy as a regular person's.

By the time Rhad began to move the magic in the air to his will, the man had already struck at him. His head shattered into several pieces as blood and brain matter flew out. His body fell to the ground.

Joe, watching, became nauseous at the sight, nearly vomiting. The most gruesome thing he had seen was a broken arm, and that didn't even bleed, so this far exceeded his tolerance level.

He watched as the woman came nearer to him. She asked him a question once in front of him.

"What's your name?"

"Joe." He spoke while swallowing his saliva.

After hearing his name, she put her hand on his head, and he blacked out.

…

It was a rather strange sight really. A beautiful woman carrying a young man over her shoulder, with an injured man limping right behind. They were headed toward one of the Nine Towers.

They walked inside. The lobby was wide and looked like a regular hotel lobby. The receptionist stared as the group walked inside.

Christine walked over to the reception desk, and passed Joe over to the man in black. She spoke with the receptionist about the happenings in the alleyway, before the receptionist made a call to the higher floors.

It was about this time that Joe woke up, sitting directly across from the man in black.

"Hey you, you're finally awake. You were trying to cross the magical border right? Walked right into that Immoral Wizard attack. Same as me, and my lady over there."

Joe felt some déjà vu, as he felt he heard something similar somewhere else...

"Um. Thanks for saving me, but where are we? Who are you?"

"We're in the third of the Nine Towers. My name is Hill, but don't go around talking about us alright? I can't tell you my lady's name, since she'll only tell you if she wants to. I'll get punished if I tell you without permission. Right?"

Joe didn't know why, but he felt like Hill just winked at him.

"Well anyways, that Immoral Wizard really was pretty powerful, at least in those that I've seen. I had to expend some real effort to kill him, even if it didn't seem like it to you."

He spoke while bouncing his heels on the ground and tapping his fingers on the chair's armrest. The smell of blood came from the receptionist desk as Joe took a quick glance. He saw the remnants of Rhad's corpse on the table, as the receptionist reviewed the corpse.

When the receptionist nodded his head and finished speaking to her, she began to walk back to the group.

She spoke in an indifferent voice to Joe.

"We should go our separate ways now. I need to recover and the bounty from that Immoral Wizard has just what I need to recuperate. Come now Hill, we just got a room. We need to wait for the rewards and recover now."

Hill stood up, and began to follow Christine. He looked back at Joe and left him with some parting words.

"Don't be worried. You'll be fine. We gave you some of the reward too. You'll get some free training, and hopefully that'll be enough to get you a sufficient strength level to make it out on the world. We aren't so heartless after all."

Joe felt like he could see a compassionate smile on Hill's face through his mask. His heart warmed as he began to sort through his memories.