Chapter 52: A small chat with Akame [1]

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After hearing her words, the group looked at her and Hai who were both smiling at each other without saying anything.

"Can they communicate between themselves in their minds or something like that?" Bing Qing asked no one in particular when seeing this scene.

Akame heard her question and stopped looking at Hai before turning back to the group again.

"*COUGH* As Lin Feng should already have said, I called you here for little Hua to explain about her guests, but this a load of bullshit." She commented while walking towards a more open area of the garden.

"Follow me." She added without looking back.

Chang Hua looked at them and nodded before following her.

Hai also took the initiative and soon, the whole group was walking behind Akame.

Walking for a minute, the group noticed that the garden was actually bigger than they thought, as it showed no signs of them ever nearing its end.

However, Jia, Chang Hua, Elena, and Hai noticed that there were some small and almost imperceptible fluctuations in the space from time to time, thus indicating that this garden was also under a space distortion field.

"If you are curious, then the one who does all of this with the space as you are seeing is none other than my disciple." Akame commented without looking at them.

Hai raised an eyebrow when he heard her words. He was honestly surprised as someone from the Apex normally don't take in disciples nor interact with people at such an intimate level. However, this is only what he has heard, so he has no proof if this is true or if this "tradition" of sorts has already been broken and is now a thing of the past.

"What is on your mind, boy?" Akame asked while giving him a side glance.

Hai just smiled innocently.

"Brain cells." He replied.

Chang Hua nearly tripped when she heard his answer and she quickly looked at the palace master.

However, to her surprise, Akame was smiling in amusement at his answer.

"You are good, boy." She commented and fell silent before looking ahead.

Hai said nothing and only hummed a small melody to himself.

After a few more minutes, Hai and his group arrived at a small lake with an island at its center.

The island had a beautiful Sakura tree in it that exuded a calm and peaceful aura around the lake.

"You can consider it as a welcome gift. You all can use this lake for as long as you like to meditate. This lake is a special one that can help you all to get enlightenment or a deeper understanding of your powers." Akame said while approaching Hai and grabbing his wrist.

"Chang Hua and Jia can aid you, meanwhile I will be having a talk with the boy and this little phoenix here." She added while dragging Hai away.

Now that the group wasn't under the effect of Akame's scary natural presence, they noticed that she had called Kryn "little phoenix" and looked at her on Hai's shoulders with surprised and curious eyes.

"Aunt~ Help me~ A bad woman is taking your beloved nephew away~" Hai said dramatically while extending one hand towards Chang Hua.

The latter only smiled bitterly at his antics and turned away.

"Who are you calling a bad woman?" Akame asked him with a small smile on her face.

Hai blinked his eyes.

"Would you like to be called a man?" He questioned her with a calm and innocent tone.

Akame fell silent and dragged him with her faster.

Hai sighed inwardly but didn't say anything else.

After dragging him to who-knows-where that they couldn't even see the group anymore, Akame released his wrist and turned to face him and Kryn.

"So…" Hai said, prompting her to start the conversation but all he received was a strong presence weighing down on him.

Hai pursued his lips and looked at her with a face as if asking "seriously?".

Akame smiled when seeing his face and looked at Kryn.

Kryn had some beads of sweat running down her forehead, but her orange eyes now had a slit in them and a majestic aura could be felt when looking at them for long enough.

Akame nodded and retracted her presence.

Right after, Hai felt his body becoming lighter but he kept his face, asking her to explain herself.

"Sorry for this, I was curious about something." She said while shrugging her shoulders.

"Oh yeah? I also am very curious about this so-called 'something'." Hai answered her with a plain face.

Kryn nodded at his words and both stared at her.

Akame just smiled and diverted the focus of the conversation to another topic.

"I wanted to know more about you two. Mainly about how you saw what I was at first glance." She stated while locking her gaze into Hai's eyes.

"Somehow." He answered while Kryn's lips slightly arced upwards hearing his answer.

"Fair enough." Akame shrugged her shoulders.

"Now, how about we get to business?" Her eyes suddenly narrowed while she looked at Kryn.

"Do you know how big is the trouble you brought to my palace, boy?" Her voice took a serious tone and she gazed directly into Hai's eyes as if trying to see beyond what is outside.

"Trouble? I wonder what you meant with that…" Hai commented in reply to her rhetorical question.

Akame narrowed her eyes while glaring harder at him.

"Palace master Akame, let us be honest. Neither of us cares about such a thing." Hai added while feeling the pressure coming back.

*SIGH*

The pressure that was building vanished like a lie and only Akame sigh could be heard as a reply to his words.

"I have to maintain the appearances, you know. Authority and all that jazz." She commented before looking at Kryn who was still glaring at her with ferocious eyes.

"You can stop it now, child. I mean no harm." Akame tried to pacify her, but her words had no effect on Kryn.

Kryn tightened her grip on Hai's head and hid half of her face behind it while still glaring at Akame without saying a word.

Akame laughed awkwardly seeing her reaction but knew that it was her own fault, so she didn't pursue the matter and let it be.

"So, what does the palace master wishes to discuss with us?" Hai asked in a relaxed tone while maintaining a smile on his face.

Akame's eyes slightly narrowed for a split second before going back to normal.

Although it seems simple, Hai's question is a clever trap commonly used in the business world.

If Akame were to start talking about her reason to bring them here, she would be indirectly agreeing with him that she is talking with them as the palace master and not as an individual.

At the same time, if she were to correct him and say to just call her by her name, for example, she would imply that she is here as an individual, and hence, her words wouldn't carry the weight that her title has.

"…" Not saying anything while smiling at him, she took a scroll out of nowhere and tossed it to Hai.

He picked it up and started to read its content.

While reading, Hai noticed Kryn was also looking at the contract with a confused and lost gaze.

Hai had the thought of using of her ability to hear his thought to briefly clear her doubts but ultimately decided against it.

Right now, he is "against" a thousands-year-old monster. Even the small detail of Kryn's gaze changing from confusion to understanding can give away the fact that they can "talk" between themselves without words or actions.

After reading the scroll's contents, Hai concluded that it was just a simple but more powerful secrecy contract.

"May I ask the outlines of what we are going to talk about that requires such a thing?" Hai asked after raising his eyes from the scroll and looking at Akame.

"Mine and the little girl's origins, a few of your secrets, and how to become more powerful." She used short but very specific topics to answer his question.

Raising an eyebrow, Hai willed his mana and signed the scroll.

"The little phoenix over there also needs to sign it." She added after seeing that only Hai signed it.

Ignoring the fact that his attempt to abuse of a loophole failed, Hai raised the contract to Kryn's eye level.

"You can read it if you want, Kryn."

[I will do a quick scan of the contract for you, Kryn.] Laila's message flashed before her eyes.

Surprisingly, Kryn shook her head and signed the contract with a bit of her mana.

"Huh. Hai. Trust." She said while looking into his eyes.

Hai opened his eyes at her words but a smile soon formed on his lips and he tossed the scroll back at Akame.

"I swear, you two are the oddest yet most compatible pair I have ever seen to date." She commented before also signing the contract and the scroll burned with blue fire before the ashes turned into small particles and entered inside the three of them.

"Now then," Akame snapped her finger and the three of them were suddenly sitting on chairs with a table before them. "Let's start our chat."

Kryn who was beside Hai just looked up at him as she knew that she wouldn't understand a single thing.

Hai patted her head while looking at Akame and waiting for what she was going to say.

He also noticed back when she said that her disciple was the one who did all of those space distortions, that she must be quite well-versed in space magic, even more than Jia.

Now, Hai has confirmed his guess since he also feels that they are in a different space from before, maybe a pocket dimension.

"Let's us first delve into the most interesting topic for you: how to become more powerful or simply, how to gain more strength." She commented while picking up a cup of tea that appeared before her who-knows-when.

Putting both of his elbows on the table, crossing his fingers, and supporting his chin on them, Hai silently gazed at her, indicating to continue.

"As you should already be aware, not many people nowadays can attend a decent level of strength, since most of them either depend on flashy techniques, showy spells, or cybernetics." Akame stated while looking at her tea.

Hai said nothing and only kept an interested glint in his eyes.

Not bothering with his unresponsiveness, Akame continued.

"Well, there are always exceptions for such cases, and one such exception is actually none other than the Akashic Beasts themselves." She explained while putting down her cup of tea and looking Hai in the eyes.

"Do you know what makes Akashic Beasts so strong and feared?" She asked while using all her senses and experience to read Hai.

However, she once again didn't obtain any results.

'As expected, it's nearly impossible to read him.' Akame noted inwardly.

Ever since earlier, she has been trying to read him and get to know how his mind works, however, it didn't take much time for her to be surprised.

While she could indeed read Hai with a bit of difficulty, Akame quickly noticed that she was actually being led on.

Hai let her read him but her "reading" was completely off the mark and he guided her to read what he wanted her to.

"I have some guesses, but surprise me." After a few seconds of silence, Hai answered her question by not answering it.

Akame looked at him for a few seconds and decided to not comment on yet another tactic of his.

"They are strong because they don't depend on mana, aura, qi nor any other energy. But something else."

This time, Hai showed genuine surprise in his eyes. Although he also had thought about that, the idea of using something else than the already known energies is something that is often labeled as a fool's dream.

"They use concepts." Akame said before picking up her teacup and drinking it.

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