Reunion

As Arian and her co-workers from the octagon Church made their way into the forest, Lance and the whole family were having fun inside the main house.

Right now, they all believed that it was over, they believed the Octagon church had decided to let go of the matter. Who would blame them? For almost 2 years, the Octagon church had taken no real action, and Lance was about to receive his immunity. There was no other explanation.

"Happy birthday, young master Lance"

"Happy birthday sir"

The guards greeted Lance, who was currently giving out food and cake with his mother Laura. It was technically lance's birthday, so she wanted to celebrate it, and giving out food and cake also helped lighten the mood. It had been quite long since they hand a normal day, so she tried her very best to lighten the mode.

"Puuuuu"

All of a sudden, as Lance was giving out food from the pot, a mild whistle sounded from the backyard.

"Hm?"

Lance immediately turned back with a plate in hand and headed outside through the back door, leaving Laura to dish out the food.

"Well then, looks like today won't be boring after all."

Right outside their house stood a platoon of 20 young men in black robes, all of which had a shining glow of excitement in Their Eyes. What they had been planning for all this while was finally coming to pass.

"Let's head out"

Just has those words left lance's mouth, all 20 of the young men dispersed into the Shadow of the night.

At the same time, Arian and the other two from the Octagon church made their way through the forest area, at this point, she still didn't know for sure that this was the way to the Naldir household, but unknown to her, she had already been noticed by one of lance's men.

"Crap"

Arian tried to swat a fly lingering around her face, the exhaustion on her face was still present, but this time there was an extra layer of annoyance.

She had been to several parts of this forest, but this one was by far the smelliest, it even attracted flies and mosquitoes.

"Feaces of goats and cows, people probably live around here. Hey little priestess, you still don't recognize this place?"

One of the other men inquired from Arian, the animal feces being dumped here, was either a coincidence or a tactic to scare people away. Either way, they had to be sure by asking Arian.

"Hm?"

Arian, looked up and shook her head. She couldn't scold them, even after these guys had called her a little priestess. She needed them because even though she was a grade 2 mage, she wasn't really a fighter, but these two were paladins.

The paladins were part of the enforcing hand of the church, and they were well-experienced fighters. Without them, this whole mission would not be possible, since the church didn't place much importance on it.

"Wait a minute, I think I recognize that…."

All of a sudden, Arians eyes fell upon a small piece of paper on the floor. This paper had a strange symbol on it that Arian recognized, simply because she wrote the symbol herself.

"Are you certain?"

"Yes… I wrote this myself"

She used it when she was still trying to banish the imaginary spirit in the forest. However, she didn't remember ever coming this far into the forest, so the fact that it was here was perplexing.

"Okay, give the signal. We finally found them"

The atmosphere became tense all of a sudden, they had been going through mountains and forests for days and now finally they found their target. All they needed to do now was go in and do their job, no matter how dangerous it was, after they captured their target it would mark the end.

However, what they didn't expect was to hear a voice echo from the distance at that very moment.

"Teacher Arian, Long time no see!!!"

As a voice echoed, a figure in a gray hood, slowly made his way over from the dark cloak of the night. It looks like he was coming out of a magic portal made of Darkness.

"It's..."

Arian looked at the new arrival and frowned her eyebrows. That voice, she had heard it before, the tone of mockery it carried, and its sheer coldness shook her.

"Who are you?"

The paladin to the left pulled out his sword immediately and fixed it at the new arrival. It was an instinctive action, they were in the middle of a pitch-Black Forest at midnight, his reflexes were at high alert.

In response, a voice filled with Mockery resounded from the figure in the gray Hood

"Haha, what a funny question, you are sneaking around someone's property in the middle of the night and still dare ask for identification?"

Hearing the response, the paladin couldn't help but boiling anger. He was a paladin of the octagon church. How dare this man speak to him like that?

"you good for nothing peasant, Who do you think you are speaking to me like that? I'll kill you right Here and Now!!"

The paladin wasn't used to mockery as they were always revered by the masses but now he was being spoken to like this by a peasant with dirty rags for clothes? The paladin was about to lose his cool, but luckily before he could do anything, Arian spoke.

"Stop!!! That's our target, the son of Escanor naldir. Be careful not to harm him, we were told to bring him back alive"

Arian's voice resounded, causing the paladin to stop in his tracks. Following which, a brief moment of silence filled the air.

The paladin's couldn't believe it, their target had come to them willingly? Was there really such luck in this world?

"Haha!! It looks like the Lord has favored us, and brought the prey to us."

The loud paladin calmed himself down as he stared Lance down like a wolf looking at a fat rabbit.

"Ah? Are you referring to me?"

Lance feigned ignorance, he looked around as if he weren't the one they were speaking to. However, he was quickly cut off by Arian, who seemed to have had enough of Lance's bullshit.

"Cut the crap, you little shit. We are here to bring you to justice under the light of our Lord, you better come with us willingly!!"

Arian said with much vigor, contrary to what Lance and the members of the Naldir family believed, Arian didn't receive a high reward for exposing Lance. In fact, they didn't believe her and some mocked her, saying that she had to resort to cooking up lies for status. The only way to restore her reputation and elevate her in the church was to capture Lance.

And he was here clowning around. It really pissed her off.