Chapter 433: Long Time No See! |
Miss Jessistan, who had been lying on the agency's carpet, suddenly pushed herself up and briskly shook her wings behind her!
"Mr. Loren!"
"Wake up!!!"
"The Resistance guys are about to get robbed dry!!!"
At that moment, Loren, awakened by Miss Jessistan's shrill cry, was slowly sitting up from the sofa.
His eyes were still foggy, clearly in that half-asleep, half-awake state.
"What did you... just say?"
......
One minute later.
Although he didn't know why the Resistance had suddenly collapsed, that didn't stop him from going to talk with those wild Resistance members...
One man and one dragon walked out the agency's front door.
They stood on the empty street.
Just as Miss Jessistan was about to cast her teleportation magic, she suddenly sensed something.
She tilted her head slightly and looked at Loren, then asked:
"Mr. Loren, your old friend's corpse is still lying on the roof of that grocery store."
"Do you want to do anything about it?"
At Miss Jessistan's reminder, Loren turned and looked toward the grocery store, releasing his spiritual perception.
One second later, Loren inexplicably shrugged.
"Miss Jessistan, please wait for me a moment."
With that, Loren unfurled the black wings on his back, flew up into the sky, and flapped hard!
The tall silhouette vanished from the night sky in an instant.
It was still the darkest hour before dawn.
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Federal Calendar 7709, January 4, pre-dawn.
Dusk Star Domain, Resource Planet 17.
Clear Mine City, in a slum on the edge of the Lower District.
A tall figure sprouted with black wings descended at high speed and landed on the roof of a grocery store at the slum's center.
Loren looked at the bearded old man's corpse before him and shook his head.
"I didn't expect that you couldn't even find someone to collect your body anymore, Boss William..."
After greeting the bearded man's corpse, Loren snapped his fingers and released his enormous spiritual power!
The spiritual power of a legendary Rule-Based Psychic effortlessly lifted the bearded man's corpse from the roof.
Loren leapt cleanly down from the roof, and behind him Boss William's corpse floated...
With his back to Loren, the wings behind the corpse flapped once more.
A gale whipped up.
Boom!
The already shabby grocery store was blown into a heap of rubble by the gust...
At the same time,
Loren's figure, along with Boss William's corpse, vanished.
......
In the cemetery at the farthest reaches of the slum.
Loren used his spiritual power to carry Boss William to this desolate cemetery.
He found a patch of empty ground not far from his parents' graves and the grave of his adoptive sister Mura...
He buried Boss William's corpse here.
The pit was dug with the spell "Mage's Hand" that the Raven had newly learned, and the soil was shoveled by "Mage's Hand" as well.
A very convenient little spell, especially useful for digging a deep pit.
Under the Raven's spiritual manipulation, that transparent energy hand worked almost as fast as the small engineering machines from the Energy Department...
The Raven even used "Mage's Hand" to find a well-shaped deadwood near the cemetery and carved it into a wooden tombstone.
On the tombstone, the Raven left an inscription using a flame spell:
"This was an honorable old man, born in a slum."
"He once gave many children from the slums a genuinely happy childhood."
This crude wooden headstone gave Boss William's corpse a relatively proper "burial experience."
At last, his grave looked somewhat respectable...
After burying Boss William, Loren stood silently at the new grave and gazed at it for a long time.
After a while,
Loren sighed softly.
He tipped his hat in a proper hat-tip toward the new grave.
"Boss William, I think..."
"No one will ever sell those one-Federation-coin white irises again..."
Loren's voice carried a trace of grievance in the soft murmur.
After this cryptic soliloquy, Loren put his hat back on his head.
He turned away calmly and left.
Leaving the chilly cemetery belonging to the slum behind, he quickly spread the black wings on his back and shot into the sky!
Time was pressing.
He needed to go and talk with those Resistance members.
......
Loren returned to the front of his agency.
Miss Jessistan was contacting her followers.
She was directing them to find an opportunity to rob the frantically retreating Resistance!
"Right! The Resistance is finished! Go for it! Nobody will stop you!"
"They're pulling back toward the Fosse Star Domain!"
"And be clean when you act, leave no traces!"
"I don't want to hear that some cult trapped you!"
"As for me??? Don't worry about me! As the boss, of course I'm going to hit the big score!!"
Loren, who had just landed in front of the agency, heard Miss Jessistan's words.
His mood inexplicably brightened.
A dragon that robs people proactively—this feels pretty good...
Made him want to keep her.
While Jesse—Miss Jessistan—was commanding her followers, she paused and turned to look at Loren with a puzzled expression.
She had once again noticed Loren thinking something rude.
Her intuition sharp as ever, after quickly instructing her followers a few more words, she cut off the communication magic in her consciousness sea.
"Mr. Loren, please stop those wild thoughts in your head, we're about to leave!"
Loren pretended to nod earnestly at her.
"Of course."
So perceptive... even more reasons to want to keep her...
Just as Miss Jessistan was about to cast her teleportation spell, she shot Loren another disdainful look.
Disgusted expression!
Seeing that, Loren raised his hands to show he was innocent.
"I promise I won't think anything naughty." He spoke in a solemn tone.
"Hmph! Human!" Miss Jessistan huffed in a very tsundere way, meaning unclear.
Then, without Loren interfering, Miss Jessistan finally managed to activate her magic.
A three-meter-diameter magical teleportation gate opened in front of the man and the dragon.
At that moment!
Loren's Ninth Ability—Guidance of Fate—fired on its own for the first time in a long while!
A sudden illusory scene appeared before him, and he was stunned.
Realizing what had happened, Loren looked calmly at the vision. The golden, illusory image showed:
Two hours later at dawn.
Loren would appear in the city center of a huge Floating City.
In the center of that Floating City stood an unusually tranquil manor.
He was chatting in that manor's courtyard with a dignified white-haired old man.
The illusory scene ended there.
Loren happened to know that enormous Floating City; it lay in the remote Dusk Star Domain and was one of the Federation's busiest main cities.
He pretended to lower his head to think, then looked up and said directly to Miss Jessistan beside him:
"By the way, let's stop by Dusk Main City first."