"This filthy creature is tainting the air here." The man with grey hair looked at the shadow demon with a hint of disgust.
Angered, the shadow demon suddenly vanished and reappeared steps before this man. It didn't sense any fluctuation of power from this human so the demon wanted to personally beat the grey haired man into an unrecognizable pulp.
The man pulled out a weirdly shaped gun out of thin-air and fired.
The demon laughed and thought the man's aim was terrible. The shot was nowhere near hitting it!
Yet, it felt something wrong because it sensed that the barrier it made earlier broke! This was the barrier that was protecting Weasley's body.
The shadow demon looked back and screeched!
Weasley's head was no longer on his body. He was dead because of the shot sent out by the man's gun!
Although the demon stared back at the grey haired man with vicious eyes, it could no longer move. One second later, the shadow demon vanished into a puff of scattered smoke.
Ron glanced at the new person with a warm smile.
"Old friend, why were you playing around with a shadow demon?" The man walked up to Ron and chuckled.
"Even though the shadow demon is a tough monster, it was clearly a contracted being. As long as you eliminated the contractor, it can no longer maintain its connection to our plane." The grey-haired man said this despite knowing Ron was well aware of this.
"Haha. Eliminating that worthless man is easy. Dealing with the aftermath is not." Ron spoke his true intentions. He knew the man before him would not suffer any repercussions for killing Weasley.
"What if nobody came here?" The man raised his eyebrows at Ron.
"That's impossible." Ron smiled as he stared down at the two crests on his other hand. "If not you, someone else would have eventually arrived. I'm aware of how valuable this transaction is to your clan."
The man with grey hair laughed loudly.
"Indeed. I sent my dimensional beast here the moment I received the notification."
"Due to this, I got to skip a very boring meeting. I glanced at little Pearson's face when he saw that I was teleporting to his planet.. haha!" He continued without restraining his laughter.
"Fortunately, the notification appeared with an emergency signal. The other Guardians made an exception because they thought my clan's branch was in trouble."
The man felt quite smug at his luck!
As he was about to continue talking, Edward and Olivia ran up next to Ron. The shadow werewolf had already left when the shadow demon was removed. Thus, the barrier around the two children was gone and they could move freely again.
"These two..?" The man glanced at Edward's face and saw a striking similarity to someone he knew.
"Darwin's children." Ron smiled.
"Oh? How great! I finally got to meet that lad's family!" The man raised his eyebrows in delight.
"I am Alfred Clover. I used to do a lot of business with your father, Darwin." Alfred nodded at the two children.
It was also at this moment that Alice and Erin walked up to the group. Alice was relieved that the fight was over. Even so, there was still a sense of exhaustion scattered across her face.
Erin's attention was on the ordinarily dressed man named Alfred. The way he casually strode in and resolved everything was still very vivid in his mind.
"My, isn't this little Alice?" Alfred didn't notice she was here earlier. After the shadow demon was eliminated, his attention was solely focused on Ron. It's just been so many years since he last saw this old friend of his!
"Apologies for leaving your father alone with all those powerful hypocrites." Alfred said this out of formality. "I was only there for a few minutes before coming here. His envious face as I left was rather pitiful."
"It's alright, I'm certain he has friends amongst the Guardians to support him there. Otherwise, he would have done everything in his power to skip this meeting somehow." Alice recognized Alfred and bowed politely.
"Thank you for your understanding." Alfred returned her bow with a gentlemen's bow of his own.
"..This dashing young lad is..?" Alfred glanced over at Erin. With a sudden look of enlightenment, his eyes repeatedly rotated between Erin and Alice. The smile on his face only got wider as the seconds passed.
"Ohoho. Youth is a wonder-"
"Ahem."
Alfred's words were interrupted by Ron's cough.
"The young sir's name is Erin Dawn." Ron formally introduced Erin.
'The two of them just met today. You can play matchmaker some other time.' Ron also sent a single mental message to Alfred.
"Greetings. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." Erin gave a gentleman's bow. Since this man was acquainted with Ron, he felt it was necessary to be extra polite.
Alfred's gaze eventually landed on Erin and noticed the orb hanging off his waist. His gaze sharpened.
"Your last name is Dawn?" Alfred asked this question very seriously.
"Yes, is something the matter?" Erin didn't know why his last name was emphasized.
Instead of answering Erin's question, Alfred pulled out a golden crest from one of his pockets and activated it.
[Alfred Clover] [Age: ????]
[Level: ????] [Family: Clover Clan]
[Profession: ????] [Status: ????]
[Officiator: Guardians Guild]
[Additional Notes: ????]
"My apologies for my earlier introduction." Alfred suddenly bowed his head slightly. "I did not expect to meet a member of Dawn Family here. It seems a formal introduction is necessary."
'Dawn Family?' Erin was flustered. He wasn't from any power or clan in the universe. To him, the Dawn surname was fairly common.
'Perhaps my name is not common anymore?' Erin tried to hold his face back from twitching as he thought about how many years had actually passed.
Ron watched this scene and immediately understood that Alfred had some hidden intentions.
Aside from noting down Erin's last name, Alice also noticed the orb that Erin was carrying. It's just that she didn't say anything and withheld her curiosity out of politeness.
Erin realized that Alfred wasn't planning on deactivating his crest anytime soon. Before the situation got out of hand, he quickly activated his orb.
As it levitated in front of him, a small holographic screen appeared above the now floating orb.
[Erin Dawn] [Age: 18]
[Level: 310] [Family: Household of Dawn]
[Profession: Student] [Status: ????]
[Officiator: Intergalactic Imperial Academy]
[Additional Notes: ????]
Everyone in the room couldn't help themselves from glancing at orb's holographic display.
'When the f*ck did you give me a family backing.'
Erin wanted to scream at his orb. This wasn't there before!
As if detecting Erin's question, a couple notifications popped up in his mind.
[The orb is still in the process of internal self-repair. Corrupted files are either being repaired or replaced at the orb's own discretion.]
[Additional Notes: How can you survive without a background? This is merely a small part of my gift to you. I hope you brighten up soon. - Overseer]
'Oh! It's the being that struck me with lighting!'
Erin twitched at the note's mockery.
As he thought back to that moment, a swirling purple light was calmly swimming around the depths of Erin's consciousness. Although Erin had yet to notice this light, it seemed to be waiting for something.
'So it seems the gift was not one thing, but multiple things packaged together?'
Erin was somewhat relieved since a lot of the odd changes surrounding him could finally be explained. However, he was also annoyed. He didn't know which changes were actually designed by this mysterious being and which ones were an actual coincidence.
Just as Erin was getting deeper into his thoughts, everyone else was deeply staring at Erin's identification screen.
"So weak.." Edward and Olivia quietly muttered in surprise when they saw Erin's level. For humans, Erin hasn't even broken through the first barrier!
Ron, Alice, and Alfred were all focusing on the two lower categories.
'It seems my intuition was correct.' Ron felt like a burden was lifted off his shoulders.
Alice looked at 'Intergalactic Imperial Academy' and 'Student' with round eyes. Although she already anticipated something incredible, it still couldn't stop her from feeling quite envious.
Alfred, on the other hand, smiled before activating another function on his golden crest.
[Override attempt detected. Permission necessary. Allow access?]
'Oh, it's this again!' Erin recognized the familiar notification in his mind.
'Deny.' He didn't plan on making the same mistake as last time.
[Understood. Request denied.]
However, Erin answered so fast that he hadn't fully absorbed the words in this notification.
'Wait, it doesn't look the same as last time?' He quickly understood the difference. Just as he was pondering, another notification popped up.
[Scan finished. Identification Symbol Detected. Override?]
'Oh, it was actually this one!' Erin realized.
'Deny.' He didn't hesitate to give the same answer.
When Alfred saw his attempt denied, he waited a few seconds in case there was a retaliatory response. When nothing happened, his smile became a lot more genuine.
"My apologies for trying to intrude on your details." Alfred bowed this time. "I was simply curious about the authenticity of your orb. It seems the orb is genuine. I hope I didn't offend you."
Alfred's words cleared up Erin's doubts immediately. It seems regardless of whether he accepted or denied, the situation would have still been out of Erin's control.
"No offense taken. Such precautions are a necessity." Erin tried to sound like he expected Alfred's actions.
Once the pretenses were over, Alfred looked around the heavily destroyed room and frowned. The destruction even broke through the nearby walls and made the room look three times bigger than it was originally.
"How about we continue our discussions elsewhere?" Alfred offered. "This room isn't really appropriate anymore."
Alfred took out a small communication device and started sending out a few messages.
"Before I walked in earlier, I sensed the deceased guards and immediately restricted this floor. I lifted the restrictions just now. There should be people coming in to clean up and repair everything soon." Alfred added as he started walking in the direction of the nearest elevator. He checked and made sure that the structure around this elevator was not damaged.
The group followed Alfred into the elevator and, after Alfred inputted a unique password, the elevator began rising to the highest floor of this entire building!