Kale stared at Mikol as his body lost the last bit of vitality and became a corpse.
Everyone became silent, looking at the dead dwarf. It was the first time they saw his real face, the death of Tier 4 was not an everyday sight for them.
"Now leave her, we can go our separate ways and forget all that happened as a bad misunderstanding," Ajin suddenly said breaking the silence.
Kale looked at him and smiled "Forget? What would we forget, that the woman beside you uses Blood Magic or that I, as Tier 2, committed mass murder here without sparing anyone? Furthermore, from your actions, it seems you people are already running away from someone, hiding your identities behind masks… Hehe, whether it's you or us, we don't want each other to leave this place alive to keep our secrets safe, do we?"
Ajin narrowed his eyes at Kale, he too understood these words, he neither denied nor agreed to Kale's objection, he slightly bent his body and pulled out his two daggers out of the old man's body.
"So? You don't think you will just say something like 'I will release her once I go out' and we will let you go after that? That's below our bottom line," Ajin said. His actions spoke for him, it was a given that he wasn't planning on trusting Kale on just words, he had just seen how sharp the boy was.
'Even if he is weakened right now, Tier 4 is not something I can hope to kill, especially that Blood Mage, those two seems exhausted but would surely have their own trump cards as veterans, especially a Blood Mage standing in a region filled with dead bodies. It's a shame but I need to prioritize my safety first and retreat,' Kale inwardly thought, he then looked at Tanya who seemed a little dizzy because of the effects of Venom Blood was awake because of high resistance of her physique, still, after taking the thread binding her into account, she was in no condition to fight right now.
Tanya was quiet this time, she looked like she was lost in deep thought. Her eyes were fixated on Kale for a long while, before she finally opened her mouth and spoke "Why act? You should already know, even if some miracle happens and you kill all three of us, you cannot live a peaceful life in the future, the people behind us will track you down, you would need to keep fleeing all the time.
It's way better to go out together and then forget about each other, if you reveal about us, we would reveal about you and vice versa. Furthermore, we don't have any solid proof about each other once this place is taken care of,"
Her words caught everyone's attention.
Ajin slightly raised his brows in praise. As a Tier 4, he could easily look down on Tier 3 and no one would blame him for that but, Tanya was different, she was a Hero from another world for him, the history was proof that Heroes either die early or become legends, they were never average.
Kale's lips curled upwards "Your temperament really doesn't match your looks? Does it?"
Ajin and Ryenne got slightly tensed up.
But Tanya as unfazed, Kale's words carried another meaning to her, she was assured that Kale really didn't wish to kill her and there was a way out. During this talk, Tanya seemed like a different person from before, her way of treating Kale changed, her words were now mostly probing him instead of showing anger "Says the one, you are probably the youngest brat here,"
When she finished speaking Kale broke into laughter.
"Hahahaha… Brat? Me?" Kale laughed loudly, his voice echoed through the caves around, he then abruptly stopped laughing and stared deep into her eyes "When your Grandfather was still learning how to walk, I was fukkking my Kingdom's Empress, anything else you want to say?"
His words had different effect and meaning for everyone, Fynn had a weird expression on his face, Ryenne was staring at him coldly, her eyes showing deep hatred. Ajin was observing Kale's teams' expressions who were no less confused.
Most took it as a sarcastic comeback.
Kale knew Tanya was trying to make him spit out something about him using soft provocation and he did spit it out, but half information is more dangerous than having no information.
He did this, because, with that, he was throwing others in an illusion that he really wasn't as young as he looked, as for strength and appearance, he left it to their imagination. After all, he was not obligated to answer all their questions.
Kale finished, he took a deep breath and added "The we will go with your suggestion, but Ajin would still have to keep a long distance between us, once we go out in public we cannot attack each other, that would be our separation, until then, you will be my hostage, during this time, if you try to recover your lost energy I will consider it as trying to break the deal,"
Tanya nodded without a second thought.
Kale didn't offer a contract, there were various reasons for that, he himself had reached the maximum limit of contracts with his current soul strength, as for signing contracts with his teammates, his earlier behaviour already said that he might even sacrifice his teammates if the situations asks for it so why would Tanya trust him on that, moreover the contracts he could make right now in his current state might not be enough to limit a Tier 4.
Lastly, the contracts are made using WitchCraft, why would Tanya trust such unknown things, Ajin might not agree, even if he and Ryenne want to protect her, who knows if they will still jump in the pit when their life is in question?
Ajin exhaled in relief.
Under Kale's command, Tanya let him just tie her hands and remove the threads from her body, her wounds were bandaged by Xaxa, but still, she didn't receive any antidote and her body was now mostly under paralysis like effects, Kale kept her and Ajin under his watch all the time.
During that time, Ajin changed the whole scenery of the region, all the dead bodies infected by the grey fog were buried deep in the ground, while the normal bodies were left together with Monster Attracting Agent to attract monsters and throw the blame on the monster horde that will be heading for the Boss Room.
***
Kale, together with Tanya and others headed on the way out of the dungeon, he was carrying the half-stunned Tanya himself in his arms, the reason was to be close as possible, he didn't want to underestimate a Tier 4 even if he was more than hundreds of meters behind them.
Kale even let several Ghost Spirits keep a watch on him from all angles just in case, but Ajin didn't try anything funny, before heading out Ryenne alerted him several times to not do something with a brief explanation, she could vaguely see the Ghost Spirits that's why she knew that they were in Kale's watch all along.
On the whole way, everyone was mostly quiet.
Once they arrived at the entrance of the dungeon, they headed to Carran Town without any pause.
At noon, the group finally came back to Carran Town and went to a quiet alley in the open market near the Town Hall.
Ajin was still away from them.
Kale first handed Tanya to Ryenne, then took out an antidote from his bag and gave it to Tanya, he was about to turn but Tanya grabbed his wrist
"Wait... Until it works," She said.
Kale looked back at her and replied "Only until it shows the effects,"
There was not much trust between the two parties, the very reason for them to separate in such a place was so that the other party cannot blindly attack them from behind, because this way, there would be many witnesses, all of them wanted to lay low due to personal reasons, these were the shackles that didn't allow them to act blindly.
It had only been a few minutes when Kale suddenly grabbed Tanya's wrist and felt her pulse "Humph, why act? It has already started to show effects, we are leaving,"
After saying that much, Kale turned around and started walking away, Fynn and others followed him without any questions.
"You..." Ryenne was irritated by his actions, but Tanya lifted her motionless hand and signalled her to stop "No need, let Ajin come first,"
Ryenne nodded, the anger in her eyes faded "We got dragged in for nothing this time,"
"It's alright, it's fine when good, and experience when bad. We were getting too full of ourselves, that person showed us we are good but not the best," Tanya said in a low tone.
"Wise word, but the question now is, what to do with them?"Ajin's voice came from above, Ryenne looked up and saw him standing on the roof of a building.
Ajin jumped off the roof and swiftly landed on the ground.
"I'm not sure about him, our information on him is almost non-existent, killing him is hard enough but we don't even know if killing him would be the end of it. For now, I think it's best to leave this place as fast as possible, her Blood Magic is revealed, we cannot stay here anymore," Tanya said.
Ryenne was quiet, Ajin thought for a while then nodded in agreement.
***
Kale and the group quickly went into the crowded side of the market, under his command, all of them first entered the clothing area and got a full makeover on the way.
According to Kale, they were safe as long as they were in a crowded area, or else he wouldn't have done that.
{Are we going back to the mansion? There is a chance they might attack us,} Fynn asked out of nowhere.
Kale looked at him and said in a mocking tone {Chance? If we go to the mansion, they would kill us even if they were not planning to do that, a quiet location on the mountain, what can be a better place for assassination,}
Fynn heard his words and turned quiet again.
Elza was not excluded from the conversation so she also heard their words, she took a step forward, came near Kale and whispered into his ear "Once it is night, not many placed would be safe in the town, we can't leave the town at moment's notice either. The best place we can choose to stay at, is near Adventurer's Guild, although it might draw suspicion but if danger arrives we can rush in for safety,"
Kale shook his idea, with a faint smile on his face {I know of a better place,}
Elza nodded and didn't argue.
While they were talking, Zalie looked around and noticed the familiarity of the place, she then spoke to Xaxa "Aren't we heading towards the Town Lord Mansion?"
When the words came out, both Xaxa and Elza looked at her, scanned through the area then stared at Kale.
They didn't know about who hired their group to kill him, they were only subordinates who were supposed to fulfil their task without any questions.
But Fynn was different, when he listened to Zalie's words, he was already feeling like they have only escaped from one calamity to go into another.