After searching for a full month, Jason had finally managed to find the location of the Monster Girl. Jason arrived in the city of Verland hoping to find any possible lead on the girls' whereabouts as a city set on a major trade route. Information tends to find itself flouting around this particular city. Though its size was closer to that of a very large town than a city.
What Jason didn't expect was for the girl he was searching for to show up the day he came to town. He probably should've figured that out the moment Sable made contact with him. Sable also got in the way of his objective once again as well. Making to lose the girl for a second time.
As a Necromancer, Sable is considered one of the more powerful mages in the world, and on top of that, they used expensive but powerful Mana Crystals to bypass the chanting needed to use spells. 'Though I think using the Crystals might be for a reason other than just quick casting time.' Jason thought, sighing once again at his failure. It's shameful for the Hero to lose twice like this.
He did break out of the ice prison extremely fast and was able to participate in the hunt across the city for his target, but he still didn't find her after an hour of running around. It didn't help that ghouls were used as decoys to add further confusion.
"Right now, I have the City guard looking for anyone injured or any suspicious people trying to leave in a hurry, but I really doubt anything will come of it." He said idly staring up at the bright blue sky. It's beauty seemingly mocking him. looking back down and into the distance, from his perched atop the roof of the Church, he saw the newly constructed buildings outside of the protective wall of the city. "Maybe they're hiding out on the outskirts of the city. I'll send some people to check over there."
While he was still trying to find the Monster Girl, Jason also had one other thing on his mind; what was Sable planning? From what he gathered from his conversation, Sable's sole reason for working with the Church was to get to the girl. Dr. Vancer had explained during his interrogation that he approached the Necromancer shortly after acquiring the girl. Up till that moment, Sable has never worked for the Church for anything.
There are few Necromancers in the world, and all of them are powerful. So every country tries their hardest to hold on to any that happened to be living within their domain. And when Sable first appeared on the scene 64 years ago, the Church tried to do everything in their power to get them on their side when it was discovered they lived in the Holy Land.
Still no matter what was promised to them, riches, states, a state of the art laboratory, or even a team of personal researcher's and assistants, Sable just laughed in their face and told them to get lost. The only constellation was that Sable didn't seam interested in joining any country at all so the Church eventually they just left Sable to their own devices.
Since most, if not all, Necromancers are researchers and scientists, they aren't used during war a lot, but their threat is still real. So leaving Sable alone instead of giving them a reason to leave and possibly join an enemy, Sable continued living in the Holy Land openly, despising the Church.
The fact that Sable decided to work with the Church just because of one girl meant they had something else planned. Which made Jason very wary. On the plus side of everything that's been happening, the higher-ups have stopped trying to kill him, more worried about the girl than anything else.
"If it weren't for their presence keeping the peace between the other nations, I would love to wipe these fools off the map." With that, Jason the Hero jumped off the roof of the Church.
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Ruby POV
"Seriously, if you weren't so injured right now, I would be beating you up to pulp myself!"
Sitting quietly as Judieth yelled at her, Ruby sat on her bed in shame. Ever since she woke up, the Redhead had been lecturing the Silvered haired girl, who looked like a small child who got caught doing something they weren't supposed to do.
"You know how close you got to dying last night!? How did that even happen!? You're better than this!" Judieth yelled, looking more like a monster than the actual one in front of her.
In response, Ruby held her head down in shame. Normally, if Judieth tried telling her off, Ruby would fight back in some way, but this time, it was undoubtedly a complete blunder on her part. Realizing that this situation was her own fault, Ruby could do nothing but sit there in silence.
"Why did you even go to pick a fight anyway? There was literally no reason to do so."
"I was foolishly mistaken that I had unfinished business and that I didn't punish that m- I mean Fredrick enough. I realized too late that I didn't really have any desire or any other reason to go after him." Ruby responded, making no excuse for her actions and taking full ownership of her mistake.
In truth, Ruby doesn't really know why she suddenly couldn't go through with her plan to "punish" Freddy. Unlike the time when she killed the Hunter Joe with no remorse or regret, just the act of stabbing Freddy with the knife made her feel wrong. What her criteria for what is acceptable and what isn't was a mystery to her. What she did know was that she wouldn't go out of her way to hunt a person for a misunderstanding next time.
Ruby also felt extremely stupid for messing up in a fight enough to get hit with a fatal wound. Her feeling of freedom this past month, and her general lack of hardship lately had made her relax a bit, she would fix that. This whole mess is a lesson of what not to do. She will make sure to not forget it.
"Honestly, you really are lucky to be alive. If it wasn't for that Mana Crystal in you, you would be dead right now. Also, when did you learn ice magic? If it wasn't for that, you would've bleed to death." Judieth said no longer yelling.
"I've been practicing my water magic lately and in my panic to stop the bleeding I just happen to create ice. But using all that magic strained my Mana Links." Ruby answered.
"Yeah any longer and you would be dealing with some serious problems. It still affected you though, your healing has slowed down. You are practically functioning without a heart for about a week or more." Judieth said. "Normally with your healing ability and how little damage was done to the actual organ itself it would be fully healed in another day or so. This is why I said be careful with how you use your magic."
"Yeah I can feel myself significantly weaker." Ruby said looking at her hands.
"I'm done lecturing you for now. I'll let the others know we're done here and they can come back. Or I can tell them to let you rest." Judieth said walking to the door. She kicked the others out of the room to reprimand Ruby knowing they wouldn't and would probably even stop her from telling the girl off.
"I would like to be alone for a bit," Ruby said, too ashamed to face her family.
"Alright, get well soon." With that Judieth left.