As Luke, Ellios, and Anastasia made their way upstairs to Leon's office, Anastasia couldn't help but voice her complaints out loud.
"Who does that guy think he is to be calling us "strays"… Being the receptionist of a secondary embassy detachment of the pitiful Water Temple makes him think that he has any right to talk down to people like that?! I'll show him…"
Luke and Ellios glanced at each other with mutual understanding and wordlessly chose to ignore her complaints as Luke led the way to the office.
'The building is still empty. I remember hearing something about more people arriving soon from Leon, but it seems like that hasn't happened yet.'
They weren't in a rush, so Ellios decided to start up a conversation.
"So, Luke, about the tattoos on your chest…"
"Ah…!"
A gasp escaped Luke's mouth as his shoulders slightly trembled and his walking pace slowed down. Since Luke was in the front, the pair of people behind him also slowed down.
Turning his head around, Luke cautiously asked.
"You've seen them then…?"
Ellios and Anastasia both nodded at his question.
'Haah, of course they both did. Norma performed surgery on me, after all, which would be impossible to do while I was still wearing my robe. There's also the fact that I woke up butt-naked. But why didn't anyone bring it up earlier?'
Luke's eyes started nervously darting around as beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
In the end, they stopped walking altogether, instead standing still in the middle of the long hallway of the embassy building. Luke's mind clouded over, which was the reason he stopped walking.
'The last time I was asked about my tattoos, I-I…'
Suddenly, he heard a raspy female voice echoing in his mind.
"Where is the old man?" the voice questioned.
Luke heard his own quivering voice give an answer: "I-I killed him."
Images flashed in front of Luke's eyes as if he were separated from reality. He was walking through a dark forest with a pair of people.
"Are you just stalling us?" a different voice from the one before gleefully asked. It was a younger, male voice.
Slightly panicked, Luke's voice once again provided an answer: "It's just up ahead…"
Luke blinked, and the scenery changed once more. A dark forest still surrounded him on all sides.
His body felt limp, lacking the strength necessary to resist the young man who was pinning him against a tree. Because his shirt was torn, his chest was exposed, along with the tattoos inscribed on the left side of it.
Looking downward, Luke could only stare in silence.
Two flat stumps were there in place of his arms, viscous scarlet streams of blood gushing out of them.
"Such a fragile man," the raspy female voice sinisterly echoed through his mind once more as Luke's eyes grew hollow.
In reality, he was standing still in the hallway, and his shoulders rapidly moved up and down as the intensity of his breathing accelerated.
Noticing that something was wrong, Ellios grabbed Luke's shoulders and shouted something out in an effort to calm him down, but instead, the two figures from Luke's mind overlapped with Ellios and Anastasia.
To Luke, they looked like Mark and Alissia, the Wind Temple pair who had previously questioned and brutalized him multiple times over.
"I-I don't know anything; leave me be!" Luke started muttering as he slapped away Ellios' hands.
"Luke! Snap out of it!"
"I will not let you kill me again!" Luke shouted out.
Dashing backwards and away from the pair, Luke gathered wind in his hands and prepared to attack with a wind blade.
"Things will not go your way! Not this time!"
Just as Luke steeled his resolve and was about to release his wind blade at Ellios and Anastasia, a door swung open in front of him and hit him square in the face.
"What's with all the commotion?"
Ellios couldn't help but let out a short snort that was more akin to a chuckle.
"Apologies," said Ellios before pointing at Luke.
"I am that fool's master."
The man who was standing in the doorway and still holding onto the doorknob raised an eyebrow before looking behind the opened door.
What he saw behind the door left him speechless.
"…"
Luke was frozen in a half-crouched position, his face pressing flush against the door.
The wind blade in his hands had already dissipated, but he was still in the same position he was in before getting hit, as if he still hadn't given up on attacking.
"Luke? Are you alright? I do apologize for hitting you…"
Either by the impact or by hearing Leon's voice, Luke was brought back into reality and separated his face from the door, shaking his head.
'What… just happened to me?'
Trying to clear up his confusion, he looked up at the worried man in front of him and muttered.
"Leon…"
He averted his gaze from Leon, who was caught off-guard by this situation, and looked at Ellios and Anastasia, a mix of worry and surprise apparent on their disguised faces.
'Have I just tried to attack them? I can clearly remember what I did and heard inside of my head, but it's like I was sitting in the backseat, not having any control over anything…'
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Meanwhile, somewhere in Millef…
Two robed people kneeled, almost touching their heads to the ground, in front of a middle-aged man sitting at a table on a fancy chair who was busily writing something down on a sheet of paper.
The man who was sitting on the chair had an easily recognizable set of droopy eyes and a mix of black hair with gray strands making their way from the front of his head to the back in neat straight lines, which contradicted the overall messy state his hair was always in.
He was Joseph, the head of the Bounty Hunter Association's branch in Millef.
The vast majority of people in Millef knew either his name and position or his appearance, but almost never both. The people who did know both but were not the man's subordinates could be counted on one hand.
Bounty hunters saw this man almost daily, but to them, he was a mere receptionist. He was never asked for his name or his history. No one cared about such things. He was simply not interesting enough.
This anonymity wasn't an accident; it was the product of his hard work.
Outside of Millef, he was acquainted with a good number of people vital to the functioning of the Empire as a whole. Among those were a number of counts and dukes, as well as heads and higher-ups of various important organizations and associations.
These connections were a part of what allowed him to stay as low-key as he did, and they also helped raise his influence in the country's various sectors.
Without looking at the kneeling people, Joseph spoke.
"Report."
One of the kneeling figures obeyed and started their report with a cheerful voice.
"Yes, sir. The Association Head's plan worked out flawlessly! No one suspected that the person at the meeting wasn't you."
The person raised their head to look at Joseph, but immediately regretted that decision.
With a blank expression and hollow eyes, Joseph nodded.
"Good. What about the investigation in Obron?"
That gaze was enough to leave his subordinate short of breath.
Joseph's other subordinate spoke up.
"After checking with the Association Head's contacts in the army, there is currently no conclusive evidence needed to confirm the identity of the culprit responsible for what happened in the Obron village."
"Hm."
Seemingly satisfied with that information, Joseph continued writing something, but after a few moments, he stopped.
"What about Lala and that bastard who gave me Boldee's token?"
He wanted to get rid of the bastard, Luke, when given the chance, but his elementals' speed couldn't compare to that of the wind and water elementals that Luke and Lala used to escape.
The two subordinates looked at each other for a few moments before looking back at the ground and lowering their heads even further down.
The one who had made the report about the Obron village investigation continued speaking, as the first subordinate's shoulders were still slightly quivering.
"We… do not currently have any information about them."
Calmly nodding as if already expecting that answer, Joseph pushed the sheet of paper he was writing on forward to the other side of the table he was sitting at. The paper was uneven in its dimensions and thickness, but that mattered little to the people of this world.
"Take this and find them. You are not to interact with either of them; only observe them. As soon as you learn something about their whereabouts, report it directly to me. You will both be working together this time."
The pair of people nodded while still kneeling, and they only stood up to take the paper.
Looking at it, the paper didn't have many words on it; instead, the portraits of two people were drawn on it in great detail, and under them was a single word each – Luke below the male portrait and Lala below the female one.
The subordinates bowed deeply at Joseph once again and left the building.
A stoic expression formed on Joseph's face.
"I will not repeat my past mistakes. All loose ends must be tied up…"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Sitting at a long, oval table in the meeting room of the embassy building, Luke awkwardly looked towards the three people sitting at the table with him.
"I apologize once again for what happened earlier. Incidents such as those keep occurring to me lately…"
The corners of Leon's lips curled slightly downward, feeling genuinely sorry about Luke's situation.
He had already handled one of the aforementioned incidents when he and Luke first met.
"Cheer up, Luke! I'm sure you'll figure it out soon. How about you introduce the guests for now?" said Leon in an attempt to lighten the mood.
"Ah, I should, shouldn't I?"
"Of course, as your host, I should introduce myself first."
Slightly bowing his head at the two people, Leon introduced himself.
While he was doing his introduction, Luke glanced over at Ellios, and he nodded at Luke in confirmation. While they were on the way to the embassy, Ellios told Luke to introduce them using fake names as a precaution. They couldn't afford to reveal their identity to anyone who was a part of a foreign nation's Temple.
Leon was obviously someone they couldn't casually introduce themselves to using their real identities, and Lala would be included as well.
Pointing at Anastasia with his hand, Luke introduced her first.
"This is Anna."
She bowed her head slightly in greeting, and Leon nodded curtly.
Luke pointed at Ellios in a similar fashion.
"And this is Elliot."
Hearing how similar yet different the name Luke came up with was, his eye twitched on its own.
Nonetheless, he forced a smile and slightly bowed to Leon, just as Anastasia did, and Leon nodded back.
"Luke and his companions will always be welcome here. I am very glad to meet the two of you."
Leon was all smiles until then, but a look of caution appeared in his eyes at his next question.
"Now that the introductions are over, how can I help you?"