Melissa immediately greeted the newcomer with a bow.
"Captain Bonar, are you still on duty at this late hour?" she asked.
Luke glanced at the man and continued standing by the counter, waiting to settle the bill.
Bonar, the imperial spy, had been keeping his eyes on Luke since he entered the shop.
A female elf with emerald green short hair, dual swords, and a black lace long-sleeved glove on her right arm—exactly matching the description of the dangerous assassin they were looking for.
Bonar turned to Melissa and asked, "Did this elf lady buy all these items?"
Melissa replied, "Yes, Captain Bonar. This elf lady purchased all these items. Once we complete the transaction, I can close the shop and rest."
Bonar turned to Luke and asked, "Miss, may I know the purpose behind your purchase of these mysterious items? By the way, I'm Captain Bonar, head of the Second Special Operations Unit at the Imperial Intelligence Agency in the Central District."
Luke glanced at Bonar.
"Good evening, Captain Bonar. I bought these items for researching mystical arts. If you're concerned, you can inspect them."
Melissa, worried about losing the sale, immediately interjected, "Captain Bonar, all the mystical items sold at the Whisperer's Mysterious Shop are legal merchandise. I can vouch for that, and Mrs. Michel can guarantee it too."
"Of course, I trust Councilwoman Michel," Bonar replied. He then continued to question Luke, "Miss Elf, you purchased so many items. My men and I can escort you home. It's dangerous for a beautiful elf like you to be walking alone at this late hour."
"I can protect myself." Luke took out the Silver Blades of the Bladeholders and twirled them between her fingers before storing them away again. Then she turned to Melissa and said, "How much?"
Melissa looked at the total she had calculated and replied, "The total comes to 1,473,200 imperial marks. However, you only need to pay 1,450,000 imperial marks."
Luke took out a money pouch from her inventory backpack and handed over a mixture of gold and silver notes along with the imperial marks to Melissa.
She then started packing the mystical items into boxes, one by one, and placing them into Luke's inventory backpack.
The Silver Blades of the Bladeholders, a space storage magic.
Bonar respectfully saluted Luke. "I didn't expect you to be a member of the Silver Blades of the Bladeholders. May I have the honor of knowing your name?"
Luke replied, "I'm not a member of the Silver Blades of the Bladeholders. This dagger was given to me by a friend who said it could help me deal with unnecessary trouble. As for my name... Sunny. Clear skies, a sunny day. If there's nothing else, goodbye."
Upon hearing the name Sunny, Bonar instinctively reached for the hilt of his sword at his waist but refrained from drawing it.
Seeing the elf leave, he immediately followed her outside.
"Miss Sunny, you killed the Red Bat of the Horned Axe Gang in Cape District, didn't you?"
As Luke walked out of the Whisperer's Mysterious Shop, she saw a group of imperial spies surrounding the entrance. They all had their swords drawn and were eyeing her cautiously.
Bonar caught up with her.
The situation grew tense.
Luke replied, "Yes, I killed them."
"And the ten-plus men in the Windbreak Alley Warehouse, you killed them too?"
"I killed them too." Luke admitted without hesitation, her hand resting on the hilt of her blade behind her back. "Do you have any more questions, Captain Bonar?"
The temperature around them rapidly dropped.
Raindrops fell from the Clear Sky, transforming into ice pellets that clattered on the stone pavement.
However, thirty meters away from them, the road remained dry, devoid of any ice pellets or raindrops.
The scene fell into an eerie silence.
A high-end carriage approached but abruptly halted when the coachman saw the situation. He quickly turned the carriage around, cracking the whip to hasten its retreat.
The temperature continued to plummet.
Some of the spies began to shiver from the cold.
This anomaly reminded Bonar of the scene at the Windbreak Alley crime scene—where the victims were all frozen into ice sculptures.
They faced their enemy head-on but offered no resistance in their final moments.
At the Horned Axe Gang headquarters, Luke killed over a hundred people within a few minutes, including battle-hardened veterans of the gang.
Calculating the time, she decapitated the Red Bat of the Horned Axe Gang in less than a minute.
Bonar couldn't comprehend it. This seemingly unremarkable elf before him possessed such devastating power.
Am I her match?
And she has ties to those old noble families.
Bonar felt his eyelashes frosted.
"Miss Sunny, you've misunderstood us. We have no intention of being your enemies." Bonar finally decided not to attempt arresting the elf. He waved his hand, instructing his subordinates to back away from the frozen area, and said, "The incidents at Windbreak Alley and the Horned Axe Gang are not under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Intelligence Agency, and Cape District is not our territory. Besides, you're a friend of the Silver Blades of the Bladeholders."
Luke asked, "Can I leave now?"
"Yes, welcome to the Central District of the Furious Wave City. I wish you a pleasant evening..."
"Goodbye!"
Luke jumped onto the rooftops and quickly disappeared into the night.
She didn't want to get entangled with the imperial spies. Engaging them would require exposing Sunny's higher level, and if her phone battery was drained too much, it would affect what lay ahead.
Once Luke left, the freezing phenomenon outside the Whisperer's Mysterious Shop dissipated.
Bonar turned back towards the shop and found Melissa trembling behind the counter. He asked, "What did that elf buy?"
Melissa handed him a list. "These are the mystical items the elf lady purchased. Captain Bonar, what happened just now? Why did it suddenly become so cold?"
"It's nothing. You should close the shop and rest early," Bonar said, taking the shopping list from Luke and noticing something. "Some of these items seem to be related to the 'Heart' that went missing from the Alchemist Association. Did the Silver Blades of the Bladeholders have something to do with it?"
..........
Luke ran between houses and buildings, leaving the city and reaching the seashore to summon Nierkoln, the Red Dragon.
Under the moonlight, the sea breeze carried the crashing waves as Luke followed the summoning guide on her phone and drew a hexagram magic circle on the beach.
Then she evenly scattered the sulfur she had purchased onto the lines of the magic circle.
She lit the wind lamp filled with burning longbeard whale oil and placed it on the first point of the hexagram, followed by the five crystals placed on the other five points.
Luke chanted an incantation.
Five beams of light shot out from the wind lamp, piercing into the five crystals, which emitted a soft glow.
Luke stepped into the center of the magic circle, placed the 120cm x 120cm alfalfa paper she bought on top of it, and with an incantation, the soft paper transformed into a hard surface like a stone tablet.