Around an hour later, Alex and Aria met at the front gate.
Before setting off, Alex made Aria wear a robe which concealed them from top to bottom.
"What's with these sketchy robes?". Aria asked while furrowing her eyebrows.
"What do you mean sketchy, they're clearly great".
"If you were the one who bought them then it'd make sense.
With your catastrophic fashion sense you'd choose the one wrong set of clothes out of a hundred fine one's."
At her word's Alex made an exaggerated pose of clutching his heart prompting Aria to roll her eyes.
"So anyway where are we going to find this cursed artificer of yours?". Asked Aria.
"Slums."
"The Slums?"
"Yep."
Although the territories under the Magnus house were usually prosperous, it was impossible to completely cut the rotten parts. One of such parts was the slums due to the sheer amount of people within the empire there were bound to be those who suffered from poverty or those who were hiding from loan sharks or authorities for other shady stuff.
"But why the slums with his skills he'd easily be able to work under a Nobel."
"What do you think would happen if a poor and powerless man was given a priceless treasure".
"Ah..". Aria's eyes widened in understanding as she said.
"Yeah... That was quite a stupid question".
"A Nobel tried to forcefully cast a slave crest on him but he was able to escape.
You usually don't ask such question I wonder what's wrong with you today".
A playful smirk appeared on Alex's face as he said.
"Hmm... Is it possible that you're still tired.
I told you that you shouldn't push yourself last night, but you didn't listen to me an kept on sayi- ughh!!".
Before he could finish his word, Alex found a fist logged in his stomach, delivered by a red faced Aria.
"One more word and it'll be a kick to the ball's next time".
"Yes ma'am."
Alex replied weakly clutching his stomach with his arms.
The two continued talking and joking around with each other till they came closer to the slums.
"Stay close to me."
Alex said to Aria while pulling up his hood as she nodded in response under her robes.
As the two made their way through the slums, they did encounter a few thugs but were chased away when they pressured them with their mana causing them to flee with their tails between their legs.
Although this was literal in the case of some of the beast men thugs.
"We're here".
Said Alex arriving in front of a house that looked like it was gonna fall any moment it had cracks all over its wall's it's windows were covered by wodden planks to seal anything from coming inside. It was honestly a surprise it was still standing.
"You sure this is the right place?" Aria asked dubiously.
"I can understand where you're coming from but one's gotta do what one gotta do."
Aria let out a sigh if resignation before saying.
"Let's go."
.....
Author
Sorry that it's shorter than usual