Ian suddenly stands up from his seat. "I totally forgot. Leo, a woman claiming that you are the vice guildmaster of her guild has demanded to meet you. I believe she is the same woman who fought alongside you during the expedition against ancient beast Koraet."
The mention of that worm sent chills through Karl's body but he managed to keep the poker face. "Joselina? Where is she?"
Ian is carefully watching Karl. Something tells him that Karl is hiding something.
"We met at the entrance of the VIP venue. She told us of her intention of meeting you. Young master Ian was reluctant at first but when I reminded him of her deeds during the expedition he agreed. Sir Ian ordered the woman to wait in his personal suite." Alessa further explains the scenario.
"You should go now as the second fight can start at any moment. It is good to talk with colleagues." Ray suggests.
"Yeah. I should go going." Karl gets up from his seat.
"Don't worry about anything just focus on winning the matches. We will be keeping an eye on you." Ian advises with a worried look.
Karl smiles. "Trust me. I won't lose."
"Kid, take Alessa with you." Ray offers and Karl happily accepts. He followed by Alessa and Ian moves towards the door.
Ian quickly leans to whisper. "Andressa. She is not picking my calls. What happ-" Karl quickly ignores Ian and opens the door to leave. Ian notices Karl distant behaviour and stops. The door gets closed on Ian's face. He stands there for few seconds.
"Son. There is something I found regarding Leonard." Ray says as crosses his arms.
Ian turns around to answer his father. "Yes father."
"It comes from the federation. Specifically from a person named Susen Theodore." Ian's eyes widen with disbelief as he listen his father's words.
Karl is silently staring at Alessa who is standing in front of him. The elevator is moving rather slowly. The atmosphere is bit awkward as Karl and Alessa both are not talking.
Few more seconds passes before Alessa speaks. She opens her eyes and looks at Karl. "My master informed me that you asked Hector about my whereabouts. I presume that you wanted me. May I ask why? Are you selling your body to me? For experiments of course." She says all that in one breath.
"Achoo!" Karl sneezes loudly, blood clouts that were stuck in his nose came out all at once. "Sorry about that. Also, no. I am not selling my body. It is regarding the black turd which is stuck in my body."
"Ancient beast Koraet?" Alessa asks.
"Yes. He is being rather...active."
"What happened?" Alessa asks as she kneels to check Karl's blood that came out just now. She taps on her watch and it scans the blood content.
"In the morning-" Karl goes on to tell how a live worm came out his puke and started wiggling.
"Are the headaches and bleeding happening constantly?" Alessa question while reading the blood report on her watch.
"Headaches never went away but the intensity has gone down. Blood leak from nose or coughing are common." Karl explains.
"Leonard." Alessa's face turns serious. "I am afraid that you don't much time left. Few days if lucky and hours if unlucky. It depends on your usage of mana. To be honest, even if you stop using mana entirely you will mostly live a week extra. I am sorry."
Karl forces a straight face. "W-What does this worm has to do with t-this condition." Even with a straight face, he fails to control his voice.
"In simplest term, Koraet is hungry. A constellation lives off it's host's soul. It dies when the host dies. At the minimum level, every constellation requires a tiny bit of host's mana to maintain a connection with the host's soul. This tiny amount of mana is often very miniscule. But your case is quite unique as we are dealing with ancient beast Koraet which multiplies at a very rapid stage. Therefore I assuming that it needs more mana to maintain the connection. Which is your body is struggling to provide in required quantity. Therefore the beast is finding alternatives to keep the connection with the host's soul."
"Which is?" Karl asks in a heavy voice.
"Your flesh."
In a different building, inside one of the guest rooms which are typically used by low level organizations or not well known knighthoods Glen throws a entire dinner table on the wall.
BAM! "They are not answering my calls! Who does she think she is?"
Linela watches from the sidelines, her fixed on the floor. It has been a while since she felt scared.
"I paid them! An entire fortune! To kill a child who isn't even graduated yet." Small crystals of ice begins forming on the ground as Glen is unconsciously releasing mana. "CURSE HER!" He stomps his foot which breaks the thin layer of ice formed few seconds ago.
"HIE!" Linela flinches as a piece of ice flies towards her and cuts her cheek. Glen notices the maid's small wail, he turns to her and grabs her face. He squeezes it in anger. "What are you doing? You useless scum."
Linela looks at Glen's enraged expression. "From the moment he bought you. Everything has started going downhill. Maybe…." He summons his powder blue coloured mana circle. A small transparent ice dagger forms out of it. Glen brings the dagger closer to her face and slowly enlarges the small cut.
Linela flinches again, tears forming in her eyes. "Shh. Shh. If you move it will hurt more." Linela's heartbeat increases and she starts to take deep breaths, she wants run. She wants to escape. She wants to see her mast-
Suddenly Glen's watch rings and he backs way. Before picking up the call, he looks at the maid who is on her knees, crying silently. "Clean this up and bring my stupid son here." The maid slowly nods.
After 5 minutes of cleanup, Linela leaves the guest room and closes the door behind her. She straight goes to her master's room. 'I need to inform him that Sir Glen is not in good mood. He must avoid meeting him for now.'
KNOCK! She knocks on her master's room. No answer comes.
"Master! It is me!" She calls yet no answer comes. Linela slightly pushes the door and it opens up. 'Huh? Master would never leave the door open.'
Linela steps inside and sees the empty room. The lights are off yet she could see very clearly. On the side of the bed, she notices few flower petals lying on the ground. From these alone, she could imagine where her master would have went. 'Oh. My master you didn't went to her, right?'
10 minutes later, Linela is standing in front of Kalonice's room. 'I know that she was your colleague for one phase but how could you give in her charms and fall in love after talking to her for only 20 minutes?' She rants in jealously. 'Hmph. Like this you would be bewitched by bad women.'
Linela knocks on the door. Again, there is no response.
She waits for few seconds before knocking again. Still, no answer.
Just as she is about to leave for the reception to ask about her master's whereabouts, a faint smell of blood enters her nose. She leans to the closed door. The smell intensifies. A bad feeling blooms in her mind which quickly turns into fear. She smashes her hands on the door. "Master! Master! Master!" The door refuses to budge, the maid keeps on banging.
"Are you inside? Answer me!" In desperation of opening the door, Linela tries to use mana. The collar on her neck glows before shocking her. "AUGHH!" She grits her teeth and keeps on banging on the door.
ZRR! ZRR! The glow on the collar brightens as the shock becomes more lethal. Yet, the maid doesn't care. She wants to see her master.
Even after all this pain, Linela was only able to produce a small amount of mana which was enough for her to go berserk. Black dog like ears pops on her head and her teethes become sharp as razor. And she roars. "UAHHHH!"
BOOM! The door bursts open just from one punch.
ZRR! ZRRRRR! Large amount of electrical charges are coming from her collar, it burns off her maid uniform. Every limb of her body is suffering 3rd degree burns but she doesn't even notice it, her eyes frantically searching for her master.
Inside she sees something horrific. A skeleton covered red blood which looks fresh just few hours old. There is not a single intact limb to be seen. As if a predator ate it's prey and left it's remains as an example for others.
"Ma-Ma-" Words spurt out of Linela's mouth as she recognizes her master's smell. Tears vaporizes the moment they come out of her eyes. She falls on ground, wailing for her master. Linela extends her hands in hopes touching her master for one last time.
"I suggest not to touch it." A voice come from her behind.
Linela quickly jumps like a cat and growls. "GRR! You did this?"
A knight is leaning on the door chuckles at her question. Both of his hands are behind his back. "Come on. Even if I am an retired assassin, cannibalism is not my taste."
As the knight is scanning the room, Linela recognizes the crest on his armour. "Phirsecot?" She asks in an animalistic voice.
"Yes. Not officially but yes. Looks like the person who did this was in an hurry." The knight speculates as he sees opened cabinets and torn clothes all over the place. There few cracks in the wall, even the bedsheets are all covered in blood. "Yet they didn't try to hide their works. Looks like they are not afraid of getting caught."
Linela is crouching on all four limbs, her eyes filled with rage and bloodlust.
"Woah! Put those paws away Mrs kitty. Wait. Are you a dog?" He jokes.
"GRR!" Linela growls once more.
The knight glances at the skeleton. "Unsightly, it is. This still made my work easier as I was going to kill him anyway." The knight brings his left hand forward.
Linela felt a chill as she took step back. "S-Sir Glen?" The knight drops the head of Glen Dandelion on the ground. Glen's eyes and tongue were missing. "HAHAHA! I cut his tongue because he wouldn't just shut up."
Linela is now considering ways of escaping. Her eyes goes around the room and lands on the window.
"Bleh! He kept saying that he is head of some branch family. Ruining my theme. If he wanted to win he shouldn't have put a bounty on my client's head and tried to sabotage his fights." The knight steps inside the room and closes the door behind. CLICK!
Except constant electric shocks from Linela collar which brought a dim light, the entire room is pitch dark. "You think I don't see you eyeing on that window?"
Linela flinches once more. "Are you-"
The knight crouches to match Linela's height. "Sorry to disappoint you. My contractor strictly said no witnesses. Also, I should thank you for leading me to him." He points to Gea.
Linela's eyes open wide in realization. "You were the one who broke into Master's room."
"BINGO! I was searching for him, when I saw you and followed you." The knight smiles and gives a thumbs up. "As a reward, how about you I let you attack first? If you land a hit, I let you go."
Linela is still cautious. Not believing his words.
Seeing her reaction, the knight takes out a platinum coin which has a small but complex magic circle carved on it. He shows the glowing coin to his target. "I swear in the honour of an unnamed assassin."
Linela glances at her beloved master one last time before breathing mana. Large electrical charges starts generating from the collar.
"Hah! I like it when targets agree to play a game. It brings joy to me." The knight stands up, ready to fight.
Linela's human-like features slowly starts to go away and she looks more and more like an animal. A wing comes out of her back and a tiger-like tail pops from her rear. The shocks are increasing to a dangerous level. The collar tries it's best to keep Linela under control. A stray shock hits the walls and the carpet, lighting a fire which in matters of seconds spreads all over the room.
"You will be my last target before my contract expires." The unnamed assassin smiles and flips the coin.