"I was wondering if you knew how to heal memory loss."
"…Memory loss." Chlory said this as she stopped and started thinking about it.
"May I ask why?" She asked, as Louis felt a little hesitant for a while.
"It's for someone discreet." He said, as the city lord had ordered him to not let others know about it.
"I see. Healing memory wounds is very intricate. I'm sorry, but it would be out of my reach." She said this as she lowered her head.
"Ah, please don't. It's all right." Louis said it in disappointment.
"Only time will heal those wounds." Chlory said as she nodded her head and left the mansion.
…
The city office was the mansion located in the middle of the city, where various workers were working on their usual work.
Inside a room located on the top floor, there were white dim lights on the ceiling with lots of papers arranged on the wall.
Brown book shelves were standing at the corner of the walls, carrying important documents, protected with magic inscriptions.
Flip
The room was cold enough to make people want to wear jackets. The windows were covered by cloth, as the room wasn't very bright but bright enough to read the documents.
Flip
Right at the center of the room, a woman wearing a purple dress stood still as she observed the stoic man in front of her, who was flipping through a document one by one.
The city lord Enel—all four guild masters had met him before for their work. His impression wasn't huge, but it was still impactful.
He was as quiet as Cedric but more stoic, scary, and powerful. He had this air of darkness that made the people around him run away.
The small scar on his eye, which used to be much bigger, was supposedly caused by a mythical creature.
No one still knows exactly what the creature was, but everyone knows that it was brutally murdered.
"A dungeon? When did you discover one?" Enel, as stoic and stern as ever, asked as he read through the description of the dungeon.
"It was a month ago. When me and my team were researching the phenomena that were occurring outside," Ann said as Enel nodded his head.
"The black rains?" Enel asked as he flipped the paper.
"Yes. It turns out that the cloud above had absorbed more mana than required, causing reactions to occur within it and resulting in the water turning dark."
Ann explained as Enel nodded his head.
"You seem to be heavily invested in your job." Enel said as Ann nodded her head.
"Magic has a lot of unanswered questions left to be answered." Ann replied.
"I see." Enel said as an image of a certain boy came to mind.
"What makes you so interested in magic?" He asked to see if he could find a solution to his own problem.
"…" Ann remained silent, wondering why she was suddenly being asked this kind of question.
"Magic in itself is nothing interesting to me." But she started answering anyway, since it was a matter of money.
"Instead, the thought of how much line to impossibility it can erase is the main matter of interest." Ann replied as she looked forward.
"Does that answer your question?" She asked as she gave a formal smile, trying to appear as professional as she could.
"Yes," Enel replied as he returned to flipping through the papers as he finally read through them all.
"So, you want funds for this mission and will pay with half of the items you have secured?" Enel asked as Ann nodded her head.
"This is a little complicated." Enel said as Ann panicked inside a little.
"May I know what it is?" She asked.
"What is the guarantee that the items you retrieve will be of any use to us?" He asked.
Ann tried to answer his question, but she couldn't as she stopped.
"What about the beast cores? We can provide the beast cores collected too." Ann said as she was trying to make the city lord agree.
"No. The funding money can provide richer beast cores, don't you think?" Enel said as Ann again tried to answer back but remained silent due to the truth of Enel's statement.
"Is there an absolute reason for me to agree with your funding?" Enel said as he placed the document in front of himself above the desk.
'…What should I do? I don't have anything.' Ann thought as a cold sweat ran down her back.
Just as she thought, this man was too professional; he never intended to provide the funding.
'Sigh. I hope Lyn doesn't start panicking.' Ann thought as she started thinking about how she would manage the money.
"I have made my decision." Enel said as Ann looked towards him.
Enel remained silent for a moment, which made Ann feel like she was standing right in front of a dragon.
"I will give you the funding."
"What!?"
Feeling so shocked, Ann forgot her etiquette as she said the words out loud.
"Uh. Sorry." She said this as she bowed her hand and covered her mouth. Enel nodded his head as he opened the document and picked up a stamp.
"I will give you the funding, but there is one condition." Enel said as he tried to entice Ann with the stamp.
Ann looked at the stamp with eyes full of hope, since all she needed was one dap from the stamp and she could get the money.
"What might be the condition?" Ann asked.
"You will have to include a person in this mission." Enel said as Ann nodded her head.
'So he wants to supervise our work. No worries. Even with that, I can manage to retrieve the black flame.' Ann thought as she nodded her head.
"We can manage that. Is that person a battle unit or support unit?" Ann thought as she tried to see what unit she got.
"That person is my son."
…
'Hmm. Window, how long do you think it will take him to wake up?'
Inside a dark room, Eden sat on his chair as he looked at his doppleganger sleeping on his bed.
Ding
[The host seems to be having problems. It might take some time.]
'I see.' Eden said as he looked and dragged the chair towards Aiden.
Srrrrr
'Hmm. I shouldn't really be doing it this frequently, but let's see what he is going through.' Eden muttered as he extended his hands.
Tap
Tapping his index finger on Aiden's forehead, a cloud emerged.
The cloud had images moving just like movies, as if it were Aiden's dream.
'Hmm…nightmare. It looks like it includes Leo.'
Eden decided to go through the nightmares one by one as he started getting frustrated at how Aiden was a sensitive and cowardly cat.
'All of them include Leo.' Eden thought as he frowned.
'System, do you think what Aiden thinks is possible?' Eden asked.
Ding
[I can't be entirely sure, but there is a possibility.]