The inconspicuous grey van drove on the lonely road, leaving the prison behind. The land was covered with lush greenery, hugging the rolling hills. The steady incline and decline, accompanied by the pine and spruce trees revealed to Nero that they had not travelled too deeply into the country, and were still near the base of the Aether Mountain range.
Of course, the sight of the towering, fog covered mountains themselves should have revealed as much, but apparently the mountains had some kind of unusual effect where they looked just as large no matter where one looked at them from so long as they were within Kolar.
The two, father and son, drove through the relative wilderness, which in itself was quite a dangerous task. According to June, Apparition curses were becoming more common and more dangerous, and all plant life itself carried a certain danger. But it could not be helped.
The prison was not close to any city, and unless they took the designated bus, which travelled to and from the prison once every three days, they had to travel alone. Yet Edward had taken precautions.
Or at least, that was what Edward seemed to be telling Nero out loud. In fact, the two of them were having another conversation within the illusionscape of Luminalink.
"When was she taken?" Nero asked gravely, his expression suddenly turning dark.
"It's been six days already," Edward said. "She wasn't alone when she was kidnapped. There's a special Kolari facility where they nurture those with unique or powerful innate abilities. The whole point of the facility is to protect a specific group of people, so you can imagine that the security of the place was impeccable.
"Yet Clear Path faced almost no obstruction when they executed their kidnapping. In fact, the kidnapping was only noticed an entire day later. By the time the investigation team reached, all the corpses had been cursed, transforming into monsters, destroying a lot of evidence. We have no idea how it was done, but a preliminary guess suggests an inside man. We won't know for sure for a while."
"Moving a large group of people through the country couldn't have been easy," Nero remarked.
"And yet, there's surprisingly little trail of their departure. The few leads we have we… let's just say we did not get them through official channels."
Nero fell silent as he absorbed his fathers words. Being kidnapped by as a whole group was good in the sense that she, as an individual, was not being targeted. If any danger were to befall them, it would be divided over the whole group. But six days… it was a long time, especially since they'd already left the country by now.
The worst part was that there was nothing Nero could do about it. He was just a Neophyte, and although he might have made some decent contacts during the war, it was unlikely any of them would undertake an international mission just at his request.
Of course, Nero also immediately realised that this was likely what Flintlock was referring to. It was the reason he had emphasised that their intelligence network spans all of Neire. This was a way to bait him in, and at the same time, a display of their power.
Not only did they know about the details of Irene's capture, aware of the fact that she had a relationship with Nero and that she was in another country already, but they also knew exactly how much information the officials had about this.
Nero did not ignore the possibility that the only reason Clear Path had been able to pull off such a mission was because they were also working with Unity, but at least on surface level such an act seemed to go against Unity's mission.
"So what's the situation? What are we doing to get her back?" Nero asked.
"Well, Clear Path has been labelled as an international terrorist organisation. Even Saint Codale has suffered at their hands. On an official level, we have reached out to the sects within Saint Codale, but considering that just a week ago we were at war with one another, diplomatic relations are not the best.
"Eventually though, I expect a joint task force will tackle this issue - assuming we can get more leads, and they don't leave Saint Codale as well. This is confidential, but we have sent some undercover operatives into the country, but as a result of increased security and surveillance, the levels of the operatives who have gone is not too high to avoid suspicion. For now… that's all we can do.
"Between you and me, your mother tried to sneak into the country as well, but was discovered by border patrol. It wasn't pretty. She's received an official reprimand."
"Is there nothing else we can do?" Nero asked, while at the same time wondering if he should convey the details of Unity to his father.
Theoretically, their conversation within the illusionscape could not be overheard by anyone else. That was the whole point of having this conversation here. But he could not be sure what kind of precautions Unity took, and revealing information might actually make him lose out. Eventually, he decided not to reveal the details, but he would hint at it though.
"Unfortunately not. Moreover, you should focus on your own situation for now. I got the letter you sent to me. I'm looking into the matter of the black key you told me to find, but the records for events in Lumina are highly confidential. Even I'm having trouble looking through them. For now, it's impossible to know who has the key or where it is.
"More important than that, however, is that we discuss matters of the Vault. How much do you know about them?"
Nero had left his father a message asking him to look into Vaults, although he could not mention that he himself had gone inside a Vault. There was a great distinction between the two, for there had only ever been one other Vault that was publicly known and explored - at least as far as what Gabriel told him. That was the Vault the emperor visited.
"One of my teammates mentioned it when I was in Lumina. I cannot discuss the details at all."
"Vaults play a role in being targeted. Most ancient families no longer exist, or have already been absorbed into the more powerful Great families. This is a worldwide phenomenon. At the same time, there is a secret, silent battle going on between the Great families as well, trying to eliminate others with such ancient bloodlines.
"While the Great families themselves are often able to tolerate being targeted like this, families like your mothers which have fallen on hard times or weakened often end up as casualties.
"This is something we have always known, and been cautious of. But that is not entirely the threat your mothers family faces. Even among ancient families, your mothers family holds a special position. I'm sure you've taken the time to experiment with Radix Augmentation. What have you discovered?"
"It's… very effective," Nero said, as he recalled all his fights back in Lumina. "But you gave me incomplete information. You told me that I can absorb vitality from living beings that have recently died to increase my cultivation. But I was able to use Radix Augmentation on cursed monsters as well, absorbing… well, I don't know what I was absorbing, but it raised the physical strength of my body."
Nero was expecting his father to praise him for spotting that hidden aspect of the card, or perhaps explain what the actual process was behind the increase in his physical strength. Instead, what Nero saw was his father's stumped face.
It was not often that Edward Grant was caught completely by surprise. It was so infrequent, in fact, that at first Nero did not realise what his father's expression meant.
"Wait, you didn't know that?" Nero asked, genuinely shocked.
Edward, instead, looked at his son in even greater shock and asked, "you looked at a cursed monster and thought it was a good idea to absorb things from their bodies?"
Phrased like that, in the incredulous tone of his father, Nero began to feel like what he had done was not the smartest move. In his defence… he didn't have a defence. Why hadn't he considered it a tremendously bad idea at the time? He couldn't recall.
"I mean, Radix Augmentation is a card designed to aid in cultivation. It just so happens that it absorbs things from cursed monsters just as well as, well, normal beings that have recently died."
For a moment, Edward was silent, and studied Nero for a while.
"Did it work specifically on all cursed monsters, or just the oddly mutated ones in Lumina?"
For a moment, Nero tried to recall. He had used it on other beings as well, but it seemed true that the feedback he got from berserkers and dark berserkers was the best, followed closely by the Mutts.