Chapter 121: Senior Captain Mantis.
Then, he turned to face Dray’s frightened squadmates and told them to leave their bags behind and pick up their captain.
Hearing this, their expressions darkened, but they swiftly did as they were told, not daring to continue with this battle.
They were too weak and outnumbered... With their captain’s defeat, it was nearly impossible for them to retrieve the artifact or retain their belongings.
This was the law of the jungle: the strong feed on the weak.
Levi watched them pick up the distressed Dray and the other one lying on the roof. Then, escape towards their holy region. Just to be safe, he sent Vyra to chase them from above, making them understand that it would end them the moment they stopped.
Levi had no issues with stealing from Daywalkers, but he refused to kill them unless the situation truly called for it. After all, he didn’t want to get in trouble with the government right at the beginning of his journey.
While Vyra was escorting them away, Levi desummoned his staff and walked to Selma... Without a word spoken, he extended his palm forward and made a gesture for her to pay up.
"We worked so hard on this... Can we pay you with something else?"
Selma bit her lips, requesting with a soft tone, seemingly trying to win Levi over with her feminine side.
"You should be grateful I didn’t ask for your other belongings. So, if the Sensebound Pearl doesn’t land in my hand in the next five seconds, I will invoke the third term," Levi uttered indifferently, unaffected by her useless seduction skills.
Hearing this, black lines appeared on Selma’s forehead. She could tell that Levi had no intentions of cooperation.
Not daring to risk it, Selma reached into her bag and pulled out a necklace with a gray shimmering pearl. Then, she handed it over to Levi with a shaking hand, unwilling to separate from it.
Levi snatched it midway and whistled once, his voice piercing through the skies.
Kreee!
In an instant, Vyra appeared above his head and descended next to him. Levi jumped on top of her back. Then, he nodded at the resentful Selma and her friends.
"You’re welcome."
Before Selma and her partners could burst in rage at this fucker’s shamelessness, Vyra was already piercing through the clouds.
Gazing at the dark dot in the distance, Selma gritted her teeth hatefully. She felt like all of that pain, effort, and resources wasted were for naught.
"We did the dirty work, and he scooped in and collected the rewards." Her partner sighed in frustration, "This shit ain’t fair."
"We are alive though..." The other one smiled wryly, trying to see the bright side.
"I dare you to say it to Sir Alaric’s face." Selma narrowed her eyes coldly, "We didn’t just fail his mission, but we also lost his artifact to a stranger in our territory. We should feel blessed if he didn’t outright expel us from the agency."
Hearing this, the other two felt their hearts skip a beat at the notion of facing their merciless vice leader with empty hands.
—Selma! Give us status! We are one kilometer away from your position!—
Suddenly, Selma’s ear was rung with a message from the requested reinforcement. Her forehead wrinkled as she thought of the best way to break the news. In the end, she decided to inform them face-to-face.
Now that they were out of danger, she summoned her mount along with her partners, and they headed to the meeting point.
Sometime later...
Selma and her squadmates halted before a squad consisting of ten Daywalkers. If Shia were around, she would have curled her lips in disdain the moment she saw the reinforcement squad leader.
"I don’t like the look on your faces... Please don’t tell me you have lost Sir Alaric’s artifact."
Mantis stepped in front of Selma and her squadmates, his expression as grim as it could get.
After the Harrowing Forest Incident, he was promoted to a senior captain position, allowing him to run such important tasks.
Although he didn’t do much in the forest, he also showed that he wasn’t a coward who would forsake his duties. Since the incident was way above his league, the responsibility didn’t fall on his shoulders.
This was the public statement for his promotion; in reality, no one knew exactly what happened behind closed doors.
"We didn’t lose it..."
Selma took a deep breath and narrated what happened from the start of the chase to the end. When she reached the part of Levi’s intervention and spoke about his Vyra, Mantis’s eyes narrowed.
’White wyvern, black staff with chains, face covered... It’s him, has to be.’ Mantis thought as Levi’s picture surfaced in his mind. But he found it hard to believe that Levi was daring and strong enough to pull off this stunt.
Stealing an artifact from two competing parties with Pathfinders amidst them? Even if they were weak, it took titanium balls to go for it.
"Show me the signed contract," Mantis ordered solemnly.
Selma summoned it with a hesitant look, knowing that the signed terms weren’t in their favor in the slightest. When Mantis read them, his expression couldn’t help but turn for the worse.
While the contract lasted for two hours, it ensured that neither Selma nor her agency had any chance to retrieve the artifact before the duration ended.
Two hours were more than enough for Levi to return to the capital and register the artifact under his name.
Mantis knew that if he succeeded, it would be legally his property, and his agency would have no grounds to contest the ownership... The only method remaining would be to steal it.
Even if they succeeded, the artifact would still hold Levi’s name and make it impossible for them to register it under another name without getting questioned.
’Sir Alaric must have the means to erase Levi’s registered name.’ Mantis smiled coldly, ’He will most definitely order us to hunt him down to retrieve it.’
Mantis already had plans to make Levi pay for the humiliation he gave his little brother and the family’s name in the assembly. For a newly rising Lineage family, such humiliation was worse than a financial hit.
After all, Lineage families rely mostly on reputation to attract Daywalkers to their private agencies.
"Let’s go back," Mantis sneered. "You better spend the whole trip praying for Sir Alaric’s mercy."
Selma and her partners kept their heads lowered, knowing that the situation wasn’t in their favor.
...
Meanwhile, Dray and his squadmates were seen sitting under a giant birch tree. They were using recovery totems on the most wounded ones while sitting in gloomy silence. Although they had recovered the other two brutalized party members left in the town and on the river, their expressions weren’t that of delight.
"Your father ain’t going to be pleased..." The bearded man smiled wryly while gazing at the cold, silent Dray.
Dray knew that he was right... His father had won a treasure map in a raid. It led to a grade D Distorted Ancient Site.
Although it was a low-grade Distorted Ancient Site, the dimensional natural treasures and artifacts inside it were of a Psych Specialization.
When it came to Psych Specialization, any kind of treasure was priceless since even the low-grade ones were rare.
"He will be pissed we got had, but he never cared about the artifact as much as the natural treasures we found. He needed them for the sake of his evolution, and that fucker stole them too." Dray uttered coldly, "We have two choices: either tell him the truth and get royally punished, or remain in the wastelands until we find other spiritual natural treasures."
Everyone shook their heads, not too fond of the latter idea. While Dray was brave to consider hiding the truth from his father, they weren’t as bold. He was their agency leader, and lying to him would never sit right in their hearts.
"Find them where?"
"We have no resources left... If it wasn’t for Jess being dropped in the river, we wouldn’t have even those recovery totems."
"I say we go back and tell the truth... Your father will find out the truth sooner or later; it might as well come from us."
Realizing that his squadmates couldn’t be relied on in the lie, Dray’s expression turned frigid.
An image of Levi emerged in his mind.
’Whatever my father does to me, I will do a hundred to you... Mark my words, bastard. I will find you sooner or later...’
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