In the end, Angor put both Daruk and his grandfather into the dream wasteland.
This wasn’t his plan. The old man’s body was still fine despite his outside look. If nothing else troubled him, Daruk’s grandfather could well live for another 10 or even 20 years.
To Angor’s surprise, however, when the old one saw his grandson unable to make a decision, combined with the fact that the illness greatly affected his mind, Daruk’s grandfather reached a reckless conclusion, that his grandson would do better if he were no longer here.
Before Daruk could react, he rushed into a stone wall nearby, head-first.
Cracked skull and fast hemorrhage took the old man’s life almost in an instant.
Angor cast Dream Enkindle in time and pulled the old man’s consciousness into the dream wasteland, which was enough reason for Daruk to accept his new home as well.
After disposing of two corpses, he spent several minutes “wrapping up” Ocean Theater inside the Dream Whelk’s aura and left the city.
...
A cargo ship was slowly pulled into the harbor of Moonwater City, while groups of traders all rushed to it, hoping to get their hands on the best stock.
The earliest alighting passengers appeared rather weird, such as someone fully covered in a thick black robe despite the hot summer weather, someone with dry, slim arms that looked almost like tree branches, or a beautiful woman who had two deadly-looking vipers hissing on her shoulder.
There was a behatted young man among them who didn’t look as odd as the others, if one did not mind his oversized body and his extremely small eyes caused by too much fat on his face.
Following the fat man, another young man with attractive red hair stepped down the ladders. This one also looked “normal”, but for some reason, his arrival caused all the other earlier travelers to back away either in fear or respect.
“It’s an honor to have you by my side, Mister Red Hair.” The hatted man smiled brightly. “I felt so safe.”
“Red Hair” glanced at the back of the fat man’s hand, where a pale yellow “fish scale” was glimmering in the sunlight.
“Now this is rare. Song of the Deep is recruiting at the Old Earth?”
Not interested, Red Hair left the harbor and headed away by himself.
“Huh...” The fat man kept his smile as he watched his partner leaving. “Thewis left from the island of Basket Witch and came to the Marginalized Island? Is there something interesting happening here? Wait, no. The Basket Witch would come personally if that’s the case. So what’s Thewis doing exactly?”
While mumbling, the fat man leaped into the water, much to the surprise of the bystanders.
“Red-Haired Thewis”, also Leon’s teacher, headed straight in the direction of Grue Town after leaving Moonwater City.
He suddenly stopped flying as he showed a stressful look before his form faded away and disappeared.
...
Angor just left Waterford and was going to use his Gondola to get back to Grue Town, when a figure abruptly showed up not far from him and startled him for good by unleashing an overwhelming Bloodline aura at him.
He almost lost his balance and knelt on the ground.
The aura went away after a few seconds. Angor looked up and saw the “culprit” was a red-haired man wearing a stylish black trench coat with golden linings.
And he recognized him.
Several years ago, he saw this man before boarding The Redbud with Mara. Later, Lady Mirror showed him the portraits of handsome men she collected, which also included this figure.
In fact, Angor just used this man as a model when creating the illusions of sexy mermen to be used in Ocean Tuner.
Feeling a bit of guilt, his heart raced faster.
“Mister Thewis.” Angor lowered his head and greeted the man politely. He knew from Leon that Thewis was going back to Padt Manor, just not so soon.
He also knew that Thewis was very interested in Jon, which might be big trouble right now.
“You know my name?” Thewis noticed Angor’s changing expressions.
Just now, Thewis changed his plan and deployed a plane passageway to go to Waterford immediately because he sensed Mystery energy.
In his view, such energy could only be caused by Eureka, who stole a Mystery item from Goman King. Openly showing the Mystery item meant Eureka could be in trouble. This was why Thewis used a plane passageway, even though it cost him something precious he had been saving on his journey.
As soon as he finished his teleport, he released his aura to suppress whoever might be fighting Eureka, only to see that Eureka was not here. Instead, he saw Angor, a particular apprentice he had been hearing from people including his sister.
Since Angor was also the brother of Leon, Thewis simply canceled his power and decided to talk. Irisa just told him that Angor was a potential Master Alchemist. Using Leon as a connection, Thewis would like to gain Angor’s friendship if he could manage.
In fact, Thewis already planned to do this even without Irisa’s suggestion. He still had the “fake Crimson Crown” stored in his personal space, which was also made by Angor. It looked almost as real as the original crown.
But Thewis grew confused when he noticed Angor being scared of something.
“Ahem.” Angor cleared his throat. “Four years ago, when I was heading to the Fey Continent as a new recruit, I saw you from afar at Vichy Harbor, sir.”
“Four years ago?” Thewis searched his memory and did remember seeing an old man together with three kids going for The Redbud. One of them looked exactly like Angor. “I see. Four years is enough to bring a common mortal to the attention of many wizards? Impressive.”
“You know me, sir?”
“Heh. Let’s say, I just can’t escape from people who keep talking about your name. An upcoming Mystery Alchemist. The Floating City made sure to let everyone in the south hear about it.”
“Upcoming Mystery Alchemist?”
“Why, since you don’t show up in front of people often, Floating Mech City had to use your best creation you ever made to represent your skill. If you want to change that, how about making a real Mystery item?”
“But that’s not possible!”
Truth was, Thewis was exaggerating the situation. Angor had many different names being passed around, such as “the Music Box Man”, “the Thorny Lion-Thing”, “Baron Milk”, etc, and the “Upcoming Mystery Alchemist” was only one of them.
“I noticed Mystery power around here just now, so I thought you were actually going to become a Mystery Alchemist. I was wrong, it seems.”
Angor knew what those words meant. Every wizard who noticed his Dream Whelk would come and check it out, whether he liked it or not.
Without a better choice, he took the whelk out of his bracelet and showed it to Thewis.
“I was trying this out earlier, sir. You may have a look.”