There was more story to Vonman and Guina. But this time, it involved another name—Tulu.
To let them get familiarized with each other, Angor explained Vonman and Guina’s situation to Tulu, after which Tulu paid the children a visit.
They almost started a fight.
It was Latata who saw the conflict. Latata did not know the reason for the quarrel, but she heard Tulu yelling something when leaving, “I do not beat little kids, so I’ll leave you alone for now. But don’t try me again!”
Angor had a hunch why this happened. Tulu was a typical hot-headed young man who insisted on his way of justice, which could be seen from how he recklessly confronted a monster he couldn’t defeat just to save someone else. At that time, Angor stayed behind and watched everything happen so that Tulu could learn something out of the incident. In the end, Tulu survived but lost an ear.
Vonman and Guina, however, were the complete opposite. These kids had learned to slaughter innocent people just to earn a meal, while they only kept their good side to their few friends.
Lawful and chaotic. There was no way that Tulu could do well with Vonman and Guina.
In fact, the human skins were still being dried in the yard. It was a miracle that Tulu was willing to talk to the children in the first place.
It seemed that establishing a friendly relationship between them was impossible for now. It was already worth celebrating if they didn’t end up as complete enemies.
Having rivals in the organization was a common thing to happen. Should their hostility grow so intense that they couldn’t forget each other, they just had to fight it out and see who made it out alive, like how Hookdick and Angor did.
Just like other parties for ladies, the Krakok girls also mentioned lots of interesting rumors and scandals that involved almost everyone in Grue Town. Leon, Angor... Even Eureka became the topic of these fearless little gossipers.
Compared to Angor and Thewis who rarely showed up in public, Eureka occasionally took tours around the manor and allowed the curious Krakoks to look at her.
Most of what the Krakoks brought was unreliable hearsay. For instance, someone claimed that she saw Eureka’s eyes became red one day and gave her a very creepy look.
Of course, no one actually believed the baseless story when there were even worse ones, such as how Leon secretly kept a lover hidden in his bedroom.
Angor asked Toby about the Krakok party just to pass time during their travel. He managed to learn something useful out of it.
“So these guys often gather together like that?”
“Tweet tweet!”—Yes. Once a week. They kinda made it a tradition.
Angor also heard about famous witches who often attended tea parties or perfume banquets, during which they exchanged secrets or valuable information. Sometimes, these occasions were better chances for learning useful clues than paying professional informants.
“Maybe I can invite apprentices and wizards to the dream wasteland and use this to my advantage?” Angor thought about another idea.
Although this wouldn’t happen any time soon. Not until he found a way to prevent the “guests” from harming the Foundation City.
...
It took Gondola a day to sail past Whalebone Sea and arrive at Blackberry Waters. Angor was now pretty familiar with this route, so he didn’t need a map to get here. However, he still needed some time to locate Lloyds.
Apart from recharging the “dream launcher” for Freud, he had another matter to ask from the Ashen Traders.
Rossum, the second-in-command of the trader team, was already waiting at the usual spot, who saw Angor coming with a delighted smile.
Instead of talking at the ruin site, Rossum passionately invited Angor to a pub house with the obvious intention of gaining more of Angor’s trust.
Angor accepted the offer without a problem. He also knew why Rossum was taking all the time just to wait for him, and he wouldn’t mind cooperating with these slavers as it might prove to be useful in the future.
After finishing their meals, Rossum ordered a private and protected room in the pub and led Angor inside.
Before Angor revealed his intention, Rossum took out a green fruit and placed it on the desk in front of them with a “you know what I mean” look.
Angor recognized the fruit because he saw it before. It was “Alligator’s Bane”, one of the components for making spirit potions. Apparently, Rossum offered it as a tool to negotiate with Eureka.
“You’re in need of this, I believe?” Rossum still had that “everything’s under my control” expression.
Angor chuckled and pushed the fruit back. “No, sir. I’m not buying materials this time. I came to procure some information.”
“Information?” Rossum looked disappointed. He wouldn’t mind annoying Eureka to get on Angor’s good side. He wondered if Angor already decided to remain peaceful with Eureka.
“I’ll pay accordingly, of course,” said Angor.
“I’ll grant you what you need for free as long as it’s nothing important.” Rossum tried his generosity tactic again.
“Thank you, but let’s stick to ‘equivalent exchange’, shall we? As for my question, did something happen around Devil’s Water in the Month of Soothing Wind four years ago?”
“Four years ago, Devil’s Water...” Rossum quickly went over his memories and reached something. “There are usually too many things to remember in those parts. But four years ago, there was a spectacular incident that drew a lot of attention.”
Four years ago, Angor was traveling to the Fey Continent on Sunders’ cloud whale. At one night, the Alien Eye glowed brightly during his sleep, which was seen by Nausica. Angor would like to know what happened there so that he could avoid letting other wizards see such a thing, should the Alien Eye suddenly go crazy again.
“Can I hear about it?” asked Angor.
“It’s not a secret. Many organizations sent their men. If you want to know the details, I suggest that you ask Miss Flora, or Mister Sunders, because he gained the most out of that matter.
“That was when Mister Sunders gained enough resources to build a personal Sorcerer’s Garden, an artifact treasured by all wizards in this world.”
“The Gravity Garden came from that?” Angor wondered.
“The incident was originally caused by a wizard from Gravity Forest, ‘Dryad’ Boko.”
Rossum explained the plane fusion initiated by Boko in detail, including how Sunders got there first and pillaged almost all the Fragments of Eternity Boko collected, and how Sliv openly offended all wizards on the scene.
“In the end, Mister Sunders escaped from Sliv’s trap, after which the plane fusion suddenly came to a halt and failed.” Rossum finished his story.
Since there was nothing to gain from a failed plane fusion, Sunders was considered the “winner” by claiming a large number of Fragments of Eternity generated during the first stage of the fusion. Someone even declared that they planned to sabotage Sunders’ Sorcerer’s Garden later, which never happened.
When people couldn’t figure out why the plane fusion was interrupted, they put their attention on something else, such as the severe grudge Sunders received from Gravity Forest. For one, Sunders took the Fragments of Eternity from Boko, a member of Gravity Forest. And secondly, Gravity Forest was badly in need of a new Gravity Garden. It was still fine if Sunders’ Sorcerer’s Garden turned out to be of another type. Yet what happened in the end was truly an insult to Gravity Forest.
“Consider it extra service,” Rossum added another piece of information. “When Mister Sunders went to the Abyss Plane on a mission, Gravity Forest sent people after him as well. What they wanted to do is plain to see.”