ch26

Ramiya, at Aliya’s request, gathered information from here and there, seeking the entity that might have broken the barrier and infiltrated.

The most likely lead came from Dale, the gate guard on duty when the barrier was broken.

‘A group of merchants. Among them, a moderately pretty girl around 10 years old with blonde hair, green eyes, and long ears.’

Dale clearly used the adjective ‘beautiful,’ but Ramiya’s mind twisted it the moment she heard it.

The human men Ramiya had seen were as lacking in restraint as the Orcs from her homeland across the sea, mere lower life forms aroused by any young girl.

Ramiya, too, used a disguise, but her true form had pointed ears.

It was a fairly common physical trait in the Eastern Continent.

The problem was that since crossing over to the Western Continent, she had never seen it except among her own sisters.

‘A Tracker?’

Born as children of the Father, the parricidal bastards who betrayed and killed him.

It wouldn’t be strange if Aliya hadn’t sent a Tracker to steal back the Father’s Divine Body that she had smuggled away.

Still, she had never heard of a race or even a loa with blonde hair or green eyes…

It was certainly an unknown enemy, but that also reassured her in a way.

At least they weren’t one of the few ‘Elder Loa’ like her father.

In the first place, beings of that caliber were heavy in the ass, and wouldn’t bother crossing an unknown sea with unknown dangers just to catch some stragglers.

Aliya and her sisters hadn’t crossed over with the certainty that something was in the West.

They had simply tried it because they had no other choice, and it was truly a stroke of luck that such a large continent existed in the West.

In any case, Ramiya searched for the entity Dale mentioned, presumed to be a Tracker based on the circumstances.

After searching randomly here and there, she suddenly remembered that they had passed through the gate with merchants, and decided to look for clues in the market where merchants gathered the most.

Arriving at the market, she began to gather information from within the lengthening shadows.

The market itself was the hottest place in Pohelen, but there were people speaking in overly excited voices everywhere.

“That was the biggest game I’ve ever seen.”

“From what I could tell, there were at least 200 silver coins on the line in the center.”

“The Edrall Family was about to kill the dealer because of it.”

“Oh, so the Edrall Family is in charge of street gambling?”

“That’s right. And they’ve been moving around in the alleys since earlier, it’s unsettling.”

What, was it just a big gambling game?

Ramiya was about to lose interest in the conversation when the merchants’ next words perked up her ears.

“But what made them open such a big game?”

“Ah, there were just a lot of small games as usual.”

“And then?”

“Then, after one game ended and the next was about to start, some kid just put down a bag of silver coins and bet it all in the middle.”

“Oh…”

“On top of that, she was wearing something weird on her head, and when she took it off, bam! A blonde, beautiful, amazing beauty… well, not quite, but a girl who will definitely become such a beauty when she grows up came out.”

“Oho!”

“The money was a big bet, and with such a pretty girl, everyone seemed to be bewitched and started betting everything. So…”

The merchants’ story continued, and they speculated that the Edrall Family was gathering to chase after the girl who caused the big gambling game to open.

Blonde hair, young girl, gambling, Edrall Family.

The keywords were roughly extracted.

Edrall Family.

Leeches who do less productive work than slaves in the city.

Aliya had told her to only control Edrall, who acted as the head, saying that even if she got rid of them, other guys would take their place.

Those leeches are chasing after the target she’s chasing?

The opponent is a monster who broke the barrier that Aliya, as the Loa of Pohelen, had made by turning Anaktus into a fetish, and entered the city in an instant.

‘If I mess up, there will be a big commotion…’

If those stupid guys provoke the target and cause a ruckus in the city, Aliya will be sad.

Actually, she doesn’t care what happens to this human city, but Aliya is paying a lot of attention to this city and that annoying man.

Tracking the traces of the Edrall Family’s movements, she followed the faint smell of blood that began to waft in the air, and moved to an increasingly deserted place.

Fortunately, it was a place with less sunlight, so it was easy to move through the shadows.

And finally, she arrived at an alleyway.

The alleyway, which should have been deserted, was a mess of people.

Edrall, whom she had seen a few times, had his right leg bent in the opposite direction and couldn’t even stand properly, and there wasn’t a single human who could stand straight, and there were more humans lying down, so they couldn’t even move them properly.

‘No one’s dead.’

Surprisingly, no one had died.

Seeing her causing a ruckus here and there as soon as she entered the city, it doesn’t seem like she’s the type to care about attracting attention, so what’s the reason?

If those leeches are her opponents, it would be much more troublesome to control her strength so as not to kill them?

Leaving those questions behind, Ramiya followed the traces and found her target.

‘…She’s definitely pretty.’

The target she presumed to be a Tracker was definitely an existence she had never seen or heard of in the Eastern Continent, but well… she was quite pretty, though less so than herself.

She was with a merchant who seemed to be her original companion, a large deer, and a human whose face was beaten to a pulp.

Judging from the circumstances, the merchants seemed to be the dealer whom the Edrall Family had beaten up.

The target seemed to be giving the dealer a small blade and teaching him how to throw it.

It was incomprehensible to Ramiya, but anyway, she found her target and began to observe from the shadows, taking advantage of the fact that she was focused on something else.

‘…She doesn’t seem like much…?’

The amount of mana she could see wasn’t that great.

Not even half of half of Anaktus’s, let alone twice as much?

She didn’t seem to have the power to easily tear Aliya’s barrier at all…

She wondered if she had barked up the wrong tree, but in the first place, she was the only one besides her sisters who possessed mana.

‘Besides, she doesn’t seem to be from the Eastern Continent…’

The nature of the mana she felt was too different.

‘Does she have more companions? Or is she specialized in breaking barriers?’

She could feel a faint energy from the deer, but it wasn’t significant, and the other two humans didn’t have any traces of mana at all.

No, is one of them different?

Ramiya, seeing that the target wasn’t as great as she thought, was wondering whether to just deal with her herself without bothering to report to Aliya and then report later, or to retreat for now.

At that moment, the target’s head snapped around and stared intently at the shadow where Ramiya was.

‘…Did she notice? Could it be?’

If she was determined to hide, no one in the Eastern Continent, including her sisters, could find her, except for the Elder Loa.

One of the powers that had allowed her to survive to the end in the savage lands of the Eastern Continent without being preyed upon, despite having weaker combat power than her rank.

Comparing the power of her natural enemies and the target, the difference was so great that it was embarrassing to compare.

Dismissing it as a coincidence, the target opened her mouth in a flash.

“Kyle, take Dube and Rudolph and go to the accommodation first.”

“Huh…? What’s wrong this time?”

“That’s what I’m saying. It’s only been a day since we arrived in this city, but it seems like we’re getting involved in a lot.”

She’s been found out!

The intuition that had saved Ramiya dozens of times until now, the intuition of a relatively weak person, rang an alarm.

The moment she felt that something was wrong, Ramiya immediately attempted to escape through the shadows.

Fortunately, it was dusk, with the sun just beginning to set as winter approached, so there were many connected shadows, allowing her to escape quickly.

And when she was far enough away, Ramiya emerged from the shadow on the roof of a building.

She had moved several times in a short period of time, putting a strain on her mana circuits.

But she had created enough distance, so she wouldn’t be able to follow.

She should rest for a while and then report what happened to Aliya.

Just as she was thinking that and trying to take a breath.

『That’s a very subtle skill.』

Thud.

Her heart seemed to fall down in an instant.

A quiet voice from behind.

『A person emerging from the shadows. A rare event. I’ve broadened my horizons.』

Since when? She didn’t even feel the approach?

Ramiya forced herself to overcome her stiffened body with goosebumps rising on her back, and turned her head back to where the sound was coming from.

The source of the sound was behind Ramiya.

About 5 yards (4.5m) away, and about 2 yards (1.8m) above, on the roof of a building.

There was a beautiful young girl who hadn’t even become a woman yet.

In the dark twilight hours when the sun had set and even the moon hadn’t risen yet.

Green eyes shining alone with the stars in the darkness were looking down at her with interest.

Ramiya only turned her head and froze at the surreal sight.

『This alien energy, if my guess is correct, you seem to have a lot of stories to tell me.』

She didn’t know what she had done, but even though it was a soft, whispering voice, it pierced through the distance and into her ears as vividly as if she were speaking next to her.

Ramiya barely turned her body and took a stance as she watched her descend to the building where she was, as if walking on the sky.

‘Aliya, I might be a little late.’

Ramiya bit her lip tightly as she looked at the being approaching with a relaxed expression, even though she was forcibly raising her hostile, fierce energy.