It was the following evening of the same day.

  After we all split up, Key going to Rai's place and Persia taking Mika home, I went and got a haircut.

  Thankfully my hair hadn't been that badly burnt, so I didn't have to shave off the entire thing or something like that. I more or less reverted to my old hairstyle, the front covering the right side of my forehead, while the left half was tucked behind my left ear. The front stopped at a little bit past my eyebrow, without covering my eye.

  It had been nice to have long hair for a while, but it had been pretty annoying to maintain, and it sometimes got in my eye……it felt good to be back to my classic look. Well, I say classic like it's been a while, but it's barely been half a year.

  As for the outcome of today's mission……well, my part of it was supposed to be covert, but they kinda had to blow my cover since I was the one who tranquilized him. The king wasn't very happy about the fact that we knocked out the prince, but he couldn't really say anything because that asshole's actions had more than justified our precautions.

  Either way, it wasn't really my concern, Erhtaph was the one who assigned this mission to us, so the responsibility fell on him.

  Anyway, Misen, Siert and I were called to the palace, where we had to directly explain everything that had happened to the king and the Silvland representatives.

  The representatives were pretty understanding and made no complaints, but the king was less than happy……he conceded that we had no choice but to intervene, but that we should have used a lot less force.

  That was on Misen, he had kicked the crap out of the prince after I tranquilized him. I suppose I could reveal that, but even I wasn't that petty. Besides, watching him kick that bastards' face in had been pretty satisfying.

  I decided to speak up.

  "All due respect, your majesty, but it would have been impossible to stop him without force……I mean, he's an S-Rank with more experience than the three of us, after all. And like we said, he tried to attack unarmed civilians multiple times, we couldn't afford to be cautious, we had to act fast. Our rush to prevent a commotion may have somewhat clouded our judgment, but it was the only choice we had."

  I left out the part where one of the 'unarmed civilians' had nearly made the prince literally unarmed. As well as the part where I was pretty sure that this idiot prince did not have the skills to justify his Adventurer rank.

  In the end, the three of us were slapped with warnings and a one-week ban from Quests. Which wasn't a big deal, a week can fly by in no time, and it wasn't like I was short on money or anything right now.

  As we left the palace……

  "Hey, Ragiu……the next time there's a mission like this, I don't care if your dad gets on his hands and knees, I'll refuse to accept it."

  "……that's fair, I would refuse too."

  "I thought you were a bad person, but that prince was so much worse," Siert said to Misen.

  "Huh!? Don't even begin to compare to compare me to that son of a bitch, Sii!"

  "Y-yes, I'm sorry……I d-don't deserve to."

  "For the love of-! Do something about your self-esteem, it's annoying!"

  "O-okay……"……

  The next day, they announced that the alliance had been officially formed between Silvland and the Rustlands. In celebration, they planned to have a bout of exhibition fights in the evening, like we had in Goldway. I was asked if I wanted to participate, but I declined.

  I was tired of the spotlight, there was way too much attention on me for my own comfort, so I instead suggested acting as security for the event, blend into the audience and keep watch in case anything goes wrong. To put it simply, it was a good way to get free entry into the stadium to watch the fights. I don't mind paying for a ticket or whatever, but I don't want to stand in line.

  As it turned out, I perched myself amidst the scaffolding of the stadium roof, slinking into the shadows. I activated an invisibility barrier around myself just in case. If someone from the audience happened to look up and see me, I'd probably look pretty suspicious.

  They had decided on five exhibition matches between both sides. The five for the Rustlands were Einn Olbaw, Neo Lapunder, Lidui Uensh, the fourth S-Rank of the Rustlands, and some other A-Rank.

  As for Silvland, it was Naro and four of the others, the prince wasn't going to participate. That was a good call, if you ask me.

  The first match was Neo against one of Silvland's S-Ranks. Let's see what the Rustlands' number one Adventurer can really do.

  His opponent used Water Magic, and started off by firing a barrage of water bullets at him.

  Neo using Lightning Boost to evade the bullets, a few grazed him, but his armor kept him safe. He extended out his scorpion stinger from his lower back to slap away some of the water shots.

  I'd estimate his Lightning Boost at around x4.5, take or give. The apparent limit of the human body with Lightning Boost was historically x5, beyond that is impossible without damaging yourself……which meant he was about as good as you could get with that technique. He wasn't very flexible or agile, but his movements were solid and efficient.

  The moment his opponent ceased their barrage, he quickly moved his hands in front of himself and charged up a lightning blast.

  Okay, that was impressive……he was at least twice as fast as I was at charging up lightning.

  He then fired it, his opponent as helpless as a deer in the headlights. He hadn't fired it in a concentrated blast, so it didn't have the force to break the barrier, but man was that a lot of electricity. Nearly the entire inside of the barrier was crackling with lightning.

  I'd have a very difficult time defeating him without Karma……but with x3 Lightning Boost and twenty percent Karma……I would be faster than him. And my black lightning in that state was more than powerful enough to match his lightning.

  Oh, right……eighty percent, not twenty percent. Damn it, I still can't get over the fact that I've lost three whole quarters of my Karma, it isn't quite sinking in.

  Anyway, onto the next fight.

  A Silvland A-Rank took on Instructor Uensh, who was wearing surprisingly light armor. Actually, it was so light that it could barely even be called armor, it was leather, but no thicker than a regular old jacket.

  She looked like she didn't want to be here……which was basically her natural expression at this point. I was curious to see how she fights though, she hadn't really done much during the Goldway Quest……Instructor Trocuelo took charge while she slacked off.

  As the fight began, her opponent used Earth Magic to fire a barrage of rocks at her. She created a water wall in front of herself to absorb the impact, before covering her hand with water and swinging it across, sending a water slash toward her opponent, who managed to dodge it.

  It left a small cut in the barrier as it missed her opponent and hit the wall. That was a pretty low-scale attack, but she had compressed the water so much that it was deadly sharp. Huh, come to think of it, she did use slashes of water blades against that one-way barrier we faced during the ambush on the Goldway Quest, though it was pretty ineffective back then.

  Her opponent was quick on his feet, his legs appeared to be some kind of bug legs. He must have a Retractable Anima, otherwise I'm pretty sure I would have noticed a guy with six bug legs below the belt during the escort Quest.

  The legs were red and looked fairly sturdy for human-sized bug legs. Maybe a fire-ant or something?

  Either way, they were very nimble.

  Instructor Uensh may be an expert with Water Magic, but her close-range combat skills weren't great. If this turns into a battle of attrition, she'll lose before too long.

  She then took out a Spell Scroll from behind her, and activated it.

  From the scroll, an absolute flood of water gushed out, rapidly filling the barrier. By the time it stopped, over two-thirds of the barrier was filled with water.

  Elemental Spell Scrolls were a thing, but they were ridiculously expensive, especially if they were large scale, like this one was. People rarely buy them because of their prices, not to mention that they tend to have cooldown times of well over an hour.

  But I got exactly what she was going for……and this also explained why she was wearing such light armor. Her Anima was a shark, and she had gills on the sides of her neck, which meant……she could breathe underwater.

  Her opponent began retracting his Anima back into normal legs in order to swim up to the surface, but she didn't let him. A highly skilled Water Magic user who could breathe underwater, was in an underwater fight……she literally could not have a bigger advantage than this.

  She could swim underwater at a superhuman speed, and used it to knock down and keep her opponent from swimming up to get some air. It wasn't long before he began to run out of breathe and got teleported out.

  As the barrier deactivated, the water spilled out and flooded the arena, once again submerging the poor guy in water, barely giving him the opportunity to take a couple of breaths. It took a few minutes to deal with that mess, but once the arena was clear again, it was onto the third match.

  One of the Rustlands' A-Ranks vs a Silvland S-Rank.

  Unsurprisingly, the latter won the fight.

  The fourth bout was the fourth placed S-Rank of the Rustlands against one of Silvland's S-Ranks.

  I finally got a look at the Rustlands' number four Adventurer, he was a man in his late-thirties, named Yuur Ganroh. He had short brown hair that was slightly graying at the sides, a neatly cropped chin beard, and a lean yet strong build. He had see-through wings on his back, a dragonfly Anima, along with Earth Magic……he didn't seem to be carrying a weapon.

  As the fight began, his opponent blasted a fireball at him. His wings began rapidly fluttering as he calmly flew straight up, using Earth Levitation to take a large chunk of the arena up with him.

  Normally, using Earth Levitation to raise a rock or chunk of earth in order to drop it like a meteor would leave you vulnerable……but he was flying out of his opponent's range, all the way to the top of the barrier.

  As he reached the top, he lowered his hand, releasing the piece of the arena free from the control of his Earth Levitation. It plummeted back down, the crash as it slammed down onto the ground echoed across the entire stadium, the flying debris teleporting his hapless opponent out.

  An Earth Magic user who could fly……interesting. He used his abilities pretty efficiently, and his temperament seemed solid too. I wouldn't mind taking him on one of these days……

  Anyway, it was only the final exhibition fight. Einn vs Naro.

  This should be interesting.

  They both shot forward as the fight began, Einn swinging his nunchucks across to fire expanding blasts of compressed wind. Naro evaded the first one and jumped over the second, as Einn neared him and swung both his nunchucks across towards Naro's sides.

  He responded by using the two side poles of his sansetsukon to block the strikes, before letting go of his weapon, using a wind blast below his feet to shoot up, and then fired an angled blast of wind from his hand to unleash a rapid dropkick.

  Einn managed to spring away in time and avoid the kick, before shooting forward and pouncing towards his opponent, swinging both nunchucks down at his shoulders.

  Naro was off balance, but managed to block and grab onto both wooden poles with his hands.

  He then quickly used his tail to grab his weapon that was on the ground behind him and rapidly swung it around to slam into Einn's side, sending him flying across the arena.

  He used Flight to slow himself down and avoid slamming onto the barrier, but before he could fully recover, Naro used Propulsion to blast out shots of wind from behind him to rapidly close the gap.

  Einn swung both his nunchucks towards him, but he deflected them with his own wooden weapon, before swiftly changing his stance, connecting the three sections of his weapon to form a long bo-staff, and countering by slamming the end of it into his opponent's torso, before unfurling a rapid high spin-kick at his chest, sending his crashing onto the barrier wall and coughing up a bit of blood.

  Einn began to use Flight to get some height, but Naro rapidly caught up to him before he could fully take off, grabbing his ankle and slammed his back onto the ground.

  His technique with that weapon was excellent, and while the capacity, control and output of his Wind Magic was relatively average, he used it very effectively and efficiently. He probably wouldn't have a counter against Einn's Death Cyclone attack, but that wasn't a threat since he didn't give Einn any opportunity to use it, considering that attack takes a while to charge up.

  He then teleported Einn out of the barrier by slamming the end of his staff towards his neck, the barrier safety kicking in right before it could crush his throat.

  He split the staff back into three sections and put it away. With that, the exhibition matches were done.

  I slunk out of my post and snuck out of the stadium as the crowd began to leave, the event wrapped up and done with.

  Tomorrow, the Silvland group will head back, and this whole thing will finally be over. Thank goodness for that. Though, I would have probably had a pretty neutral opinion about it if that asshole prince hadn't been a part of it.

  As I walked away from the stadium, I heard someone calling out.

  "Hey, kid……wait up!"

  I turned around, to see Naro jogging over to me.

  "Oh, hey. What's up?" I responded, turning around.

  "If you don't mind……I'd like to pick your brain for a bit," He grinned as he caught up.

  "Well……sure, it's not like I've got anything better to do," I shrugged in reply, "So, what do you want to know?"

  "I wanted to get your advice on something……as an assassin, this is probably right up your alley."

  Basically, he wanted to know how they could take measures to prevent Silvland from getting infiltrated by spies and inside men like Goldway had been. After mulling it over for a bit, I gave him my thoughts on it.

  "Well, first off……I doubt Silvland's nobles would be spies. For better or worse, they're mostly religious fanatics, right? The nobles of Goldway were superficial and materialistic, so getting them to betray their nation was only a question of the right price. Religious fanatics aren't so easily swayed though……that's one of the many reasons I hate dealing with them."

  "Well, sure……there are a lot of devout and religious nobles……some rather extreme, like Prince Aguil, while others are more open-minded like Princess Agatha. That goes for me too, when I reincarnated I was born into a noble family."

  "Yeah, but since you know what happens after death, it'd be strange if you were a religious nutjob. Well, if you think that it's possible that there would be spies among the citizens, have anyone suspicious covertly investigated. Emphasis on 'covertly', if it's publicly known that suspected spies are being investigated, not only will that alert any real spies into playing it cautious, but it'll also cause unease and distrust amongst the population," I explained.

  With Goldway gone and Platinberg sided with The Valaque Empire, Silvland were the strongest allies we could have……even if they were a nation of religious wackjobs, they would be invaluable in the worst-case scenario of a war……there was also the matter of the Vampires, there was no telling when they might break out, but I had almost no doubt that Lazarus hadn't been bluffing when he said they'd break free within my lifetime.

  "Alright, that makes sense……how would you go about dealing with the spies if and after they've been discovered?"

  "Well, there's a bunch of options……use them as double-agents to leak false intel to The Empire, use them as bait to draw out a member of The Empire to capture and interrogate. If those options seem unlikely to work, eliminate them. It's your call."

  "Hm, that's a good idea……I'll throw in this suggestion to the king and princess, I can definitely understand your emphasis on this needing to be done covertly. Thanks a lot, kid! I owe you one!"

  "Oh, uh……you're welcome, I guess," I responded, as he left with a cheerful grin and wave.

  Alright, guess I'll head home……

  The next day, the Silvland group departed early in the morning. A couple of the Rustlands representatives and a few Adventurers went with them, in order to share information and strategize on how to tackle The Empire in the future.

  Simultaneously, we were also sending a group to negotiate an alliance with Bronztan. They were already allied with Silvland, and even in the past had never had any issues with the Rustlands, so it should be finalized a lot faster and more smoothly than the Silvland alliance process was.

  I had been asked if I would like to go to Silvland as part of the Adventurer bodyguards, but I declined. Like I said, I wanted some time away from the spotlight, not to mention that I really didn't want to spend any time in a nation of religious fanatics if I didn't have to.

  I don't expect that I'll see anyone from Silvland again for quite some time.

  Little did I know, that it wasn't going to be nearly as long as I expected before they would appear again……but that was still a fair amount of time away……

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  Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Don't forget to vote, and feel free to leave a comment, I appreciate any and all feedback and criticism! Also, check out my Instagram account @aimdaqs for posts relating to this book.