Chapter 35: What the future holds (2/2)

Turning her words into mutter as she realised what she just said, Irea wanted to back off, only to realise that Layn already grabbed her arm, refusing to let her go.

”In the future?” Feeling better after soaking in the familiar atmosphere of rowdy mercenaries, Layn decided to conquer his own fears. After the pitiful end of his last relationship, he was quite repulsed by the idea of starting a new one. But with every moment that he spent with this particular girl, not teasing her was turning harder and harder!

”What kind of future, I wonder?” Pulling on the girl's arm, Layn stepped closer himself, only to put his face right in front of Irea's eyes. Looking deeply into her eyes, Layn waited for a moment before suddenly retracting himself and taking a step back.

Raising his hands in the air, he then added. ”Just a joke. I'm not that boring to catch you by the words.” Gracing the girl with a mischievous smile, Layn finally resumed his normal walk. But after following the ancients for a short while, he suddenly recalled quite an important question.

”Hey, Irea!” Calling the girl out, Layn successfully managed to get the girl's attention. ”Would you be so kind as to give me an advice? While I know what I'm lacking, I'm not really sure what should I do to compensate for it…” This problem was pretty clear to the archmage ever since a while ago, but he simply didn't want to tackle it before he would be forced to.

And now that they were in the city, the time when Layn would inevitably split ways with the group was looming closer and closer.

'In the end, I cannot leech on their sympathy for much longer.' It wasn't even a problem of morals, but of Layn's personal beliefs. In the end, as long as he could obtain just a few monster cores, he could quickly recreate the power that made him the royal archmage back in the future.

With such possibilities in the background, relying on the help of the ancient would not only make it hard for Layn to cooperate with them ever again, but it would also even slow his rate of growth!

”Ah, isn't it obvious?” Contrary to all the elaborate plans that Layn already set for his near future, Irea didn't seem to treat his question as anything serious. ”Didn't you notice that we only exchanged a small number of tokens?”

As soon as the topic appeared, the rest of the ancients within the group suddenly wobbled in place, before quickly regaining proper walking pace. Although their strange behaviour was only momentary, the fact that all of them turned their heads away from the archmage was enough to prove that something really was going on.

”Yeah. But after your explanation, I thought you were just going to venture further inland to get a better price for them. Isn't that the case?” While he didn't know the exact numbers, it was clear that those ancients could obtain more money just by travelling deeper into the continent. And given how the desert would be hidden behind the barrier for the next three months, wasn't this the most obvious course of action for them?

”Ah, silly. We all decided to save a hundred tokens not to sell them somewhere else for a better price.” Stopping in her tracks, Irea turned around and graced Layn with a lovely, happy smile of hers. ”We saved those tokens to pay for your enrollment!”