Chapter 1598 (1/2)

At Randidly’s name, the man at the desk paused in his listless examination of the papers in front of him. He looked up at Randidly with widening eyes. Then he hiccuped, while his small wings fluttered rapidly, the right one moving faster than the left.

Randidly suppressed the urge to grin at the fool. They might not know what I look like, but it seems they recognize me by name… Which is both reassuring that I’m not paranoid, but also makes my life more difficult.

“Uh… M-Mr. Ghosthound…” The young man stuttered. His eyes kept getting wider and wider as he stared at Randidly. The rest of the office was bare, with long hallways leading out to the left and right from the bland starting room. The building material of the tunnels was heavy and grey-green, as though the stone were partially covered in moss. “You… without an appointment… Ah….”

Randidly smiled at the young man. “No harm in asking, right? He owes me that much.”

He owes me all that and more, due to the way he put Vualla in danger by tracking my whereabouts, A flinty Randidly thought beneath his casual expression. All I need to do now is find out whether the leash was purposeful.... And whether there is anything that I can do about it now.

“Ah… yes… I’ll just-” The young man stood up abruptly and turned away, only to trip over his chair and sprawl out on the ground. Randidly twitched in amusement; for the first time since the Challenge, the embers of his fury dimmed. Was this young man truly such a low Level that he could trip accidentally…?

When the young man hopped to the feet and looked back over his shoulder, his nose was running. Then he dashed off to the left, leaving Randidly alone in the waiting room. The echoing footfalls of the retreating clerk sped off into the distance.

Scratching his cheek, Randidly looked around; they didn’t even have any chairs.for individuals to recline while they waited. But he supposed that this sort of place wasn’t really a doctor’s office. With a shrug, Randidly moved behind the lone desk and sat in the young man’s chair. He yawned and leaned back. His emotions still pulsed with tension, but the shock of seeing the young man trip had helped Randidly adjust his mental state. Even if he didn’t want to admit it, the wounded specter of Charlotte Wick was still haunting him.

Finally, she had begun to fade. Life moved forward.

Maybe I should have visited her, to make sure she was alright, Randidly’s heart tightened unpleasantly. He felt guilty for allowing her to be so seriously wounded. I suppose I should still be able to, as long as this meeting doesn’t take too long…

Randidly looked up at the sound of footsteps but narrowed his eyes when he realized that they were coming from the entrance tunnel, not from the way that the young man had fled. A few seconds later and a familiar figure walked through the doorway with words flying out of he mouth. “Inform Gabriel Swacc that I… Oh. Oh my. What a delightful surprise. Surely you don’t belong here, Randidly Ghost-”

Neshamah Rex walked forward through the door with a small smile on her face after recognizing Randidly, but just as soon as she did so and examined him more fully, her words stumbled to a halt. Her eyes widened in a queer mimicry of the expression of the young man earlier, although for very different reasons. Waves of shock rolled off of her.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Sensation (L) has grown to Level 393!

Randidly grinned wickedly. First, he tagged the name Neshamah said as the same one that Raymund Ballast had just asked him about earlier in the day. Apparently, Gabriel Swacc had something to do with the difference of Techetadore Ballast. Second, he could easily tell the reason for her shock; when she viewed him fully, she had been stopped dead by the unmistakable energy of his Nether Core flowing around his body.

Almost instantly, Randidly adjusted the thick flows around him screen his core from Neshamah’s vision, as she had done to him on their first meeting with a playful wink. In addition, Randidly used this opportunity to study the Nether flows that he could rapidly parse apart around her; his senses were much more acute at this moment than they had been previously.

Her shock put Neshamah a half-step behind Randidly in obscuring her Nether Core and that time was all Randidly needed to peer through the veil and briefly glimpse the Engravings that were the source of her significance. His eyes glimmered. While Randidly’s Nether Core was currently a Runic Nether Core, Neshamah’s was already a Mythic, two tiers above him. Yet if they were to compare either their Weight or the raw power coming off of the significance in their cores…

Randidly pressed his lips together to keep himself from smirking. The Path I ended up taking was the right one.

Neshamah blinked again, but soon she managed to return to that familiar expression of relaxation and control. “My, my, my, you’ve certainly been busy over the last two weeks. It seems you won’t need my assistance at all to manage all that pesky Nether. And your Nether Core is… robust, to be sure. You made a deal with the Engraving Guild then…?”

To that question, Randidly didn’t bother to answer. A fear he hadn’t even realized that he had that his Nether Core was somehow deficient, even after carefully studying the Nether Gatekeepers in the shaft was alleviated by their comparative capabilities. He simply shrugged. After she had treated Randidly so dismissively in their first meeting, it felt nice to keep Neshamah in the dark.

Besides, it was interesting to learn that the Engraving Guild had the capability to produce Nether Cores. The process required Engraving knowledge, but also some ability to sense and control Nether. The more he learned about the various organizations within the Nexus, the more he realized that there were a lot of powerful factions lurking beneath the surface.