183 Unlucky Man (1/2)

Olivia was happy to have her mask covering her face, so she didn't have to use a fake smile.

Still, she had to use a friendly tone. ”Ivan! It's been a long time.”

Ivan smiled. ”Yes, my friend. I came back as soon as I could when you didn't contact me as usual. I was so worried something bad happened to you.”

Olivia had already thought of a story. Whether it would be good, she wasn't sure, but it would certainly be enough for someone like Ivan.

”I'm sorry about that. I was ambushed by the Red lady and Cornelius's groups in the forest. Despite having a hundred A-rank adventurers with me, we still lost the battle.”

Ivan made a worried expression as he walked towards Olivia. ”Oh, that's sucks! Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

He held out his hand towards Olivia, trying to hug her as they were longtime friends.

Olivia never liked physical contact, but when she saw male arms that did not belong to Lucien coming towards her, she almost panicked and quickly took a step back, avoiding Ivan's hug.

”I'm fine now. It was just hard to get back...”

Ivan did not find it strange that Olivia avoided his hug because she was always a strange and antisocial person.

He had always been looking for ways to strengthen their group, and now that he had managed to find the green crystal mine, he started thinking about other things, like finding someone to raise a family with.

And he couldn't think of another woman other than Olivia, his faithful partner. So he wanted to start showing her that he cared for her in ways, other than friendship.

Ivan smiled at Olivia and went towards the wine tray, so he started filling two glasses with fragrant red wine. ”What matters is that you are fine.”

Olivia sat on a sofa while signaling Astrid to sit next to her.

She knew she should explain her story before Ivan asked, or she could look suspicious. ”I don't really remember everything that happened. We had a smaller group than the ones that attacked us, but the fight was actually a stalemate for a while... then at some point, I was knocked out.”

Ivan approached Olivia and gave her one of the wine glasses while drinking the other and ignoring Astrid. ”Did you see who attacked you?”

Olivia understood that Ivan was trying to tell Astrid to leave without being rude, but she did not want to be alone with him, not because she feared him but to avoid any problems with Astrid.

Then she passed her wine glass to Astrid, forcing Ivan to bring another one for her. He was not happy, but he didn't want to irritate Olivia, so he went to get another glass of wine.

”No, I was knocked out before I could see who attacked me. Then I woke up in a prison cell in a cave.” Olivia continued telling her fake story.

Ivan took the other glass of wine and passed it to Olivia. He was a little disappointed that he couldn't sit next to her.

Olivia took the glass, and so she lifted her mask a little, just enough to be able to drink the wine without revealing much of her face as she had always done.

Only Astrid had seen her face because Olivia wanted Astrid to completely trust her. Everyone in the Guild knew that a wound disfigured her face because that's what she told everyone. So no one insisted on seeing it, but Ivan didn't care about it, or rather, he thought so.

Olivia shook her head. ”I was very weak and injured. They took my storage ring, so it took me a long time to recover enough to have the ability to escape.”

”But I was still very hurt and would have died in the forest if Ravenous hadn't found me and helped me.”

Ivan looked at Astrid, now with a more friendly expression. ”Ravenous, right? I've heard a lot of negative things about you, but I'm infinitely grateful that you saved my partner.”

Then he looked at Olivia. ”I came back because I was very worried about you. But arriving here, I saw the chaos that the mercenaries have been causing... I would have joined the groups that have been looking for you, but I thought Black Hand was behind your disappearance, so I wanted to find him as fast as possible.”

Olivia knew that Ivan was sincere. Although he wanted to lead the city, he was always loyal to their partnership. ”Okay, Ivan. We don't need to talk about it anymore. Tell me about your journey.”

Ivan shook his head. ”I know that must have been pretty bad, and you might want to forget about that shit, but I won't forget about it until I punish everyone responsible. And I bet it was the mercenaries.”

Then he took a green crystal from his storage ring and tossed it to Olivia. ”Look at this.”

Olivia took the fist-sized crystal. It glowed with emerald green light and radiated powerful energy. The energy felt good and pleasant.

She quickly noticed that the energy was somehow familiar. Even to a much lesser degree, the green energy reminded her of Lucien, more precisely his wonderful saliva.

It only took Olivia a few moments to connect the green crystal light to nature mana. She saw Ghilanna many times using nature energy on her arrows, and the light was also emerald green.

Also, she knew that Lucien has incredible Life mana, superior to the nature mana, so the energy of the crystal was inferior to Lucien's energy.

”It is amazing!!” Olivia exclaimed as she looked at the crystal.

She intended to pretend to be surprised. Still, in fact, she was really surprised, but not with the crystal being incredible, but the fact that even a treasure like this was far inferior compared to kisses from Lucien, her man.

Ivan was pleased to see Olivia's surprise. He expected her to like the crystal, but her excited reaction boosted his ego. Of course, that same ego would suffer a terrible blow if he knew that her excitement was for thinking of another man kissing her sweet lips.

”Yes, these crystals are true treasures. I spent eight months at sea, looking for the green light that the pirates and merchants kept talking about. In the end, the reward was more than I could have imagined.”

Olivia tried to look curious. ”And what exactly did you find?”

Ivan proudly smiled. ”A cave! A fucking big cave full of these crystals. Do you know what that means? Do you realize how powerful we can become?”

Olivia could understand Ivan's excitement, but in her mind, she wanted to say. 'Do you know what it's like to be kissed by him every day?'