Just before Abel was about to give his answers, a white-cloaked human wizard came up to him.
“Master Abel! The St. Anwall Wizard Union sends their regards.”
Another state-owned wizard union. As it turned out, all the big unions apart from the St. Ellis Wizard Union were very nice to Abel, even though he didn’t know the reason behind
The white-cloaked human wizard was very straightforward, “Are you interested in having your own property and status, Master Abel? If you are, please pay a visit to the Kingdom of St. Anwall. Master Walder would love to have a conversation with you.”
“Uh, well, uh,” Abel hesitated for a bit before responding, “I’m so sorry, both of you, but I might have to delay the discussion for later. There is a gathering even that I have to attend to immediately. Again, so sorry.” Abel didn’t know what these two men were planning. Whatever the case might be, there was no way that he was going to leave his family to leave somewhere very far.
“Oh, no-no-no. Please, Master Abel!” Judging from the anxious look on Abel’s face, the two human wizards knew that they were being a disturbance. Anyways, the messages were already relayed. They already showed up and made their offer, so there were no more reasons for them to keep getting in the way.
Still, when Abel walked away, the two wizards couldn’t help but give each other a hard, long stare. Whether or not Abel could be persuaded to come with them, they were, technically, getting in each other’s way to gain his favor.
Abel asked as he kept on walking, “Why are there so many wizards and knights here, Rawl? There aren’t even that many blacksmiths around.”
Rawl explained without being too loud, “It’s quite a sight, isn’t it, sir? You know, for every master blacksmith gathering event there is, there would always be a lot of people coming from all over the continent to pay a visit. The knights want to buy a better blade or armor, and the wizards come for a nice magic staff. And that, sir, is exactly what you are looking at right now.”
Abel paused for a bit before he asked, “Wait, so, from what you’re saying, all the wizards that have come here, they did so to get a magic staff.”
Rawl nodded with absolute certainty, “Of course, sir! Why else would the wizards come at this point in time?”
Abel said, “Well, sure. What about the advanced wizards? So far, all I’ve seen are intermediate and novice wizards.”
“Because, sir,” Rawl said in a softer voice, “there is no “real” official end to the master blacksmith gathering event. Sometimes, it can last a day, and sometimes, three. The longest one there was seven days.”
“To really answer your questions,” Rawl said in a super-quiet voice, “the advanced wizards never come on the first day. At the start of the event, they only have their underlings come with their materials. If the master blacksmiths turn them down, they then decide if they would go ask in person. That way, you’d get a lot less chance of getting humiliated in public.”
Abel was glad to hear that. From what he heard from the red-cloaked wizards just then, he came to represent Wizard Cliff. If what he said was true, and it should be, that meant that he would have the magic staff ingredients for Wizard Cliff.
Perhaps that’s where Abel could teach Wizard Cliff a little lesson. Maybe he could go hunt that red-cloaked wizard down, steal all the magic staff ingredients, and maybe upset Wizard Cliff a little bit. While thinking about it, his soul chain was already connected to the sky that was several miles away out from Cina City. He was trying to reach for Flying Flame, which was currently sleeping on top of White Cloud’s back.
By this point, the red-cloaked wizard was already out of the Cina City front gate. If he didn’t go faster, the pressure that was put on him by the super-large defense circle would’ve been a lot of harder. If it became strong enough to throw him out of the city, he might just die from the force.
When the red-cloaked wizard was completely out of Cina City, he took out a communication circle and connected it to Wizard Cliff.
“What do you want?” Wizard Cliff asked as soon as the call connected.
The red-cloaked wizard said with a shaky voice, “Ma..master! I’ve been kicked out Cina City! The mission has failed!”
“Just how much does the Blacksmith Union wish to upset me?”
“No… No, Master! It’s Abel! It’s the blacksmith that you’ve put a bounty on! He’s in Cina City right now. After I’ve told him that I represent you, he started calling all these people to banish me!”
Obviously, the red-cloaked wizard wasn’t going to tell the truth. After spending years inside the intelligence agency, he knew a lot about shifting blames and twisting up stories.
“Abel!” Wizard Cliff called out in rage, “How dare he! I’ve been too kind to him, so it seems.”
“Well,” Wizard Cliff then yelled at the red-cloaked wizard, “What the hell have you been doing, then? I’ve told you to do a simple errand for me, and you can’t even get that done! Get back here now, you incompetent fool!”
“Yes, Master!” the red-cloaked wizard sighed in relief after the call ended. From his understanding of Wizard Cliff, if he was ranting at his underlings, it usually meant that he was not going after them.
When the call ended, the red-cloaked wizard rode on top of a chocobo and rode towards Moga City. Twenty miles in on his way, and he felt like something bad was about to happen to him. He tried to speed up the chocobo by slapping its thigh, but it started slowing down and threw him away.
“AGH! What are you doing, you stupid animal?” the red-cloaked wizard moaned in pain as he tried to get up. To his shock, however, the chocobo started laying flat on the ground. It’s almost like it was trying to give up on all resistance.
Against what, though? “What the!” the red-cloaked wizard screamed as he took out his magic staff. As he searched around him, he readied himself to cast his most powerful spell at any time.Suddenly, a loud, piercing noise came from behind. Next thing he knew, his head had left his body and flew towards the sky. The last thing he ever saw was a flying black dragon.
“I’ve been killed by a dragon!” was his very last thought. Being killed by a dragon was not a very likely death. After all, not a lot of humans have ever seen a dragon before. It’s actually less likely than being crushed by a meteorite.
It was Flying Flame. If its master didn’t tell it to, it would’ve never come down from the sky to kill a mere novice wizard. And if Abel wasn’t specific enough, it would’ve just destroyed the man along with his portal bag and mount.
While walking on its short legs, Flying Flame came around the headless corpse and picked up the portal bag. Then, after searching the corpse for a bit, it picked up the magic staff on the ground and put it inside the portal bag.
When it was done, it used its white flame to burn the body into ash. The chococo was still there, watching. It was still flat on the ground, and it showed no signs of resistance. As scared as it was at the pseudo-dragon, it wasn’t exactly fainting out of fear yet.
Right now, Flying Flame was communicating with its master through the soul chain. It wasn’t sure what to do with this chocobo bird in front of it. That being said, it really wanted to do well for its master. After seeing Johnson’s portal bag, it really wanted to get one as a reward.
So far, it looted a portal bag from this dead wizard. Once it saw its master again, it was going to plead to him to give it away as a reward. If he did, it was going to store all the blue howling rabbit-flavored “ration potion” inside.
Once Flying Flame got Abel’s command, it carefully used its claws to carry the chocobo bird into the sky. The chocobo bird couldn’t really do much; it had no choice but to wait for whatever fate lied before it.
