Wizard Cyril also appeared, “Whoever’s looking to give you trouble, Grandmaster, I’ll lend you my hand. I’m not just going to drink your wine without giving anything back.”
“I appreciate the help you’re offering,” Abel said with a tight smile on his face, “Alright, I’ll tell the both of you. There are three rank seventeen wizards that are on their way. They want to fight me and take all my belongings.”
“I’ll take one of them,” Wizard Cyril said immediately, “Hmm. I don’t know how long we can wait, though. I’ll try to make a call to my clan. If there are any wizards that want to come, they should come here pretty quickly.”
“Thank you so much, Wizard Cyril,” Abel bowed to show his gratitude. Wizard Cyril didn’t say it out explicitly, but there were a lot of dwarfs willing to fight for a grandmaster blacksmith’s behalf. Right now, he needed as much help as he could, and the dwarfs were one of the biggest help that he could get.
After realizing how emergent the situation was, Wizard Cyril disappeared from the spot. He was heading back to have a discussion with his clan.
Wizard Morton didn’t stay too long, either, “I’ll be back to my tower now. By the way, I’ll let Yveline and Murphy know about this.”
“And, by the way,” Wizard Morton said before he vanished, “Don’t worry about it. It’s not the first time we’ve fought advanced wizards. We’ll teach these punks a good lesson, alright?”
Abel was left alone in Harry Castle. Anger suddenly appeared on his face. Up until this point, he had been careful not to reveal his real strength. He didn’t want the others to take caution of what he was capable of, but now, these wizards weren’t giving him many options.
If a wolf didn’t want to use its fangs, there was a very simple option. It could set an example in front of others; by slaughtering its prey in the most gruesome of ways, no one would dare to pursue after it.
“Three advanced wizards, huh,” Abel murmured to himself as he looked towards the sky, “I guess I do need some ‘sacrifices.’ I can’t live peacefully if they keep coming after me like this.”
“Black Wind!” he called for Black Wind, “We’re heading back to the castle!”
After jumping on Black Wind’s back, Abel rushed into the Harry Castle’s teleportation circle and disappeared.
Right now, Wizard Nigel was bringing Wizard Bunker and Wizard Jallel to the duchy of Keyen. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to head to the duchy of Carmel (he could also try to head to Harvest City), but since he wasn’t a member of the Blacksmith Union branch there, he couldn’t connect to the local teleportation circle.
Of course, he could try to apply to make a connection. However, given what he’s done, it’d be a suicidal move to make any contact with the Blacksmith Union. Attacking a grandmaster blacksmith was the same as becoming the enemy of the dwarfs. He didn’t want to start any conflicts, so the best option for him was to take a detour.
He could try to head to the duchy of Carmel by connecting to the “Morton Magic Tower teleportation circle” over there. Now that its owner was not inside the magic tower, Nigel could use his authority to make a forced entry. Of course, doing this would be a great offense to Wizard Morton’s privacy. If he did try to contact Wizard Morton (which he couldn’t), he might be able to negotiate for an entry, but that’s a different story.
Anyways, there was only one option for Wizard Nigel. He had to teleport to the Wizard Union branch over at the duchy of Keyen. Then, by using the teleportation circle over at Caral City, he could ask the local managers to lend him their teleportation devices.
Caral City was right at the border between the Duchy of Carmel, the Duchy of Thunder, the Duchy of Koror, and the Duchy of Laka. Without the Keyen Wizard Union branch giving their permission, the teleportation circle there would never be available to any advanced wizards. If the three criminals could put enough pressure on the local authorities, they would be able to use it to arrive at Harvest City in half a day.
Half a day. That was very quick. Wizard Nigel was moving three hundred meters at a time with his “instantaneous movement” spell. He was moving at a straight line with no care of any obstacles in the way. Wizard Bunker and Wizard Jallel were doing the same. They were just following Nigel in whatever direction that he was taking them.
By the way, Wizard Nigel was still holding a grudge for having made an enemy with Abel. He was not having a good day. He did not expect to make an enemy out of the only human grandmaster blacksmith on the Holy Continent. He did not expect to be an accomplice of a murder case. He did not expect to be forced to abandon his duty as a guardian wizard.
Wizard Nigel was a desperate man. He didn’t have many options left. The only way out for him, apparently, was to become the watchdog of the Blizzards. If he couldn’t make a living on the Holy Continent, he would just try to move to a different continent.
There was one thing that he didn’t regret, however. For the past few weeks, he had always been trying to get Abel to make a magic staff for him. His pride didn’t allow him to ask in person, so he assigned random missions (see previous chapters) that only Abel could do. He thought that Abel was short on points, so there was no way that he wouldn’t do these missions, but Abel started making points (a lot of points, actually), by starting his own restaurant business.
“Fine! You want to turn me down? Go ahead. I don’t need you, anyway!”
These were the kind of thoughts on Wizard Nigel’s mind. He had been suppressing them for a while, but now that there were two wizards that were threatening his life, he suddenly lost the need to pretend that he ever liked Abel. This was why he didn’t hesitate to take the two advanced wizards to the Duchy of Carmel.
“That’s Harry Castle ahead of us, Wizard Bunker!” Wizard Nigel called out and took out a magic map. Since the map was a magic item, it would show their coordinations as they were moving around the area that was shown.
Wizard Bunker replied with an ambiguous promise, “Good deeds will be rewarded, Wizard Nigel. Once you have done what we’ve asked, the Blizzards will never treat you wrong.”
Wizard Nigel put away his map, “I’ve got the information that you’re looking for, Wizard Bunker. Grandmaster Abel has always been inside his castle. He’s built a few magic towers around it, though. If he gets inside one of them, it’s going to be a pain to get him out.”
Wizard Jallel laughed, “You’re talking about a rank six magic tower! Just watch me, mate! I’ll bring it down with just one hand!”
The target was a grandmaster blacksmith. Since Wizard Bunker was very aware of that fact, he had already come up with a way to kidnap Abel. They had an escape route. If they were quick enough, they could drag Abel out of his property without anyone coming after them. And once they were out of the Holy Continent, there would be no one to come after them.
However, there was a crucial flaw in Wizard Bunker’s plan. He thought that Abel would have received the news a lot later, but Abel already knew about the attack that happened at the Forgotten Land restaurant. In fact, he knew about it as soon as it happened.
After letting Bartoli do some scout work for him, Abel made sure to identify his enemies as they were on their way. He had plenty of time to prepare for an attack, and if he had just a little more, the dwarven wizards would come as reinforcements.
