The Rise of the Black Plain

"He... He died." That man said this in an apologetic tone for not being able to help these nobles in front of him.

"He died?" The three exclaimed as they had expressions of disappointment forming on their faces.

Just now, they had thought they would finally find out something about that incident. But, reality had made them go back to the previous point of the investigation...

It was genuinely frustrating for the three of them!

'Months threw in the trash!' Christian's bodyguard thought to himself.

And while his two subordinates had their thoughts about this matter, Christian frowned and felt his face heat up. 'What our bad luck! But I can't waste this…' He pondered for a moment until he finally looked into that man's eyes, seriously.

"What happened to him? Was he killed on the same occasion as my younger brother?" Christian asked as he tried to trace new clues through this person.

And hearing this, that man scratched his eyebrows for a moment and then reported what he knew. "Young Cyril died during the Spiritual Tournament. Unfortunately, he could not complete the survival test and was killed by a 5th stage beast."

"Ahh, it was a loss for our whole family. We counted on him so much..." He lamented.

"It is a pity that this young man died, but I heard that he was not alone at that time. Where is the bodyguard who accompanied him on this trip? I wish I could talk to him." Christian asked this, remembering that fact.

The main point of his investigation was the youths who had gone to the Peak of the Fog. That is because it would be easier to identify a talented young person than any subordinate...

But if he could talk to the bodyguard in question, that could also help Christian.

After a moment of silence, that man moved his head from side to side in denial and said. "That I cannot say. Our family is not rich enough to have subordinates of that individual's level. So, we simply hired the escort service of a mercenary in the capital."

"You mean your family hired a mercenary from the Red Blade Guild?" One of Christian's subordinates asked.

"Yes, we hired the escort service in this guild."

As well as the Dry City service, mercenary guilds existed and had their uses for the inhabitants of the Central Continent. Often, as in the case of this small family, hiring the services of mercenaries was the most they could do, and the existence of these places guaranteed that the service would be done.

After all, a mercenary wouldn't be trustworthy unless something or someone was forcing them to follow orders...

But with the existence of guilds, organizations made to give credibility to their members and, consequently, profit; such mercenaries could be trusted, most of the time...

At the very least, a mercenary from a guild wouldn't try to steal or abandon a client in the middle of a mission. That's because they would only receive their payments after the service was done and could even suffer penalties if they did something wrong with their customers.

That is because an organization that wanted to be credible would have to worry about not alienating its customers because of 'bad apples'!

So, unless it was a very extreme circumstance involving the life and death of the mercenary, in general, these guild-related people could be considered 'allies.'

Anyway, after hearing the man's response, the two subordinates looked at each other and then focused on Christian. "Young master, this mercenary will not be easy to find. He could be anywhere, and the Red Blade Guild might not even know his origin, name, etc."

"Hmm, that's right, young master. I don't think it's worth following that person, at least not while we can find one of these other youths much more easily." The other agreed.

After that, Christian was silent for a moment and then made his decision. "Let's go to the Snow Kingdom. We'll leave this information on standby for now. If we don't find any of these other people alive, we'll go after this later..."

Quickly the group left that place after Christian had paid some crystals to that guy from before. Their investigation had come to a dead-end, and now the best course of action was to set that information aside and pursue the other leads discovered by the Reid family.

Who knows? Maybe they could get something faster that way.

...

Days quickly passed, and Minos and Abby were now resting on a prairie, only about 100 kilometers away from the Kingdom of the Waves capital.

This place had completely green fields, extending for tens of kilometers, with trees far apart.

There was also a small river flowing through that area near the place where the two youths were, coming from the east and heading west of the Kingdom of the Waves, where the coast of that state was.

In fact, if Minos and Abby were to follow this river directly, they would arrive in one of the many port cities of this state, in the region with the highest population concentration in this kingdom!

But at the present time, neither of them was interested in following this path, as what they needed, techniques, and spiritual artifacts could be found in the three places they still had to pass on this journey. That was the capital of this state, the headquarters of the Cohen family, west of the capital, and a city south of where they were, in the kingdom's central region.

Minos and Abby had not passed this place during their coming because it would extend their journey even further, as this place was off the route they were taking.

However, when the two were returning to the Black Plain, they could use a new route on their journey, where they would have to pass through this town in question.

Anyway, where the two were standing and resting, Minos and Abby could see some beasts in the distance, on the banks of the river that passed close to them. But neither of them was strong, and they weren't trying to get close to these two either. In fact, they were just grazing and going their ways, totally ignoring the human presence around them.

At the same time, three carriages could be seen driving along the dirt road, one coming from the capital and the other two going there.

But this movement was not strange. After all, these two were already very close to Athela, a city with about 7 million inhabitants!

And being the capital of the Kingdom of the Waves, this place received people from all parts of that state and even others, as in the example of Minos and Abby. The services of this city were among the best in the entire northern region of the Central Continent, and naturally, there was an attraction to foreign people.

There were high-level grade-2 professionals from almost all spiritual professions and top regional families and organizations in this city. The royal house, the Walker family, was one of the strongest houses in this part of the continent and had most of its members living in the capital.

But some of these most critical individuals of the local royalty did not live in the city of Athela, as in the case of the three princes!

But such matters weren't all that important to Minos at the moment. At this point in his journey, this young man just wanted to buy the resources necessary for the short-term development of his territory without getting involved in such big problems...

And while the two of them were sitting in the middle of that prairie, not far from each other, with a giant beast watching them, Minos looked at Abby and said. "Let's go. We should get to Athela before nightfall. We'll leave it to cultivate later when we find a decent hotel."

"Hmm." After Abby nodded in agreement, the two mounted that beast and headed back to the soil road beside where they had stopped.

'Ahh, we've finally arrived at this place... There's a lot of business for me to do here!' Minos reflected with a slight smile on his face.

After about three months of traveling, they had arrived at their main destination!