Moving beside the desk stacked with various papers, I greeted the clairvoyant, “Hello.”

“I wasn’t-“ The clairvoyant nearly jumped in surprise, sat upright and gazed toward me. “Oh… are you trying to give me a heart attack? Would it have killed you to knock?”

He immediately relaxed upon getting a clear view of me and returned to his previous position.

“Sorry, didn’t think about it.” I lied, keeping track of his reactions.

Instead of seemed particularly annoyed, he mainly seemed relieved. How odd…

“Who’re you, anyway?” The clairvoyant asked, putting his feet up on the desk.

Performing my stereotypical bow, I introduced myself, “Tobias, pleasure to meet you.”

“Right-” The blurry clairvoyant leaned backward into the chair and seemed perfectly content with the situation. “Eh, well… Terrance? Was it?”

“Tobias.” I corrected.

He dismissed my correction with a wave of the hand, cocked his head to the one side and asked, “So… what are you doing here?”

“I was hoping you could help me find a couple things.” I decided to go right to the point.

“Considering you’ve gone to all the trouble to bypass our…” The clairvoyant waved his hands in my general direction, before shrugging, “Well… with the number of visitors I’ve been getting recently, apparently terrible warding scheme. I suppose I can help you.”

Number of visitors? Who exactly has been visiting him? (No… focus, Tobias. There’s no time to waste.)

“More interesting than doing paperwork, anyway.” The clairvoyant whispered in a voice that was barely audible.

Right… Well, at least I don’t need spend effort on convincing him.

“I’m looking for…” I hesitated, having difficult in describing God-hunter, “-an object that disappeared. A green scaled dagger with a golden metal spine.”

The clairvoyant pulled out a map of the residential zone (hold up, didn’t Stanley take map last time), “How long ago it disappear?”

I stared at the map with a suspicion about its existence and answered his question casually, “Somewhere between an hour to eight hours ago.”

Did Stanley return his map? Or does he have multiple copies? I would’ve sworn that Stanley took that map with him.

The clairvoyant closed his eyes and frowned, “That’s… odd. You sure it was taken a couple of hours ago?”

“Yep, she- it was.” I swiftly confirmed.

“Then... maybe, I messed up? Give me a minute.” The clairvoyant shrugged, and continued to keep his eyes closed.

After waiting a period of time, I decided to sit down on chair across from him.

The clairvoyant repeated the description aloud this time, “Dark green scales covering the majority of the dagger, a golden metal spine.”

An odd silence loomed as he utilized his ability to investigate.

“Do you have a more accurate description? Anything more unique?” The clairvoyant opened his eyes with confusion, “With that description, I keep getting interference from a similar knife in a dusty old temple.”

Similar knife?

An expression of doubt appeared on my face. Is there a knife similar to God-hunter anywhere in the universe?

“Why are you sure that knife isn’t mine?” I asked.

“That knife is in an old temple deep underground and covered in dust, so unless you’re lying about having lost it a couple of hours ago…” The clairvoyant shrugged.

Deep underground and covered in dust? That… well, probably not. Let’s try to narrow down the description. I can do that.

“It was made by the mad craftsman. I’ve carried her for at least a year.” I stated whilst leaning forward in the chair, trying to narrow down the description for his ability.

The clairvoyant tried searched once again before rubbing his neck and giving up, “Yeah, that didn't help. I don’t think I can help you.”

Damn…

“Tell me where this old temple is…” I said, frowning slightly.

Is that you, God-hunter? Are you actually in a dusty old underground temple?

The clairvoyant pointed to a spot in the Hell Difficulty residential zone, seemingly in the middle of the street, “Approximately twenty miles underground from this point… and no, I don’t know how to get there.”

“What? Twenty miles underground?” My expression changed in surprise and disbelief whilst we looked at the map.

The serious expression on his face seems to imply that he isn’t joking.

How could that be? Isn’t that close to depth of the magma layer on Earth? How could God-hunter get there?

Actually, more importantly, how I am supposed to get there? Digging that deep is basically impossible and I haven’t heard of another way to get that deep underground.

…but it’s my only clue as to God-hunter’s location.

“Anything else?” The clairvoyant asked, tapping his shoes against the desk.

“Yeah...” I absentmindedly replied, whilst holding out the wanted poster of Rin. “Can you find Rin?”

The clairvoyant’s face changed drastically upon seeing the flyer, and he immediately refused. “That girl? No. Never again, I’d prefer to keep my head atop my shoulders.”

That’s overly dramatic.

“Relax, I’m her fiancé. I just need to you to find her.” I stated, thinking pondering the wanted order that existed for her. The clairvoyant probably didn’t want to get involved in hunting her down.

“Not happening.” The clairvoyant shivered and immediately refused. Dropping his feet from the desk. “No offense, but your fiancée is terrifying.”

Should I swap over to threatening him?

Before going further, I decided to inquire about the reasons behind his refusal, “Terrifying? Why?”

I mean, Rin is frightening… but it’s very hard to notice without having many interactions with her. Normally, she seems to be an extremely cute girl.

He shivered at the memory, “She threatened to rip out my intestines and feed them to me alive...”

That… Rin actually bothered to threaten him? Wow, I guess she considers him pretty important. His ability to search for things is pretty useful.

It might be for the best that I don’t inquire further. I don’t want to cause his actual death, Rin tends to keep her threats…

“Okay, so when was she here?” I asked moving onward to the next topic. 

The clairvoyant fell silent.

Ah… he probably wasn’t supposed to mention that Rin was here at all.

“Right, I’m just going to leave.” I stood up and prepared to leave.

I sighed and realized this might be more difficult than I thought.

Placing his feet back up on the desk, the clairvoyant enthusiastically replied, “Great! Never bother me again.”

Shaking my head, I left the room more confused than when I entered.

I’d expected to get a destination or proper plan sorted out before leaving… that plan has failed.

Even if I knew for sure that was God-hunter location, finding and reaching a temple nearly twenty miles underground is almost impossible. Meanwhile, my attempt to locate Rin failed nearly as spectacularly.

Judging by his reaction, though. Rin’s threat should be relatively recent. He mentioned that many people were bypassing his security wards. One of those people was probably Rin.

What should I do then?

I’ll check out the general area above that underground temple... but if there are no clues on retrieving God-hunter, I’ll have to accept that for the time being.

Clenching my fist in anger, I slammed it into the nearby wall causing massive cracks.

Damn it… I should’ve been more careful in taking care of God-hunter.

If I had kept God-hunter in a safe place, or taken more precautions… she wouldn’t have gotten kidnapped.

First, I need to talk with Rin. A proper talk, not one that devolves into a fight half-way through.

Rin might not like talking, but this time we need to actually have a proper discussion.

Then, I need to send Sidney into Hell Difficulty which requires the administration rights. A talented person like her shouldn’t be trapped in Easy Difficulty.

After that I’ll work on getting into that underground temple. Who knows how long that will take, though.

Hmmm… Didn’t one of those crafting books mention mining? I vaguely remember one of those books mentioning machinery designed to mine deep into the earth.

Food for thought.

Trying to find Rin if she doesn’t want to be found is impossible in this big a city. She could easily reload to escape from me.

However… doing the opposite and getting Rin to come to me is easy.

I just need to attract attention. Lot of lots of attention.

Sorry, Rin. I know you didn’t want me to do anything stupid, but… Well, there’s only around 12 hours left before the system will lose power and I'll lose the ability to communicate with you.

POV Swap – Rin

A red sun was setting on the horizon with fluffy clouds reflecting sunset, and a golden streak slipped through the sky unnoticed.

An enclosed pyramid surrounded by various guards with people constantly entering and exiting through an arced entrance. Each guard had a unique symbol, stated which guild they are from and were accompanied by another member of their guild.

This pyramid contained the teleportation beacons to Hard Difficulty and served as a gathering place for the guilds whether a large event happened. Many different elites would are gathering together to protect those partaking in the event.

A large event such as the slaughtering of many members of certain guild.

Had a normal person heard of such a group gathering to hunt them down, their first reaction would’ve been to run away.

A person confident in their strength might’ve disguised themselves as someone important and sneaked inside to spy on the proceedings. If they were feeling particularly arrogant, they might’ve mixed into the hunting group to kill several of the elites.

Rin had none of those thoughts.

In fact, she hadn’t bothered to think about it at all.

Her thoughts were preoccupied with another topic… Tobias, and whether she’d made the right decision to abandon him.

Thus, Rin approached the pyramid from the street without any disguise or plan. Unless you count killing everyone inside a plan.

Not that her distracted mindset made a difference. Even if Rin bothered to think about this process, she would’ve arrived at the same plan.

A disguise would require acting as the target and interacting with other people. Rin disdained the thought of utilizing such methods.

Run away has the potential of putting Tobias or Kara in danger, if someone found out she was connected to them.

Thus, in her mind, only solving the problem head-on was a solution. After showcase absolute power, nobody would dare to call such an event again.

If Rin decided to use tricks, such as disguising herself, people would infer that she needed to do that to win. That would akin to admitting weakness.

This mentality is entirely due to her upbringing and her straightforwardness personality engraved into her bones.

The various guards noticed her approach and sounded the alarm. A host of people stepped out of the pyramid to block her approach.

Rin wielded her sword and went straight into action, rushed forward into the crowd.

Various people released abilities to block her. Some released barriers, others arrows and magic.

Every obstacle was easily slashed in half by Rin.

Rin easily slit the throat the guards on the frontline before continuing forward into the crowd.

Once inside the crowd, the fight became dramatically easier for Rin.

Ironically, their large numbers hindered the guard’s movements and prevent the most dangerous attacks from affecting her.

Rin easily weaved through people to block and dodge incoming melee attacks.

Meanwhile, as the guilds were technically allies, most people were not willing to release large scale attacks due to the massive potential of friendly fire.

Even if people with the ability to launch wide-range attacks were willing to have others accompany Rin to death, they would have to consider whether it’s worth angering every guild to accomplish that.

Before the situation turned completely desperate and those people became willing to abandon all scruples, the situation had seemingly stagnated as nobody was able to kill Rin.

Meanwhile, Rin didn’t have that problem.

Guards and people merely defending themselves were dying like flies around her.