Jun returned to Magdalena's home as she had left to pick up Gray which meant his planned departure was close at hand.

His mind however, at least part of it, was focused on his gains from the little side quest he undertook in the relatively short amount of time between his talk with Magdalena and her departure from her house to fetch Gray and the gains were not small.

The biggest one was without a doubt, the greater insight Jun gained into the nature of his own existence. he could clearly see himself and his parameters but getting a sense of how others, especially an individual with great knowledge perception and prediction capabilities saw him, enlightened him quite a bit.

It let Jun realize that his high perception had prevented him from realizing certain truths. His "sight" was so advance he could "see" just about anything but there was a lot to learn, a lot of information to be grasped from the fact that "seeing" something in a certain way was not possible.

If he had not met Zepia, Jun's curiosity towards Morgan's secrets might have had catastrophic consequences, maybe not for him personally but certainly for her.

Hence, he considered this new depth of understanding towards his own nature to be the biggest gain he had earned from his little excursion.

It was far from the only one however. Analyzing and interacting with Logos React had given him a great deal of ideas and actual raw data to improve certain aspects of his Domina Coronam, namely, his Crown of Magecraft: Lemegeton.

The massive computation ability that was at the core of most Atlas Superweapons was something his Ars Notoria could easily reproduce but the true gain was the insight into how he could apply that computation ability for purposes he did not consider up until this point.

Those two things were certainly the biggest takeaways from the entire incident but Jun also collected the Corpse King though he did not quite have a use for it just yet. He was thinking about it though and had a barely shaped concept in mind even if it was not concrete yet.

The price to pay for all of these gains however, was earning Zepia's attention. An immortal vampire who was also one of the most intelligent individuals that currently existed while possessing inimaginable resources as the director of the Atlas Institute.

To have those eyes that could cover most of the World trained on him was not something Jun appreciated and, even if he himself could not be directly observed, neither could his future or that of those around him, his present actions could still be deduced.

From their interaction, Zepia already knew Jun was running intereferrence on the ritual of the Blackmoore Cemetery Cult.

It would be easy to realize Gray was taken away and similarly easy for a man with his reach and resources to find her so long as Jun did not remove her from the particular timeline they were in.

In other words, as soon as Jun tired to have Gray do anything in the part of the Nasuverse he was currently in, Zepia would have a way to discover more of his undertakings and associations.

'Still . . . I can just move Gray and Magdalena into the DxD Verse for now and figure out what I want to do about all of this later.' Jun considered before letting the problem be passed on to deeper thought processes for them to consider while the main focus of his attention became his current activities once again.

Jun mental processing was blindingly fast so even pondering on several different complicated matters at the same time occurred extremely fast. Unfortunately, this also meant he could not kill time by thinking as he though way to fast and thus, he had to boredly wait for Magdalena to return.

Thankfully, she did not take long but as the mother daughter pair approached, Jun could notice the surveillance placed on Gray which would instantly warn the village's higher ups the moment she disappeared. There were also tracking spells but Jun could easily get rid of them.

Whatever the case, it meant a quick escape as soon as Magdalena arrived with Gray would be the best course of action. Once they were safely away Jun could then let the woman explain things to her daughter, or at the very least try.

Settling on this course of action, Jun projected an invisible magical circle on the floor of the room he was in and just waited for Magdalena to show up with Gray.

As for the woman's side of things . . .

To say Magdalena was nervous would be a massive understatement. She knew her daughter was under constant surveillance, even when supposedly alone with herself, a now trusted member of the Blackmoor Cemetery Cult.

Although she didn't let it show, Magdalena knew that making anyone suspicious at any point would spell out disaster and that was the brilliance of her previous plan that she had abandoned due to Jun's interference.

The cult's attention was on Gray and her plan did not involve any direct interference with her which resulted in a minimal chance of being found out.

This time, though, she was cooperating with someone or somethings, she honestly did not know, who was planning on kidnapping both her and her daughter.

She knew Jun was powerful and skillful but she had to consider the possibility that he would disappear in case their plans were sniffed out before coming to fruition and so, Magdalena was quite worried they would be detected before being safely away.

The reason she had though this way, was Jun's lowkey way of doing things. If he was so powerful as he seemed to be and not restricted in the application of said power . . . Why not just descend upon the village and take whatever he pleased?

All of it made Magdalena fear that a breach of secrecy and stealth would make Jun rescind his offer and that's why she was worried about the surveillance Gray was subjected to.

Of course, this was simply a misunderstanding. Jun would certainly prefer to act lowkey and extract his targets without making any waves so as to not have to deal with any fallout but, in case they were discovered, he'd be quite willing to use force in order to get what he wanted.

As for why he did not do so in the first place, he simply did not want to smear his public image through willful uses of force. There were many smart and powerful beings in the Nasuverse and even if he could deceive their senses for quite a while, they would eventually connect the dots.

Besides, people fear the unknown and not tipping his hand unless he had too was the basics for maintaining the shroud of mystery that surrounded him.

Sooner or later, Gray's presence would be noted in his organization after all, which would result in people making the connection between said organization and her kidnapping. Hence, the way Jun acted now would set a tone for later.

Magdalena however, did not know or consider any of these things and so, in her view of the matters at hand, she was right to be worried.

Gray who walked ahead of her on the other hand, was feeling something was off someway.

For some reason, the way her mother used to follow her from behind like a devout believer, worshiping her figure seemed to ring somewhat . . . hollow, unfocused . . . The young girl could not place it.

She could not say she minded however, the way her mother changed, the way she went from treating her like her beloved child to a sacred idol was unsettling and even disgust inducing for the poor young girl.

The lack of attentive worship from the woman she once saw as her beloved mother was actually a bit of a relief, even if it left her slightly confused as to why it was like so on that particular day. She didn't complain however.

Minding the gazes of her village's cultist ever since the change she had cursed so much occurred, Gray became quite perceptive to changes in the way people looked at her.

Even though she could not really understand what had changed or what was different, she knew there was definitely something.

Each with their own thoughts, mother and daughter walked towards their home, though it stopped really feeling like a home for little Gray.

What came as unexpected however, was the presence of an old woman in their path that set off all kinds of alarms in Magdalena's head as she reverently bowed.

"Grandmother." She greeted the director of her family's suffering.

Just when freedom was in sight, the leader of the Blackmoore Cemetery Cult, known only as Grandmother to the cultists, barred their way . . .

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P.a.t.r.e.o.n is officially up!

The link is: https://www.p.a.t.r.e.o.n.com/lusoba  without the extra dots of course.

You'll get to read up to FOUR week ahead, a full month, but I'll still post here.

There's also my other novel Archon of DanMachi, do check it out!

I would greatly appreciate any support since this is going to be my breadwinner.