Chapter 262: The Unkillable Man

  Talise turned to face the airflow and asked loudly, "Where are you planning to go now? If you're taking Aimee to Erathia, it would be faster to go to Ainfast first to get three teleportation scrolls."

  "Coming to Whispering Woods was just to get enough well water, to give me enough time. Now I'm only starting to do the real work..." Ethan sat behind and to the side of her, looking at her snow-white, slender neck and her chiseled profile, and suddenly felt something strange. Dazed for a moment, he suddenly remembered and asked, "By the way, aren't you going to ask me what that thing giving off the strange aura is? I thought you would ask."

  Talise said lightly, "If you're willing to say it, then say it. If you don't, I'll just keep following you. I know this journey of yours is also for this thing. One day I will know, and I will understand."

  Ethan smiled, and after a moment of silence, added, "Actually, it doesn't hurt to tell you a little. I'm out on this trip with that thing to find someone. And as for where I should find this person, I don't have any clues yet..."

  "Looking for someone? Then you should go to the Thieves' and Adventurers' Guild to post a bounty."

  "A bounty is useless for this person. I found the current guild masters of both The Thieves' Guild and the Adventurers' Guild in the royal capital of Ainfast to inquire, but the clues were also very vague. I've already prepared myself to search for a needle in a haystack and ask around everywhere. That's why I went to Whispering Woods to get enough Sunwell water. If all else fails, I'll have to go to sea to the Far East to find a way..."

  "The Far East?" Talise was startled for a moment, then murmured, "I'm going too."

  At this time, in Celeste, His Majesty the Pope's expression had finally reached a rare level of grimness. Ever since sensing that aura at the last dawn, the Pope's expression seemed not to have improved, and then it slowly, slowly got worse, until now. At least Adela had never seen this old man with such an expression before. Although he didn't appear very angry or show any signs of agitation, his furrowed brows and the chilly aura surrounding him all indicated that His Majesty's mood had become extremely awful.

  "Go and get Lancelot for me," His Majesty the Pope suddenly said to Adela.

  Adela quickly bowed and withdrew. In front of the current Pope, he didn't even dare to make a sound. The chilly scent even made him feel his scalp tightening in waves.

  The Paladin soon arrived, led by the Cardinal. His Majesty the Pope didn't even wait for him to stand still and salute, but directly asked, "Lancelot, let me ask you. What is your chance of killing Knight Tamika?"

  "I have no chance," Lancelot's answer was simple and firm. "I might be able to defeat him, but I can't kill him." Defeating a person and killing a person are two completely different matters. Especially for someone like Knight Tamika, who was accustomed to acting in the dark.

  "Hmm..." The Pope nodded. After thinking for a moment, he asked again, "Then what about that fellow named Gru? Or rather, can he and Sedros kill Knight Tamika if they join forces?"

  "Still no," Lancelot shook his head just as firmly. "First, Tamika would absolutely never fight this person. I know his judgment has always been very accurate."

  The Pope nodded involuntarily. He knew Lancelot was right. Perhaps Knight Tamika's greatest strength was not his martial skill, but his nerves as tough as steel wire and his purely rational judgment. Such a person always knew what kind of opponent he should face and what countermeasures to take in what kind of environment, just like the most precise machine. From a certain point of view, even Lancelot was no match for him.

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  As if to reaffirm this fact he was reluctant to accept, he asked again, "So you're saying there should be no one on this continent who can kill him?"

  Lancelot thought about this question for a moment before answering, "I don't know... I can only say that to my knowledge, it should probably be so."

  The Pope let out a long sigh, nodded somewhat dejectedly, and said slowly, "But I can now be certain that he is already dead..."

  Even Lancelot's expression changed. He paused before saying, "After all... there are no absolutes in this world. Perhaps there was some kind of accident..."

  The Pope didn't speak. He just stood up, walked to the window, and gazed at the scenery outside. After a long while, he slowly began to speak, "Actually, I'm very unwilling to scheme or arrange things. Because I know that no matter how precise the calculation, it's impossible to have everything under control. There will always be some accidents. I have always believed that as long as you can grasp the general direction, it's enough. It's just that this matter is too important, so I had no choice but to play these little tricks along with some people..." He turned back, with a wry smile, "But I don't know if my luck is just too bad. To encounter such a huge accident this time, Knight Tamika..."

  "Your Majesty, please be at ease," Adela quickly said. Only he knew best what Knight Tamika's death meant to His Majesty the Pope. If he were to make the Pope choose between losing a hand or losing Knight Tamika, he would never choose the latter. And perhaps he would be willing to lose both hands.

  "Of course, I must be at ease. There's no other way..." The Pope sighed heavily again. As if he had made some decision, although his expression was not suddenly clear, the gloom had disappeared. "Since the little tricks have failed, then we can only resort to some bigger moves..."

  The Pope said to Adela, "Go to Erathia and get Inham back for me. There are some things I need to discuss with him properly."

  "Yes." Adela bowed and withdrew. Only now was he truly convinced in his heart. Such a huge loss—the most important confidant, the most useful subordinate—had only slightly depressed the Pope. He was almost immediately able to extract himself from the pain of this loss and make his next plans as if nothing had happened.

  Being able to sit in the top position on this continent cannot be just because of luck or some other fortuitous thing. I wonder what his reaction would be if I died? The Cardinal suddenly thought of this and couldn't help but shiver. Because he knew that to the Pope, he was definitely not as important as Knight Tamika.

  Harondale Village, a completely inconspicuous little place in the Kalendor Basin, which is shrouded in clouds and mist all year round. This small village was originally not at all famous. To say nothing of other places, even within the insular Kalendor Basin, not many people knew about it.

  But a year ago, this little place became quite infamous. The son of a blacksmith who ran out of here somehow became the assassin who assassinated the Empire's Cardinal Ronis and Duke Mrak, becoming the most vicious wanted criminal in the history of the continent.

  For this matter, the royal capital even dispatched a knight order from a thousand miles away to investigate, throwing the small mountain village into chaos and almost arresting the entire village as wanted criminals. But in the end, the matter was inexplicably dropped, as if nothing had been investigated. It was only heard that several officers were severely injured during the investigation, either from falling or being hit by stones, and the leading young knight was carried out of Kalendor.

  Since the incident with the wanted criminal, foreign adventurers and bounty hunters had continuously come here to inquire about the detailed background of the 5,000 gold coin bounty. However, after a year, such people gradually came less often, and it was heard that there were signs that the royal capital was also canceling the bounty.

  But all of this had not caused much change for this small village. For them, their own godforsaken place suddenly giving birth to such an earth-shattering figure was as incredible as a fire-breathing dragon suddenly appearing in a roadside puddle. This matter had long since surpassed the scope of the villagers' comprehension.

  They must have made a mistake somewhere. There are many people who look alike. This was almost the common understanding of all the villagers regarding this matter. Out of the characteristic gloominess of the Kalendor Basin residents, they were unwilling to let their main thinking extend beyond the scope of their accustomed lives. Apart from accepting the silver coins thrown to them by the adventurers and bounty hunters during their inquiries, they maintained a very normal, ordinary attitude towards this matter. In the past year, except for the improvement in the villagers' lives due to the bounty money from those inquiries, the small village was just as it always had been.

  Today, three young people who looked like adventurers, one man and two women, came outside the village again. However, these three did not rush into the village. Instead, they first stopped at the pile of graves outside the village. The villagers did not show excessive curiosity. There were not a few people like this, as long as they didn't dig up the graves. Once, a group of adventurers had tried this behavior in search of clues, but the dwarves who heard the news were indignant at this behavior and fiercely taught these people who were disrespectful to the dead and the earth. After that, this kind of behavior never happened again. In Kalendor, no one ever dared to oppose the dwarves.

  The earth around the graves had been reinforced and added to by the dwarves. The tombstone was still the same, with the name roughly written on it. A very ordinary grave.

  This part of the cemetery outside the village was rarely passed by. Ethan removed his mask. The skin that had not been exposed to the air for a long time was a bit pale. Although the magic human-skin mask was exquisite and breathable, it was still different from showing his face like this. Ethan seemed to be able to smell that familiar scent of charcoal. The unique humidity of the basin's air was seeping through the pores on his face into his body, into his heart.