Gabriel stepped down the ship, landing on the ground. He carefully followed Ulesis who was the last person to step down the ship.
"Are you still not going to reveal your real face?" Ulesis asked, while walking next to Gabriel. Even though Gabriel now looked much younger, it was still a disguise, hiding his real face. However, at least he now looked much closer to his real age.
"Why are you so interested in my face?" Gabriel asked in return.
He really didn't have any interest in showing his real face. It was already a headache that the girl had some special skill to see that he was wearing a disguise mask. However, even she couldn't see his real face. And he wanted to keep it that way.
"May I ask what you did in the Southern World that you had to escape with us?" Ulesis asked, while also occasionally introducing some things in her family as she came across.
"I offended someone powerful, and I'm not interested in playing hide and seek with them anymore, since someone else is taking care of that matter," Gabriel answered, being as vague as he could.
"Offending people... That's so easy to do nowadays." Ulesis smiled. "However, it's good to see that you aren't some murderer who's on the run."
Gabriel glanced at the young lady next to him, whose dark hair fluttered with the wind. "How can you be sure that I'm not a killer?"
"The aura you give... It feels... Pure. Not like someone a bad person should have," Ulesis commented. Since she was very perceptive, she always believed in her perception. Moreover, so far she hadn't been wrong. At least not yet, which gave her more confidence.
Looking at the girl, Gabriel could only scratch the back of his head, thinking back to how many people he had already killed. He didn't even know if he could count that much.
Even if he didn't count the ones that he had killed when he was one with Karyk, even then his number was astronomical.
He couldn't help but wonder just how this girl could be so confident despite being so wrong. However, he didn't tell her the truth.
"I guess that's the truth. I haven't even killed an insect in all my life..."
"Anyway, where are we going now?" he asked the girl, wondering if she was taking him to the master of the clan.
Unfortunately, her response wasn't quite what he hoped. "I'm taking you to the outer guest houses. No one stays there, so you can rest easy. Just stay there for some time, until I talk to my father and convince him."
The woman brought Gabriel to an area where there were multiple houses. However, all those houses were quite empty. No one lived in the area and the clan had stopped receiving guests a long time ago.
In fact, this area was made in the generation of the founding Ancestor, but after the fall of their clan, it wasn't used much.
If anything, the number of people in the Stein Clan had only decreased throughout the years.
"Here, you can eat whatever you like. Just wait for me until I return." The girl gave a storage ring to Gabriel, which contained the food that could last for months.
After handing over the ring, she ran back to the main house, leaving Gabriel behind.
Gabriel stood with the storage ring in his hand, shaking his head lightly. Even though he had many questions about this place, he left them for later. It was too early to reveal his true desires. Moreover, he was quite curious to see just what this clan was all about, especially all the Ancient Golems that he had seen along the way.
Even though it was his first time seeing them, he could feel a familiar energy from them for some reason. It was an innate feeling that even he didn't understand.
He wanted to get closer to check just what this feeling was. However, in the end, he delayed the plans for later and entered the guest house, closing the door from inside.
It had been quite a long time since he properly rested. The first thing he did was to take a shower, before dropping on the bed as if he was half dead, from being tired.
He cast multiple spells to alert him if anyone came near the guest house, before falling asleep.
****
Throughout the days he stayed with the Generals, Karyk tried to gain as much understanding of his surroundings as possible.
However, something seemed amiss. All four Generals were always together, never being alone. It was unclear just what brought all of them together. However, they also continued the search for Karyk in the Upper Realm.
It was clear that they didn't know the truth. Unfortunately, since the four of them were always together, it was hard for Karyk to do much.
He first tried to understand their intentions. However, since he couldn't use his element of death to be careful, he had to be quite careful in whatever he did.
During this time, the Four Generals didn't do much. In fact, they didn't even come to meet him. He was simply left in a room where a servant often came, delivering him a pill to eat.
Karyk was careful about the unknown pill, which wasn't a poison. However, since he didn't know just what this pill actually was, he didn't eat it either.
He kept taking the pills everywhere, and kept it safely instead of eating. At best, he only pretended to eat.
Whenever he was all alone, he tried to investigate the pills and its materials. Unfortunately, even with his knowledge, he couldn't find out much, since most of the materials of the pill were unknown.
However, there was one material which he recognized... A power that was used to forcefully increase the mana inside a person's body by a small quantity with each pill.
Sitting on the bed, Karyk played with the pill in his hands. "Just what are they planning?"
