Casey had lost his little sister when she was even smaller than Nina. Considering how much Vice and his sister had suffered, this man couldn't help but see a lot of his sister in Nina.
'You pathetic vermin! I'll take everything you have.' He saw his cue and moved, moving his mana through his body to his Magic Gem, ready to get the truth by force.
Having recently advanced to level 5 of the Acolyte stage, few people in Millfall could resist Casey's powers!
When he reached the third floor of the abandoned building where his target was, he had no trouble reaching his target, a middle-aged man who looked like a mercenary from a distance.
But he wasn't a mercenary. He reeked of blood, like a murderer.
"Do you know why I'm here?" Casey suddenly appeared behind the man's back, taking him by surprise.
But being an experienced assassin, the level 3 Acolyte didn't freeze in fear. When he heard someone's voice coming from behind his back, he drew one of his daggers with one hand and poison with the other.
Casey was much quicker and stronger than that man. Seeing the assassin's move, he broke his target's right arm with a kick while dodging the dagger aimed at his neck.
Casey's third eye opened, and his two Magic Pentagrams, one red and one orange, appeared in front of it.
"Now I'll see everything you know, worm." He said as he looked into the man's eyes while one of his hands grabbed his target's neck and squeezed.
The man couldn't get away from Casey. As he looked into the third eye on the tanned young man's forehead, the assassin began to convulse, feeling as if all the information in his mind was quickly being stolen from him.
Casey could do many things with his ability. He could read what was in his targets' memories, manipulate them, and even remove them by force.
He had ways to do all of this without affecting his targets' brain functions, but if he wanted to, he could severely damage the existence of people like that assassin.
When dealing with the level 3 Acolyte, Casey showed no mercy. When he looked into the man's eyes, he removed everything in his mind harshly, practically destroying his existence.
But the cruelest thing of all was that Casey's target would feel it all and more, living the nightmare of being 'broken,' incomplete, for who knows how long. Because young Rogers acted so as not to endanger his target's life, he guaranteed endless torture for the assassin!
But even in extreme agony, convulsing as he went into a maddening spiral, the assassin couldn't even scream for help.
With his nervous system severely damaged, he had lost the ability to speak!
Closing his eyes, Casey ignored society's garbage and looked at the information he had in his head.
'Symons family, huh?' He clenched his fists. 'Wretched Marcus! Don't think you're invulnerable just because you're the Viscount's son!' He felt even angrier when he discovered what was behind Nina's disappearance.
He knew very well what could have motivated that action. It could only be Marcus' sick jealousy of Shelby!
Thinking about how the poor Nina should be scared because of an idiot and how it had all been caused by something so small made Casey even angrier about the whole situation.
His little sister had lost her life because of something small!
'You're going to pay for this, even if I can't take you down, you piece of shit!' He opened his eyes and left, determined to solve Nina's situation.
...
While several of Vicente's friends and allies acted to find Nina, another day passed.
Vice had no idea what was happening in Millfall. Now, he was slowly approaching the point marked with an 'x' on the map in his hands.
After joining his group with the teachers from Ironcrest, Vice and his people returned the way they had come, following the trail on the map.
As they had noticed earlier, the map showed trails that did not go through any magical creature territory in this area of the Alpine Woodpecker Forest.
Even though they had faced several Rougarous the day before, they hadn't dealt with any powerful creatures in the past few hours.
As they made their way to where the treasure was supposed to be, they had practically only encountered magical creatures that posed little danger to their group, ignoring almost all of them.
But in the last few hours, a being powerful enough to threaten them had appeared in their path. Luckily, it wasn't following them, and after hiding from the woodpecker, the group continued on their way to where they were now.
"How strange..." One of the weaker teachers in the group commented as they walked in the formation Vicente had planned.
"What?" Another teacher asked as they moved slowly, trying not to cause any unnecessary disturbance since they were less than an hour away from their destination.
"Our situation is strange. We haven't had any problems for a whole day. But ever since we entered this forest, we've had problems." That teacher said while looking at his surroundings with an expression full of doubt.
Julian then said. "It is not always dangerous to travel through such an area. Despite the characteristics of some races of magical creatures and their violent reputation, many have no interest in looking for trouble with groups like ours.
They are especially defensive in their territories against any group. But fights don't happen for no reason. We've probably invaded the territories of the creatures that have been acting against us in the past few days."
Indeed, a meeting of magical beings in the middle of a forest was no guarantee of conflict. If one didn't bother the other or wasn't in the other's territory, the chances that two creatures would meet and go their separate ways without confronting each other were not zero.
Of course, this could be influenced by other factors. For example, some magical creatures could strengthen themselves by devouring others, so if the one who encountered another group of magical creatures wasn't strong enough, even without provoking the other party, they could attract trouble.
But even that could vary greatly. Sometimes, a creature would have just finished feeding, and even if it saw someone who could be a good meal, it wouldn't move against them unless it was threatened.
The teachers who knew the most about the behavior of magical creatures didn't find this situation so strange.
"On the other hand, this might have happened because of the deterrent effect of our group. We are numerous and not weak." The strongest of these teachers agreed with Julian and added this justification.
Vicente heard this and said nothing. They were partly right.
Having already realized the value of his map and the presence of powerful beings in the Alpine Woodpecker Forest area, Vicente was fully aware that not entering the territory of beasts had helped them a great deal.
Already deep in this forest, he knew there were several tribes of powerful magical creatures, the most important of which were the woodpeckers. From what he had noticed in the past few hours, there were even 3rd-stage woodpeckers in this area!
Knowing this, he wanted to clear his doubts about where this map would lead him as soon as possible.
He said. "Keep quiet from now on. We're less than ten minutes away from the point marked on the map."
The group immediately stopped their side conversations as they moved slowly, sensing several level 4 and 5 creatures near this dangerous area.
