*Tap, Tap~
Sitting in the broken statue, Danzel stared silently at the door while tapping his foot to the stages.
Looking at the four small bottles with a piece of paper inside, he caressed the hilt of Veren.
"They are late..."
Knowing how long the distance between of Honor store and the church, he considered that those guys should even come back ten minutes ago.
That was him counting the fact that they would talk with Honor and their shorter legs.
If it weren´t for the contracts of Honor and the trio being in front of him, he would already consider that something went wrong.
"It can´t be that they found a loophole in the contract..." As Danzel was getting more impatient and worried, the sound of the door opening could be heard.
Seeing that the nearby kids went running towards Kayn and the other two, Danzel shook his head before jumping off the stage.
"You guys are way too late." Danzel said as he reached out his hand in front of Kayn.
Understanding what Danzel meant with his hand, Kayn quickly gave him the ring together with the piece of paper that Honor gave them.
"What is this?"
"We don´t know, Honor gave it for you to read..."
Staring at Kayn´s face for a second, Danzel turned around without saying a word and went down the trapdoor.
"Humpf, he didn´t even thank us for our work" Marcus complained
"Let him be, you wouldn´t want him to anger him." Kayn said with a hint of pity in his tone.
"Kayn is right, can´t you remember how he threw Kayn to the air? And that is Kayn that we are talking about." Anna said as she shook her head overly exaggeratedly.
"Anyway, we got everyone a piece of that sweet bread from the bakery for everyon-" As Anna revealed the many loaves of bread that she had hidden in her bag, the trapdoor that Danzel went in opened once again.
Danzel who went out of the trapdoor looked at all the kids gathered together, with soon his gaze falling towards the sweet bread.
"..."
"..."
"..."
Shaking his head, Danzel opened up the church door and left quietly without even saying anything towards the kids who were frozen.
`So that´s why they came late...´
*Baang
"At least they have done their job well..." Danzel said as he cut the message of Honor into tiny pieces.
"To think that he would write something like this..." He shook his head as he remembered the content of the message.
`Rue Danzel, I am well aware that we made a deal together with that runed contract. But it seems the situation in the shop has turned for the worse. Although for the moment, it´s still doable, the outside of my store lurks people trying to figure out the creator of the contracts. In other words you! I am currently trying to establish a connection with one of the higher-ups of the merchant Union. But until the preparations are done, I would have to ask you to stay low profile. From Honor~´
"Asking me to hide..."
It wasn´t like Danzel didn´t already foresee something like this happening as he found an inevitable thing to happen.
But even he didn´t expect people to seek his funny bone already.
As the run weapons are going to bring forth another wave of people seeking him, Honor's reasoning did make sense.
"I don´t like it..." Danzel mumbled to himself as he clenched his hand.
The current situation that Honor described, although still them being on the clear, he really didn´t like the current situation that things were going.
Not only were people already seeking his traces, but Honor also mentioned revealing their partnership that he knew a little about.
Though keeping his identity secret was a lost cause, since one noble named Raphael and him were the only ones known to runesmith.
With that guy being in Begum, figuring who was making the contracts wouldn´t even take an idiot to figure out.
Only his looks were unknown to others.
And this fact alone was the only good thing according to this situation.
`Seeing that Honor´s contract hasn´t burned out already should mean that I am still on the safe side. But just in case I should follow Honor´s advice on keeping a low profile...´
"Maybe burying myself to the ground just like I have done back then for a few weeks would make the situation calm down." Shaking his head from his own terrible joke, he made his way towards the market to purchase some paper to use on his contracts.
Walking for a few minutes, he reached the shop that he once bought his contract supplies there.
"Hello, I would like to buy a stack of..."
"Right away~" The shopkeeper took the stack of paper and started to wrap it together with some string.
`That guy sure is slow...´ Danzel complained internally.
Bored, he turned his head towards the window to pass some time.
But once he did he froze entirely, blankly staring at a certain group of people.
Walking to the street, a group of three-man followed closely by two girls holding a staff in their hand.
One person, in particular, stood out among this group to Danzel.
The bright red hair together with a sword to his side.
`Huhhh!? Why are those guys here!?´
Hiding behind the shelves, Danzel stared at the group with warry.
"It must be a confidence, they can´t have come to find-" Whispering to himself, Danzel's ethereal eyes landed on a piece of paper that the group was showing to the people.
With the help of the recent increase in his agility stat, not only could he see further away but also much sharper to when he was first woken up from the cursed lake.
Reading the words of that paper, Danzel's eyes flared for a moment with killing intent.
"They are here for me..."
Three words of the paper got Danzel most of his attention.
Those were...
Bounty
And his name.
Rue Danzel.
****
At the same time in the main building of Durendal Association main building.
Sitting in a luxurious office, an elderly man wearing a robe sighted to himself.
"This bastard Anwir...making trouble to our association when tomorrow the conference is about to begin. Forcing me to oversee such mere paperwork." The elderly who was in fact an Archmage named Nevvan pushed the remaining paper to the said, he looked at a certain luxurious box that he had gotten a certain group of merchants.
"Now what should I do about this..." Having already received a short explanation of what this item is, he was as surprised as he was annoyed.
"A contract that burns when it´s broken, without any enchantments at that too..."
As a veteran on the ways of magic, he knew that such an item was impossible to create with the use of magic or at least magic on his level.
He thought of a variety of ways of how to recreate such an item, but all his solutions weren´t viable.
The item in his eyes worked similar to a ritual that put a curse on someone.
But if that were the fact then he himself could easily re-create it, even with his little knowledge of curse magic.
The hard part was that the curse didn´t attach to either of the two people who signed, but to the contract itself.
Using the mana and the blood of the people, the cursed could form an invisible link to the two people, that if severed would activate the cursed and burn the contract.
That alone made Nevvan impressed with the one who developed such an item.
"Even if it is a rune, creating such a complex item with nothing to exploit...the guy who created is as terrified as he is a genius."
Although he couldn´t understand why a rune had to have such a letter engraved or how the effect was put on an item as simple as paper.
By a glance alone he knew how much thought and work had to have gone into making the rune.
"Such a genius should be capable of even more runes if I were to recruit him into the association..." Grinning to himself, he picked up the communication crystal from the side of the table.
"Hey, call Merrick to my office."
Shortly after, Merrick with an anxious face came inside Nevvans office after closing at the door.
"Master Nevvan, how could I be on your service..."
Turning the box around, Nevvan mentions with his finger at the box.
"Tell me anything that we know about this item."
Merrick who got a glance at the all so similar contract, froze while his eyes shook.
"This, Master Nevvan is... supplied to the Union by a merchant named Honor, which is also a member of the union. He recently started selling those run contracts. As for who is his supplier, we still haven´t...be able to find." Merrick said with his voice growing weaker at the end.
"Hmm, so we don´t know. If I remember right, the runesmith should have come from Berum, what was this name again... Wasn´t Rue Danzel?"
With cold sweat coming from his back, Merrick nodded at Nevvan, unable to answer that self-evident question.
If he did, he would break the contract.
Nevvan who noticed that he didn´t get a reply looked at Merrick with a frown.
`His body temperature started to raise...´
Nevvan though, as he who specializes in ice magic was easily able to notice such a chance of one's body.
"Now that I am thinking about it, wasn´t the guy who I asked you to tail also named Danzel? Tell me, how did your investigation go?" Nevvan said with his frown turning for the worse as he noticed Merrick stressed behavior."
"Master, I...."
