Warlock Apprentice

As the light died down, those protected by Bogula’s power finally reopened their eyes.

“My my… home, at last,” Shadow spoke beside Angor and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “This is the central teleport station. What a mouthful, right? We should call it the bird nest cause, you see, it really looks like one!”

Angor didn’t reply since he couldn’t see the general design of the building yet. He only inspected his surroundings out of curiosity.

The place was pretty large as far as he could see, about half the size of Tree Spirit Plaza. The farthest wall was about 500 meters away. Countless blue barriers scattered about the great hall and a screen above his head displayed all kinds of information, which was mostly relevant to the activation of portals. They showed clues such as newly activated portals and orders for waiters to accept the visitors.

There was also information about portals that would be opened a moment later. Those who wished to travel through them had to get registered at the service counter.

It was only a tiny part of the city, and yet, Angor already sensed the magnificence of the entire place.

He never saw such organized digitalization anywhere before. Superior machine-alchemy technologies allowed the city to operate in such a unique style.

Angor felt something just clicked in his mind. He really wanted to see what else the great city had to offer.

“Peasant.”

Someone suddenly spoke behind his back—it was a voice showing mild smugness.

Angor looked back and noticed the speaker never looked at him. The man kept checking around a small card in his hand—the ID card which allowed him to enter the purification garden.

It was a young man with a bizarre dressing style. Black hair, black eyes, dark eye circles, and black attires… Everything on him looked black except his exposed pale skin. There were a series of distinctive black bandages and decorative nails on his clothes too, which looked quite… unusual.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to offend anyone in particular,” he looked up at Angor in a cocky manner as he said, “but it can’t be helped if SOMEONE wants to accept the remark on his own.”

The meaning of those words was clear. Angor simply looked away. He wasn’t going to waste time on these random haters.

The man revealed a meaningful look at Angor’s response. He glanced at Bogula next and remained silent.

Shadow crept up closer to Angor and cocked his head toward the young man with obvious intentions—want me to deal with him?

Angor shook his head and said “not now” using eye language.

He was wondering who the man in black was. This one was already waiting at the portal before they left Silent Hill. Bogula never said anything about this extra passenger when activating the portal. Judging from how Bogula also used his protection on the young man, Angor believed Bogula should know about this stranger.

Also, Shadow rolled his eyes when meeting with the young man, so there had to be something between them as well.

Still, Angor wasn’t expecting the strange figure to provoke him first before he could learn who he was.

There were six individuals, or rather, five men and a cat, standing at the portal; Angor was the only one who only came to Floating Mech City for the first time. Still, Angor couldn’t understand where that aggressiveness came from.

While he considered, the blue barrier in front of them slowly disappeared.

“It’s for preventing accidents and space disturbance,” Shadow explained to Angor.

As the barrier was lifted, Angor saw a woman standing outside. He immediately realized that she was the “portal handler”, as shown by the screens.

“Welcome back, Mister Bogula. Handler Siria at your service.” The woman stepped up with a smile.

“Get out of my way.” Bogula frowned.

Siria didn’t seem bothered by it at all. She stepped aside with the same smile on her face.

Bogula led everyone outside the hall.

“These are all apprentices,” Shadow spoke to Angor along their way. “They took quests to work as portal handlers and provide guidance to wizards who are new. It’s a pretty rewarding job too. Sometimes you run into generous wizards who actually reward you for your help.

“Speaking of it, I used to take this job before too. There was a really nice wizard…” Shadow kept mumbling until he noticed that Angor wasn’t paying attention. “What’s wrong?” he asked when he saw Angor frowning at something.

“… That portal handler, Siria. Am I mistaken or is she staring at me?”

“Huh? Oh, come on. I’m the cooler guy here. She must be blind.”

Obviously, Shadow read the situation in the wrong way by believing that Siria was interested in Angor’s young and handsome looks. Angor, however, sensed something else. It was as if Siria were interested in other matters. The woman kept inspecting him from head to toe with a weird look.

Does she know me?

Angor quickly denied that assumption. He did make himself known in some places, but not so far as to spread his name to Floating Mech City yet.

Soon, they left the teleport station.

The transmitter in Siria’s hand lit up again.

[Mission accomplished.]

…

Before coming to Floating Mech City for real, Angor tried many times to imagine how the city would look like. He mostly based his imaginations on the cities he saw from the movies since both civilizations had trains, railways, and steam-powered machines.

And what he saw now completely busted his previous deduction.

There were still concrete and steel involved in the construction, but compared to the cities on Earth, Floating Mech City appeared more like a “better” Midnight Sovereign.

There were countless narrow streets and paths, and all the buildings tried to fetch more space by climbing high into the air. There were also iron bridges connecting the upper levels of the buildings.

Compared to the harmonious city planning he saw from movies, this giant city was beautiful in a different sense. By mish-mashing all kinds of styles together, it created a cyberpunk atmosphere. Even the damages and scars on the metal buildings seemed to hold their own stories.

Also, he quickly understood why the city was called the very center of all money flows.

Countless shop signs occupied every available corner. The sight reminded him of a movie that described an old street in Hong Kong.

Compared to the randomly arranged shops in the movie, all the signboards here carried special auras on them as well as the traces of runes.

There was such a giant sign which introduced several potion shops above his head. It seemed a number of different shops decided to add different colors on the sign to identify their names.

There weren’t many potion shops in the entire Twilight Well, but here in Floating Mech City, Angor already saw four of them on a single sign.

“Tell me if you want to buy something,” a voice mixed with strange laughter suddenly reached his ears. “Anything, as long as you agree to become my puppet.”

Angor quickly got rid of his dumbstruck expression when he realized Bogula just spoke to him. It was the first thing Bogula said to him after the incident with Isabella, and the man was already getting straight to the point.

“I don’t need anything,” said Angor with a blank expression.

Bogula cast a passionate look at Angor. His serpentine tongue almost reached Angor’s ears. “Then I’ll be waiting for you to ask. Jajaja…”

The man leaped into the air. “Diablo, bring everyone back to my base. EVERYONE.”

With that, his body vanished.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get you away,” Shadow comforted Angor.

Someone chuckled behind him. It was the man in black again.

“Diablo… Did you perhaps, just become a lot more considerate to people?” he said in a dragging and uncertain voice, which sounded extremely unpleasant.

“Are you perhaps expecting a beat-up, huh? Falca?”

Shadow approached the strange character while lifting his sleeves as if they were two street thugs who were about to brawl.

Falca took a step back. A number of bats emerged from behind his back and hovered in the air. “I happen to want to figure out whether you live up to your title.”

Falca was one level weaker than Shadow, but he didn’t show fear in the least.

Before Shadow could display his own tricks, Falca already ordered his bats to lunge at Shadow.

Shadow remained motionless with a smile.

When Falca wondered what his opponent was up to, he suddenly heard a strange, mechanical voice speaking beside his ear, “*Beep* *Beep* Combat-level energy detected.”

An eyeball locked up inside a metal case floated above Falca’s head. “Nature of energy: a summoning array. Please halt your action at once, sir, or you’ll be placed on our expellee list.”

Falca pointed a finger at Shadow in shock. “But he was the one—”

Shadow was doing nothing more than tidying up his clothes. “Come on, I’m just trying to look better. I’m not fighting anyone. Hey, Rune Monitor, remember his face and make sure you kick his a*s the next time he does something stupid.”

Falca’s eyebrows stood on end due to his rage. He realized that Shadow already noticed a Rune Monitor was present; that was why the man pretended he wanted to fight.

Now that the Rune Monitor already recorded Falca’s act, more of them would keep their “eyes” on his actions from now on.

“You—” Falca pointed between Shadow and Angor with a trembling finger. “I’ll deal with you both later!”

You both? What the f*ck?

Angor wasn’t sure what just happened.

Shadow waited until the Rune Monitor floated away before he placed a hand on Angor’s shoulder. “Well, I didn’t mean to do it since you said no, but he was bugging ME back there so… guess I had to teach him a lesson.”