Plaza
"Sir Instructor will deliver the artifact today!" Neris looked around anxiously. His hand clutched the bags that he was carrying. Looking around, he felt a bit insecure holding valuables in such an open space.
Unlike before, when the plaza was closed with the bind artifact, there were a lot of people now happily walking around the park. Even though it was nighttime, the soft ambiance of the lamp and the small open stalls invited families who wanted to spend time leisurely after a busy day.
Neris's anxiety spread to Clea; she was also looking around. "What time did Sir say he would arrive?"
Hearing that, Neris wanted to scream, "He said around 6:00 PM to 11:00 PM!" He bit his nails. "That is a wide range! How would I know when he would come?"
"I hope he will come soon, or else my family will notice that I stole the Chaos Coin!"
Hal was leaning on a bench, sleeping. The heavy workload at school had almost driven him madness. But after hearing what Neris said, he immediately woke up as if he had been injected with caffeine. He looked at Neris in disbelief. "You didn't tell your family about the trade?"
Neris had an oopsie look on his face; he realized he had said something he shouldn't have. Clea was also looking at Neris as if she couldn't believe he would do something like that.
Idris looked dead, and Bram looked at Neris as if he already expected that he was this dumb. Seeing that everyone was looking at him as if he was a fool, Neris blushed. "I—I didn't do it out of malice or anything! You know my family won't let me use the Chaos Coin as a trade if I told them about the artifact!"
Hal still felt that what Neris did was pretty bad. "Of course they won't believe you. There have been a lot of scammers attempting to deceive your family for the Chaos Coin! But you could have at least told them that our source is reliable!"
Neris averted his eyes. "What if they don't believe it?" He started to feel really guilty. He had been very excited about the other half of the Arcane Brooch that he could never accept any possibility that his family would reject him.
Feeling that what should be an innocent deal was becoming illegal, Hal rubbed his temples. "You could have just let them facilitate the trade. Let them talk to the instructor, then it would be fine!"
"But I wanted to do it myself!" Neris was a bit unreasonable.
Idris interjected, "Calm down. Since it already happened, why don't we continue with the trade?"
This time, Hal was determined. "Neris, you're being childish! Bram, take away the bag from him. Don't let him continue the trade for the suspected other half of the Arcane Brooch. Contact his family and let them make the choice."
Although Bram still hated Hal, Neris's issue was important this time.
The Chaos Coin is not just a simple coin. It was said that it was found in Void Hell.
Void Hell was a place where overwhelming void energy gathered. They have no idea what caused that, but the coin was something the past Void User gave to their descendants. A hundred years ago, the chaos in Void Hell wasn't as bad as it is now. There are probably only a hundred coins known to have been brought out from Void Hell.
Each coin is filled with an unknown kind of void energy. They could not extract it nor use it. It was just stuck inside the coin. There have been legends that the Chaos Coin held the secret of the Gods.
Now seeing Neris stole such a valuable thing from his family, Hal was determined to stop him.
Neris took a step back; he held the bag tight. This time, his aura changed. He looked at Hal coldly. "You're unforgiving! Probably because you can't relate to my problems. You're the only child of your family!"
Neris's voice cracked. "You have no idea what it feels like to be replaced anytime! This contribution could secure my place as an heir! Clea was right, where was that 'risk saying' you kept talking about?"
Hal was equally as cold. "Taking risk is fine as long as you are rational about what you are doing." Looking at the pale Neris, Hal shook his head. "Your risk was made because of impulse and emotion. It won't have good results at the end."
"Oh for fuck's sake." Neris grinned. "Risks are risks. There are no categories."
Neris took a step back seeing that they were still adamant about stopping the trade.
"What about the Carnage Artifact? Are you also gonna give up on that?" Neris sweated as he looked at them warily.
"We'll do the trade. We don't need you." Hal said ruthlessly.
Just as Neris was about to say something, there was a sudden bang.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!"
"What was that?!"
Neris's eyes widened when he saw something flying towards him. It was fast, but Neris managed to dodge it.
The small projectile hit the tree. The moment it shattered it suddenly released a white mist. Neris felt his void energy was suppressed. He panicked, but after a second of carelessness, something hit him on the temple and he directly fainted.
Before he lost consciousness, all he could think of was...
"I'm a Void User! I didn't know I was this fragile."
...
"Neris!"
"Where is he?!"
It wasn't only Neris who felt that his void energy was suppressed, the other four also felt something wrong with the fog.
Hal's hand glowed blue that wasn't visible to normal human eyes. A gust of wind suddenly appeared out of nowhere and blew all the white smoke out.
Hal turned pale from the usage of void energy. He looked around and saw Neris lying on the ground. The black bag was missing. It was replaced by a brown paper bag.
Hearing the sound of the motorcycle driving away, Hal panicked.
"We were robbed?!"
He approached Neris and called Clea over. "Clea! Check Neris if something's wrong with him! Quick!"
He pulled the paper bag away, and the moment he touched it, it seemed like a barrier was suddenly broken. He could feel something inside the bag.
With his other teammates rushing to Neris's aid, Hal opened the paper bag.
The moment his eyes laid on the contents, he felt speechless.
...
On a deserted road, a motorcycle was driving erratically. It was as if the driver was drunk. A concerned truck driver followed the motorcycle.
The driver thought that if this will keep going, the motorcycle would probably get into an accident.
Sure enough, his predictions were right. After a few minutes, the motorcycle suddenly fell down.
The truck driver drove over to the fallen guy. He rolled down his truck window to see the motorcycle driver clearly.
It was a man wearing all black. He had a helmet on his head, so his face wasn't visible.
The driver sighed in relief when he saw the driver was sitting there on the ground looking just fine.
Still, he felt concerned, so he asked, "You okay, man?"
The man in the black helmet made an okay gesture with his fingers.
Inside the helmet, Cail thought, "I don't like this."