Snap.
Inside the VIP cabin, Moro closed the Gugan Jade Great Country travel brochure.
The brochure appeared to promote famous tourist attractions, but in reality, it listed quite a few precautions for travelers.
For Moro, however, both the introductions to the various regions and the reminders aimed at outsiders were quite useful.
After reading it, he even developed some interest in the Gugan Jade Great Country, a place he had never visited.
The continent where this great country, which still maintained a monarchy, was located had once seen nation after nation rise during the era of competing warlords.
Even now, those countries that had once taken the stage of history remained behind in the form of ruins, tombs, artifacts, treasures, documents, and more, leaving traces that belonged solely to them.
In terms of their development, the Gugan Jade Great Country and the Kakin Nation were very similar.
Both nations had originated during the era of competing warlords, surviving endless wars and annexations to reach the present day, and both had always been ruled through monarchy.
The only difference was that the Kakin Nation had publicly begun leaning toward democracy, while the Gugan Jade Great Country showed no intention of changing in that regard.
Moro did not care about the histories of those two behemoths.
Most outsiders looking through the Gugan Jade Great Country's travel brochures would see museums and fully excavated ruins.
But what Moro saw were relics from bygone eras displayed in museums, as well as countless ancient artifacts that had never seen daylight within the ruins.
More precisely, he saw the Nen aura that might be attached to those objects.
Interestingly...
Under the laws of both the Gugan Jade Great Country and the Kakin Nation, grave robbing carried a minimum sentence of one hundred years and could go as high as the death penalty.
Despite such severe laws, there were still no shortage of grave robbers sent to the execution block every year.
That alone showed the depth of those two nations' ruins and tombs—enough to make grave robbers risk everything and flock to them.
In truth, even if the two great nations racked their brains trying to prevent it, they could not stop certain grave robbers who used Nen abilities to commit crimes.
Sometimes, the existence of Nen abilities was simply an unreasonable variable.
After learning that information, Moro would have been lying if he said he was not tempted.
The thought had nothing to do with the nature of his profession, nor was it for the enormous profits involved. It came purely from the need to charge Annual Rings.
Still, he wondered—if one day he could not resist the temptation and targeted some ruin, would a guy named Ging suddenly descend from the heavens to punish him?
Moro shook his head with a laugh and placed the brochure on the table beside him.
The thought of tombs and ruins led him to think of Kanzai's professions—
Treasure Hunter and bodyguard hunter.
In the world of Professional Hunters, dual professions were not uncommon.
That was because under the Hunter star-rating system, advancing from two stars to the highest rank of three stars required the recipient to achieve major accomplishments in multiple fields.
With that criterion in mind, Professional Hunters aspiring to three stars would consciously cultivate expertise in two professional fields.
Moro was somewhat interested in Treasure Hunters, as well as Ruin Hunters...
In a sense, those two professions legitimized grave robbing and archaeological excavation.
Such legitimate professions naturally came with many restrictions on their actions, but for Moro, who did not need to profit from them, they were actually a better fit for charging Annual Rings.
"Come to think of it, a commission that could make Kanzai accept..."
The image of that heavily disguised woman flashed through Moro's mind.
Hiring one of the Twelve Zodiacs as an escort most likely meant the client was facing tremendous danger.
But why not travel by land?
That should have been the safer choice.
Had some kind of restriction forced her to choose an airship as transportation?
To Moro, the exact reason did not matter.
What mattered was that he was riding the same airship as such an unstable factor...
If the people who wanted to harm that woman were crazy enough to blow up the entire airship, wouldn't he be completely screwed?
The airport's security measures were certainly thorough, but there was no guarantee that a variable like a Nen ability would not be involved.
Even without Nen abilities, they could just go after the airship's captain directly...
As he suddenly considered the potential consequences brought by that unstable factor, Moro instinctively looked out the window at the night sky.
It was too late to disembark now...
Somewhere on the airship.
Screech—
The pen tip scraped across the waxed floor, producing a slightly piercing sound.
Under the soft lighting, a man in work clothes crouched halfway down, holding a pen as he carefully and extremely slowly drew on the floor.
Every stroke seemed to require immense effort.
The pen rubbed against the floor, producing a series of scraping sounds.
"Done."
The man in work clothes lifted his pen, breathing slightly as he spoke.
On the floor before him were rows of strange symbols, arranged according to a certain pattern to form black designs resembling electronic circuitry.
Beside him stood a woman with her hair tied back, dressed in a bartender's uniform.
"Muer, how many spots are left?"
The woman with tied-back hair glanced at the pattern on the floor.
The man called Muer steadied his breathing and said, "Two."
"Can you do it?"
The woman with tied-back hair fixed Muer with a direct stare, waiting for a definite answer.
Muer's eyelid twitched as he put away the pen. "The hardest part of divine script is that drawing it takes time and effort, and drains the mind tremendously. It is even more difficult when used for Nen space-related purposes, but for me, it is nothing."
"So, can you do it?"
The woman frowned, her gaze subtly passing over Muer's still-rising chest.
She only needed a definite answer.
Muer looked at her somewhat speechlessly and said with certainty, "I can. But to be safe, I'll have to wait until midnight before handling the remaining two locations."
"Then I'm heading back. I've been gone too long."
The woman with tied-back hair took out her buzzing phone.
It was currently the peak business hours for the airship bar. The only reason she had been able to leave her post at this time while disguised as a bar waitress was because she had deliberately cultivated an ambiguous relationship with the manager.
After glancing at the manager's name displayed on the phone screen, the woman casually slipped the phone into her pocket and headed toward the bar.
But after taking a few steps, she suddenly stopped and looked back at her companion in work clothes.
"Muer."
"Yeah?"
Muer looked at the woman.
The woman said calmly, "The prince said that our lives are more important than completing the mission."
"Yeah?"
A trace of confusion flashed through Muer's eyes.
The woman continued, "But we cannot think that way. We must kill the Third Princess here. This will be a crucial step."
"You don't need to remind me."
Muer shrugged at that.
The woman's gaze suddenly turned sharp.
"A few pieces of trash tried to assassinate the Third Princess with a petty method like poison, but that also proves other princes have already reached in. Their interference has cost us the advantage of remaining hidden, so prepare yourselves mentally to die."
As she said that, the woman once again stared directly at Muer out of habit.
"This also means... we have to act before the airship reaches its refueling stop."
"..."
"We should disembark while the airship is on the ground refueling..."
Moro stared at the night sky beyond the window.
Just in case, he would rather waste a little more time than face the risk of getting dragged into it.
Though perhaps he was overthinking it...
Before you continue