The Importance of Setting Up Lookouts

The Importance of Setting Up Lookouts

Damn!

Hobart hurriedly tidied up the table. "I'm fine!" Then he rushed to open the door.

Outside the door stood Christine, his face full of concern. It couldn't be helped—members of Hobart's family were simply too prone to Loss of Control.

Christine carefully examined Hobart and finally breathed a sigh of relief. Seeing that no one was in the corridor, he lowered his voice. "Just now, I clearly sensed a surging force."

Hobart replied, half-truthfully, "I was just experimenting with my abilities."

Seeing Christine's unconvinced expression, he shifted the topic. "Could it... could it have something to do with what happened to me yesterday?"

The doorway was no place to talk, so Christine took Hobart to the Study, where Hobart briefly recounted yesterday's experience.

The moment Christine heard that it involved the Aurora Society, he immediately took it seriously and thoroughly checked Hobart from head to toe. Once he concluded that there was nothing wrong, Christine instructed Hobart to pay close attention to his condition at all times in the coming days and to come find him immediately if he noticed anything unusual.

If an evil god had set its gaze upon him, there might be no immediate abnormalities, but he could gradually suffer the evil god's corruption before it erupted at some point.

Christine reached the same conclusion as Hobart: the Aurora Society would not retaliate against Hobart over some peripheral member. Besides, as a Kingdom's Brigadier General, Christine was not afraid of the Aurora Society's revenge.

Only after staying in the Study for over an hour did Hobart regain his freedom.

Back in the Bedroom, Hobart realized that having a Middle Sequence powerhouse at home truly could protect his safety.

Like the wealth he had obtained yesterday, he could safely leave it at home instead of carrying it around at all times like Fors.

But correspondingly, his secrets also faced the risk of being exposed.

He had previously performed a Ritual to pray for the Goddess of the Night's power, but that Ritual had been relatively simple and had not caused much of a disturbance. Furthermore, the Goddess held authority over "concealment," so Christine had not noticed.

But the experiment just now had been different. Hobart could not yet precisely control the power that the Country of Disorder projected into the outside world, allowing that surging force to spread beyond the Wall of Spirituality and be noticed by Christine.

Hobart roughly calculated his assets and decided he could take out some money to rent a place elsewhere. That way, he would have somewhere secure to attend the Tarot Club and conduct his experiments outside.

After waiting for another half hour and seeing that no one else came to disturb him, Hobart once again entered the Country of Disorder through Reverse Walking.

The Extraordinary Characteristics of the Secret Supplicant were still where they had been. Let them stay here for now. Hobart did not dare perform the Bestowal Ritual at home.

Hobart then began his routine observation for the day. Since he had started rather late today, Lafite was already putting on a Smut Film.

Hobart did not linger and turned his attention to Elliot instead.

It was not that Hobart had a habit of peeping. He wanted to determine whether Elliot and Lafite were trustworthy through observation. Once he reached a conclusion, he would not need to watch them so frequently.

Elliot was dining with two Companions at a restaurant. The food Looked sumptuous, with an obvious Southern Continent culinary style. The three of them remained silent as they carefully savored the meal, unlike the diners at surrounding tables, who chatted loudly and freely.

Hobart Glanced around the Southern Continent restaurant. Its decor had a strong local character, with many beautiful feather ornaments. The structure of the building was also clearly different from those in the Northern Continent, with wooden pillars and beams visible throughout.

As he swept his gaze over the room, he noticed that the person dining alone in a corner of the restaurant looked somewhat familiar.

After thinking carefully, Hobart remembered him. That person was the Middle-aged Man who had recruited teammates skilled in Spirit Communication at the previous Mercenary Club gathering! Their Mercenary Team had accepted a mission to travel to the Southern Continent and retaliate against the Fosac Empire!

Hobart also recalled that General Anthony was a warlord secretly backed by the Fosac Empire. In other words, they had chosen to launch their retaliation within General Anthony's territory!

As his thoughts churned, the Middle-aged Man had already risen to pay the bill.

After hesitating for a moment, Hobart finally made up his mind. He projected the Middle-aged Man's appearance into the star representing Elliot and spoke in a supreme voice, "Follow him."

As long as he did not project power into the star, only Elliot would know what Hobart said.

In a restaurant in Kansel City, Southern Continent.

As Elliot ate, the majestic figure seated upon a throne forged from Iron Sword suddenly appeared in his mind. Then he saw the appearance of a poorly dressed Middle-aged Man and heard that supreme voice: "Follow him!"

Elliot nearly leaped out of his seat. He took a deep breath before steadying himself. That strange and powerful existence had actually been following him all this time?

At the same time, he saw the Middle-aged Man from his vision paying the bill.

Elliot did his best to conceal the fear and excitement in his heart. He thought of his sister playing among the weeds, of his good friend's angelic daughter, whose twelfth birthday was fast approaching.

In the end, he decided to obey the mysterious existence's instructions! Elliot's two Companions noticed that something seemed off about him, and one of them asked, "Did a bone get stuck in your throat?"

"No." Elliot forced a smile. "I suddenly remembered something. I'll be back late tonight."

Without bothering to see how his Companions reacted, Elliot stood and left the restaurant through a side door.

He carefully watched the Middle-aged Man, afraid that the man would notice him.

Kansel City was the second-largest city in General Anthony's territory. Calling it a city was generous; it was really just a commercial district formed by several crisscrossing streets, surrounded by a simple ring of walls.

In the small cities of the Southern Continent, city walls were necessary facilities. No one knew when war might sweep through the place.

Following someone inside the city was manageable enough, but once the Middle-aged Man climbed over the wall and left the city, the pursuit became much more difficult.

Because he did not dare follow too closely, Elliot could only judge the direction from details such as the weeds the Middle-aged Man had stepped on.

Tracking had been a required lesson for Elliot and the others since childhood. In such dense forest, he was confident that he would not be discovered even by a Beyonder of a higher Sequence.

After following for some distance, Elliot discovered from the footprints in the grass that the Middle-aged Man had met up with many others in the woods, and they had all headed in the same direction.

After cautiously following for over an hour, Elliot found himself beside the road leading out of Kansel City. At that moment, a convoy approached from afar. From the sound of hooves striking the ground, he could tell it was quite large.

Elliot guessed that the Middle-aged Man's target was this convoy. He had just found a place to hide when two people with black light flickering over their bodies burst from the grass and rammed a carriage over.

Then cries of "Imprisonment," "Exile," "Distortion," and "Weaken" rang out without end.

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