Encounter in the Night

The city lord's mansion in Leyden City, due to its proximity to the border, wasn't as ornately designed as those in other cities. Instead, it prioritized simplicity and practicality as much as possible.

This was despite Leyden City's commercial tax revenue being among the highest in the entire Yagrant Kingdom.

Of course, this practicality was only relative to decoration. Under Bals's warm hospitality, they enjoyed a delicious meal.

As the first meat he'd tasted in this other world, Aaron was deeply impressed by it. He hadn't expected the quality of the cuisine in this other world to be so surprisingly good.

He had initially thought that the food in this other world would be something along the lines of "staring at the stars."

This meal, in Aaron's words, was an otherworldly version of beef stew with potatoes.

Except here, the beef was made from a common wolf meat found outside Leyden City, and the potatoes were replaced by another similar ingredient with a soft texture, tasting like konjac.

The wolf meat had been expertly prepared by the chef, stewed until very tender. Combined with the unique aroma of the konjac, it completely masked the wolf meat's original sour, gamey, and fishy taste. The konjac itself also became more flavorful from absorbing the meat broth.

Even though Aaron came from a nation of foodies and had high standards for cuisine quality, he ate with great enjoyment. He completely missed the repeated signals Alice was giving him. As a noble, maintaining table manners was essential.

However, such reminders were naturally ineffective for someone who didn't consider herself a noble at all.

This kind of meat dish was standard fare for Bals. Most of his meals were like this, so it wasn't a special treat for Aaron and the others.

Although he emphasized a simple lifestyle and didn't indulge in extravagance like other city lords and nobles, he paid considerable attention to his daily diet. Or rather, it was a personal preference.

To have the physique of a wall, one might not necessarily be a foodie, but they were definitely a glutton.

However, the only price for enjoying good food was time. By the time Aaron and his party bid farewell to City Lord Bals, night had already quietly fallen.

The night was dark, and the clouds silently covered the moon, confining its light to a small patch of darkness.

The city lord's mansion was not brightly lit. On the contrary, only a few scattered torches illuminated the entire mansion.

At Alice's strong insistence, several guards held torches to guide Aaron and his group to Tien's room, taking advantage of the night.

No one had much of an opinion on this. Aaron was eager to witness an otherworldly murder mystery, while Sart was concerned about the lingering heretical cult aura.

According to City Lord Bals, Tien had died several days ago. For the past few days, Bals had done his best to preserve the scene and collect relevant materials.

Even though he was a Holy Grail Path expert at the Gold Tier, most of his abilities were geared towards charging into battle. His skill in preserving heretical cult auras was likely inferior to Sart, who was only at the Bronze Tier.

If the heretical cult aura were allowed to dissipate freely, it would likely vanish to an untraceable degree within a few days.

Sart didn't know when his junior, Siosand, would arrive, so he could only try to preserve as much of the heretical cult aura as possible.

"It's already night, why aren't there any torches lit?" Aaron couldn't help but ask.

He peered around by the torchlight, but the light was limited, making it difficult to see the entire city lord's mansion.

After several turns, he had completely lost his sense of direction in the darkness and could only follow the torches step by step.

Who knew how these guards knew the way.

"That's to protect the civilians," Alice said in a low voice. "To prevent them from seeing things they shouldn't."

"Huh?"

Aaron blinked, then immediately understood.

The "things they shouldn't see" likely referred to supernatural phenomena.

"Leyden City is the kingdom's closest city to Badipila. No one knows how many people cast covetous glances at it. Every year, there are one or two intruders who forcefully attack the city lord's mansion."

As she spoke, Alice seemed to recall something and walked closer to Aaron, continuing her explanation, "You are already a Transcendent. You should be well aware of the difference between ordinary people and Transcendent beings."

Aaron nodded thoughtfully, vaguely grasping a certain characteristic of this plane.

In this world, the difference between ordinary people and Transcendent beings was neither huge nor insignificant.

At least for the current Aaron, he was essentially no different from an ordinary person. Ordinary swords would still inflict fatal wounds on him.

This was also why Alice and Sart were so concerned.

The saying "Enlightenment Black Iron" emphasized the word "enlightenment."

At this stage, Transcendent beings were like children just starting school. They knew nothing about supernatural knowledge and needed to continuously learn and understand transcendent auras to eventually be able to accept a world filled with them.

Only when they had a sufficient understanding of transcendent auras and had formed a relatively stable perception could they take the second step, which was to decide their transcendent path.

The Gold Coin Path relied on the soul, the Holy Grail Path relied on external objects, the Sword Affinity relied on the physical body, and the Scepter Affinity relied on knowledge.

Or rather, only when a Transcendent entered the Bronze Tier could they be considered a true Transcendent, because only then would they possess a few characteristics that surpassed ordinary humans.

Aaron suddenly stopped, deliberately lowering his voice to ask Alice, "Then, how do you identify if someone has the potential to become a Transcendent?"

His voice was very low, but the surroundings were silent, with only the slightly chaotic footsteps of the group. In such an environment, his voice sounded exceptionally clear.

As soon as he finished speaking, he noticed that the surroundings instantly quieted down. Almost everyone stopped walking, and then, as if by prior agreement, they started again.

By the torchlight, Aaron could feel several gazes secretly cast upon him. He also saw Alice purse her lips, her expression somewhat complicated.

She didn't speak, only secretly made a shushing gesture to Aaron, signaling him to be quiet.

What the heck? Did I say something wrong?

Aaron instinctively looked at Sart, only to see Sart looking at him gravely and shaking his head slightly.

Vaguely, he felt the atmosphere had suddenly become strange.

The group walked a bit further. Seeing the increasingly oppressive atmosphere, Ed finally spoke to Alice, "Miss, Tien's residence is just ahead."

This sentence was less for Alice and more for Aaron and Sart.

However, Sart's attention wasn't on this sentence. Instead, he stared thoughtfully into the darkness ahead, sensing a strong heretical cult aura not far away.

At this moment, from the pitch-black night, a creaking sound suddenly came.

A door opened.