Warlock Apprentice

“Angor?” Dave still sounded surprised.

Angor removed his hood and revealed his identity.

“It’s really you! Why are you here—I mean, why were you fighting Chloe Brothers?” Dave walked out from behind the middle-aged man and asked. He then said, “Master Prome, this is my friend, Angor.”

“Master Prome?” Angor looked at the man in front of him. So this was the famous alchemist in the underground market?

The man looked a little bit overweight. He was wearing a violet-colored wizard robe decorated with many gold and silver charms. It looked really expensive.

“Ah, so this is the Angor you’re always talking about,” Prome replied. But he did not pay any attention to Dave. Instead, his gaze shifted around the scene and quickly observed everything, including the hole behind Angor, as well as the corpses of a dog and a human nearby.

“Greetings to you, Master Prome,” Angor addressed Prome using his noble manner.

Prome nodded. “Impressive, child. You defeated two apprentices alone, and forced Chloe Brothers to run for their lives.”

Dave was shocked at those words when he also noticed the corpse.

“‘Canine Master’ Potongue? You killed him, Angor?”

Potongue was a pretty famous figure around the underground market. There were Three Genius Summoners and Three Useless Summoners, and Potongue was one of the useless ones.

Since the corpse was just here, Angor could only nod and admit to it.

Dave opened his mouth again but did not say anything further. It was Prome who spoke next, “Dave, you stay here and spend some time with your friend. I’ll go alone.”

Dave jumped at those words, and then quickly shook his head. “Please, I can visit Angor next time. Master’s going to craft an energy core, and I can help as your assistant.”

Dave threw Angor a meaningful glance, then quickly followed behind Prome and disappeared into the path.

When they were gone, Angor walked to the hole on the ground and checked. Dave looked shocked when Prome said there were two dead wizards because he only saw the corpse of Canine Master. Angor, on the other hand, knew that Prome was referring to the sexy woman down in this hole.

His heart skipped a beat when he looked down.

The woman, well, was beyond dead. Her corpse looked miserable. There was a giant wound which cut open her entire chest and abdomen. Yellowish body fat, bloody flesh, and guts were exposed in the air, releasing a terrible stench.

Angor could not connect this destroyed body with the beautiful woman he saw a moment ago.

“Toby… your burst power is, um, scary,” Angor managed to comment.

Before learning the sequence of gravity, Toby was fast but with average strength. It could not really damage people as long as its opponent was prepared. But now… the bird blasted an entire human being into the ground. His speed and power amplified each other by several folds. Angor suddenly got the feeling that he would not even need a weapon to reach the top level of Sky Tower. Using Toby was enough.

Toby lifted his head high and tweeted happily upon hearing Angor’s words of compliment.

“Stay alert in the air, and tell me if anyone comes. I need to bury these two,” Angor asked Toby to fly higher. He tossed the corpse of Canine Master into the hole and proceeded to fill the hole up.

It went smoothly. Apart from their bone cards and profile cards used in Sky Tower, they did not have anything else on them. From the cards, Angor learned that the woman was called Balius.

He spent some time to recycle the golden bolts scattered about. Some of them were lost in the dense vegetations, so he could only give them up.

After collecting about 30 bolts, Angor signaled Toby to leave the woods.

This was the first time for him to actually maim someone. Angor’s mind was only disturbed a little when he saw the ruined body of Balius, and it was only caused by his instinct to avoid ugly stuff. Maybe he felt calm because it was Toby who did the killing, or maybe the mindset of “survival of the fittest” he always worked on ever since he came to Brute Cavern worked wonders.

Nevertheless, he did not regret his action. Those people came looking for trouble first. Making such a decision meant they had to accept the consequence of it.

…

Far away from Angor, Dave had already left the woods area while following behind Prome. However, he was still glancing back every now and then.

The fact that Angor just killed Canine Master really shocked him. ‘Canine Master’ Potongue was one term ahead of him, and two terms ahead of Angor. That man joined Brute Cavern ten years ago. Potongue was not strong. Even if the man was titled a “Useless Summoner”, Dave was still sure Potongue could at least defeat him with ease.

But now, Angor killed Potongue. Besides, Angor’s wizard robe did not seem wrinkled or tainted at all, which meant he did a really easy job at killing his opponent.

That was shocking news! Dave clearly remembered that when he went looking for Toby to test his Propeller Flyer MK-II, Angor was still a mortal. And when Angor said “his talent was poor”, Dave believed him!

Poor talent?!

Dave got the feeling that Angor was hiding a lot of things from him.

“Your little friend possesses a really good familiar. We interrupted his fight and allowed the Chloe Brothers to escape.”

As a level-3 apprentice, Master Prome naturally knew a lot more compared to Dave.

Dave realized that Toby stopped its attack because he called its name. Maybe the Chloe Brothers would actually get killed too, if not for his action.

Was Toby actually really strong too?

Wait. “Too”?

“Don’t forget to apologize the next time you meet him. You bothered his plan and let his enemies live. If I were him, I probably would hate you to the guts,” Prome spoke.

Dave went through what just happened. Master Prome was the one walking ahead and saw the battle first. Dave remembered seeing Master Prome stopped to observe without interfering with the fight. Dave, however, called out Toby’s name immediately…

And he felt really bad when thinking about this.

Just as Prome said, if he had not made a sound, maybe the Chloe Brothers would not get away.

“I understand. I’ll go and apologize to Angor tomorrow,” said Dave. He looked down. He just did Angor a disservice without realizing it, which could cause Angor some troubles further down the road.

Prome looked at Dave’s expression and smiled. “Don’t worry too much. You know the Chloe Brothers. They never care about anyone else. Even if they are to retaliate, they won’t find others for help. And your little friend should have no problem dealing with the brothers. To be frank, I think the Chloe Brothers will choose to give up first.”

“I understand.”

Sure, Dave knew their characters. Everyone in the underground market knew about them. Still… people could easily change. Who knew whether the brothers were only faking their strange temperament while hiding their true natures deep inside?

“I wonder what Angor did to get ganged up by all of them. He’s never the one to create troubles first,” Dave muttered.

“As for that… I may have an idea,” Prome suggested.

Dave looked at his mentor in bewilderment.

“Here. Check this,” said Prome as he took out a small golden bolt from his sleeve and handed it to Dave.

Dave accepted the object. “An… arrow? It looks… average. No special ripples, made of Starfrost Gold… Huh? Is it ammunition for a bow-shaped alchemy weapon?”

“No.” Prome shook his head.

Dave thought Prome just created a new weapon, so he examined the object as careful as he could.

“It’s too small for a bow. A crossbow maybe? A really small one that can be used single-handedly?” Dave tried.

Instead of answering, Prome mentioned his idea earlier, “I think this is the reason why those people attacked your friend.”

“Attack Angor? For this? Wait, this is not yours, master?”

Prome shook head again. “This golden bolt came from your friend’s robe sleeve, I think he has a remotely-controlled, long-range alchemy weapon hidden on his wrist. I saw it working just now, and it was very deadly. Two or three seconds more and the brothers’ barrier would have been broken. Considering how Canine Master and Red Butterfly usually behaved, they must have gotten greedy about the alchemy weapon so they came to seize it.”

“This is Angor’s alchemy weapon? His professor gave it to him? Oh, I never asked who his professor is,” Dave mumbled before he grew surprised again. “Red Butterfly is here?”

“Red Butterfly” is Balius’ title in Sky Tower. She was an extremely wicked and infamous figure in the underground market who was always described with words like greed, dissolute, lust, and crafty. She was not strong, but she gained the trust of several powerful apprentices using her charming looks. Because of this, few people would bother her for her unpleasant behaviors in the market as they feared her supporters.

“Correct, Red Butterfly also joined the attack. But she died in the pit. Tsk, such a beautiful body, wasted as a pile of broken organs.” Prome recalled the terrible scene he saw with his spirit feelers and sighed.

Dave’s face went pale when hearing about the death of the Red Butterfly.

Becoming an enemy of the Chloe Brothers was not a big deal. But Red Butterfly… if those people behind her back found out, Angor could be—

“You’re worried about your little friend?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Red Butterfly is just an expendable tool in the eyes of Vice. She’s smart enough to pretend that she was in a relationship with Vice, and she did a perfect job at avoiding triggering Vice’s anger, so she both enjoyed Vice’s fame and stayed safe from the man. Still, her vision is too limited. Her death will not cause anything too serious,” Prome explained. “What’s more important is, I want to know who created the alchemy weapon. A weapon which can be controlled freely and remotely, high attack frequency, and with a damage potential that’s beyond average… It isn’t anything ordinary.”