“Uhh, what happened?” Vice moaned. He rubbed his head frantically and slowly opened his eyes as the memories came flooding back to him. Vice jumped up onto his feet and readied himself in a fighting position after allowing his mana to materialize a weapon from the Chaotic Roulette. He stood with a scimitar in his hands and searched the area, only to find Jason’s demonic body slumped on the ground. ‘He’s not breathing? What the fuck happened?’ he thought.

As if a spell had been broken, all of the others woke up from their slumber, groaning and moaning as they held their heads. “Ah, my head,” Anne mumbled as she tried to stand up. Just as she was about to fall back onto the ground, Vice helped the girl up, pulling her by the waist.

“Is he dead?” Paul asked as he stared at unmoving body of Jason. The corpse’s eyes were still open.

Vice shrugged his shoulders, and carefully approached Jason. Without hesitation, Vice thrust his weapon into the devil’s face with every ounce of strength left in his body. Maroon colored blood spurt out from the wound, and a puddle of the cerebral fluid dripped out mixed together with the blood. “He’s dead now,” Vice said after which he let the corpse float into his spatial pouch.

The red fog that had surrounded the area was vanishing, and Vice knew it would only be a short while until this whole realm would shatter, bringing back the Gwabu area to the material plane, and thus restoring peace and order to the city. ‘That was rather anti-climatic, if I say so myself,’ Vice thought as he looked around himself. His arms felt heavy and his mind numb whilst he couldn’t smell anything.

“W-Why? We could have taken him back with us,” Favor gasped whilst looking at Vice.

“Would you rather he woke up and killed us?” Vice shouted. “Having that type of mindset will get you killed, there’s no use to bargaining with somebody who was able to make all of us defenseless,” he continued before turning around and leaving.

“He has a point,” Paul said, and proceeded to follow Vice. The rest of the group quickly got back into formation and made their way out of the pocket dimension which was breaking down.

.…

The walk back was uneventful, and before the group had even reached the door that would let them out of the dimension, the whole thing disappeared with a loud cracking sound. The sun’s light shimmered down once more on the Gwabu area, and despite it weakening Vice, he was glad to see something which wasn’t crimson fog. The first fresh breath of air that he was able to inhale left Vice smiling, knowing he was still alive was a relief.

It took only a short while for the group to reach the black tent, which they promptly entered.

Vice and the others were huddled together in the large tent where the three guild leaders were sat. The atmosphere was very relaxed, something which Vice enjoyed considering the amount of tension he’d just been put through in the pocket dimension.

“So one of your own people was the cause of this situation?” Ablerus said as he glared at Paul. “We’ll need to do a thorough investigation into this police force of yours then. I doubt that we can even trust you or your people now. Detain him immediately.”

“Hey, you weren’t there, he put his life on the line to protect the people here whilst you just sat on your fat ass and did nothing,” Vice bellowed, and his aura burst forth, encompassing everyone in the tent. “You’re not going to do anything to him.”

“So young and rash, reminds me of myself,” Delron said. The Adventurers’ Guild leader glanced at Vice with a grin before saying, “Ablerus is right, however. We can’t trust any of the police force if what you said is true.”

“You two old fogies. Ablerus, you can just cast one of your spells to see if Sergeant Paul is telling the truth or not, or are you intentionally trying to make this situation more difficult than it should be?” Cally asked. A terrifying amount of mana was released from her, causing everyone except for Delron and Ablerus to fall to their knees. The immense pressure weighing down on Vice made him feel like a thousand boulders were being rammed down onto his back.

“Very well, but I’ll verify the truth of that student of yours first,” he shouted. A blue ray darted into Vice’s head, and a surge of electricity went through his brain. “What is this? Impossible,” Ablerus gasped before clutching at his own head.

“What happened?” Cally asked in a concerned voice. She’d already let her aura dissipate, allowing Paul and the others to breath out sighs of relief.

“I can’t see through his memories. Something powerful is blocking my access,” Ablerus mumbled before retracting the blue ray from Vice’s mind. The man tapped his fingers onto the table in front of him before throwing another blue ray at Paul’s head. After a couple of minutes, he retracted the spell and said, “He’s clean. I see nothing that would point toward him being part of the conspiracy.”

Vice stumbled onto his feet, and gave a deathly glare at Ablerus. “I told you so,” he said.

“Such spirit, I’m impressed. Here, take this badge. If you ever want to take up some quests for the Adventurers’ Guild, I would gladly let you join in on the fun. This badge will let them know you’ve had my personal approval,” Delron said. His tree trunk of a hand threw a brown badge with a sword and shield insignia to Vice, which fell directly into his spatial pouch.

“You can all leave. We’ll discuss what to do next. Oh, and go take the corpse of that devil to the guild, I can sense it on your person. I’ve already arranged a nice reward for you, Vice,” Cally said.

The group left the tent, and parted their ways. Vice and Anne walked through the streets of Restok together after having said their goodbyes to Paul. ‘Paul seems very depressed. I hope he doesn’t feel that this whole thing happened because of him, he couldn’t have known that his subordinate was such a piece of shit,’ Vice thought.

“Hmm, I’m hungry. Want to go to a restaurant or something?” Anne asked. She walked at a slightly quicker pace than Vice, with her hands clasped behind her back.

“I’ve got to bring Jason’s body to the guild first,” Vice replied.

“Aww don’t be like that. You haven’t been out for lunch with me in years now,” Anne pleaded, blinking her eyes frequently until a few tears dropped to her cheeks. “See what you’ve done, making me cry in broad daylight. How could a young and handsome man like you be so mean,” she sobbed.

“Fine, but only once it’s dark, okay? So we’ll go and have dinner instead.” Vice sighed. “I’ll go to the Treasure Hunters’ Guild to get my reward and will check up on Mom afterward. You should stay close to me, there’s still the issue of whoever was targeting me and Mom.”

“Yeah, I’ll stick to you like glue,” Anne said whilst sticking out her tongue at Vice. “Aren’t you scared that the person will try to kidnap your Mom or something? She’s all alone at home, I thought you’d be more worried?”

“I paid for some bodyguards and pretty expensive barriers. It’ll do for now, but that all cost me about 50 gold pieces for a month. At the rate that I’m going, I’ll be out of money within a year if we don’t find whoever did that,” Vice replied.

“Wow, you have that much gold? I didn’t realize you get paid that much for hunting relics and artifacts. Must be nice,” Anne mumbled.

“It’s pretty decent. I’ve still got like 600 gold pieces left in my savings,” Vice said nonchalantly.

The duo spent the next half hour chatting as they strolled to the Treasure Hunter’s Guild. A loud bell rang when Vice opened the doors and entered the guild’s front office.

“Good Afternoon, Vice, I already received a message from Master Cally. You are to go upstairs to room 5b to place the corpse, and your reward is also in the same room,” Jenny said softly as she twirled her blond hair. She smiled and winked at Vice before saying, “You’re so impressive.”

Vice nodded at the girl behind the counter before walking up a flight of stairs with Anne beside him.

“What was that all about?” Anne asked.

“What do you mean?” Vice replied.

“That girl, Jenny. Actually nothing, never mind, it’s fine,” Anne said before pouting and then she stormed up the stairs ahead of Vice.

‘What was that?’ Vice thought to himself, but quickly discarded the thought and instead shouted out to Anne, “You’re going the wrong way, this is the floor.”