“Did they do anything to me?” Red asked.

“I can’t see anything out of the ordinary on your soul.” Aurelia shook her head. “However, it is a powerful lich we are talking about, so even if they did something, it’s unlikely I could notice. At the same time, if they wanted to do something to you, they wouldn’t have waited until this juncture.”

The youth was compelled to agree with her logic. Still, this did little to assuage his worries, but there was nothing they could do at this instance.

Red’s mind wandered towards other concerns. “How many liches are out there in the world?”

The woman smirked. “You want to discover the necromancer’s identity?”

Red nodded, not surprised that the woman could immediately guess his intentions.

Aurelia put on a thoughtful expression. “Well, in my time, there were only three active liches, as far as we knew, but there were probably more in hiding. Even while the Queen of the Dead was alive, though, there were no more than a dozen of them alive at once, and most of them died together with their mistress. Granted, this information is more than five hundred years old, and a lot of things can happen in such long periods.”

Red frowned. “Even for liches?”

The woman hesitated. “Maybe, but truth is that since the Queen of the Dead died, no new liches have been born as far as we know. This means that whoever this necromancer is, he is older than you could possibly imagine.”

“… The Queen of the Dead died thousands of years ago.”

“Yes.” Aurelia nodded. “And that is a mere fraction in the lifespan of a lich.”

Red had a hard time wrapping his head around this. Was there even a chance to fool someone who was thousands of years older than you? It put things into perspective, but then again, it wasn’t even the greatest of the youth’s challenges at the moment.

“What are the names of the liches that were active in your time?” Red asked.

“Mordecai, Lord of Dreadwood, Euphemia, Minister of Whispers, and Absalom, Duke of Lies.”

The youth frowned. None of these names were familiar to him, even in the books he read about the Queen of the Dead in his library, which didn’t even mention creatures such as liches. “Do they all have titles?”

“They served a queen and posed as nobles. They had grand designs over the world in their time.”

Red was silent for a few seconds. “… Do you think any of them are the necromancer?”

Aurelia hesitated. “I wouldn’t be able to tell. I wasn’t unfortunate enough to encounter any of them in my time, and even the most active liches rarely made enough appearances for anyone to make assumptions about their personalities. We can only go off of old legends and tales.”

“So, which one would you guess is the necromancer, from what you hear?”

“A penchant for trickery and lies was a trademark of Absalom, as his title implies. However, it is a mere guess. Cunning is a very common trait in any cultivator that powerful.”

‘Absalom.’

Red decided to look the name up as soon as he got back to town.

Aurelia spoke up. “If you are done satisfying your curiosity, I wish to ask a question of my own.”

Red hesitated. “… I can’t promise I will be able to answer it.”

Aurelia stared at Red with a curious expression, unbothered by his hesitation. “I have to wonder, how did you come about this necromancer in the first place? Was this all because of the curse?”

Red shook his head. “No.”

“Then tell me what happened! It’s clear there’s something wrong with that necromancer, or why else would they be using such weak monsters as clones?”

He shook his head again. “I can’t tell you.”

Aurelia frowned. “Why?”

“Because I don’t trust you.”

The woman snorted and disappeared into thin air without hesitation. Red was being truthful in the end, since he saw no reason to lie in front of a ghost who could see everything he was doing at all times. The bits of secrets he could still keep from her he would do so gladly, as they could be of use to him if they were to fall out in the future.

With no more immediate concerns, Red started his trip back to town again.

…

On the next day of his trip, Red was surprised as he spotted a mark on one of the trees. He stopped running and approached the tree trunk to examine it.

A familiar mark was there, carved into the bark.

‘Rog.’

It was one of the symbols they had agreed to use to locate each other while separated in this large forest. Depending on the amount of lines and the shapes in the symbols, Red would be able to tell which day of the month this drawing was carved, and in which direction Rog was walking towards when he left it.

This carving, for instance, was left only two days ago, and Red frowned at this realization.

‘Rog came after me.’

The youth couldn’t imagine what could have prompted the man to do so. Red made it clear he was on a personal outing before he left the sect, which meant that whatever caused Rog to chase after him must have been an emergency.

Of course, there was also the matter of the imperial tracking devices, which the rest of his sect were probably completely unaware of. What if someone had followed Rog to here?

‘I need to hurry.’

Red looked in the direction the symbol was pointing and decided to follow it. Every two hundred meters or so, the youth let out an imitation of a bird whistle to echo over the forest, a method they used to locate each other.

There was no immediate response, but Red didn’t give up. Over the course of the next eight hours, the youth found three more such symbols, and he continued to do the bird call, much to the dismay of the snake in his shoulders, which reared its head up at him in annoyance every single time.

“You look stupid.” Aurelia’s voice came from behind him.

Red ignored her and continued his search. Thankfully, when night had almost fallen, he heard a response in the form of a similar bird whistle.

‘He’s here.’

Red started to approach the place where the call came from with some caution. He doubted the imperials could have learned their secret language just from observation, but he would rather be safe.

A few minutes later, he felt a fluctuation appear in his range. It was Rog, to his relief. He let out another call, and the two of them finally spotted each other between the trees.

“I finally found you, kid.” Rog had his bow out, approaching Red with an annoyed expression. “I was following your old trail but-”

The hunter’s words died in his mouth as his eyes widened in shock.

He pulled out an arrow from his back slowly and started to raise his bow in Red’s direction. “Kid, don’t move. There’s something on your shoulder.”

Red raised his hand, touching the head of the camouflaged snake. “I know. I tamed a snake hatchling during my trip.”

Rog seemed to be at a loss. “Tamed it? How?”

The youth shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. There’s something more urgent to discuss - were you followed?”

The hunter nodded. “When I exited the town, yes, but I managed to lose their trail while I was following you. I also saw some small signs of combat on your tracks, but there was no body or blood at all there. Someone tampered with the scene, and I was already assuming the worst.”

‘So they sent someone to investigate.’

Red was glad for his earlier caution in immediately leaving the scene back then.

“I killed someone that was chasing me, but I didn’t stick around long enough to hide the body.” Red said. “They have a magical method of tracking us, Rog. I found it amidst my stalker’s belongings.”

Rog’s expression froze. “… They do?”

Red nodded. “They probably have all of us tracked to some degree without our knowledge. The only reason nothing happened to us yet is because they have no interest in attacking us. However, I don’t know how long that’s going to last, much more so now, after I killed one of their own.”

Rog remained silent as his expression paled.

The youth was immediately able to tell something was wrong. “… Why did you come looking for me, Rog?”

“… It was Hector. He told me to.” Rog said.

Red frowned, a bad premonition coming to him. “Why?”

“He said he felt the person that was watching him suddenly disappear on the night you went away.” Rog said. “… Was that when you killed whoever was chasing you?”

Red’s silence was more than enough of an answer to him.

The hunter scratched his beard in concern. “Maybe that was who you killed, right?”

Red shook his head. “… Hector said that whoever was watching him was very strong.”

“Uh… Well, you’re still alive, aren’t you?”

“That is because I managed to hide my presence from their magical tracking.”

Rog frowned. “Well, I didn’t do anything to hide my magical presence, and they didn’t attack me, so maybe they don’t really plan on doing anything. Unless…” The hunter’s expression changed as he trailed off.

“Unless they wanted him to lead them right up to you, Red.” Aurelia completed his words as she appeared behind the hunter with an ugly expression. “Absolute fools, the lot of your sect!”

“Can you disguise his presence?” Red looked at the woman.

Rog frowned. “Whose presence? What do you mean by that?”

Aurelia frowned, but still nodded. “He has to stay within fifty meters of you, though.”

Red looked over at Rog. “You need to stay within fifty meters of me if you want to stay disguised. They might already be watching us from afar, so we will need to run and try to lose them.”

The hunter hesitated. “… It’s probably someone on the Lesser Ring Realm, kid. We can’t lose them.”

Red frowned. “Then we will stand our ground and fight. Stop complaining and let’s move.”

Rog nodded and put his bow on his back. They started to run away westward at their top speed without hesitation.

“We will go to the hills to the south!” Red said. “Even if they’re already on our trail, we can at least-”

The youth was suddenly interrupted by a familiar roar.

‘Ghoul.’

Red’s blood went cold.

This wasn’t the end of it, though. The first roar was followed by two other roars of the same intensity and tone. It wasn’t just one ghoul; it was three of them, and their roars all came from different directions.

They were surrounded.

Rog’s expression paled by his side. “Well, this isn’t too good, is it?”