Evelyn and Jonathan reached the Slave Market just as the old mage finished extinguishing the flames.

Fortunately, Jonathan saw his friends get into Silcard’s carriage, which carried them away from this chaos.

Only Silcard remained to deal with the aftermath of this incident.

“They don't’ need our help. We should leave.”

Instead of responding, Evelyn was looking at the mage with a furrowed brow. She recognized him almost instantly, but what surprised her was the fact that he was able to quell the flames so quickly and efficiently, as befitting an actually capable mage.

“Thank you, sir!”

The Captain of the Yellowjackets faced the old mage and showcased his gratefulness, but the latter chuckled and waved his hand.

The old man looked around, feeling uncomfortable to have so many eyes on him.

“...”

When his gaze travelled all the way back and landed on Evelyn, she swiftly moved next to a wall and hid herself. She didn’t want anything to do with him, so it was better to stay out of his sight and pretend not to know him.

Technically, he wasn’t her friend, but he did travel with her for a short amount of time. That made them acquaintances, more or less.

“What’s wrong?”

Jonathan was puzzled by her inexplicable actions, but by the next seconds, he heard gasps and shouts.

“Woah!”

“So cool!”

The civilians and the Yellowjackets saw the mage take out somesort of an orb and use it to make his body slowly vanish into thin air.

As he wasn’t a criminal, no one tried to look for him or cause any trouble.

The Captain of the Yellowjackets was disappointed that mage was gone just like that, but there were more pressing matters that needed his attention.

“Quiet down and leave! This isn’t a show!”

The crowd reluctants dispersed, though some overly-curious souls stood at inconspicuous spots and kept watching.

“W-what?”

Jonathan was flabbergasted when the old mage appeared next to him and Evelyn.

“Gracious lady… we meet… again!”

The elderly mage was having difficulty standing up, so he extended his arm toward Evelyn only for her to shove it out of the way and glare at him.

“Help an old man out, will you?”

As he spoke those words, the mage leaned against a wall and slid down, strength leaving his frail legs.

“You know him?”

“I do but that’s irrelevant. There is nothing else to do here, so let’s go.”

Evelyn paid no heed to the mage and walked away. However, Jonathan was more sympathetic as the old man’s face was deathly pale and his condition looked akin to that of someone on the brink of death.

After taking a couple of steps, Evelyn turned her head and looked at Jonathan, who helped the mage stand up and put his arm around his back.

“No.”

“I can’t just leave him here.”

Jonathan gave her a look of defiance, which made her sigh and then continue walking.

“Don’t worry, Mister Fedge will reward you for your help. Hang on!”-Jonathan.

The Slave Market

10 minutes later

“What’s going on? What happened?”

The Captain of the Yellowjackets, annoyed by the arrival of another overly-curious person, was about to lash out in anger only to stop at the last second.

He saw a dark-haired woman wearing a High Apprentice robe, very distinctive and recognisable.

Velvet Nostradamus glanced at the scorched building, which had become nothing but ash and blackened rubble.

“There’s been a fire, Miss. Fortunately, the situation has been resolved.”

“...”

Velvet scanned her surroundings, her senses sharpening as she heard the faint chatter of the handful of civilians still watching the scene.

Most of them were talking about the old mage, which made her even more curious.

“A mage helped you?”

“Yes, miss.”

Velvet raised her hand and chanted an incantations, causing a mass of intangible darkness to burst forth and quickly travel from one spot to the other in search of remnant magical fluctuations.

The Captain was momentarily startled, but the darkness was totally harmless. He breathed a sigh of relief and waited for her to finish before adding,

“Are you a friend of the mage, Miss? If so, please relay our deepest thanks. We couldn’t have done it without his help.”

“Describe the mage to me.”

“Ehm…” The Captain scratched his head and hesitantly responded, “He was old and he wore a mage’s robe and a pointy hat.”

The description was very lackluster, nevertheless, Velvet’s expression changed dramatically.

“This mage… w-where did he go?” There was a hint of urgency in her tone as she finished her initial scan of the vicinity.

She picked up several spots in which there had been magical fluctuations, meaning that spells had been used.

“He disappeared all of a sudden, miss.”

Velvet knew that the Captain wasn’t going to be of any help, so she turned around and checked the aforementioned spots.

The first spot was the alley that Evelyn and Jonathan had been in. The second spot was where Christopher had briefly fought Ahmed and his mercenary friends.

As for the last spot, it was very close to the burnt building, but this one didn’t reveal anything of importance to Velvet.

‘It’s him… he was here!’

Velvet controlled her rising excitement and kept her emotions in check as she spent the next four hours searching and investigating in hopes of finding her quarry.

Alas, the magical fluctuations were the only clues and they only acted as the starting point for the path her target should have taken.

The Captain said that the old mage had teleported, but he must’ve appeared a short distance away, out of the crowd’s sight.

Next day, early morning

“Ahmed! There’s a mage looking for him!”

Jia barged into her boss’ shabby and relatively empty office.

“A mage?”

“Yes. She’s from the Dark Magic Tower. Isn’t that bad? What if he is with her?”

Jia appeared rather nervous as she fidgeted around, already regretting their actions of yesterday night.

Christopher was still locked up downstairs and if he really was part of the Dark Magic Tower, then capturing her would bring a whole lot of troubles for a small mercenary group like them.

Ahmed tapped his index on the table while pondering for a bit. Eventually, he smiled,

“What’s the big deal? This is Raml Asfr, not the Empire. Moreover, aren’t mages filthy rich?”

“Ahmed…”

“Don’t worry about it. Send someone to that mage and inform her that we have her friend. I bet she’ll be willing to pay quite a bit for his return.”

Ahmed stood up and walked toward the door, “I’ll go talk to our guest.”

“...”

Jia appeared very hesitant, nevertheless, she still followed his orders.

…

“Hey! Can I have some water? And loosen those ropes a bit, will you?”

Christopher was put in a room filled with dust-covered boxes. He was sitting on a wooden chair with his hands tied to the back of the chair.

“You seem very relaxed.” Responded Ahmed as he scrutinized him.

Indeed, Christopher looked rather composed for someone in his situation. That made Ahmed almost certain that he had a very powerful backing.

Alas, this was all one big misunderstanding. Christopher acted like that because he had been kidnapped more than a few times back on Earth.

Circumstances were different back then as there were no people that could use superhuman abilities and magic, nonetheless, he wasn’t that afraid.

“Who are you? Why were you spying on us?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s just a case of being at the wrong time and place. Really.”

“...”

“Look. My friends will be looking for me and… trust me if I say this, you wouldn’t want to be their enemy.”

“Enough blabbering.”

Ahmed inwardly grumbled and left the room. It was too late to pretend that nothing happened, especially after kidnapping a mage allegedly from the Dark Magic Tower.

Furthermore, Ahmed could use him to make a small fortune. Admittedly, his knowledge about the Imperial Mages was lacking, so he couldn’t have known that most of them were loners and didn’t believe in camaraderie and whatnot.

All Ahmed cared about was benefiting from this and forcing the mage looking for Chris to pay a ransom.