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Akeru quickly reached Rill's office, which looked almost the same as the last time he had seen it.
"So, how was Diamond Kingdom?" Rill asked while sitting on the couch.
"It was okay, I guess; the only good thing about it was the cuisine, though I did see some interesting things," Akeru said as he made himself comfortable on the other couch.
"Would you like tea or coffee?" asked Rill's butler, whose name Akeru couldn't remember.
"I would like milk because the other options usually upset my stomach," Akeru said with a smile.
"Very well."
"So, just give me a brief rundown of the events."
"Well... firstly, we travelled here and there. We encountered our target once, did some more travelling, caused some chaos and then finally confronted our target and captured them," Akeru said briefly.
"That's not how you tell a story," Rill deadpanned at that.
"Well, you said brief," Akeru shrugged and took a sip from the glass of milk he had been given.
"Anyway, it was boring. The only notable thing was that we saw an experimental faculty in the Diamond Kingdom researching devils, which they had captured somehow. Moreover, some Spade kingdom prisoners they had, were middle-class devil level existences. Apart from that-"
"Hold up, hold up, that is something you definitely need to elaborate on," Rill said while using his hands to show a 'stop' gesture.
Akeru gave him a detailed account of everything related to that.
"Anyway, I fought two shining generals near Shardfall-- Broccos and Vespera; Broccos is dead, and Vespera is injured heavily, though nothing serious. Killing her was very troublesome, so I wasn't able to do it," Akeru casually said, making Rill spit his tea.
Akeru's mana zone was especially useful in scenarios like this, slowing the spewed tea in midair.
"Ahem, my bad," Rill appeared a bit embarrassed.
"It's fine."
They talked a bit more and then, Akeru decided to get back to his team.
He also got a new piece of information from Rill. During his nearly two month absence, the camp was attacked twice by one of the shining generals - Zyphoria.
Langris fended off both attempts.
'I wonder how I will fare against Langris; I think I have a decent chance to defeat him without getting hurt now that I have a method to counter his spatial magic.'
On his way back, he stumbled on an interesting conversation.
Takuma and Miko were talking and Kaiser was standing there, listening to their conversation.
Akeru decided to listen to the conversation and it was pretty easy for him to remain undetected. In fact, it would be the same even if all three of them were Stage 0 individuals, which they clearly weren't.
"Wait, if you can't reject the orders that you were given, then was our love fake?"
"NO! It wasn't. I was only given a task of bringing a spatial mage to the Diamond Kingdom; though it might have played a certain role in choosing you, I hadn't lied to you about any of my feelings."
Akeru instantly brought out the popcorn from earlier and started munching on them.
'Oh, it's a couple drama, I can't miss this.'
That was his first thought on witnessing this scene.
He suddenly felt a presence beside him.
"Boss, you really are devious. When you have couple-related problems in the future, I would be the one who will watch you with popcorn in my hand," Erza said as she put her hand in the box and took some popcorns for herself.
"At least I would be of service to create some entertainment for others," Akeru sarcastically said.
They were talking in whispers so as to reduce the chance of detection.
Akeru saw in wonder as the couple mended themselves contrary to what he was expecting.
"Tch, none of the spicy drama I expected happened. Tch, all that tension for nothing," Akeru clicked his tongue at the outcome.
"It is what it is."
They left the scene after Akeru got an interesting piece of information.
'So, Yagos was the one responsible for the spies, at least in Miko's case.' Akeru thought as he turned his head and looked at Kaiser.
'Well, he's already good as dead; he is the last member of the Old Generation; I wonder if Kaiser would be the one who will kill him.
Seeing the survival rate of his fellow Shining Generals, Yagos won't be leaving Onyxspire anytime soon.' Akeru chuckled internally.
'Kaiser was the only one who I was unsure of whether he would reach Stage 0 or not previously; I am definitely sure that he would reach it. There's even a chance that he would be the first one among those three.'
Akeru thought as he talked a bit with Erza before going back to the room he was allocated.
'I would have normally tried to get some tips from Langris about spatial magic, but knowing his nature, unless I have something to give him, it would be very difficult. Oh well, it wouldn't really matter, I just have to get a chance to see him in action and even if I don't get that chance, I could still progress on my own. There's also Finral-senpai, though he doesn't specialize in attacking spells, I could at least get some inspiration.'
It has been nearly two weeks since Akeru got back into the Clover kingdom and had been focusing completely on training his spatial magic to increase the number of cores he could throw.
He had made some progress in that time.
"So, how is your training coming along?" Akeru asked Kaiser.
Both of them were currently having dinner in the same place where they had their first team meeting.
"It's going well; I am focusing on decreasing the damage my new spell causes me while increasing the duration in which I could remain in that form."
"Cool, so what did the other two decide to do?"
"Well... Miko wasn't really that fond of the Diamond Kingdom for obvious reasons, so she doesn't really have problems continuing as a magic knight; Takuma doesn't really care about which country he serves and has left the decision making to Miko completely."
"I see, but won't that cause her to be disliked by her squad mates?" Akeru raised his eyebrow.
"I don't know the specifics, but they have decided to just say to everybody else that they had a secret mission in the Diamond Kingdom, though Captains would be told the truth of the matter."
"I see... how do you feel about this whole matter?" Akeru asked as he met his gaze with Kaiser.
"Well, at least I know who was responsible for my family's downfall, even if indirectly. So I have a target to pursue my revenge," Kaiser said with a determined expression.
He seems to know who he would have to face in the future.
'Is this my time to say something along the lines of revenge is bad or something? I really don't have any experience in things like these and from what I can see Kaiser's actions don't really seem wrong as he doesn't seem to ignore the people he cares about. Well, I hope it turns out well in the end.' Akeru decided not to comment on Kaiser's ambitions.
"Well, if you need my help, you can always ask me." In the end, he decided to end the conversation like that.
They completed their dinner and headed their own ways after that.
Akeru decided to train a bit more in his room, carefully, before hitting the bed; he didn't really want a spatial sphere to exit his room and accidentally kill an oblivious soul.
'Well, I should be reaching my limits soon. At most it would take 2 weeks, I guess; what should I focus on next?' Akeru thought with a sigh.
This was one of the most tiresome decisions he had to make every time as it heavily affected his actions for the next few months.
'Well, if I think about it broadly, I could either go with a new element altogether or I could deepen my mastery of runes and stuff; I am not that far away from the advanced realm of mastery.
I could also try to create a mana zone with spatial element, as unlike my other mana zones, that would definitely be a sure-kill zone, but the difficulty of that task would be very high.'
Akeru's grip on the pillow he was hugging tightened.
While Akeru was wrestling with his pillow, trying to sleep, another figure could be seen reaching Kiten.
Kiten was the border city between Diamond Kingdom and Clover, near which the Clover Kingdom's army was stationed.
"I have reached Kiten, I will take some rest for a few hours before making my move," he said to an artifact.
"Yes, I will brief you on the mission again now. Your goal is to cause as much damage as possible to the army, while eliminating the people on the kill list you had been given."
"Our mission would be successful as long as Akeru is out, along with buying some time, right?" The man asked for confirmation.
He was the one who had created this mission in the first place.
"Yes, however, be careful of him, you already know that he has already taken out two of the generals and was also able to go toe-to-toe against Vespera-san."
"Don't worry, I would be careful."
"I wish you luck, Aetheris-san."
***
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