Unsealing Emptiness

It was the same feeling of unrest that he gets from coming into contact with bright light. However, it was more than just a bright light.

To find the source of this emotion, Ozul looked around only to see the carriage engraved with magical runes passing right by him.

Though it was faint, Ozul remembered that he had the same feeling when looking at the girl that he had seen just the other day.

He wasn’t able to probe inside the carriage, but Ozul was sure that the one sitting inside was somehow related to that girl. She could be very well sitting inside herself.

No matter how interesting it was to guess who sat inside the carriage, Ozul got past that curiosity only after a few moments.

Although he forgot about that matter under a few seconds, someone else couldn’t.

.....

Inside the carriage, there was a whole different scene.

“Oh my god! Oh my god! It’s him, Venessa!”

A person from the outside could not see through the window, but Clara could easily see through from inside.

Though she couldn’t see Ozul’s face because of the samurai hat on his head, it wasn’t hard for her to recognize him. Not when she had dreamt of him so many times already.

“It may not necessarily be him, Young Miss.”- Venessa tried to calm her down.

There was enough space in the carriage for a couple of more people, but only Clara and Venessa sat in this middle one.

“But I know it is him! See, he has those two people behind him too!”

“Young Miss, even if it is him, you have to calm down. How can you lose your cool just because of a man?”- Venessa tried to reason with Clara.

Their voice couldn’t be heard outside as there were a lot of runes not only protecting the carriage but also helping them to keep their privacy.

“But Venessa! He is here! What should I do? I still have to thank him for saving me!”- Clara said, trying to convince her caretaker to let her off the carriage.

“Young Miss! We are just about to leave. It will be troublesome when others see you get off the carriage only to talk with that man.”

Venessa explained to Clara. But when she saw Clara’s downcast face, she added;

“Moreover, from the looks of it, that man is one of the hired mercenaries. You will have many chances to thank him during the journey.”

Clara’s face brightened up when she realized that the man would be around her during the whole journey, which may even take some months.

Thinking of how there would be many chances that she would be able to talk with him, Clara started to daydream again.

When Venessa noticed this, she shook her head and sighed in defeat. She did not understand what that guy had done to their young miss.

From the corner of her eyes, she looked outside the window, glaring at the man. However, just as she had done that, Ozul looked straight back at her!

‘Did he just look at me?! But how?! That shouldn’t be possible because not only the glass is made that way, even the runes are set up!’- Venessa thought and hurriedly pulled the curtains.

‘No, it must be a coincidence. It must be...’

Back to Ozul, though he wasn’t able to probe inside the carriage, feeling the emotions was a whole different matter.

He was going to ignore those bright emotions directed towards them, which had already informed him about who was really inside. However, just at this moment, the negative feelings came rushing in from inside the carriage too!

He turned toward the carriage, but again, couldn’t see anything through that single window.

Ozul didn’t mind that because there could be hundreds of people who don’t like him or even want him to die. Why should he care about one more of such an individual? As such, he quickly forgot about it.

There was a pressing matter at hand. Though most of the mercenaries would be traveling on feet since they couldn’t afford to be careless during the journey, some still had small carriages with them.

If they could, they would always bring some sorts of transport with them in case there is an emergency, and someone is not able to travel anymore.

The pressing matter was that Ozul did not want to walk during the whole journey!

Looking at all the carriages and the mercenaries advanced, Ozul waited for a couple of minutes until everyone was either on their feet or in the carriages.

Unlike the Royal ones, the transport vehicles that the mercenaries had brought weren’t so fancy looking. They just had horses attached to the carts. It was enough for them.

After noticing that most of the men were on their feet, Ozul decided to sneak in one of their carriages and doze off until it is at least night time.

Raven and Blaze curiously followed Ozul as he walked to the end of the group. The mercenaries mostly marched around those three carriages since the person they had to protect supposedly sat in one of them.

So there was almost no one around the carriages at the end of the row. As such, after checking that there was no one looking, Ozul hopped in a cart under the curious eyes of the duo.

“What are we supposed to do?”- Blaze curiously asked as he thought that they might have been here to do something meaningful.

“Hm. Just pretend that you didn’t see me entering someone else’s carriage?”- Ozul replied, without thinking much.

“So... you just came here to... sleep?”- Blaze asked with a wry smile standing together with the dumbfounded Raven, who forgot to take into account that they would be traveling by feet.

“Yes. Because if someone had done their job, I would not have to hop in another’s carriage.”- Ozul replied with a sarcastic tone.

Both Blaze and Raven looked away in shame.

‘He is saying it like there isn’t anything wrong with sleeping inside someone else’s cart’- Both Raven and Blaze thought.

“Okay. Go away now, don’t disturb me if it isn’t anything important.”- Ozul said before creating a small cushion for his head with the Ball of Purity.

Raven and Blaze left the scene without making any noise with their feet as not to alert the driver of the cart.

Meanwhile, Ozul began to think of many things instead of sleeping.

‘The death of Duke Edwin would have inevitably caused the Kingdom’s officials to be in chaos. However, nothing related to such news was leaked.’- Ozul thought.

He was impressed by the management of the Emperor Luthien. Though there were many Rank-8 Mages under the Royal Family, the death of one such individual was nothing to be ignored.

Nurturing just one such individual would sometimes take decades even after spending the rarest of the resources on him!

For a Rank-9 Mage, a Rank-8 individual was nothing more than an ant-just as the others below that rank.

However, the monarch seldom makes a move himself. And the severe matters would be handled by the people under him. And a Rank-8 Mage was a person directly under the Emperor.

Surely he wouldn’t just overlook his death as if nothing had happened.

The only conclusion that Ozul came to was that the Emperor was busy with other matters, or he was already under the Emperor’s radar. And the latter was probably true since they were ‘almost forced’ to accept this mission by him.

“A Duke dies, and the next day the whole Kingdom acts as if nothing had happened? Heh, Funny.”- Ozul muttered to himself sarcastically.

“So, what are you waiting for Emperor?”- Ozul muttered with a soft voice, looking out at the Royal Palace, slowly fading in the distance.