9 The Journey (3)

Gallop! Gallop! Gallop!

Azares hastened his momentum to widened the distance despite being fast enough. He couldn't help it. He had to take another path and circled the Savana's Eye to get back at those monsters.

[What are you doing??]

[We could have some fun, why are you running?!]

Azares pursed his lips. His face was sullen devoid of the calmness he usually has.

This bastard..

"Should I let you go berserk and get discovered again?"

[Nobody can detect me if I don't deliberately show up.]

[Those puny humans won't have the qualifications to catch sight of my power.]

Azares retorted harshly, "You're just a high elemental. Redian will be able to tell."

[What Redian? What high elemental?!]

Of course, Sylph knew who Redian is. The thing he couldn't comprehend was the latter question he asked. He felt incredulous being compared with other high elementals.

It was unacceptable.

Azares body all of a sudden swayed. He was uncertain if it was a delusion or he had heard wrong.

Does that mean Sylph's not in that rank?

In addition to monsters problem, Azares now had another thing that causes his head to throbbed violently.

Sylph couldn't believe it when Azares didn't know his rank. He always regarded it as Azares pretending not to know. Nevertheless, it only lasts until Sylph personally witnessed the changing expressions on Azares' face did he dare to believe.

Sylph was incredibly frustrated. Exactly how dumb is his contractor?

No wonder he didn't react at all, that time when Sylph came out of the summoning circle. Clearly, Sylph's body had materialized and he also intentionally displayed his terrifying power. Regrettably, these blatant pieces of evidence were ignored by Azares. Sylph didn't know whether to laugh or cry. In his entire life, this was the first time he found someone with little awareness of elementals. Normal people would recognize that Sylph wasn't just any elemental at a single glance.

It was common knowledge that Elementals were divided into four ranks of class. There are lower, middle, high rank, and lastly a King who holds the most important position within the elemental's realm. From lower rank up to high rank, elementals couldn't materialize outside of the realm. Only a King can do such a thing. Partly because a King was a special existence and the rest came from their power which was way beyond those lower than them.

Azares had never properly learned about elementals, so it was perfectly normal he didn't know something trivial like this. Even if he had a lot of free time, he wasn't interested in them. Therefore, he didn't check on these kinds of information.

To be completely honest, it was out of Azares expectations when his first summoning ceremony was successful that he could call upon Sylph. At that time, he just knew that gaining an elemental was already good enough. He didn't think too deeply into Sylph's identity. He assumed Sylph's rank was high based on the strength and trouble he carried with him.

After all, only mad elementals would 'gift' windstorm the first time they met.

The crazier a wind elemental appeared to be, the stronger they are.

That was Azares conclusion.

A very big wrong conclusion.

"You don't say.."

With a proud, bragging tone, Sylph responded, [I'm a King.]

"Cough, cough! Cough!!", Azares choked on his saliva.

"No way. No Elementalist has ever succeeded in summoning a King."

It's a little too late for Azares to denied the reality. However, he had no other way. He just didn't want to accept the reality presented before him. He had already tolerated it when he made a contract with a bomb-like wind elemental, but to suddenly said his elemental was a King?

It was directly crushing his dream to quietly live in seclusion.

As if being consoled by Azares horribly twisted face, Sylph guffawed loudly. It could be said that his resentment towards Azares ignorance had diminished a lot.

Still not willing to compromise with his circumstances, Azares glared with anger.

"I don't think I'm suitable to be a King contractor."

Sylph smiled beautifully, then he generously explained. [It's because your life energy is unique.]

[It was full of vitality and pure power of nature. It was as if you are one of us who was born from nature. In fact, it was too pure without a single speck of dirt that I suspected if you are truly human or not.]

In Sylph's eyes, a human was a being who is not worthy to be a contractor of elementals. They were malicious beings that enjoy destroying nature. They wage war left and right, which resulted in a ruined land. They had never hesitated to burn the forest for a military strategy. They also had no qualms in bombing the mountains just to create a trap for the enemies.

In short, humans always used nature as if it's a disposable thing to achieve their objective. Sylph detested this a lot. His heart boiled with hatred every time he thought about it.

Although Sylph was fond of going around causing trouble and obliterate anything that blocked his path, he could never bear to hurt the nature he loved so much. Even if he did cause harm, he would channel his energy to heal it.

"So you were attracted by my energy?"

Sylph almost agreed out loud to Azares accusation. Luckily, he was able to stop himself at the right time.

When a contract was build between an elemental and a contractor, there was a price each of them needs to pay for.

Elementals would help their contractor till the end of their deal, or even till the day the contractor died. Whilst Elementalist would regularly share their life energy with the elementals as part of the deal.

Elementals are the children of nature. They are specifically created by nature. So they wouldn't die unless they were destroyed or die out of power exhaustion.

The latter was a situation which highly unlikely to happen because elementals could gather the energy of life directly from nature and the world of their realm. Typically, elementals chose to agree with the contract only because they want the other party's energy. Since the energy extracted from nature and a human's life was different, they considered a human's energy as a delicacy that tasted better than normal energy.

This was the reason why Sylph was willing to make a contract which Azares.

Azares' energy of life that comes from his soul was simply irresistible.

Albeit, there's no chance for Sylph to confessed an embarrassing thing like that.

Sylph harrumphed arrogantly. [Yours just taste better than the others!]

Azares ignored it. He didn't bother to poke on Sylph's facade.

Right now, it was best to admit the truth. He could just find out how to break this contract later.

As they were arguing nonstop, unknowingly Azares had stopped in an inconspicuous spot. He covered the horse with dense bushes and prepared its food, to make the horse more obedient.

Azares changed his clothes and put on an unremarkable, tattered black coat to avoid suspicion. Simultaneously, he could hear someone shouting his name from time to time.

Sylph couldn't help but comment. [He is really persistent.]

To be able to chose Azares than the troops revealed that Yurien's trust in Azares was as big as the sky. It was simply too hard abandoning the reliable troops for an insignificant Third Young Master. He found it absurd for Yurien to blindly following Azares this far. They weren't that close after all.

Not only Sylph, Azares too was baffled. He didn't understand why Yurien would pick him rather than the Duke.

That being said, Azares felt good being trusted this much. The corner of his lips bent upwards. Azares was a reasonable person. He will be good to those who showed kindness.

Therefore, by the time Yurien stood before Azares, he didn't rebuke him nor chased him out. On the contrary, Azares waited patiently for Yurien to collect himself.

"Why are you here?"

Yurien's ears perked up. He closely examined Azares.

Yurien swiftly picked up something from Azares current outfit and aura.

After a lot of considerations, he slowly responded, "I thought I could help you.."

Judging from the way Yurien's eyes shone with brilliance, Azares could no longer pretend he didn't care like how he had been doing in the past few days.

Forget it. He could afford to take this guy under his wings.

Sighing tiredly, Azares explained the entire situation. At first, Yurien could calmly absorb the information, but as time went by his face began to turn whiter and whiter.

Yurien's whole body went cold from fright. He hadn't seen it for himself, nor does he had investigated the authentication of Azares' information. But, he has faith in Azares. The Young Master couldn't possibly lie about these kinds of matter.

Then.. doesn't this sound bad?

"...What should we do, Young Master?"