207

v.6

During thier travel, Gideon and his men have lost count on how many times thieves or bandits attacked them at first, they welcomed it. As it is an excellent way to practice thier martial arts, but later on, it becomes annoying. First, the bandits are very weak, not enough to be training partners, and second, it delays them from traveling into thier destination. 

The number of criminals is an indication of a chaotic government. Those on the top can't stop fighting amongst themselves. Because of that, the ordinary people suffer, it's not like there are no good guys among the elites. It's just that they don't live long to make any notable changes, and those on top are squeezing the ordinary people dry, and so because of that many of them turn to criminal activity to survive. 

In truth, many elites liked the chaotic atmosphere as they were able to do whatever dark desires they have. 

Many top criminal organizations are controlled or in some way related to the elites, and those that are not controlled know not to mess with the affairs or business of the nobility, and therefore, the elites left them alone. Of course, there will always be unavoidable conflict, as many of thier criminal activities coincide with each other. And so once in a while, the Nobles would purge some unwanted criminal organizations, giving birth to another criminal organization, and the circle goes on for as long as anyone can remember. 

Back in Groma, a group of elite soldiers began to appear one after another, seemingly looking for something or someone. They unbridledly asked weird questions like if any powerful individual has been seen lately or any weird shit happened recently, those who were questioned have weird expressions on thier faces. "Weird thing? This is the wilderness and one closest to the forbidden region. Everything here is weird. Strong individual? Those that go to the forbidden region and survive are strong... Are you guys in drugs or something?" Of course, the man being questioned won't say that unless he has a death wish, they can feel how strong the people were just by thier aura. 

In Groma's most luxurious hotel, a man in white clothes can be seen sitting on the couch surrounded by beautiful women who can be seen giving him all kinds of services. 

Report! 

"My lord, our men are scouring the city of Groma, but so far nothing matches those we are looking for." 

The man in white didn't say anything and just nodded and gestured for the soldier to leave. 

"Hmm. Well I didn't expect it to be easy, as we have no idea what they look like or what kind of technology they possess," he said to himself. 

Of course, they went to Haze Jungle to look for traces of Graff and the rest, but unfortunately, Haze Jungle is enormous, and they have no idea where to begin searching. 

So he divided his forces in half, and one group would be staying in Haze Jungle looking for Graff or any traces of thier target. Half would be looking in the cities near Haze Jungle. After all, an intelligent lifeform visiting a new planet, the first thing they will look for is the nearest civilizations or city. 

And Groma is the nearest to Haze jungle. Of course, assuming his assumptions are correct. Great Elder has given him the task of welcoming these new visitors as well as eliminating those pesky brats. 

Unfortunately, nothing goes according to his plan, not only was he unable to find any trace of the visitors, even Graff, and the rest seems to vanish without a trace. 

But he believes it is only a matter of time before he finds them. 

Of course, his actions didn't escape the eyes of the drones scattered throughout Haze Jungle, those drones are almost invisible to the naked eyes and can camouflage themselves, making them almost impossible to find. Those drones were made purely for the sake of reconnaissance and Scouting. And they are under Specters' supervision. So the moment they started searching the haze jungle, the drones were already watching them, meaning Arielle was already making plans on how to deal with them. 

But Arielle didn't do anything yet, because unlike before, these new visitors are clearly soldiers looking for something, and it is stupid to reveal themselves without first making sure of the soldier's objectives. So she just put them in around the clock surveillance. 

Arc was unaware of this as Arielle won't disturb him for something she wasn't sure of. After all, those soldiers can be just making a routine patrol. Or just only looking for something other than them, so until she made sure those soldiers could be a threat to them, she won't disturb Arc.

Well, unknown to Arielle, Specter already made a report to Eve, and just like Arielle, she also didn't want to give Arc unnecessary worry. Especially now that Arc seems to be on the right path in completing his urgent missions. 

Gideon and his group continued thier travel, fortunately, the closer they are to the Cathedral, the fewer the attacks they encountered, maybe because Cathedral is a religious organization and so the way they managed thier territory is different from other countries. Temple Knights regularly patrol thier territory, making it relatively safer to travel. Of course, just relatively safer, there are still bandits or monsters waiting for unsuspecting travelers. 

And unlike other cities, Cathedrals security is quite strict; the moment Gideon and his group entered thier territory, they encountered a checkpoint. Fortunately, they were able to pass without a problem after paying a certain amount of toll fee, and they were able to enter without any problem.

Gideon looked at the temple Knights clad in full plate armor and with only a slit in the helmet exposing thier eyes. 

They are quite intimidating, at least to a regular person. For Gideon and the rest who have in thier storage ring a mech, those armor worn by temple knights are nothing but thin can. Compared to thier mechs. 

But that they didn't show it in thier eyes or action on the outside, the temple knights can see fear and admiration in the eyes of Gideon and the rest, but on the inside, they are sneering as a single punch from thier Mech is enough to wipe out this group of temple knights. 

Captain Sigurd enjoys seeing the fear and admiration shown by the merchants and travelers entering the Cathedral. In fact, entering the Cathedral is free, and Captain Sigurd asking for the toll is against the Cathedral law, but no merchants or travelers would say that nor would they complain about it. In fact, some are happy to pay it and make an acquaintance with temple knights, so many merchants not only pay toll fees but also give extra gifts to the temple knights, especially Captain Sigurd. 

The Cathedral is, of course, aware of the actions of Sigurd but turns a blind eye to it as Sigurd also knows how to butter up his superiors, and besides, no one is complaining about it. As for Gideon, money is not a problem for them, so paying a toll fee and giving extra to acquire intelligence is a good deal. By giving extra toll to the knights, they were able to extract some information about the Cathedral. 

EDITOR: King of Mortals