Deklan made a mistake.

He didn't want to tell Kaelyn about his powers since he didn't know her well enough.

Marsha was completely different, as it was unlikely for her to do something rash, something that would put him in a lot of trouble because of who she was. Not to mention, she still, in one way, owed it to him for getting rid of Granny Linsa.

But Kaelyn was different.

She wasn't native to the forest.

Instead, she came out of nowhere along with her supposed group.

Deklan didn't know much about her other than her being the last survivor of the Jinketsu Clan.

His only reason for deciding to trust her was that she sounded genuinely good from how much guilt she felt for not seeing Zayne's transformation sooner. Had it not been for that, there was no way Deklan would bring her along.

Though on the surface, he deemed her as someone uptight and fierce.

And someone like that should be easy to dissuade.

Unfortunately, Deklan underestimated her pride, and now he has no way of escaping this.

Deklan stood up and faced the other customers, apologizing for Kaelyn making a scene.

Once he sat down again, he noted that her eyes were still on him.

"I was only teasing you, though…" He said awkwardly. "I wasn't expecting you to do it."

"Are you going back on your words?" Kaelyn smirked and folded her arms. "I guess I should've known that a womanizer won't keep his own words. Can barely be called a man."

"You're trying to rile me up," Deklan's face turned red from anger. "And I hate that it's working."

Since it came to this, he decided to tell her roughly what he could do.

Kaelyn already saw most of the things he could do—seen his transformation to become Agna, and also found him coming back from the dead. One way or another, she already roughly knew what he was able to do.

Telling her is not that bad.

"And I also have this ability," Deklan raised his hand and used the Ghost Conqueror skill—summoning a small toothpick made entirely of mana. "I can practically capture Ghosts and tame them with this skill. I can create any weapon or device with it. And right now, I can only catch at most—early silver-rank Ghosts."

"So that's why you don't need to exorcise them…" Kaelyn stared at the toothpick in awe.

Like she was staring at a holy grail.

"Exorcise them?"

"Normally, once the Ghosts are killed, an Exorcist would need to exorcise their corpse. Since a Ghost is basically a manifestation of its original body, dying here wouldn't really mean actual death. It meant only the death of its body here, and with enough mana, it could resurrect again."

"Wait… If it's exorcised? It killed them permanently?"

"Not necessarily. It would only destroy the manifestation properly, so it would make it harder for them to manifest again. And they also needed to wait until a proper Null Zone for them appeared again to come back."

"Hmm… Is there any way to kill their original body and kill them for good?"

"That's impossible. Nobody has found a way to enter the intangible dimension. Anyway—that's a whole different conversation. What I wanted to say was that whenever you killed a Ghost, none of them really got back up. And it's fascinating."

Deklan wasn't entirely aware of this about the Ghost Conqueror skill.

All he knew was that it was able to capture Ghosts.

But then again, thinking back, it was true that he never had to kill a Ghost he already killed twice.

None of them came back up after being struck down.

However, I didn't always use my Ghost Conqueror skill to kill them. Is it something else? What?

"In any case, that's practically all my secrets," Deklan chugged the beer, still eyeing Kaelyn, who had a small smile on her lips. He placed down the big glass and sneered, "What's with the smile? Happy that your curiosity is finally satiated?"

"I'm not smiling, you must've seen it wrong." Kaelyn focused on the paper slips again.

Now that she knew exactly what Deklan's secrets were, everything made sense.

Everything clicked into place, like puzzle pieces finding their home.

"So, you want to pick a Ghost that would be useful to catch, is that it?" Kaelyn asked while she scanned the paper slips one by one, focusing solely on the problem—not the reward. "But I doubt there's really anything here that would pick your interest."

Other than the Rora Forest, the places outside are basically much tamer.

Sure, there are Ghosts plaguing other lands, but none to the extent of which the Rora Forest was. Most places within the kingdom are safe. If Deklan wanted to find a Ghost worthy to catch, he would need to leave the kingdom behind and step into the uncharted lands.

But that's easier said than done.

It's too dangerous even for their current strength.

"Let's take a few ones to make myself known first," Deklan suggested.

Even though there's nothing worthy, he should still accept a few to make the people talk about him.

"I guess we could—but first, we need to get you registered," Kaelyn tidied up the paper slips and placed them into her bags. "There are no Exorcist Associations in this town, as it's still considered a small town. We need to find one that has."

"Wait, I promised to take on a few requests," Deklan reached out and stopped her from standing up. "I can't leave the city right now."

"Eugh… You and your big mouth. Fine," Kaelyn took out the paper slips again and picked three from the stack. "Let's get these requests. Just a kill request of a bronze-rank Ghost—and below. It shouldn't take more than a few days to complete."

"Alright, let's go!" Deklan fisted the air and stood up.

After paying, both of them walked out of the restaurant and headed to the entrance.

Their first stop was a small village a few miles east of the town.

"By the way, you didn't use your real name to promote yourself, right?" Kaelyn asked in concern.

"Nope," Deklan rubbed his nose, feeling smart that he remembered to hide his name—or else it would only draw the attention of his family more. "Of course, not. Do you really think I'm a moron? I'm really smart!"

Of course, Kaelyn has her own doubts.

Deklan could be extremely reliable in dire situations, but he can also be a moron in non-dire situations.

And considering this was the latter, Kaelyn doubted he even did the bare minimum.

"Okay, Mr. Smart," Kaelyn said without turning to look. "What's the grand alias you chose?"

"Sir Pumple," Deklan announced, chin held high. "Sir Pumple is my name."

Upon hearing this, Kaelyn blinked a couple of times and then stopped abruptly.

Deklan also stopped, looking at her in confusion.

"Sir… Pumple?" She repeated, staring at him in disbelief. "You actually chose Sir Pumple? Really?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"You do realize that even a moron could tell that it's a made-up name, right? Nobody is named Pumple."

Kaelyn could literally pick any single name, and it would be a lot better than Pumple.

Alex, Mathias, Thomas, and even as silly as Ron, would be a lot better.

"Oh, right, I guess I didn't think that far," Deklan's confidence faltered for a second; he didn't have any time to think of a name as he needed to come up with it from the spot. He then shrugged, "Far too late now. No turning back. And since I'm Sir Pumple, you can be Lady Pimple. You know. For consistency."

Kaelyn put her face in her hand, "How do I end up babysitting a moron, really?"

…

Meanwhile, Rora Forest.

Dappled sunlight penetrated through the canopy, painting the undergrowth in shifting patterns of gold and shadow. Through it, a figure could be seen moving with a slow, deliberate cadence.

Each step was silently pressed into the moss and loam.

He was clad head-to-toe in articulated armor of a matte, neutral grey, fitted so perfectly it seemed grown rather than forged. Over it is a darker shade of grey cloak, its hem stirred softly without a breeze. His face was obscured by the hood's sleek lines.

But from its shadowed visor, two points of cool, white light shifted with careful, scanning precision.

Left, then right, parsing every splintered branch and darkened hollow.

It was quiet inside the forest even though the sun was already overhead.

However, it wasn't empty.

"Ghosts still roamed the area," He mumbled, noticing moving shadows that were keeping their distance.

None of them attacked, which the figure found to be a little bit odd.

But perhaps the Ghosts in this forest were more intelligent and could feel that he was not a prey.

His measured walk brought him to the forest's edge, where the path opened into a clearing.

There, his steps stilled.

A settlement lay before him, or the corpse of one, to be exact. A handful of cottages stood whole, smokeless and silent. The rest were splintered wreckage, collapsed roofs, and shattered walls spilling into the road like broken bones.

Judging from the sweet-sour tinge of ash in the air, it seemed this destruction happened recently.

Not a week's old.

He observed it all for a long, silent moment, the twin points of his gaze fixed on the devastation.

It seemed the destruction surprised him, but he hid it well behind his stoic mask.

Then, he continued forward.

Thirty feet from the nearest standing doorway, he halted as if he'd walked into a wall.

For a moment, the figure narrowed his gaze and looked ahead, almost like he was inspecting something.

He lifted his head, looking up.

The air before him shimmered faintly, a nearly invisible distortion, like heat rising from stone.

Confused and also curious, he reached out, a gloved palm pressing flat against empty space.

And it surprisingly met something solid, cool, and smooth like polished glass.

A translucent barrier.

Interested, the figure pushed, but it did nothing to the barrier.

A subtle pulse of mana coiled from his core, down his arm, and into his palm—a concentrated effort to dissolve, to force his way through the barrier. But once again, it did nothing. The barrier simply stayed intact—an immovable, invisible wall sealing the settlement.

"Strong… I did not know this place had something like this," the figure muttered. "It didn't say anything in the report. Is it the young master's doings?"

"Who are you?"

A voice called out to the figure.

The figure looked ahead and was greeted by the sight of a young village woman.

Someone young and quite beautiful, to be frank, for an abandoned settlement.

Even though it was mild, he noticed that there was mana inside her body, "Oh… an Exorcist?"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.