Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

No matter what thoughts they had, they both could agree that something was fishy about this current situation.

The quiet, unsettling atmosphere pressed in on them as they stood in the middle of Rothwind's now abandoned workshop.

The faint scent of burnt metal and charcoal still lingered in the air, as if the forge had only recently been snuffed out, so they could tell that he hadn't been gone too long, it seemed.

"This… is really strange."

Mira murmured, carrying a hint of frustration in her voice.

"It's like someone went out of their way to erase any traces of him being here. The only real evidence of Rothwind's existence in this place is that his name is still on the board hanging outside the smithy…"

"Yeah…"

Alex agreed, sweeping over the now sterile space with his gaze.

A chill ran down Mira's spine as she made this realisation.

It wasn't unheard of for people to 'disappear' like this, but for an A tier awakened?

It was far, far more unlikely than a common, unawakened person being the victim.

In fact, Rothwind's status as a Master smith didn't go unnoticed either, and there were bound to be others who had noticed his lack of presence in the city in the recent days.

Realising this, Mira spoke up.

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"Maybe we should ask around."

She suggested after a moment, taking one last glance at the hooks where Rothwind's tools were last haphazardly hung.

"If someone saw what happened, or just saw something unusual in this area in general, then they might be able to point us in the right direction."

"Yeah, let's do that."

Alex agreed without hesitation. Rothwind's disappearance was of a big concern to him, especially since he was the one who had loaned him all those extremely valuable materials to craft their armour…

If he lost the chance at perhaps making some King class armour for a long while because of this incident… he would be far less than happy.

"And let's not forget to stay vigilant. If someone went through all this trouble to cover things up, they're not going to appreciate us poking around much either. And if they can somehow do all this to an A tier like Rothwind, then we need to be extremely cautious."

The two of them stepped back out of the smithy into the suspiciously pristine streets.

The quietness was now unnerving, and the few people that spotted them seemed to go out of their way to avoid them — either ducking into alleys or quickening their pace to put distance between themselves and the duo.

Mira tried to catch the attention of a passerby, a middle aged man hunched over in a ragged cloak.

"Excuse me, have you seen what happened to this place? Why is it so clean—"

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The man didn't even look up, only shaking his head vigorously as he shuffled away.

"What the—?"

Mira exclaimed, watching him disappear around a corner.

'Something is definitely wrong if people are reacting like this. If Rothwind just up and left on his own whim, we wouldn't be getting this sort of reaction just from a mere mention of his name.'

Alex thought deeply upon seeing Mira's interaction with that ragged man.

"Are we being shunned or something?" Mira asked.

"More like they're terrified."

Alex answered quietly, tracking another figure with his eyes who crossed the street to avoid them entirely.

"Someone's scared them into keeping quiet."

Before Mira could respond, a faint rustling sound caught their attention.

They turned away to see a small, cloaked figure motioning them from a dark alley a few feet away.

There were a few more hushed voices coming from the same area, telling the first person who ushered the duo over to shut up and other such expletives.

The cloaked figure glanced nervously up and down the street, then beckoned them with a sense of urgency.

"Over here."

The cloaked figure whispered hurriedly.

Alex and Mira exchanged a wary and cautious change, then approached the figure, staying alert for any sort of trap.

Alex summoned a tiny bit of spatial energy around his finger, sending it in Mira's direction, garnering her attention.

Mira, upon feeling this spatial energy come into contact with her, looked over at him with curious eyes.

And without a word spoken between them, she understood Alex's intentions immediately.

Whoosh!

Invisible to all senses, she activated her spatial perception and scanned the immediate area surrounding the two of them, sensing multiple spatial presences nearby.

'11 people in total in this small, clean area. But most of them are hidden away in their shacks, or are too busy hurrying away from us in the opposite direction to be of any significance.'

Mira identified every single person within the 200 metre radius of them with ease, and ruled out 9 of them as non-suspicious almost immediately.

The two that were left, however, were on her watchlist.

One of them was the same cloaked figure who they were currently walking towards, and another was perched on a rooftop of one of the more decent looking buildings nearby, watching silently from above.

Mira kept this information to herself for the moment, as she had no current means of alerting Alex to it without making it painfully obvious to anyone even remotely observing them.

Instead, she just nudged him on the shoulder a little, gave him a stern look that said 'suspicious' in their own, weird non-verbal form of communication, and then returned back to normal for the remainder of their short walk across the street to this cloaked figure.

When they reached the figure, it became obvious to them that they were probably a child, just from their height, and purposely deepened voice.

But even a fool could tell the difference between a real deep voice and a light, childish voice imitating one.

However, they didn't comment on that, rather focusing on the real issue at hand.

"What do you want?"

Mira asked with her tone firm but not unfriendly.

The figure pushed back their hood, subverting both of the duo's expectations as it revealed the face of a young girl — but they still got the age range right though, no more than thirteen or fourteen, with wide, anxious eyes and matted brown hair.

"You're looking for Rothwind, aren't you?"