The man with his crystal blue eyes sat solemnly on the bench nearby.
To a passerby, he looked like a cold mysterious traveler who was just taking a rest from getting around the town. However, his eyes were glued to a particular direction - at a nearby bench, where a pregnant woman with two furry companions sat.
He didn't seem to care about how the people around were creeped out of his cloaked figure with a cold aura emanating from his stature. His attention was only focused on that particular trio. He was so absorbed, he couldn't even hear the noisy, bustling plaza.
'No matter what, I must not lose sight of you..'
'I need to get my answers today..'
His crystal blue eyes were filled with intention, further making his whole countenance several degrees colder. Soon he saw that the trio started to move towards the flea market. Raising his brows out of surprise and a tinge of irritation, he wondered,
'Doesn't this woman not care about her health? She had the energy to go to a chaotic flea market in that condition?'
However, no matter how much he wondered, he was determined to follow the woman up until his eyes were ready to perform another S class optic spell. He abruptly stood up and tailed the trio at a good distance.
What he then witnessed afterwards made him more baffled.
pαndα,noνɐ1,сoМ The woman, after entering the flea market, started to go on a shopping spree. What's more, she didn't bring home the items, instead she would just buy then give it back to the sellers.
'A wealthy woman?'
A trace of doubt and amusement appeared on his cold beautiful face.
His doubt was because the woman he was supposed to be looking for was not in the capacity to spend money like this. The woman he was observing was squandering a considerable amount of money that was far from what he had in mind.
'Did I follow the wrong person?'
His amusement came from the woman's quirky personality. He had met a lot of women in his twenty eight years of existence, but he never met a woman that was as unpredictable yet sympathetic as her.
All the ladies he met cared about their outer appearance and extravagance. But this woman… doesn't hold her money back on charity.
He observed the woman go from mat to mat to buy from the poor sellers in the flea market. The more he watched the woman, the more conflicting emotions he experienced.
He felt worried that the woman might be pushing herself too much and might strain her pregnant body, exposing herself and her child to danger. His worry intensified when the thought of this woman being the one that he was looking for came to his mind.
His doubts grew stronger as his surmise about the woman's lifestyle kept on going beyond what he had been prepared to see. But the longer he stayed near her, the louder and more unbearable the resonance was.
'Is she or is she not?'
His body and guts told him that she was the woman he was looking for. But his rationality and sight was saying otherwise.
The woman was already conversing with a young lady selling the violin when he felt that his eyes had recovered from casting the earlier S level optic spell - Observe.
After casting a S level optic spell, the caster would feel that their eyes were unable to let mana flow around their eyes for a certain period of time. Although their vision would not be impaired, the mana receptors will be closed around their eyes and will reject attempts to channel mana around it.
He then went to an inconspicuous tree , blending himself well from the shadows, to prepare himself for casting the S class optic spell. Since the flea market was crowded and open, usage of a spell at such a high level will surely be noticed by wary Mages, thereby inviting chaos. Thus, he needed to distance himself from the crowd and take precautions, just like how he did when he earlier casted the S level Observe spell.
After ensuring that the woman was still within his vision at the distance, he then uttered -
'Bypass!'
As soon as he uttered this, his crystal blue eyes shone and three layers of purple colored magic circles appeared. Unlike the Observe spell, where the layers of magic circles appeared stationary, the magic circle of the Bypass spell was revolving.
The first layer closest to his eyes, revolved counter clockwise, while the second, on a clockwise motion. The last layer revolved in both ways randomly, as if finding the right combination to align with the other two circles. Its behavior seemed to be decoding something from the target of the Bypass spell.
The few seconds of waiting for the spell to be completed was an intense emotional battle for the man with the crystal blue eyes. He felt like these few seconds were prolonged to an extent where his hearing was so focused on the sound of his rapid heartbeat.
Thump thump thump..
He tried to compose himself as he could slowly see that the Bypass spell revealed the appearance of the woman beyond Grand Master Farauld's powerful S class veiling spell. His frigid blue eyes suddenly became alive in intense agitation, like an untouched freshly mined crystal that has just been cut and polished.
He could feel that his cold, unfeeling body slowly went several temperatures up. His blood was boiling so fast that a tinge of redness could be seen on his pale cheeks. His hands clenched to a fist as he felt that the months of investigating and locating the woman finally came to an end.
'At last, I finally found you... free lady,'
As he declared victory in his heart, his eyes stared intensely at the woman. In his vision, what he could see was a woman with silky black hair, stylishly arranged on a french braid. Her long braided hair was gracefully resting on her right shoulders down to her bosom accentuating her warm ivory skin tone. What was most striking was her dark colored eyes, as dark as the midnight.
The woman was none other than Eli.
Her midnight eyes shone as she focused on the violin for sale, her appearance contained maturity that was not appropriate for her age. Her aura exudes a vibe of a smart independent woman, not bothered by the hassle of her surroundings and her physical condition.
Standing there at a distance, concealed on the shade of the nearby tree, the man stood frozen. Now that he finally confirmed that Eli was the woman he was looking for, contrary to what he expected, he felt more conflicted than ever.
So many questions came to his mind, apart from his doubts earlier, which was not even diminished the slightest, but intensified even more. Nonetheless, the biggest question on his mind was what would be his next step.
He started to ridicule himself.
He was a man bathed in the blood of all the enemies who tried to invade the Empire. He had experienced countless battles and the numbers of assassinations he survived could no longer be counted with the fingers of his hands. In every battle he did, he always had a meticulous plan laid out anticipating every possible set back he might encounter.
But now, he just realized that he did not even prepare for the things he would do after finding this woman and his child to be.
All he thought was to find her, as to how he would take her under his protection and care, he did not think that far. No wonder his father was wearing an anxious expression during the time he asked for permission to search for her. This was beyond his typical character.
How could he mess up in this aspect?!
As he was battling with his internal struggles, he saw that Eli was being subjected to ridicule by some random woman. With a worried expression he nimbly jumped off the tree and went to the flea market to watch out for her nearby.
He saw that Eli was restraining herself, most probably because she was mindful of her pregnancy. He gave her an applause in his heart. She was a good woman.
However, the random woman continued to irritate Eli after realizing that she chose not to bother. That random woman kept pushing her to the limits up until she called Eli and her child 'vulgar'.
Something thugged heavily on the man's heart.
He felt the torment of a fiery arrow piercing directly to his cold heart. The word vulgar was never pleasant to hear, surely. But to hear others call the people that mattered to him as 'vulgar' sparked a great pain into his heart, penetrating straight to his soul.
Some insignificant person insulted the mother of his child in front of his face.
Looking at Eli's provoked reaction that was almost ready to slap the soul out of the random woman, he took a step forward without thinking.
He just found himself walking hastily towards Eli, to keep her safe under his wing. His desire to defend the mother of his child made his cold hands gently grab her shoulders into his personal space.
His only focus was to get her out of this situation so he calmly uttered,
"My dearest wife, I am here. Have you been waiting for me that long?"
The petite body in his embrace turned stiff, Eli cautiously turned his head looking at his face. They were close to each other so they both had the chance to inspect every miniscule detail on each other's faces.
He saw her beautiful midnight eyes that could see through one's soul. But clearly he noticed that her reaction was one of panic, not because of the situation with the random girl but towards him. As he was holding her safe in his cold arms, he felt that she wanted to struggle out of it and run.
He immediately knew that Eli didn't want to see him right now. A tinge of disappointment seemed to be budding deep in his hear seeing her reaction. However, his utmost priority was to keep her by his side, so without any hesitation, he tried to play it down. He tried to calm her down saying,
"Young lady, I mean no harm, I am just trying to get you out of this situation. Think calmly…"
He then felt Eli's body relaxing, and saw that Eli reciprocated his greetings in a very unnatural way,
"Hu..hubby, Are you finally done with your business? I was just enjoying this little shopping stroll~~~"
Hearing the word hubby, his body became uncomfortably stiff. It was such a foreign word for him that it felt so awkward, but it wasn't that bad, he thought. Moreover, she had already done her part of the acting, so they must pull this through.
Casting a glare towards the random woman, he poured out all his hostility and anger from hearing that random woman insult the mother of his child. He became even more angry when he heard the indirect way the random woman insulted Eli.
However, when he was about to reprimand the woman, he felt a gentle hand stopping him. He looked down and saw Eli, with a cunning look in her midnight eyes as if telling him,
'I got this!'
With that look, he was fascinated.
With interest, he allowed Eli to unleash what she had on her crafty eyes and watch what would happen. His mind, with how little he knew of women's attitude, was expecting her to engage into a cat fight or a venomous verbal war. He then stood alert in case harm would come on Eli's way.
However, she once again had broken his expectations. The woman who was so ready to fight with such scheming eyes just a while ago..
Was gracefully holding a violin.
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