About an hour and a half later, Yugo arrived in the city of Stravagon and marvelled at the landscape before his eyes, even letting out a small cry of disbelief.
The city, or at least the portion that stretched out before him, was marked by architecture whose strong points was similar to that of the old castles and great cities mentioned in the eastern legends. There were arches and columns everywhere in the streets, and domes were numerous.
Of all of them, however, there was one that was larger, more majestic and, above all, more... white.
The building, which towered in the distance, was striking for its almost immaculate whiteness. The many floors that made up the building were visible from the railway station where Yugo was standing, and the enormous star-shaped cross that stood proudly on top of it was a wonderful feature.
Yugo gaped in amazement.
"So, this is St. Meroa Cathedral!" he finally blurted out after a long minute.
Anyway, he had better things to do than be an awestruck tourist. So he immediately set off in search of the town hall.
According to his mission objectives, and based on what Lucile had told him, the mayor and his staff had information that could help him — whether greatly or not remained to be seen — in his mission.
And who knows, maybe with a little luck he would come across his personal prey, the scourge of his existence, the target of all his inner hatred.
At the town hall, he asked a receptionist if he could speak to the mayor in private, who, as politely as possible given his dark attire, directed him to a private residence, more of an outbuilding, located a short distance behind the main town hall buildings. According to her, it was the mayor's official residence.
So, Yugo went there.
He stopped not far from the two enormous doors — more than two metres high, at a glance — of the house.
Two guards stood in front of the doors, and one of them approached when he saw Yugo, his service weapon tucked into its holster.
The man had a brownish beard turning grey in many spots — signalling the mature age range he was settling in — whose hairs, although neatly trimmed, swayed defiantly with each step he took. His hair, also brown and grey, was cut short, just enough to be swept to the side with a simple flick of the wrist.
The pommel and guard of the weapon hanging from his waist — apparently a rapier, according to the shape defining the guard of the sword — swung up and down in time with the movements of the man's hips and thighs. He took on a cold and serious air, probably to show the importance of his work, and let anyone know of his experience as a combatant.
When he was approximately eight metres away from Yugo, he raised his hand, but upon seeing the uniform with a straight collar and silver embroidered sleeves, as well as the star cross medallion pinned on the young boy's shirt, he immediately lowered it and stood at attention.
"Honourable Reaper, welcome!" exclaimed the guard, standing straight as a pole.
At these words, his colleague, who had remained in front of the gates, also assumed the same pose.
"Sire, we are delighted to see you, however, we need your affiliation oath so that we can be sure of your legitimacy." he continued.
'Oh yes, I have to recite that damn oath every time because of the imitators.'
Yugo sighed, clearly annoyed by this procedure, which would take him a valuable minute.
For Yugo, there were many things that could be avoided or even completely abolished in the order of the reapers, and this damn affiliation oath was at the very top of the list of things he would eliminate if he ever became the head of the organisation.
Of course, for that to happen, he would first have to aspire to become a dignitary or administrative official of the organisation.
And if there was one thing he absolutely couldn't stand, it was being locked in a room behind a desk all day dealing with paperwork and putting on fake smiles or uttering honeyed words full of false hope to the new agents who were going to sacrifice themselves in the field.
Or, in the worst-case scenario, which unfortunately was not so unusual, whispering empty words of consolation to the families of the fallen 'victims' who lost their lives on missions.
In short, he hated this oath, and in this particular case even more so because while he spent long seconds reciting it, unable to move, the creature he was looking for could strike and delay his response.
But above all because reciting an oath was more like the kind of thing you find in a cult or a religious order. Not among fighters.
He groaned loudly to make his displeasure clear and let his lips move mechanically.
"As above and so below, guided by light in peace, what is left will never cease.
As within and so without, when the seasons bring relief, let us live and die in peace.
When the hearts do not skip a beat, we are hidden, deeply asleep.
Our time will end where the oceans meet, finally complete.
And at the edge, we will see the sun above, lit up a starless void.
Here is a promise that we cannot escape, as these lives are worth dying for.
We are the voices in the shadows, fading under the weight.
Thus, no despair will remain.
We are the light that guides from afar, dragging everything in the wake of our passage.
We are the scythe that reaps, bringing sunlight to the leaf.
We are the walkers, rumbling above the imminence.
We are the rose, sparkling around the thorns.
We are the dawn, setting aside what is torn.
Our universe will survive us on give and take, as death is an open door.
And the currents will flow past us, as decay is our only way."
After uttering these last words, Yugo fell silent and left the soldier to judge for himself.
The latter, for his part, wore an expression of sheer terror on his already frightened face at the implications of this creed.
"T-The Dusk Rose!" said the guard, now shaking in fright.
He fidgeted and, in a gesture mixing panic and haste, like a recruit who has misbehave in front of a high-ranking officer, he addressed his colleague.
"Go tell the mayor that we have an emissary of the shadows! Immediately!"
The second guard rushed over and, quickly pressing a few buttons on a kind of intercom, stepped back to let the two enormous doors open, rushing through as soon as there was enough space for him to enter.
"P-Please follow me!" stammered the first guard, pointing inside the building, and they
immediately headed into a small lounge whose floor was covered with polished wood so shiny that Yugo could almost see his reflection in it.
The room itself was decorated with flowers in vases placed here and there, and the matte beige paint that covered the walls, gave the room a soothing feel. The armchairs were also made of beige leather, but the shade seemed to lean more towards khaki.
Yugo took a seat in one of the armchairs and relaxed greatly, even sighing with ease.
"Please wait here, the mayor will be here soon." said the guard, whose nerves had relaxed a little when he saw how calm Yugo was.
He pointed to the corridor leading to the apparently still open doors and asked permission to return to his post, which was granted with a slight nod from the young boy.
A few minutes later, the second guard returned, accompanied by a man, maybe in his late thirties, dressed in a dark grey jacket and trousers.
His jet-black hair was slicked back with an outrageous amount of gel, making it shine almost as much as the reflective parquet floor. A pair of square glasses sat on a slightly hooked nose, and small eyes, with blackish pupils, darted around in all directions, clearly trying to avoid Yugo's gaze.
On the left side of the man's chest, one end of a red handkerchief hung down.
"Here he is, Sire... the mayor." said the guard, pointing to the nervous adult standing in front of Yugo.
"Good afternoon to you, Mr. mayor. I'm Yugo Linchester." said Yugo, bowing slightly.
He did not do this so much out of instilled politeness. Quite the contrary, he believed that only merit and actions were the real value indexes of the respect one should be given, and age was in no way a viable criterion. Yugo was careful not to say any of this openly, of course.
No, in fact, if he sketched this rather theatrical gesture, it was to perpetuate the collaborative relationship that the agency had with the various administrative bodies of the areas where it operated.
Raising his head, he looked his new interlocutor straight in the eyes, waiting for a return of courtesy.
In response, the mayor smiled awkwardly and bowed his head too.
"Good afternoon and welcome, young master. I'm Karlen, the mayor of this city. But let's ignore all the formalities, and get to the point."
"Good! I am here following your request of a purification for the Negacion that was recently sighted." replied Yugo, the moment the mayor had finished speaking his sentence.
"I see. I had received confirmation from the organisation that a unit of agents would come here, but I did not expect a single emissary of the shadows, let alone one so young." he replied, staring at Yugo's black uniform.
Yugo frowned.
"Sorry to disappoint you, but in our line of work, age is not really a very reliable indicator of someone's operational abilities..."
He changed his mind, realising that he was about to give the mayor an unwelcome lecture.
".... Besides, we have units with agents whose age gap is quite large. But I see what you mean, let's just say that I'm part of a special case."
"A-Ah, okay. Please sit down so that we can give you more details."Yugo did as suggested and sat down, followed by the mayor who gestured with his index finger to the second guard, still stationed there, who bowed his head.
The mayor pulled himself up a little and whispered something in his ear.
Immediately, the guard got up and exclaimed aloud.
"Understood!"
He then left to where he had gone to pick up the mayor earlier.
"I asked him to go and inform my wife, and also tell her to bring some documents that might be of interest to you."
"Thanks." Yugo simply replied.
"While waiting for them to return, let me tell you what I already know".
The mayor took on a more serious expression after these words.
"Um, about three weeks ago, tourists who were visiting the ruins of the floating gardens said they saw a pretty huge silhouette rising in the distance, towards the plains of Elradine." He said.
Lingering for a bit, he pressed the silk fabric of his handkerchief on his sweaty forehead and proceeded to wipe himself clean before continuing:
"Fortunately, one of these tourists had a snapper, which he used to capture the image of the silhouette. After that, we sent trackers there, but they didn't find anything. Well, they did find the charred carcasses of what seem to be two twin-headed falcons." The mayor added.
"Just charred carcasses?! No signs of clashes? no distinctive marks or even a crystal shard remains?"
"N-None of that. Just the two smoking corpses."
"Strange. And did you measure the level of Kilith energy emanating from there? There must have been a disruption in the natural flow, if a Negacion sprouted there."
"I don't... uh... really have an answer for that. However, four days ago, the same figure was spotted in the early evening. But... and this is the most troubling part, it was near the ruins, not far from the floating gardens."
"The floating gardens, you say?! I was there just this morning. Very strange that I didn't notice anything from there."
"Um."
The mayor took out his reddish handkerchief and wiped his forehead, which was beginning to drip with a mixture of sweat and gel.
At that moment, the second guard reappeared.
At his side stood a woman - apparently in her early thirties, perhaps younger - with a pale complexion, wearing a long green dress, which brought out slightly pronounced curves.
She had a chestnut-coloured hair that cascaded down to her shoulders. A long strand crossed her right eyebrow, and ended tucked behind her ear.
Staring at Yugo with her hazel-coloured eyes dotted with specks of green — whose shape and gleam where awfully reminiscent of those of a Tyrant Viper — she raised one of her long, but strangely thin, fingers, which she placed just below her chin. With this gesture, the small pile of documents she was clutching to her chest pressed together, making her breasts rise a little.
She bowed slightly.
"Good morning, young master."
Yugo, grimaced and returned the greeting, without getting up.
'Another pompous, gold-digging, crowd-pleasing fan of a lady, huh? I don't like her eyes.'
He shook his head.
Despite her exaggerated and rather theatrical attempt to make a strong impression, she remained the mayor's wife. it was therefore inappropriate to think badly of her and thus disrespect her husband.
'Why am I even thinking about this?' he wondered.
The mayor rose and came to stand besides her.
"This is Aleone, my wife. She is also my personal assistant and takes care of matters that I don't necessarily have time to deal with myself, given my schedule."
"I see. Pleased to meet you, milady."
"All the pleasure is mine."
She turned to her husband.
"Darling, I've brought the documents you requested."
Aleone placed them on the coffee table that served as a border between Yugo's armchair and the mayor's.
"Thank you! We were just talking about you-know-what, actually. Please sit, so we can continue!"
They both sat down.
"Well, as... uh.. I was saying earlier, following the dispatch of the trackers, and after retrieving the image of the silhouette with the tourist who took it, we deduced that such a thing was most likely one of the cases that your agency manages."
As the mayor was saying this, he took out the images of the silhouette in the distance and the carcasses, as well as a small stack of others.
Yugo carefully observed the images laid out on the coffee tables and began studying one of them in particular.
It was a bird's-eye view of the Elradine plains where the charred carcasses had been found.
Nothing unusual seemed to stand out. There was only a patch of land visible, some grass, the two corpses and the shadow of what appeared to be a tree, or a column.
After staring at it for a long time, he put the image down and continued his investigation.
The mayor, who had stopped talking and been following in silence until then, spoke again.
"As a precautionary measure, we have limited the entrances and exits in the city but are already working on a barrier, as well as shelters. Of course, Stravagon being a place of... uh... mainly tourist character, it is impossible for us to completely close the city. you understand, this would be bad for the local economy." He ended, with an awkward laugh.
"Um. You did the right thing." Yugo replied.
"Moreover, such a move would cause panic among the population, which could complicate things even further. You made the right decision." He added, continuing to examine and read the numerous files before him.
"See? I told you that closing the city gates would be a bad idea!" exclaimed Mrs. Aleone.
"Y-Yes. You were right, my dear." Said the mayor, wiping his forehead again.
Yugo took a sheet from the table and after a little while of reading frowned.
"Can you give me more information about this?" he said, pointing to the sheet full of writings and statistical diagrams.
"Ah... uh... that! Well, it's... um... It's-"
"It's the result of a small study conducted by one of our teams of researchers." Aleone interrupted.
"Hmm. And what was the purpose of it?"
The mayor nervously wiped his forehead and stammered a little, then finally replied.
"The... the advantages of Negaciones."
Yugo stood up, overcome by a sudden, uncontrollable anger.
"The advantages? You've got to be kidding me."
Aleone attempted to reason with him.
"Please, sit down! It's not what you think."
"And what do you want me to think?"
"Sit down, young master. We can explain."
He grunted, then sighed and sat back down.
"Go ahead. Speak!"
"Well, um... about twenty five years ago, one of the neighbouring towns under our jurisdiction, Toka village, was attacked by a "Lucido" type Negacion, and after it passed, the local ecosystem changed. Palatinite mines emerged all over the area and the fauna became more abundant. As if that wasn't enough, its attack left traces of Kilith so dense that the soil, which was originally quite dry and not very fertile, became a real goldmine for farmers."
Yugo sighed again.
"Of course, none of this erases the atrocities that took place there and the loss of human life, as well as the material damage."
The mayor stopped for a brief moment after saying this, and cleared his throat.
"However, we must admit that this area, which was dependent on us, has become, in the span of two decades, the locality that provides us with most of the resources we lack."
Yugo grumbled. He was clearly not satisfied with this answer, but he had to make do with it.
"So? What do you intend to do with this research? And how does it relate to our current case?"
Aleone intervened promptly.
"Well, we had hoped that after you purified the Negacion, you would give us its crystal core so that we could conduct more research on how this energy source could help our city."
The woman untucked a part of her dress she was sitting on, relaxing the tensed fabric of her garment and then leaned towards Yugo.
"...Few people know this, but tourism has become a bit outdated here, and the funds generated by visits and other such events are not enough to fill the municipal coffers. Without the help of the town we mentioned, Stravagon would be in serious trouble. Especially since the cathedral closed its doors to the public." She continued.
"The church?" Yugo asked, surprised by this statement.
"Yes! They've been saying, all of sudden, that this city has been corrupted by evil. And since, they've closed their doors to the public. But whatever..."
She paused and spoke a little more slowly, so as to emphasise her words.
"Regarding our matter, we will notify the organisation so that you will not be blamed in any way if there is an issue."
Yugo thought hard. While doing so, he played with his long reddish hair for a moment and, with a sigh, resigned himself.
"I can't promise anything, but I'll talk to HQ myself."
Yugo closed his eyes.
He definitely didn't like the sound of this. But...
He shook his head, ignoring his personal feelings.
"As long as the civilians are safe and there are no major concerns, I think they will be favourable to your request." the reaper finally decided to say.
He stood up.
"All right! I must leave you for today, I have other things to do."
The mayor and his wife also stood up.
They accompanied him to the two large doors and returned inside.
***
In the plains of Elradine, Yugo was carefully examining the area he had spotted in the photo, even taking samples of grass and soil.
But something was wrong.
He tapped his external switch and brought up the photo.
'I thought so.'
Although everything in the image in front of him was the same as where he was standing, there was a gap in the list.
No trees or columns.
'Where did that shadow come from? A shapeshifter? I don't think so, otherwise we'd be dealing with a Lucido, but from what has been recorded, the silhouette was visible from the ruins. Or maybe a wyvern passed by ?'
He kept wondering for a few more moments, until a grumble was heard.
He stopped his mental monologue, his stomach growling too loudly to let him continue.
"Well, I'll find out sooner or later!"
Yugo pressed the button of his earpiece.
"Lucile, I need you to check something for me. Yeah... I'll send you the files."
After doing so, he stretched and resumed his walk towards the city.
***
In the inn where he had taken up residence, Yugo was sitting at a table in his room.
His plate was filled with a dish composed of beans, a piece of still-smoking glider deer thigh, a few vegetables, and all of it covered with a light sauce accompanied by a few slices of bread.
As he was salivating over his plate, Yugo raised his fork and with a quick movement, speared a piece of meat, some vegetables and a portion of beans, that he brought to his mouth.
The fork lodged on his tongue and Yugo was almost moved with joy at this taste of heaven.
He intended to take a second bite and bringt it to his mouth again, but as soon as the fork reached his lips, there was an explosion somewhere outside.
He turned his head in panic in the direction of the blast.
He stood up and, staring at his plate, growled.
'You're kidding me? Now? For real ?!'