"Were you with Neo?" Felix suddenly asked with narrowed eyes.
Jack was surprised by the accuracy of her guess.
"I was. How did you know, though?"
"Venyth told me," Felix replied. The snake spirit, visible only to her, coiled lazily around her shoulders. "Why did he leave without meeting us?"
"He said he was busy."
His words dampened the group’s mood.
The warmth of the food now seemed less comforting.
It was clear Neo was involved in something dangerous again.
He hadn’t met them because he didn’t want them to worry.
If it had been before, Felix and the others would have been angry.
They would have demanded to know why Neo hadn’t told them what he was doing and insisted they could help.
But that wasn’t possible anymore.
They were too weak to stand alongside Neo.
If they tried to help him, they would only become a burden.
The realization stung.
It left a bitter taste in their hearts.
Jack noticed the heavy atmosphere and decided to change it, forcing a grin onto his face.
"I don’t think it’s something dangerous," he said. "Remember Professor Anna? She’s also on leave." fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm
Felix’s eyes flicked back to him.
"What are you trying to say?"
"Morrigan told us Neo met with her. He bought her a plushie," Jack said with mischievous expression. "Hehe, I bet something is going on between those two.
"They must’ve gone somewhere together. Somewhere they can…"
Jack trailed off.
His knowing smile stretched wider.
His implication caused the others to exchange awkward, confused glances.
A faint flush of embarrassment crept onto the faces of Sean and Nathan.
Arthur cleared his throat, breaking the silence.
"I don’t think Professor Anna would be involved with a student. She doesn’t seem like someone who would do that."
"No, I think Jack is right. Those two always had this weird air around each other.
"Also, you might not have noticed, but Professor Anna was always biased in Neo’s favor," Felix said and then thought, ’Even during the S-rank mission slot competitions, Professor Anna went against the principal and took our—Neo’s—side.’
The group began to whisper among themselves excitedly.
The tension from earlier melted away, replaced by the lighthearted distraction of gossip.
Jack, pleased with himself, eagerly added more fuel to the fire.
His gestures exaggerated as he recounted other "clues" to support his theory.
He knew Neo was going to absolutely thrash him later.
He decided to leave the future problems for the future him and have fun now.
They suddenly stopped talking when Morrigan put the spoon down with force.
It made a loud noise.
"I’m full. I’ll go train now."
Morrigan left without another word.
The group was left in a stunned silence.
"No way…. No way…." Felix muttered with a shocked face. Her wide eyes darted towards the door. "Don’t tell me she is jealous—"
"That’s just your imagination. This is Morrigan we are talking about. Even the reason she became Neo’s fiancée was for food," Clara said.
She looked at Morrigan’s disappearing back and continued,
"I think she is worried her free-food fiancé ticket will disappear if the news about Professor Anna and Neo is true. There is no way she is jealous."
"Why not? Maybe she had a crush on him."
"No sane person will have a crush on that madman," Clara rolled her eyes. "Their first meaningful interaction was Neo grabbing Morrigan and jumping down from a cliff."
"Y-yeah," Felix smiled, recalling that day.
…
Neo felt a chill crawl up his spine.
"Why do I feel like someone is talking bad about me?"
He glanced around before he shook his head, dismissing the thought.
He focused on the task in front of him.
The small shop in front of him had a flickering neon sign above the door.
He entered and bought a super extra-large singing set along with tens of thousands of songs downloaded on the device.
The shopkeeper gave him a strange look but said nothing, quickly completing the transaction.
The Angel inside his Shadow Space, Velkaria, complained almost immediately when he gave them to her.
’The material of the music set is not made from Void-resistant material. It will break soon.’
"It’s time you learnt how to control your Void affinity. You are always blasting it in all directions like there is no tomorrow," Neo said. "If you can’t do it and the music set breaks, I won’t buy more for you."
’Fuck you, bastard. I asked for something that would entertain me. Not a training device,’ Velkaria shouted at irritably.
"I’ll take it back if you don’t want it."
’Fuck off.’
Neo left the Shadow Space after settling the matter with Velkaria.
He chuckled as he thought how the Angel would be caring about a device that was not even one-tenth of its size.
He started to move towards the southernmost point of the continent.
The Shadow Jump Spell allowed him to travel at high speed, but it wasn’t enough.
An hour later, he stopped.
"This isn’t going to work. At my current speed, it will take me a few days to reach the destination."
Neo didn’t have time to waste.
He needed to be fast if he wanted to save Elizabeth.
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