Back to the meeting room—
Duskiell was analyzing the structure of the east district street and narrow paths that someone could take, he looked at each hidden space that could be used as a hiding spot and also buildings that potentially be the most strategic hideout.
"This house in particular." He said as his finger pointed to a house in the map that was surrounded with other houses with only a narrow alleyway as its entrance.
"Do you think this is a storage room, or a house?"
Everyone except Duskiell gave it a thought with their mind and replied to him soon after.
"Hmm, it depends.. A warehouse would be my guess, but it could be an illegal house." Carlessa said, she was furrowing her eyebrows while she focused on the map.
"There's a lot of other buildings like that, that are surrounded with other houses and secluded, considering that East district is full of machinery, it'll be packed." Bentley added with his opinion.
And then, Harith suddenly had an assumption.
"Their hideout is definitely underground, and it's not in the sewer.. What if they're using shop or a tavern? Like our secret hideout."
"–That could be the case, whatever it is, we don$/ have a concrete answer yet." Duskiell nodded and goes back to pointing his finger to every surrounded houses in the district, including within the slums.
Just as they were about move on to the next topic, the four of them was lightly startled by the footsteps that came from behind them, it was Murph, Heimfher and Lena who came back from the other side of the room.
Duskiell saw Heimfher chewing on a human heart in his hand, his mouth was covered with blood and his eyes looked like he was disgusted with every bite, the sound Heimfher and Lena chewing on the human heart was loud enough to be heard by everyone thanks to the room's lack of windows and holes.
"Y- you okay? Heimfher.." Harith asked, the corner of his mouth twitched as he saw Heimfher looking like a sick man.
"I- im fine.." Heimfher replied, his words obviously doesn't match with his face.
'It tastes horrible!!.. Eugh! Do i have to eat this thing everytime i want to get stronger!?' He thought, his mind was fighting against the nauseatic feelings that he get from eating such 'food' with strange texture.
Eventually, Heimfher was down to his last bite, and he gulped it down like a champ, finishing two of the awakened hearts as he wiped his mouth with his coat.
"Blegh.." He said.
Heimfher's funny face invited laughter to the room as Carlessa and the others found Heimfher to be quite eccentric.
"How is it? First time being a cannibal– Atleast you're better than when Harith and Bentley first ate an awakened heart." Carlessa said while she chuckled at the memory of the past.
Then, Duskiell abruptly warned Heimfher to focus.
"Pay attention now, don't lose your focus, you'll experience some light headache."
And just like he said, right after Heimfher was done eating the two human hearts in his hands, he immediately felt surreal, it's as if the world around him started to rotate, and he struggled to find his balance.
"W- what.. Ugh!" Heimfher grunted as the headache attacked his brain.
He held on to the table and tried to keep standing, until in an unexpected timing, his body emitted a faint glow, and a wind breeze formed in his body that flew in all directions.
Heimfher saw countless sparkles flying upwards from his foots, he noticed that his hand are glowing, when he was about to ask his teams for help, they only gave him a stare, Bentley even gave him a thumbs up instead of helping him.
Woosh!
A few seconds passed, and Heimfher began to feel his headache slowly subsiding along with the flying sparkles and his glowing body fading.
Once everything went back to normal, a man voice suddenly reverberated in Heimfher's ears like a divine trumpet, it was a voice that Heimfher had heard before, a voice from a being above him.
"Stand proud, and let your spirits burn brightly.—
"Huh?.. You ate two?– Uhm.. Stand proud and let your spirits burn brightly."
'Ignis?..' Heimfher said to himself, that voice was undoubtely came from Ignis, the God of Fire, but this time he was nowhere to be seen.
'What the fuck was that? Why did he went out of character..'
It's as if he had just given him a telepathic message.
Heimfher regained his control over his body, and his head soon turned to see Lena who seems to be still in the middle of the process that Heimfher just went through.
Before he could catch a breath, Heimfher was then asked by Duskiell who was curious with his experience.
"So? Did you hear Ignis's voice?" He said.
It took a second for Heimfher to answer.
"Yeah, he said 'Stand proud, and let your spirits burn brightly.'" Heimfher replied, he was a bit confused as to why he heard Ignis voice, but he assumed that it may be a sign that his connection to Ignis became stronger.
"That means you now have stronger connection with Ignis." Murph suddenly responded, confirming Heimfher's assumption.
"You should be able to use your fire magic more freely now."
After his successful upgrade, Heimfher focuses his attention to Lena as her body tumbled to multiple direction and forced Heimfher to hold her still.
"Are you okay?!" Heimfher asked.
He thought Lena wouldn't answer, but then she unexpectedly spoke.
"I.. I heard the goddess's voice.."
"She did it aswell, nice." Duskiell murmured as he briefly whistled.
It seems like Lena was also successful in strengthening her connection with the Goddess of Life, Vitassia.
Heimfher and Lena went back to their normal state a few moments later, and except from their bloody mouth and dirty coats, they were all fine and sane.
The room was quiet, that is until Murph went out of his way to talk to everyone except Heimfher and Lena.
"I have some news." He said while putting one of his hand to his pocket as if trying to grab something.
Murph then raised his other hand to reveal the glass bottle that he was holding to Duskiell, Carlessa, Harith, and Bentley.
"What's that?.." Carlessa asked, she felt curious with the strange light that was inside the bottle.
"Some kind of a.. White firefly?" Bentley added.
When no one seems to know what it was, Murph had to give the answer to them.
"This is a soul." He said.
"A fairy soul to be exact."
Murph's words instantly startled the four of them as they never expected it to be something as unusual as a soul.
"A soul?!" Duskiell replied, his mouth was twitching in disbelief.
"Hey hey, what is this.. Where did you get something like that.."
"Isn't fairies that tiny humanoid magical creature who lived in forests?" Harith added, his face was similar to what Duskiell was showing.
Despite everyone's confusion and question, Murph remained calm as moments later, he started to tell everything.
"This isn't the only thing." He said before pulling his hand from his pocket and placing a dried up flesh shaped like a human heart, it had almost decomposed, as if whoever found this heart in the first place stole it from a rotting corpse.
The heart was definitely smaller than a normal human heart, that's why it was fit to be put inside of Murph's pocket, however the ominous feelings and aura it brought to the room was nothing normal.
"Ugh.. What the fuck– Why do i suddenly get a goosebumps.." Carlessa said, she pointed how her body abruptly went cold as soon as Murph placed the dried heart on the table.
"Is this related to the cultists?.." Bentley asked.
Surprisingly, Murph was delighted to hear Bentley's question as he was able to guess Murph's intention, he then responded with the continuation of his speech earlier.
"That's right.. This is a Fairy Soul, and a Ghoul's Heart, you know what a Ghoul are.. Living rotten corpse that mindlessly kill anything in its path.. These are the items that Dan found and retrieved from the captured cultist of the Dead Deity Order—
"Despite that cultist being tortured, Dan told me that he was really resilient and won't reveal anything about the Order, and when the cultist was asked about these items, only replied with threats, saying that this city will turn into ruins—
"They also tried to use an artifact called 'The Ring of Truth' that forced its wearer to speak nothing but the truth, but he somehow managed to find a loophole by giving vague answer that was technically true but holds no useful information in it—
"We don't know why those cultists have these items and what are their intention with it, but im sure that they're planning to do something big.. Dan and the officers checked it, and it turns out, this Fairy Soul costs almost 2 thousand golds in the underground market—
"And the Ghoul's Heart costs a thousand golds—
Duskiell interrupted Murph with his shout.
"TWO THOUSANDS?!"
'Pfftt.. He had the same reaction as me..' Heimfher quietly thought to himself and laughed.
Then, Murph continued.
"What i want to say is.. Stay alert, now that we know those Dead Deity cultists are here for an item, they will most likely come back to steal it from us.. Who knows if they'll publicly attack the bureau, we may have skilled combatants and aura user, but infront of an advanced awakened or even elite awakened—
"They will struggle."
Murph finally went silent, along with the room as everyone had no words to say.
They realized that, the bureau might have made a mistake by poking a bear's den.
"Shit.. I hate to admit it, but with our current force, facing all of the Dead Deity Order is just a not the best idea.." Duskiell said.
"Tch.. I can't believe i have to agree.." Carlessa added, the two of them had their lips bitten to their teeths.
"We should tell the mayor about this." Bentley suggested.
"And maybe, we could work together with the knights from the military and noble factions."
His suggestion was met with another silence as even Murph was confused with his next decision, the atmosphere inside the room began to turn gloomy as everyone realized the grave situation.
But among the silence, Murph suddenly shrugged his head off and changes the topic.
"Duskiell, have you found their hideout?" Murph abruptly asked as he put both of his hands into his pockets.
Duskiell who was having a hard time thinking, then heard Murph's question, he shook his head before focusing his vision to the map infront of him.
"I have some possible places– One is this place, in the Northwest side of the east district, this building looks strategically perfect for a hiding spot, it's a small area, enough for one living room, and enough for a basement—
"Next is this one, in the eastern east, behind this building, there's a small building that stood in the middle of two narrow alleyways—
"This is the last one, in the slums area, well.. If im being honest, the entire slums district is a perfect hiding spot, but this one in particular, i think it's worth a shot."
Murph slightly nodded at Duskiell's recommendation, he observed all the spots that Duskiell was pointing at and gave himself some time to think.
"Hmm.. I see, it's certainly worth trying, if we can't find it, we can ask around—
"Let's get going now."
With Murph's order, everyone in the team nodded and Heimfher began to prepare to set out, he had to clean up his face and coat first, but after that, he and the others then went to the east district for the second time.