Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

"By the way, who are the guys that are trying to get you?"

Ivor asked while stocking up on food rations. He had taken a runic storage unit containing packets of lamb jerky made of a ranked beast. He also stockpiled various potions. He had won a few precious potions inside Minerva's Utopia as rewards. But he needed to get his hands on regular potions nonetheless.

Layla was busy writing some stuff down in her book when she heard Ivor's question. She finished what she was doing and closed the book before laying down on her bed. She stared at the ceiling a bit to get her thoughts right before answering.

"Um… I don't know their identities exactly. I don't have time to pay attention to them. They are still far away from getting close to me after all. But I have my own ways to keep tabs on them.

They have someone in charge of them. He is named Oliver."

Ivor was about to pick another vial of potion from the potion shop. When he heard the name, he stopped and froze. That's because he had heard the name before. And he was sure he wasn't mistaking the person.

It was the name of one of the retainers Jason Renar had. He was very close to Jason, so he had met up with the guy too. The last time he met with Oliver was when he was forced to travel with Jason inside Purgatory.

Oliver was an Adept who had reached the solid mana core stage of the D-Rank. His real power lay in controlling various squads of Duke Arthur Renar.

"Arthur Renar!

Layla, you are being tracked by Arthur Renar's men. Oliver is his subordinate."

Ivor said to Layla, who opened her eyes in surprise. She had first thought that she was being tracked by someone because of the experiments she had conducted in passing.

But it turned out she was being followed by the subordinates of a man who had been followed by her and her Master Eliza. She listened to what Ivor knew about Oliver and his team with keen interest. She smiled lightly when he was done explaining.

"Heh! I was expecting that fool to act up. But not to this extent. It seems he is still looking for someone who can use the Seer array. Otherwise, I was very careful not to leave any traces of myself anywhere controversial.

That madman is unaware that the Seer array has its limitations. Especially when it is used on someone like me. He is about to drive his Seer madder one day at this rate."

Saying this, Layla sighed. She knew that Arthur had used the Seer array to track the Osan Woods butcher. It wasn't too difficult to guess that he had once again relied on it to find her now that she wasn't available for contact.

Layla was already expecting something like this. That's why she had taken many countermeasures against the Seer arrays. She had also kept herself from being directly involved in Eren's tasks. This was the reason why Arthur was unable to pinpoint her location even after making someone use their expertise in finding her.

Layla could do so many things to throw her pursuers off now that she had gotten additional information from Ivor. She wasn't scared of Oliver and the entire team he was with. If push came to shove, she would eliminate his entire crew in one go. But she didn't want to do something so dramatic. Something that would result in high-ranked entities getting involved in her affairs.

"Try to meet up with me as soon as you can. We need to plan a few things. I guess I need to relocate so that they won't get suspicious that we have designs on House Lancelot.

Let's be extra careful from now on since we know it would be Arthur's men we would have to fight against. We need to eliminate them cleverly. Damn it. I wish Eren was here. That guy knew how to handle this stuff better than anybody.

Anyway, we will have to deal with this problem ourselves. I'll contact you soon. Bye for now."

Layla said and quickly got up from her bed. If it was indeed Arthur's men following her, she couldn't take it easy anymore. The guy had the means and resources needed to corner her.

Layla first collected all her belongings from the room before breaking open a vial of a unique potion. It wasn't Potion of Innocence. But it would still do its job in keeping her identity mysterious for the most part.

Ivor hurried his shopping too. He then hired a unique colt for himself that was better than the average. He was interested in cornering Oliver too since it was because of him that he had gotten involved in the mess.

Ivor Osan was aware that Oliver was neither the root cause nor the only party involved in his misfortune. But he had to vent somehow. And Oliver was the right target for him to do so at this point.

'Oliver! You guys were part of the reason for me being labeled as the Osan Woods Butcher. I'll show you I can be much more than that when I see you.'

Ivor thought to himself and urged his colt to speed through the path. Meanwhile, Layla was nowhere to be found in the inn room she had hired for another week. It was as if she had just disappeared from the entire city.

***

"Sir Oliver, the readings from the array disk have changed all of a sudden. We can't even get the basic direction of the Homunculus we are tracking anymore."

Oliver was conducting his search for Layla when an old scholar came to report him. They were currently in the Lancelot mountain range, near an unnamed lake.

There were corpses of a bunch of mountain bandits lying not too far away from the unnamed lake. Oliver's men were examining these corpses. It looked like someone had experimented on them by using various potions. This was the first definitive clue Oliver had gotten regarding Layla.

He finally felt like he was getting close to his target. But it turned out that it was still as slippery as an eel. He smiled bitterly before saying something in passing.

"Lord Arthur is not going to like this."

Oliver looked at the old scholar and shook his head in disappointment. He then prepared himself to contact the Duke. Only he could set them on the right course.