[Vol. 8] Chapter 78: The Mantis Stalks the Cicada, Unaware of the Dragon Behind
Although Ayla was a scholar, as a member of the Lightborn Tribe, she had already lived for more than two hundred years. In the past, and even now, she took on adventuring jobs to earn money for her research. She was definitely not a weak woman who couldn’t defend herself.
In fact, she was far from weak, she was very capable in battle. Even in the Adventurers’ Guild of the Angel City, she ranked among the top. The Lightborn Tribe had much better natural abilities than normal humans. They didn’t even need to train to have the kind of strength most people could never reach in their entire lives.
As for those clumsy people secretly following her, they had no chance of escaping Miss Ayla’s sharp eyes.
About twenty meters to her left, at a corner, there was a woman pretending to browse a street stall. Was she stupid? That was the third time she had acted like she was shopping the moment Ayla turned her head. No one follows someone for this long and keeps pretending to shop without ever buying anything.
Besides those two, there were five others following her, all using different but equally poor methods to hide their presence. While people of the Lightborn Tribe often stood out and got curious or admiring looks from strangers, these stares were clearly full of intent, and even danger. Ayla could easily tell the difference.
Not far ahead, a team of Holy Knights was patrolling the streets. But now was not the time to ask them for help.
The people behind her were just keeping their distance. Even though Ayla knew something was off, the Holy Knights wouldn’t understand without solid proof.
A normal girl might be able to ask the knights for protection. But Ayla wasn’t worried about her own safety. The people following her clearly weren’t planning to attack her in public. They only wanted to watch, follow, and maybe gather information.
The problem was that Ayla was heading to a place she really didn’t want these shady people to know about.
She had to think of a way to shake them off… or maybe get rid of them?
Still walking calmly down the street, the scholar secretly studied her surroundings. She quickly gave up the idea of beating them all up and putting them to sleep.
No, that wouldn’t work.
There were too many people around. If all five of them were in one place, she might have had a chance to deal with them quickly. But right now, the streets were too crowded, and the tails were spread out in different directions. It would be nearly impossible to get rid of them without alerting the guards.
Miss Ayla did not want to be hunted down by the Holy Knights for causing public chaos. Even though she had some connections in the Holy City, being from the Lightborn Tribe didn’t mean she could do whatever she wanted.
Sigh… What a pain…
As Ayla struggled with the decision to give up on today’s plan and just go home, or to try something else to lose her followers, something strange suddenly happened behind her.
She was startled, almost stopping in her tracks.
“!?”
Wait a second, that guy hiding at the corner. He just vanished?!
Yes, he had literally disappeared.
What those foolish followers didn’t know was that the moment Ayla had noticed something was wrong, she had already secretly “tagged” each of them using her Lightborn Tribe’s special bond with light elements.
She had controlled a small amount of light to stick to them. No matter how well they disguised themselves, changed positions, or tried to sneak around, to Ayla they looked like people with giant glowing signs over their heads. Even in a crowd, she could spot them easily by their presence alone.
But just a moment ago, one of the people who had been clearly marked by her light-element tag suddenly vanished, completely gone, as if they had evaporated into thin air. Even the light element she had placed on them disappeared at the same time, right there on the street!
She had been keeping her full attention on that person the whole time, yet she didn’t notice how they managed to disappear.
What was going on?
On the surface, Miss Ayla showed no reaction. But inside, her heart was already in chaos.
Although she had been annoyed by these sneaky stalkers for a while, deep down she had never considered them a real threat. Compared to the dangerous situations she had faced while uncovering shocking secrets in the past, these small-time followers were like silly kids playing games.
That’s exactly why she had turned down the Cecilia family’s offer to help and chose to deal with them alone.
But now…
This was the first time, since that incident, that she felt things might be getting out of control. And for a scholar like her, who was full of curiosity, this kind of “unknown” was the hardest thing to accept.
She didn’t understand what had just happened, or what these people were planning. Ayla forced herself not to turn around and investigate right away. Instead, she kept walking calmly, while focusing harder than ever on the rest of the stalkers. She wanted to see what they were really up to this time.
She had a strong feeling that the first person’s disappearance wasn’t just a coincidence.
And sure enough, just a few seconds later, another one of the stalkers disappeared as well.
It was the woman who had been pretending to shop and didn’t know Ayla had already seen through her act. Right there in broad daylight, in the middle of a busy street… she suddenly vanished too!
A cold chill, like an electric shock, ran through Ayla’s entire body.
What in the world was happening?!
This was a crowded street in the Holy City. People were walking everywhere. A full-grown person just vanished into thin air, but it seemed like no one noticed anything wrong. Even the owner of the stall she had been standing in front of only looked around in slight confusion, as if wondering if he’d seen something wrong. Then he just gave up and went back to normal.
After all, if you're walking down the street and suddenly think you saw someone disappear, most people would assume they imagined it. Unless it affected a lot of people and was extremely obvious. Otherwise, who would start thinking about something so strange and unbelievable?
But Ayla had been paying close attention, and she could clearly sense the strange and powerful force behind these disappearances. Then, she noticed something else that was strange.
At first, she thought the stalkers were using this method to hide again after realizing they had been discovered. But now, it didn’t seem that way…
She hadn’t been sure when the first one disappeared at the corner. But after seeing the second, more obvious person vanish in plain sight, she noticed the remaining three stalkers starting to panic.
That could only mean one thing, they probably didn’t expect this to happen either…