Chapter 260: Aura of Ruin

Stephanie POV

She let the fake smile slide from her face as they finished up celebrating and were getting ready to hit the sack.

She was angry. More angry than she has been at one of her teammates in a while. It took her using her focus skill to calm her emotions.

They were on a mission, so it would not be proper if she freaked out in front of everyone. But she was still going to get some answers and depending on his response, she would decide what to do next.

Luckily, she knew exactly his routine and knew that they would have some space to talk without any interruptions.

She walked with firm steps toward his back, where he was watching the stars with a calm gaze before deploying a sound barrier around them.

“What the fuck was that, George?” She asked softly, her anger simmering just below the surface.

“What was what?”

“Don’t play dumb. I am too pissed off to play these games with you right now,” she gritted through her teeth.

He must have realized she was one second away from blowing up and gave her an ashamed look. “It was a stupid mistake,” he admitted.

“Mistake?! You could have gotten him killed,” she said furiously.

“I know.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“Because I had to see what he would do,” he said, raising his voice slightly, letting some of his frustrations leak out.

“What do you mean by ‘you had to’?” She asked.

“Are you telling me you have not been at least the littlest curious about him?” He responded with a knowing look in his eyes.

She knew exactly what he was talking about but she couldn’t support his actions. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to risk his life like that. You know how dangerous one of those blasts can be.”

“I was pretty certain that even if it connected, it wouldn’t have hurt him that badly,” he said too assured in his assumption for her liking.

She had a disbelieving expression on her face and had to restrain herself from punching the man.

“And what gave you that confidence, huh?”

“His body enhancement is powerful,” he explained with no hesitation.

“Yes, powerful for someone his age. But not against a dangerous monster like that.”

George laughed at that. “You really think that? You really think Julius was using his body skill at full power?”

She paused at that.

No, I actually do not know that, she admitted to herself.

“That still doesn’t make what you did right. Even if he wouldn’t be too badly hurt, he would have still been injured deliberately by you.”

“I know, I messed up big time. I wasn’t thinking properly. I am just… I don’t trust him.”

“What? Why?”

George sighed. “You know about the attacks on House Easten’s operations, you’re telling me that you don’t think there is something fishy about them?”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Oh, so you’re saying that Julius is working with the people who have been robbing and attacking these transports?” She asked sarcastically. However, when he didn’t immediately respond and just looked downward she let out a choking laugh.

“You do! You really think that! He’s a kid George!”

“You’ve sensed his aura, Steph! You’re telling me that someone with that weak of an aura is capable of taking out two Null Fiends, without any help?”

“So he has an item that artificially restricts his aura, so what? That doesn’t mean he’s a spy for a bunch of criminals,” she said dismissively. She already knew that the boy was stronger than his weak aura would indicate. His mana control was too elegant not to be, so she wasn’t surprised.

“He has no item. He’s doing it manually,” George said meaningfully.

Stephanie froze at that. She knew exactly what George meant by that. Being able to restrict your aura was impressive, it was a sign of a skilled practitioner. But something along the lines of what Julius was doing was absurd. The boy hadn’t just been restricting his aura for a few hours, he had been doing it for several days.

“You’re sure it’s not an item?” She asked slowly.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Not entirely, but there are too many signs of natural fluctuation within his aura to be an item. I have been watching for the past few days. The only way it could be possible is if the item is extremely powerful and thus expensive,” George said assuredly.

That is something a bit more worrisome. Skilled people, especially assassins could hide their aura for hours, but to restrict one’s aura for that long would already be massively uncomfortable and practically impossible without an Authority or Domain to help do so.

“Would you be able to do something like that?” She asked a question she already knew the answer to.

George shook his head. “Not a chance. Maybe several hours or a day if I was under a lot of pressure, but a few days? No way.”

She pressed her lips together. That would mean that Julius had been keeping his aura under heavy restriction for days without letting anything slip out.

What if George is right? What if there is a nefarious reason why Julius came along with the caravan? It is weird that such a young boy was given permission to come along with them, she tried to process everything.

However, she gave herself a mental jolt and reminded herself to not make assumptions. This was still a boy at the end of the day and she wasn’t going to write him off just because he was hiding some secrets.