The Extraordinary Gathering

Euphemia stepped forward and said, “It's Old Pelican.”

The bartender said, “Fine. You know the rules here, right?”

Euphemia nodded. “Of course.”

The bartender said, “Then follow me.”

He didn't care if War Freya and Euphy were newcomers. As long as they had an introduction and knew the rules, they could participate in the extraordinary gathering. That was simply how things worked here.

Without another word, the bartender stepped out from behind the bar and led them toward the back of the tavern. They arrived at a storage room of sorts, where rows of masks were lined up on shelves on both sides. “Pick any two,” he said.

War Freya scanned them. They were all bizarrely shaped, but their one common trait was that they were all incredibly ugly. Since that was the case, there wasn't much point in being picky. She grabbed a red mask adorned with a strange pattern, while Euphy picked a blue one.

The bartender then handed them two black robes and stepped aside. “Alright, the gathering starts in about ten minutes. Just head on inside.”

Inside? War Freya looked puzzled. The storage room was only this big; where was “inside” supposed to be?

But Euphy took her hand and walked straight toward the back wall of the storage room. The moment she touched it, she slipped right through.

Of course, it wasn't because Euphy had some wall-phasing ability, but because the wall itself was an illusion—it wasn't real.

Behind the wall lay a staircase leading downward. Small, blue occult arrays were drawn on the walls on either side, emitting a soft, white light to illuminate the path.

Euphemia said, “The organizer of this extraordinary gathering is an extraordinary of the Scholar Pathway. He's likely a Rank Four Doctor. These are all occult arrays drawn by him.”

It wasn't hard to understand why. If absolute newcomers like War Freya and Euphy could get in just by dropping a name, then this place was bound to be a mixed bag of all sorts of characters.

Trading under such circumstances would be impossible without a reliable appraiser. What if someone bought a fake? The Scholar Pathway was perfectly suited for the role of an appraiser, helping to verify whether the items for sale were genuine or counterfeit while taking a small transaction fee for himself.

War Freya said, “He's at the same level as you, Euphy. Doesn't that mean you could host your own extraordinary gathering too?”

Euphemia replied, “Theoretically, yes. But I'm not short on money, so I don't care about that little transaction fee. Besides, setting one up seems like a massive hassle. You have to find a venue, promote it in secret, and most importantly, constantly play a game of cat and mouse with the authorities. If you get caught, you're finished.”

After all, this was illegal, and it was the kind of activity the authorities cracked down on heavily.

War Freya thought for a moment and asked, “By the way, Euphy, how did you know about this place? It feels like you found this extraordinary gathering way too easily. Can't the Special Service find it too?”

Euphemia pouted. “Fufu, you don't actually think finding this place is easy, do you? Without an introduction, it's practically impossible to find out about it. It's just that I happen to know Old Pelican, so I knew about this place.”

After all, Euphy had lived in this city for quite a while before, working as a detective for a long time and interacting with many rogue extraordinaries. That was how she had learned of this place.

“On top of that, this extraordinary gathering changes locations every so often. I had to go out of my way to ask Old Pelican just to find out the latest location.”

As they talked, the two finally reached the bottom of the stairs. A square underground chamber, roughly fifty meters on each side, came into War Freya's view. The surrounding walls looked incredibly smooth and solid, and the faint, earthy scent of soil hung in the air.

War Freya took a quick look and whispered, “This place... doesn't feel like it was built by human hands.”

Euphemia said, “Indeed. This should be the work of the extraordinary ability to manipulate soil from the Path of the Earth under the Earth Pathway.”

This actually explained why the extraordinary gathering could change locations so frequently. With that ability, creating an underground space like this was no trouble at all.

War Freya asked, “Is there an Earth Pathway extraordinary among the gathering's organizers? No... could it be that the Doctor learned this extraordinary ability?”

After all, she had her Life Freya clone. She knew the situation within the Church of the Earth all too well. There was only one Rank Four Path of the Earth extraordinary in this city—the guy named Atticus, who called Life Freya “Mother.” And there was no way he was the organizer of this extraordinary gathering.

In the center of the square underground chamber stood a circular stone table, surrounded by a ring of square, cylindrical stones that served as chairs. As they conversed, Freya and Euphy randomly picked two seats and sat down.

As time passed, other figures arrived one after another, all wearing masks and clad in black robes that wrapped them up tightly.

There were four separate staircases around the underground chamber. Some of these people came down from the same staircase War Freya and Euphy had used, while others came from the other staircases, arriving from who-knows-where.

Finally, after a short while, a figure wearing a white mask and an unusual white robe arrived, flanked by two others in black robes. This individual was likely the organizer of this extraordinary gathering.

The organizer looked around and said, “One more person than last time, is it? Alright, time's up. Let's begin.”

More than last time? War Freya counted the attendees and saw that the chairs weren't even full. There were only about seventeen or eighteen people present, which was hardly a crowd.

The organizer said, “Everyone will take turns presenting their requests and the items they wish to sell. We'll start with you.”

He pointed to a rather tall, thin man sitting to War Freya's left, who was wearing a black mask with a protruding tongue. Seeing this, the man spoke up, “I'd like to post a request to have someone killed. He's a Law Pathway extraordinary. The reward is negotiable.”

Upon hearing this, another person wearing a mask of a blue-fanged wild boar asked, “What rank is he, roughly?”

The man in the protruding-tongue mask replied, “He should be Rank Two.”

The man in the fanged-boar mask said, “Rank Two? If he's of the Law Pathway, I should be able to handle him. What about the reward? How much can you offer?”

The man in the protruding-tongue mask said, “How about a hundred thousand?”

The man in the fanged-boar mask replied, “No, that's too little. The risk is too high.”

The man in the protruding-tongue mask hesitated. “Then... one hundred and twenty thousand? That's all the money I have.”

The man in the fanged-boar mask said, “One hundred and fifty thousand, minimum.”

Though their expressions were hidden, War Freya could hear the gritting of teeth in the protruding-tongue mask's voice. “Fine, it's a deal!”