"I don't just know them."
Elias looked at the shocked child before him and added silently in his heart: 'I've practically been victimized by them!'
He had nearly been sent to meet the Moon Lord because of them.
"I've even taken one out."
He spoke softly, but to Aaron, the words hit like a thunderclap.
The child's already pale face instantly went through a kaleidoscope of emotions.
"Alright, you'd better come clean now. Who are you, and how did you provoke these people?" Elias asked seriously.
"I need to reassess the risk level of this commission based on your information."
"Those were five members of the Mist Veil Society, including a Scale Three expert."
"This has gone beyond looking for someone."
"This is a rescue mission."
"Also, let me be clear about the ugly truth—"
Elias extended a finger and tapped it heavily on the table.
"If the situation becomes too dangerous and the commission cannot continue, the deposit is non-refundable!"
According to the Society of Freemen's notarized agreement, this commission with a total value of 200 gold crowns was divided into three parts: first, a deposit of 50 gold crowns.
Another 50 gold crowns would be paid upon establishing clues and finding the person, and the remaining 100 gold crowns would be paid once the person was safely brought back.
Right now, Elias already had those 50 gold crowns in notes tucked into his pocket.
Following the sacred and inviolable principle of "what's in my hand is mine," Elias felt he had to emphasize this point clearly.
Aaron was clearly choked up by this sudden shift into copper-scented greed.
However, he took a deep breath and lowered his voice.
"My name is Aaron Sorenstein."
"I'm from the Kingsbury District of Landon."
"Holy crap?!"
This exclamation didn't come from Elias, but from Old Ed in his mind.
"That's high nobility!" Old Ed's voice was filled with shock and the kind of excitement one felt when spotting a fat sheep.
"The Kingsbury District is the heart of Landon!"
"It's the financial center of the entire Kingdom of Velen!"
On the surface, Elias maintained his enigmatic expression, but his heart was also shaken by the kid's background.
However, rather than his wealth, Elias cared more about that surname.
Sorenstein... Sorenstein...
The name flashed like a bolt of lightning in the depths of his memory, giving rise to a sense of familiarity.
Where had he heard it before?
Seeing that Elias had no reaction to the title of "high nobility" and remained frowning in thought, Old Ed seemed to realize what he was thinking and immediately reminded him in his mind.
"Firth's room! That crazy woman."
Elias's pupils shrank violently.
His memory instantly flooded back.
The crazy woman imprisoned in the washroom of Firth's room that day.
'What was her name?' Elias asked urgently in his mind.
'Isha?' Old Ed wasn't entirely sure. 'It seemed to be that name.'
'That's right, Isha.'
The two quickly confirmed the name in their minds.
Damn it.
Elias felt a chill run down his spine.
How was this a simple search commission?
This was the edge of a massive whirlpool!
From the lighthouse to the Mist Veil Society, and now to this child from a noble family.
These three were tightly entwined by an invisible thread.
"Why is the Mist Veil Society hunting you?" Elias asked, keeping his composure.
Aaron's mood plummeted instantly.
"I don't know."
He shook his head, his eyes revealing a weariness and terror that didn't match his age.
"Starting half a month ago, they began capturing members of our family like demons crawling out of hell."
"It wasn't just me; it was my uncle, my cousin... the family is in total chaos."
"I followed Mr. Ford, a family servant, and managed to escape under my father's desperate protection."
"We didn't dare use official channels; we could only take a coal train all the way north."
At this point, Aaron looked up, a hint of confusion in his eyes.
"Before we parted, my father grabbed my shoulders and warned me over and over—stay far away from Moon Bay."
"Whatever you do, do not go near that place."
Elias's heart gave a heavy thud.
Stay away from Moon Bay? Of course he should.
That place was a massive powder keg right now, and Elias himself, as luck would have it, was the unlucky bastard sitting on that powder keg smoking mosquito coils.
But what was the connection between the Sorenstein family and Moon Bay?
Elias felt that ever since he had been inexplicably recruited to guard the lighthouse on the island, an invisible net seemed to be enveloping the entire Moon Bay region.
The capitalistic tentacles of Wayland Shipping, the cultist activities of the Mist Veil Society, the secret investigations of the Seventh Agency, and now the Sorenstein family from Landon was involved.
The water was getting deeper and deeper.
To be honest, if it weren't for the damn dream demon curse on him, he would want to pack up and run as far away as possible right now.
"When we first arrived in Hope County, we thought we were temporarily safe."
Aaron's voice interrupted Elias's thoughts as he continued narrating his ordeal.
"My servant, Mr. Ford, for safety's sake, left me in a public carriage while he went to a nearby market to buy some food and a change of clothes for me."
"I didn't expect that I would wait in the carriage for so long, until it was dark, and he never came back."
Aaron's voice began to tremble slightly.
"I was very scared, but I forced myself to stay calm."
"Afterward, I activated Spirit Vision and followed the spirituality traces Mr. Ford left behind to search for him."
"His traces led all the way to Miller's Lane and finally disappeared completely near an inconspicuous manhole cover."
"It was as if he had been swallowed by the earth."
Aaron frustratedly clutched his hair.
"I didn't think much of the manhole cover at first."
"Looking back now... he must have been captured."
Listening to Aaron's story, Elias felt a sense of absurdity.
He really couldn't imagine a group of cultists in long coats, engaging in mysterious worship, dragging a living person into a stinking sewer after kidnapping them.
Were they playing hide-and-seek or something?
Couldn't these Mist Veil Society people be a bit more high-class?
"Who is Isha Sorenstein to you?" Elias suddenly asked.
The question came without warning, like a scalpel precisely cutting open an abscess.
Aaron snapped his head up, clearly not expecting this man to know more than he imagined.
"Isha?"
"She's my sister. Her full name is Isabella Sorenstein."
Aaron's voice grew hurried.
"You know her?"
"Do you know where she is?"
"She disappeared a long time ago. My father always thought she had been murdered!"
Aaron looked at Elias with a trace of hope, his eyes like those of a drowning man grasping at a final straw.
Looking into those clear, anxious eyes, a thick sense of bitterness suddenly welled up in Elias's heart.
Should he deceive him? Or tell him the truth?
"I've only seen her."
Ultimately, he chose this ambiguous phrase, his tone so calm that not a ripple of emotion could be heard.
This wasn't a lie; it just concealed the cruel second half of the sentence.
At least for now, he didn't want to make it so clear.
In this desperate world, sometimes ignorance was a form of happiness.
The light in Aaron's eyes dimmed slightly, but it didn't disappear completely.
At least there was news; that was better than a confirmed death.
"By the way, Aaron."
Elias didn't want to linger on this heavy topic for too long, so he hurried to change the subject.
Anything, as long as it kept the kid from following up with more questions...
"Have you ever seen the pattern on the members of the Mist Veil Society?"
"What does it represent?"
Although the subject change was blunt, Aaron surprisingly didn't mind.
On the contrary, his expression turned serious at the mention of it.
"That pattern is called the 'Chalas Spiral'."
Aaron lowered his voice and used a finger dipped in wine to draw a crude sketch on the wooden table.
The lines were twisted and coiling, eventually converging into a bottomless black dot.
Just looking at this rough drawing, Elias felt a slight dizziness, as if the spiral were slowly turning, threatening to suck his gaze inside.
"This is a symbol created hundreds of years ago by a powerful ascetic."
"In mysticism, it symbolizes the dark side of the sea of consciousness, the abyss after the collapse of reason."
Aaron's voice was somewhat ethereal, carrying an aristocratic aria.
"The followers of the Mist Veil Society believe that the Seven Orthodox Gods of the current world are merely hypocritical shackles, and that chaos and madness are the true essence of the universe."
"They likely use this pattern to show that the Seven Orthodox Gods are untrustworthy; it's a declaration of blasphemy."
"Instead, they worship the Lord of Mists, who fell into the negative sea of consciousness and embraced chaos."
After speaking, Aaron wiped away the drawing on the table and looked at Elias as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Elias was stunned.
Wait, you actually know?! Is this the heritage of a great family?
Is this the gap between happy education and elite education?
'Old Ed, look at him!'
'He's a noble!'
'Their family's library is bigger than our family's ancestral graves!'
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