CHAPTER 67: HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

It’s been a week since Luke and the others had arrived at Frostbane. They have been on continuous lookout for the dark wizards and any clues on the society of endless night. But nothing had been found at all, instead, the number of missing cases kept on increasing.

Anna was investigating along with Bren and Fred. Ruby and Layla had formed a team and were on the lookout in the market. Noah was given the region for investigation, which he was best in, the black market.

On the other hand, Shane was Stuck with Luke in the enforcer station.

Being the chief officer of the internal securities of the kingdom, which was directly under the king, Anna used her authority to keep Luke stuck inside the station, asking him to report her on the details of the missing cases.

Shane was in turn stuck with him. His excitement of roaming the city and the markets, down the drain.

They have been reading the files on the missing cases from not just Frostbane, but even a few cases from Thornville and Mistvale, so as to decipher any pattern or clues.

But the truth was that Anna just wanted to keep Luke away from any risk and danger, and Shane burned with Luke for that.

Just then a scrawny man entered the station, he hadn’t cut his beard since a few days and it had grown uneven. His hair disheveled, dark circles under his eyes and his clothes dirty. His eyes had a dead look in them and had swollen from crying a lot.

"He’s here again." Shane said to Luke who was going through the files.

Luke lifted his head up for a look.

A sigh escaped him, he felt sad for that man, he has been coming to the station daily. When he first came, he was crying and bawling his eyes out, desperately urging the enforcers to find his pregnant wife, who had gone missing from the market when he went to get something, leaving her for a few minutes.

He had a well built body and a handsome appearance back then, but after a week, his condition worsened. He was drowned in pain, sadness and guilt of not urging her to go with him, rather than leaving her alone.

"Did you find her? I looked everywhere, but she’s nowhere to be found!" the man asked one enforcer in a lifeless voice, as he took a seat at his table.

"I’m sorry Adam! We’re trying our best, but there’s still no lead." The enforcer knew the man, feeling pity he said softly, saddened at his state.

"Can you send one field enforcer with me to the site! Maybe something concrete escaped our eyes, we can confirm it again!"

"There are no enforcers free at the moment! More than fifty missing cases has been filed in this week! They are already in the field! And we’ve checked it already. Nothing was found there!"

"How can you be so sure? We need to look one more time! How would she vanish in thin air? There’s definitely something there!"

"I’m sorry Adam!" the enforcer shook his head in helplessness as he apologized.

"But...please...please...s-she’s pregnant...she has a weak body, s-she needs to take the nutritional fluid timely; it’s been a week...how is she...what has she been eating...I’m going mad with worry...please find her...please!!!" Adam banged his head on the table. He wailed as tears soaked the table cloth below.

The enforcer looked away as he felt a lump in his chest, making him emotional as the wailing was conveying the pain and grief Adam was in.

Luke couldn’t endure anymore. He stood up and moved towards Adam. Shane was surprised seeing Luke move towards the man, but he immediately followed him without a word.

"I’ll help you!" Luke said, looking down at the wailing Adam.

"What are you doing!? Your sister will get furious if she knows of this!" Shane whispered to Luke.

"We’ve been rotting here from a week! At least let us do something productive! Maybe this investigation could give us a lead!"

"Mr. Luke, you can’t! We have strict orders from Lady Anna to not let you go in the field!" the enforcer exclaimed out.

"I’m not an enforcer! I don’t follow her orders! Don’t worry! I won’t trouble you! I’ll tell elder sister that I volunteered for this!"

"But, I will still..."

"Really? Will you really come with me?" Adam looked up at Luke, hope reignited in his eyes as he asked.

"Yes! We’ll take a look at the site. Lead the way!"

******

Luke stood at the end of the alley, where the road ends with a wall in front. Shane and Adam stood behind him as he moved his eyes around but didn’t find anything unusual, nor did he sense any dark mana.

Amber prana then flowed into his hands and Luke formed some patterns with his fingers. He blinked his eyes once, and when he opened them, two runic magic circled appeared in his pupils.

His vision changed completely, the colorful world vanished and everything looked Three dimensional in black, with the edges and outlines of the objects, be it the building edges, stones, roads, human figure, and all the matters, their outlines appeared in white.

The only color visible was the energy of the world, being it mana, prana or the dark energies.

He turned around and saw outlines of two figures and three mana circles glowing in the heart region of the skinny one and nothing on the other, except the mana stones in his arms and legs.

Shane had not only repaired his mechanical arm, but he had made one more and also two mechanical boots for stability, as the recoil would always send him flying.

During the week Luke was with his sisters, Anna didn’t allow him to move out for missions and would always find some reason to hold him back, be it seeing the markets or spending time as family.

Since Luke couldn’t move out, he tried researching magic spells with the concept and theories he got a look at in Ames’s fifth volume of the samsara book.

After many trials and errors, Luke finally managed to make two original spells of his, one being the eye of revelation he was using right now.

Using the eyes of revelation, Luke scanned the area when suddenly he saw mana in the form of black smoke coming out from the wall behind them towards the left.

He moved in front of the wall, and saw the smoke coming out from it. He moved his fingers into a different pattern as more prana flowed towards his eyes, the runic circle rotated fast and slowly, a reddish black portal gate appeared on the wall from where the smoke was coming out.

"Bingo!" Luke’s lips spread into a grin.