85 Interesting

Oppressive silence, that was all that was left in the room, soon, the music turned back on, but the atmosphere remained gloomy, as no one spoke.

Even Mai couldn't help but tremble a bit at the thought of defying the Silence, just as she raised her head to see what Aiden thought she heard his voice.

"Waiter!"

He called out to a waiter who stood at the edge of the room while raising his glass and asked with a chilling smile, "Can I get a refill?"

Aiden's voice echoed in the room so vividly that it was heard by all, his words attracted gazes from all over the room, but he ignored them.

The waiter, stunned by being called in such an atmosphere hurriedly brought Aiden another glass of champagne.

Taking the glass from the tray, Aiden couldn't help but ask, "What is this made of? It's a fine drink."

Aiden wasn't joking, he was actually feeling the effects of this alcohol, even though his soul energy absorbed the hell energy immediately, his body had yet to adapt to it.

"It's made from barrier flowers sir," the waiter said with a smile before walking away.

Hearing that it was made of barrier flowers made Aiden raise a brow, "no wonder it's so effective," he thought to himself.

Barrier flowers fermented so quickly that it made no sense, it took about a minute for a barrier flower to fully ferment forming something called an essence, if a human drank this essence they would die from hell energy shock, so they would dissolve it by putting a drop in some water or alcohol, to make it unbelievably potent.

A drop of that essence was enough to turn a full barrel of water into pure alcohol.

Unlike humans, Contractors could handle more than a drop, but even then only ten at most, any more would be an attempt at self-poisoning.

As Aiden thought of this, he took another sip of the campaign, and as he did this, Landon's voice sounded out, "An unknown energy has invaded your body, the energy has been devoured your soul energy has recovered by 3%"

Just when Aiden was about to take another sip, he heard Landon's voice again, "an unknown substance has invaded your body, you are now immune to the substance."

"What the fuck," Aiden cursed in his mind, feeling frustrated.

"Haha," Landon chuckled at Aiden's frustration before adding, "This won't get old."

Ignoring Landon, Aiden took another sip from his glass, and noticed that it was bland, tasting this he sighed and dropped the glass.

"Are you crazy?" Mai's voice suddenly sounded out, her tone hushed as she attracted Aiden's gaze.

Feeling confused, Aiden asked, "What?" His brows raised as he waited for an explanation.

Seeing Aiden's curious expression, Mai felt like slapping her forehead, her brows furrowed as she explained. "Everyone is in a sober moon, why did you shout like that, are you trying to get beat up?"

Hearing Mai's question, Aiden couldn't help but chuckle as he thought to himself. "Who in this room is a match for me?"

Although he thought that, he didn't say it out loud, instead he whispered to Mai, his voice low as he said. "You know, I feel more comfortable in a dreadful and sorrowful atmosphere like this, compared to the festive and amiable feeling of just now, this atmosphere feels more genuine."

Hearing this, Mai felt her eyes twitch as she said to Aiden, "Let's leave."

Saying this, she stood up and walked towards the door. Watching Mai leave, Aiden let out a breath as he said while standing up as well, "The drinks have gone bad so there's no use staying here."

As Aiden followed behind Mai, his arms in his pocket, he glanced at Bruce's group and noticed that they were leaving as well.

He noted the expressions on each of their faces, Felix had his brows furrowed as he supported Bruce with his shoulders, Finely who supported Bruce on the right looked downcast, Ethan was expressionless and seemed to be in deep thought, while Blessing, Serena, Olivia, Noah, Eloise, Thalia and Lila just looked saddened.

Aiden felt his heart sink, he wanted nothing more than to go there and show his condolences, even though he could barely remember their names, and even though he barely knew Arlet, the fact that they knew Bruce was more than enough for Aiden.

More than that he had shared some part of his journey with Felix, Ethan, and Serena, and all of them had risked their necks to look for him in the abysmal enclave.

Sighing once more, Aiden walked away catching up to Mai as they moved out of the room.

----------

(Somewhere in the Silence Headquarters.)

Meanwhile, at a dark office somewhere on the higher floors of the Silence, one could find a woman wearing a white mask watching Aiden and Mai leave the room.

This woman was Three Face, and she had watched the final part of the initiation from beginning to end.

Switching off her computer, she thought to herself, "he showed no reaction, fascinating."

Saying this she brought out her phone from her pocket, and after typing a few icons, her hand froze over the call icon of a certain contact, it read: Miss Lotus.

Dropping her phone down, Three Face muttered to herself. "I don't think Aiden's return is enough reason to call Miss Lotus, she could be at a vital part of her mission. Ahh, why do I have to be stuck babysitting when everyone else gets to go outside the shelter."

Saying this, she brought out her phone, as she mused, "Maybe I'll find the hardest mission available in the shelter to keep myself busy."

-------

(Jonathan's rented room.)

Meanwhile, back at Jonathan's rented room, Mai was busy relaying the events that had taken place at the initiation.

As soon as Mai finished, Jonathan exclaimed, "Wow, that's really something."

Aiden on the other hand sat on the bed observing, Jonathan's expression, he found the way Jonathan reacted strange so he couldn't help but say. "You seem surprised."

"Of course I'm surprised," Jonathan exclaimed before adding. "I know about the whole killing spies thing, but that is rare, we get a spy at least once in five years, but you're telling me these many people were killed."

Hearing this piece of news made Aiden narrow his eyes, his brows deeply furrowed as he sat up.

Seeing Aiden's reaction, both Jonathan and Mai glanced at each other wondering what could be on Aiden's mind.

Unable to hold in her curiosity, Mai asked, "Aiden, what's got you so rattled?"

Aiden was silent for a while, before saying. "No I'm fine, I just feel like something big is brewing here, I mean there's the disturbance at the tournament, the decision to do the whole enclave thing differently, making it more dangerous than before, now we find out that we have such a large amount of spies in our midst, don't you find it disturbing?"

Hearing this, Jonathan also narrowed his eyes, thinking briefly before shaking his head. "We have no proof of any connection, for all we know, we could just be having a bad year."

"Aiden so what's your plan for tomorrow?" Mai suddenly asked changing the topic as she scrolled through her phone.

Turning to Aiden as well, Jonathan gave him a look, clearly interested in his response, and Aiden after thinking about it for a little while said. "We leave the Silence first thing tomorrow, it seems as though we'll have to crash at your place Jonathan because we'll have to attend Medusa's little party in the evening."

Hearing this Jonathan nodded, he was the only one who lived in Twilight City among the three, and Mai didn't seem to have a problem with it as well.

With their plans for tomorrow set in stone, Aiden leaned on the wall as he operated his phone.

He had never owned such an expensive device, it was light and had a slit at the bottom meant for his identity card.

It had a fingerprint sensor at the back, meaning that his phone could only be unlocked with his fingerprint.

The part Aiden found most fascinating was the fact that this device didn't need to be charged, when he discovered this Aiden's first instinct was to use his energy eyes, but even then he couldn't tell how it worked.

Unlocking the phone, Aiden noticed a bunch of messages from friends and loved ones, he also had a lot of missed calls.

Typing on the messages, Aiden noticed that most of them were from Bruce and Mary, he also got some calls from his coworkers and bosses, but Aiden didn't mind.

Opening his messages, Aiden scrolled as he read its contents one by one:

[Mary: Aiden, you're heartless, don't you even have the balls to talk to me.]

[Mary: Aiden, please I called you, can you call me back?"]

[Mary: Aiden, are you there?]

[Mary: Where have you been? I thought you were dead. Why am I looking at you right now?"]

[Bruce: Bro, how are you still alive, everyone has been looking for you.]

Sighing, Aiden scrolled downwards ignoring the messages from Mary and Bruce and soon he came across something new.

[Unknown: Your subscription to Hot Girls Monthly has expired, would you like to renew?]

"What the fuck is hot girls monthly?" Landon's voice suddenly sounded out in Aiden's head but Aiden just ignored as he scrolled.

[Jameson (Blocked number): Aiden we couldn't find you, at our get together, why couldn't you make it?"]

[Jameson (Blocked number): Aiden, it's been a while, you might not remember me, but I still remember you, I was the captain of our class at high school, we and the entirety of our class are having a get-together tomorrow, we're expecting you.]

Letting out a sigh, Aiden blocked Mary's number before deleting all his messages.

The next thing he did was tap on the app with the logo of the Silence on it, as soon as he did this something popped up.

[Aiden Frostfall, you are eligible to receive our starter's rewards, would you like to proceed?]

Seeing this Aiden tapped on the logo, only to be redirected to his phone camera, along with another pop-up.

[Please scan your tag.]

Seeing this, Aiden let out a sigh of disappointment before leaving and exploring the Silence's app.

Like everything associated with the Silence, this app had a dark theme, and on it were just four sections, the first was current mission, which was blank since Aiden hadn't accepted a mission, the second was something called Contractor's daily, which seemed to be like a blog of sorts where Contractors offer their thoughts on certain topics, Aiden figured that he'd get back to this later, the third section was the Threat level 20 rankings, Aiden had no interest in this for now so he went to the last section which was the market place.

After clicking on the market place the first thing Aiden saw was his merit point balance, which was 0 followed by six tabs.

[Raw Materials]

[Daily essentials]

[Weapons and Armor]

[Forgotten Items]

[Used Items]

[Information]

Seeing this Aiden's first instinct was to type on information, and there was nothing but a search bar.

Seeing this Aiden typed in the words, "I want to know the reason, why children below the age of ten kept disappearing in the seventh shelter."

As soon as Aiden typed this, the bar started searching, and then an icon popped up.

[Rank too low]

Seeing this Aiden sighed, he had tried this with Jonathan's phone already, but a pop-up suddenly appeared saying that the information was only available to Contractors.

Aiden tried to search for different things like "the cure to hell energy shock," or "Holy Gate," but all that came up was that his rank was too low.

After trying for a while, Aiden searched for something else, "Horatio Family."

As soon as Aiden pressed the search icon, a different pop-up than what he was expecting popped up.

[Price for everything on the Horatio Family: 5,000 MP]

Seeing this pop up made Aiden raise a brow, his lips curling up as he muttered, "Interesting."