Warlock Apprentice

Sanders looked down and saw the white-haired old lady on the ground, who seemed to have fallen and was lying there for a long while without moving. After some time, she struggled slowly to sit up.

She sat in the mud on the sloping path, surrounded by the blue-black backdrop and occasional glimpses of light. The mist drifted around the old woman as she breathed heavily in a low tone.

Sanders asked Angel, “What, do you know her?”

Angel shook his head, “I don’t know. She just seems familiar, but I can’t quite place her.”

Hearing Angel’s response, Sanders looked at the old lady on the ground again, this time with much more scrutiny than before. However, his conclusion was the same as before, “A very ordinary human, if you must pinpoint something special, it’s that there’s a sense of incongruity about her.”

“Incongruity?”

“Her eyes don’t match those of an old person, yet the aura of her twilight years doesn’t seem feigned.”

Sanders’s words immediately reminded Angel of a plot from some novels on the holographic tablet, “Could it be that a young soul has barged into the shell of an old person with white hair?”

Sanders let out a chuckle, “If souls could so easily occupy a body, why do you think there are so many wandering dead souls in the world? There are many restrictions to soul intrusion. How could a soul that has reached such limits choose the body of an ordinary old man that won’t live much longer?”

“Moreover, this person’s body and soul are harmonized, without any contradictions.”

Angel thoughtfully seemed to realize something, “I actually saw her in the antique shop before. Could she be a guest of Lord Zithraide? Is her current condition the result of trading her youth and lifespan?”

Sanders pondered for a moment, “It’s possible. However, even if we were simulating her youth, I have never seen her.”

The old granny on the ground finally stood up. It seemed her foot was injured, as she could only lean on the railing beside the path to move forward slowly. As her figure slowly receded into the distance, Sanders said to Angel, “It’s time to leave.”

Angel nodded his head. Regardless of whether he recognized the old granny or not, what he could confirm was that even if he felt a sense of familiarity, it wasn’t strong enough for him to recognize her identity at a glance. It seemed that the old granny was probably no acquaintance at all—just a familiar stranger, and furthermore, a common person… There was no need to continue thinking about it.

With this thought, Angel took one last look at her staggering back and piloted the gondola towards the distant dark blue sky.

…

Anada looked up at the blue-black sky shrouded in thick fog.

For some reason, she had felt all along as if someone in the sky was watching her. However, after a long look, she couldn’t find any clues.

Could she have been mistaken about the feeling?

At this moment, a chubby little boy whose features were squeezed together by his chubby cheeks popped his head out of a window from the top floor of a four-story building by the road.

The chubby boy, probably thirteen or fourteen, spotted Anada, and his eyes lit up before he quickly concocted some mischief. He took a deep breath in through his cheeks and spat a thick wad of phlegm in a parabolic arc toward where Anada was standing.

But the mischievous child’s aim was poor, and the phlegm landed five or six meters away from Anada.

Anada glared venomously at the chubby boy for a moment, wanting to scold him, but her body was no longer strong enough to shout. She could only mutter in a low voice, “Damn brat, if it were a few days ago, I would have gone up there to tear your limbs off!”

That said, how could the weakened Anada compare to the chubby boy now?

All she could do was spit in contempt and, hunching over, trudge away. Behind her, she could still hear the boy’s laughter.

After the prank by the mischievous child, Anada did not pursue the previous sensation of being watched any longer. Perhaps that feeling was merely from nearby residents sneering at her after seeing her fall.

Carrying a gloomy mood, Anada left the uphill road. Here distance from her rented home was still a few hundred meters away. In the past, it would probably have taken her only a few minutes to get home, but now, those few hundred meters seemed as long as the past ten miles, incredibly lengthy.