Chapter 189: Wanted Poster
The consciousness of the bandit disappeared just after hearing Yale’s words. Yale had been trying to use Soul-search with some distance instead of direct contact, but the effect was even better than before; he guessed that the fact his hatred for that bandit had increased influences the harming power of Soul-search.
Soul Skills were extremely difficult to control, and emotions could influence them easily, so when Yale used Soul-search with a higher murder intent than before, the bandit virtually died instantly although his body was technically alive.
Yale didn’t have a good control of it, but as Liye said, harming a soul was far easier than healing it, so even if Yale didn’t execute Soul-search perfectly due to hatred, the skill was just deadlier than it should be.
After all, although Soul-search could cause damage to the soul, that wasn’t its purpose, someone who controlled it perfectly would be able to obtain all the memories from the target without him noticing. Of course, that was only if the one who used soul-search had that intention, eradicating the soul in the process was also possible.
Although it may seem good powering Soul-search with emotions to turn it deadlier, it wasn’t good at all. If the emotion were hatred, then it would just harm the opponent, but if the one who cast Soul-search hesitated when using it, the skill might fail and rebound.
Using it influenced for emotions would only work well when the caster was someone capable of killing any kind of opponent without the slightest doubt.
Yale wasn’t a demon who could kill everyone he met without hesitation, but he didn’t have any compassion for his enemies, so it worked well in that situation. However, he would rather learn to control it perfectly and chose how the skill should act more than let his emotions control it.
Yale didn’t kill the living corpse who was lying powerless in the ground; he wanted to use it to understand better the effects of the poison on the Poison Claw. Although it didn’t have a proper soul, the body was still from someone at the Apprentice Rank, so it was a good sample.
Wyba just resumed her training after Yale ended with those two bandits, she had been alerted by their voice and aura, but in the end, they weren’t strong enough to be a threat for them.
Wyba alone was enough to kill them, but Yale wanted to obtain information from their souls, so he acted before Wyba had time to attack them; Yale knew that she also wanted to vent her anger.
The bandits died due to the extreme damage to their souls, but at least they had avoided the shame of being beaten up by the little girl they wanted to kidnap.
“Big bro, you should have left one to me.”
Yale just smiled wryly in reply, so much time without speaking and the first she said was such a thing; Yale understood that Wyba had been affected by Aiwai’s problem far more than him.
“I needed to obtain information from them, so I need to attack them personally. I obtained a good piece of information that will help me to reach the Practitioner Rank. I understand that you want to vent your anger, but you mustn’t forget your true objective.”
Wyba just nodded, she knew that she would never reach the Practitioner Rank if Yale didn’t reach it first, so a chance to improve Yale’s strength was indeed worth of losing the chance to vent her anger. However, she still needed to beat someone like those bandits to be able to relax a bit.
Yale obtained information that would help him to reach the master stage in swordsmanship and although that wasn’t directly increasing his level of power, completing the sub-quests were also vital to be able to see Aiwai again.
After all, the true requirement for the Storage Space upgrade was completing the third main quest and not just reach the Practitioner Rank.
Three days later that bandit finally died by Yale’s sword, which cursed the remnants of his soul.
Yale had already finished experimenting with the poison; the poison lasted three hours without any healing and weakened the body of the bandit a lot, although it didn’t affect to the power level like the poison the eldest prince had given to Paku previously.
After roughly three days all trace of poison was erased from the bandit’s body, but Yale guessed that with just a day of rest, it should be possible battling with at least ninety percent of the full strength. Thus, the true usefulness was just for a day as in the other two days; the poison remnants weren’t that harmful.
A day of weakening was already enough for a battle, but that time was only on someone like that bandit who was far weaker than his true level due to having forgotten training his body; Yale didn’t expect that someone with a stronger body would have the same reaction towards the poison.
Moreover, that poison wasn’t hard to heal; even natural healing would heal it although it wasn’t the most optimal spell to do it. With Yale’s experience as a healer, he didn’t need too much observation of the poison to know that it was just harmful if the opposite party didn’t have a healer because with a healer that poison didn’t have any threat.
After that bandit died, Wyba looted all his belongings, she also did it to the other bandit because Yale ended promising her that she could loot everything they had in exchange for being unable to vent her anger on them.
“This guy had a lot of portraits of people. All of them have the word ‘wanted’ at the top. Why this bandit has these portraits?”
Yale knew it because he had obtained their memories. The bandits never took those wanted bounties too seriously; they just have them in case they had the luck to meet one of the wanted individuals. The bounties were high, so catching one would be enough for them to enjoy the life for some time.
“Big bro and Wyba are also here!”
Yale hadn’t yet explained anything to Wyba when she shouted those words and Yale rushed to see the wanted poster.
In the portrait there was a young boy with a little wolf, anyone who had met Yale before he went to the Zuatania Republic would recognize him.
If someone managed to catch Yale, dead or alive, the Zhan Clan was disposed to pay an enormous sum. The crime the Zhan Clan reported was that Yale had betrayed the Zhan Clan and was an enemy from the Revgen Empire, so catching him should be a top priority.
Wyba only appeared there to help to identify Yale because they knew that Yale was with her and it wasn’t common to travel with a Frost Wolf.
With Yale’s mature appearance at that moment, no one would think he was that kid in the portrait, but if Wyba showed herself in her true form and Yale said his name, the others should be too stupid to not suspect.
That kind of wanted poster was the type sent to the whole empire, so Yale feared that if he interacted too much with others, he would be discovered. After all, although Yale wasn’t a name exclusive to him, that name wasn’t common either. However, the decisive factor was Wyba, she mustn’t be discovered in her true form, or he would be discovered for sure.
“Wyba, from now on you can’t turn into your beast form. Nobody must know that we are the ones in this portrait.”
Yale had decided that it was better to not explain the meaning of those wanted posters since they were implicated. He didn’t want to put more pressure on Wyba by saying that they could be targets from any bounty hunter on the whole empire.
“Big bro, we also appear in another one.”
Just as Wyba had said, there was another bounty with the two of them, but the drawer seemed to have a good impression from Yale and Wyba as they appeared more detailed. However, there was a great difference compared to the another because the wanted poster required that Yale was alive. Moreover, the bounty was twice of the one offered by the Zhan Clan.
That poster had been issued by the Larken Clan, and they said that as Yale was future husband of the most promising girl of the Larken Clan, he couldn’t be damaged under any circumstance or the Larken Clan would ask for revenge.
Yale wasn’t too happy to be publicly called future husband of someone who he didn’t even know and that such fact had been spread in the whole Empire.
However, with that bounty, the bounty hunters would rather give him alive and unharmed to the Larken Clan and obtain a huge bounty than killing him to get less and offending the Larken Clan.
The bounty of the Zhan Clan had been weird from the start, it was difficult to believe that a kid could be that evil to need such bounty, but after the Larken Clan published their bounty announcing their relationship with Yale, the credibility of the Zhan Clan plummeted.
The faction which hated Yale were also punished due to provoking problems with the Larken Clan. Most of the Zhan Clan didn’t mind about Yale’s life, live or dead was the same for them, but angering the Larken Clan was something they couldn’t ignore.