The five students who were left behind by Basil and Iliana blinked their eyes in slight disbelief.

Although they could just quickly catch up to them—they were still standing on their Transportation Artefact that could be utilized any time—they couldn't believe the couple could just storm off without even minding them in the least bit.

Looking at the slowly disappearing figure of Deacon, the students were quickly awaken from their daze. Immediately infusing their Mana into their Transportation Artefact, they stormed off to catch up to Basil and Iliana who were already away from them.

Whitney, who quickly noticed that Deacon ran even faster when they were trying to catch up to him, turned to the other students. "I think we should keep our distance between them for the moment." He lowered his speed afterward.historical

Unlike Cray who quickly got what Whitney meant, the other three students turned their curious gaze at Basil, before doing the same thing. Although it took them a couple of seconds, they understood that Basil was purposefully making a distance between them.

"And here I thought it would be a normal investigation mission..." Alexandra muttered under her breath bitterly. She was convinced Basil just wanted to spend his time alone with Iliana for romantical purpose.

Whitney heard Alexandra, and he couldn't help shaking his head in amusement. "It is not like what you think. Basil will never do something like that in times like this ... Or even in normal times."

"How are you so sure?" Alexandra quirked her eyebrow in curiosity.

"Once you spend a day with him, you can naturally tell what is Basil's view regarding that matter just from his behavior." Cray shrugged. "I'm not even sure the two are really having a romantical relationship."

"Well, considering how Vice President Iliana acts around him ... I have to doubt your word," Robert responded Cray.

"If you are smart enough, by the way he rejected Deacon, you can easily tell that Basil doesn't want to be a dad soon. Therefore, you can easily wipe the dirty fantasy about what they are currently doing off your head; Basil will never do that."

As Cray didn't see the point of the discussion, he rebuked Robert rather too harshly due to his annoyance. Robert slightly frowned at that and was about to open his mouth, when Whitney beat him to it.

"The point stands: Basil is not a petty guy. Although he has a romantical relationship with Iliana, he will never get intimate with her in public, let alone while in the middle of a mission," Whitney sternly stated.

"You guys do trust this friend of yours very much." Alexandra was slightly amazed and amused.

"From how he tricked us into believing that we shouldn't get down from our Transportation Artefact earlier as it could 'endanger' our life, I can confidently say he is the shadiest Mage I have ever encountered."

At Alexandra's statement, Cray chuckled in amusement. "Funny how you said Basil is shady; he is a mysterious person indeed, but shady he is not. Though you can't read him, he never does something thay smells underhanded."

Shrugging lightly, Cray continued, "Besides, all Mages are shady. Name me a renowned Mage that isn't." Chuckling once again, he continued, "You can't, can you?"

Alexandra opted to stay silent, as not only Cray's word was hard to rebuke, but it was also a well known fact. Mages needed to be secretive; they couldn't be not shady with how secretive they were.

"Pardon us if we sounded like we doubted your friend, but we are just curious of what kind of business Mr. Pacifer is having with Vice President Iliana." Robert bowed his head politely; he didn't want this small matter to get out of hand.

Raising his head, Robert continued, "Since we are working in team, we are expecting a transparency between members, and professionalism towards the mission. We were just slightly surprised that our Pathfinder could disregard our presence that easy for, from our prejudice, a romantical reason."

"Just say that you guys are jealous with their relationship," Cray flatly commented.

"That... That is ... Kuhum!" Turning his head away from anyone's vision, Robert lowly muttered, "That might also be one of the reasons. How can they engage in a relationship anyway?!" The conversation stopped right after it was said.

Jocelyn, who had been silent all the time and had only enjoyed the banter, was confused of what was actually happening. She looked around, and found that the others were suddenly busy with whatever they were doing.

Whitney was smiling wryly, Cray was rolling his eyes in annoyance, Alexandra was having a small blush on her cheeks, and Robert was finding the sky exceptionally beautiful.

"Why is everyone so curious of what Basil and Vice President Iliana are talking about? I mean, Basil has just learnt [Assimilation], right? He might be talking about that with Vice President Iliana."

At Jocelyn's word, everyone turned their surprised eyes at her; they were simply amazed and bewildered at Jocelyn's rare show of brilliance. Even Cray couldn't hold back himself from clapping in genuine amazement.

"I judged you wrong, Jocelyn. You are not as stu—"

"Stop being the kettle who calls the pot black!"

Of course, Whitney was there to seal Cray's mouth even before he managed to finish his sentence. Although Cray felt unfortunate for not being able to finish his word, he wasn't so eager to finish his word either; he was pretty nonchalant about it.

It took them a few minutes, but once the situation returned back to normal, their gaze was once again planted on Deacon, who was close to 100 meters away from them. None of them said a word, but all of them had the same thought running in their head.

What is the content of Basil's discussion with Iliana for them to need that much of privacy?

...

Contrary to what the five students were expecting, Basil and Iliana hadn't started talking yet. Minutes had passed since they had distanced themselves away from the others, but not a single word had been exchanged between the two yet.

"You know that I won't be the one who needs to explain myself." Finally, Basil opened his mouth to start the conversation, which he was sure would never be started without his initiative.

"I know! That's why I'm preparing what I should say." At Iliana's soft but scolding tone, Basil nodded his head in understanding. After some time, Iliana began talking. "I wasn't born in Braxtein Kingdom—I wasn't born in Human Empire."

"You don't need to tell me about your past that you want to keep—"

"Shut up, and listen!"

"Okay."

"I don't exactly know what happened, but my first memory of coming here is of my father running with me in his embrace. Judging from how he ran, someone was chasing us."

Iliana sighed lightly, and hugged Basil's waist tighter than before. "He gave me Sinister Piercer, and left me in some place I didn't know of at that time." Iliana waited Basil to question what Sinister Piercer was, but it never came.

She was about to tell him what Sinister Piercer was, when Basil commented, "I know it is the name of your Vanadium spear. I heard you shouted its name when you were fighting the Minotaur Warrior we met before Raneil Barony's gate."

"Kuhum! It seems you are not as self-centered as I thought; you are quite attentive to your surrounding. Anyway, you see, after leaving me alone in an unknown place, my father never met me again. Of course, I know he must be dead protecting me."

"Did you see the people who were chasing your father?"

Iliana shook her head faintly. "No. My father hid me so well, none of them even stumbled upon me ... Right after that, as one can expect from a child, I was scared and confused. Running around aimlessly, I hoped that someone would be kind enough to take me into their house."

"You were lucky. You might have been sold as a slave that night."

"No, I wasn't lucky; my father was smart." A small warm smile decorated Iliana's face. "He gave me a Concealment Shroud that was pretty much invisible to the eyes of the slave merchants—ordinary humans—before leaving me."

Wiping the smile off her face, Iliana continued, "I lived on the street for a week, before I was found by someone. I was already close to die at that time, when this beautiful and kind lady stumbled upon me. Regardless of how I looked, she took me to her home."

Leaning her head on Basil's back, a warm smile full of nostalgia appeared on her face. "She did many things for me that I will always forever grateful of: she taught me how to write and read, she helped me clean myself everyday, and she cooked me a delicious food. She loved me like her own daughter."

Basil kept his silent, as he already got an inkling of the identity of the person Iliana was talking about. Still, instead of rushing her, he let her continue her story.

"One day, she told me that she actually had a son around my age. Due to some circumstances however, she couldn't meet him, and she was saddened by that. Being a child, I didn't know what kind of a place the world actually was. Therefore, I asked her about this circumstance."

She lifted her head off Basil's back, and stared at the back of his head incomprehensibly. "That circumstance was far more complicated than I had thought ... She told me about the feud the Church has with her clan—Pacifer Clan."

Expecting a reaction out of Basil, Iliana was slightly surprised when he didn't give any. Accepting the fact that Basil was naturally not a very curious person, she was about to resume talking, when Basil suddenly spun himself and faced her.

Receiving Basil's deep gaze, Iliana suddenly lost the ability to speak. In front of his eyes, she felt like her entire being was exposed to him; she couldn't hide anything from him.

'Iliana ... I knew you were carrying many secrets to your death in the past. However, even now, why are you talking as if ... You are not a Pacifer?'