"Shouldn’t the question be, who are you?..."
"Well, I don’t mind introducing myself... I am Raika, a humble traveling bard..."
The young man had a constant smile on his face, and his pretty-boy face added extra charm to his smile.
"A bard you say... what a strange coincidence, I am Rio, a humble traveling bard..."
A frown appeared on Rio’s face as he took out his flute and held it in his right hand.
In that moment, Rio was already combat ready.
He was ready to deal with whatever danger might come his way, and his vigilance was raised to the max level.
"But that’s the thing... I don’t believe in coincidences, also there’s no way an ordinary ’bard’ can be just wandering around in this hellhole-like place..."
"So, tell me, what are you, Raika?"
Raika smiled at Rio’s question and placed a hand on his cheek as if he was trying to act cute and harmless.
"Err... I can ask that question of you too, you know? How come you are wandering in this kind of place and claiming to be a bard?"
"Do you even know anything about music?"
The frown of Rio’s face deepened after hearing that question.
"That has nothing to do with you. You are clearly more suspicious; you aren’t even protecting your body from miasma and are just sitting here playing music..."
"That suspicious in every possible way..."
Raika didn’t even frown at Rio’s words and asked back with the same calm smile on his face.
"No way, you are clearly more suspicious in my opinion! A young man with pitch-black hair and pupils with a shield made of ’miasma’!"
"And on top of that... you are covered in such powerful ’Sword Intent’! There’s no way you aren’t suspicious..."
Rio could not find words to argue with Raika anymore.
This was the first time ever since Rio came to this world that he found himself at a disadvantage in terms of words and negotiations.
Usually Rio always has an upper hand, and he’s able to argue with anyone, but today he couldn’t maintain that advantage for the first time.
’I can’t sense any soul fluctuations from him at all... I can’t even sense his presence or his killing intent... it’s almost as if he doesn’t even exist!’
’This level of stealth... this guy is almost reaching my level of monstrous disguise skill...’
Rio wasn’t sure if what he was seeing was even true or not.
Just like how Rio can make himself look completely different by altering the light elementals around him, others can also do such a thing if they have enough mastery with the light element.
Ordinary S-rankers can’t do something so complex; only someone like Rio with insanely powerful legendary skill proficiency can hope to do so.
Or they simply have to be efficient in light magic.
And the final option could be,
"An SS ranker... Do you need to disguise yourself like this despite being that strong?"
Even after Rio said those words, Raika only smiled and his expression never changed.
"I am not so strong as you are considering me. Like I said, I am just a humble bard travelling this forgotten wasteland..."
"In my opinion, you seem more dangerous... I don’t know how you are doing it, but you are ’controlling’ miasma, aren’t you?"
Rio was obviously maintaining a miasmic detection range and shield around him that was usually invisible to the naked eye.
But those who could sense the changes in the flow of miasma keenly could easily tell that Rio was definitely controlling miasma.
"You don’t seem like a demon to me... but you definitely aren’t a human either..."
"Instead of you asking me, I should be the one asking you, ’What are you, Rio?’..."
Once that question was asked, Rio and Raika both went silent and stared at each other without blinking.
Rio was extremely unsure what to do.
The cube of possibilities had led him here, and he needed clues for Liam’s location, and he was not sure what this person called Raika was or why he was here.
Moreover, Rio didn’t even know how strong this guy was, and thus he didn’t want to start a battle.
Raika, on the other hand, didn’t even seem to have a weapon; all he had in his hands was a lyre, which he was using to play music before.
An awkward silence descended, and the atmosphere became tense, causing even the flow of miasma to become disturbed.
Just when the situation was stuck in a stalemate, Raika’s eyes fell on the cube floating beside Rio, and his expression changed for the first time.
"Oh! So that’s what brought you here! No wonder! I see I see... I was confused about it; it all makes sense now..."
He repeatedly nodded his head as his expression seemed to show that he had understood something crucial.
Rio didn’t like this situation where his opponent knew more about him and he didn’t have any leads on the other party.
"You know about this cube?"
Raika nodded his head at Rio’s question as he replied with his usual calm smile and gentle tone.
"That’s the cube of possibilities, right? It was once a very crucial artifact used by the previous demon king!"
"Trust me, that thing was really powerful; at least dozens of SS-rankers of the world alliance died because the demon king got to ambush them with this artifact’s help..."
After hearing Raika’s words, Rio frowned and asked,
"You are oddly knowledgeable about it... why do you think it led me to you?"
Raika smiled at Rio’s question and shrugged his shoulders.
"You must be looking for something and might have happen to have a clue about it; that must be the reason..."
"That thing is quite bizarre after all; it’s pretty uncontrollable too..."
Hearing those words, Rio almost suspected that Raika was a demon general or something like that.
But he couldn’t sense even the tiniest bit of miasma from the other party, which was baffling.
In fact, Rio could sense that he was resisting miasma using something, but Rio could not sense it too deeply and couldn’t find what he was using.
If he were a demon, he wouldn’t have needed to resist the miasma in the surroundings, and he could just let it flow around him normally.
But then Rio would have easily noticed miasmic corruption from him.
’Moreover, a demon’s soul fluctuations are very violent and chaotic; it’s near impossible to hide them in most cases unless you have legendary skill ’soul resonance’ that can control souls...’
’Alverto had it but he’s already six feet under the ground...’
’So, who is this guy and why does he know so much about the cube of possibilities?’
Rio frowned as he asked,
"The cube did indeed bring me here... in fact, I am looking for a particular shadow dragon’s lair. Do you have any clues about it?"
Rio didn’t want to reveal details about Liam and Ellie, so he used a vague term to hide the whole truth.
Raika smiled at Rio’s question and replied,
"Shadow dragons? Now that’s interesting... why are you looking for them? Those aren’t the type of fellows that a person would usually want to meet in regular circumstances..."
"Don’t tell me, you are one of those who want to get a dragon slayer title and want to hunt down a shadow dragon because you can’t go to the dragon valley for that..."
Rio shook his head at those words.
"I am not interested in those kinds of titles... and for your kind information, I have been to the dragon valley before..."