Such a simple and innocent mission.
Lyria, the treasured darling of the Stormveil family, had come to P City for one purpose.
To make friends.
Lyria nodded seriously.
Do not underestimate making friends. There is great knowledge involved.
Oh Gray leaned forward, intrigued.
Then tell me. What is the difficult part
Lyria began counting them earnestly.
First, you must speak to a stranger.
Second, you need to understand their hobbies...
She listed over a dozen mild sounding complications without stopping.
Gray humored her, agreeing enthusiastically at every step.
Feeling understood for once, Lyria slowly relaxed, her curled legs unfolding as her feet began to sway happily off the ground.
And the last thing. If you want to ask someone to be your friend, you must pay the good friend fee.
Gray blinked.
Good friend fee
Yes. My distant cousin told me. Otherwise, why would anyone want to be your friend Lyria nodded hard.
Gray inhaled sharply.
Was the Stormveil family actually raising a fool
One bold enough to teach nonsense and one innocent enough to believe it.
You. You have had no friends since childhood
Lyria went silent for a long time before she nodded with a faint lack of confidence.
No. In the first half of my life, only the sword stayed with me.
Other than Grandpa, everyone said a sword only needs to know how to kill.
Gray's hands rustled with paper. A moment later something landed lightly on her head.
She touched it. A crown. Decorated with maple leaves.
This is...
Gray smiled.
A little gift. P City is known for its maple trees. There is a legend that wearing maple leaves brings good luck to young girls.
He is wishing me good luck finding friends
Thank you, Mr. Gray.
Her smile dimmed even the moonlight around them.
Their time together lasted only a short while before a guard arrived to report.
Mr. Gray, my apologies. We sealed all roads immediately but found no suspicious individuals. Grey Hat has likely already...
The guard lowered his head in shame.
They had even signed guarantees when accepting the job. Yet both captain and vice captain fell, and they still failed to catch Grey Hat.
Gray waved it off.
I told you. If he can steal the gemstone, that is his skill.
If you found nothing, then withdraw everyone.
The guard bowed profusely and rushed away, terrified that the boss might change his mind.
He had no desire to spend the rest of the night chasing ghosts.
Tonight's heist ended with Grey Hat's flawless escape.
Crowds dispersed.
Online discussions erupted everywhere, the entire internet speculating about how he fled.
Lyria returned to her luxury hotel suite.
The moment she entered, she dove into the soft bed, rolling around and clutching her pillow tightly.
Her mind kept replaying the fight with Grey Hat.
Who is he really I have never heard of a Thief class fighter this strong.
Logically speaking, techniques that bizarre and power that high should have been recorded somewhere, passed among martial families.
But no master she knew had ever crossed paths with someone like Grey Hat.
The more she thought, the more annoyed she became.
She sat up, reached beside her, and touched something flattened.
The crown.
Startled, she grabbed it quickly, trying to fix it, but she had never learned origami.
With one wrong move it completely fell apart, maple leaves scattering across the bed.
Sigh. Maybe I am not meant to make friends.
Lyria collapsed back into bed and tried again.
As she touched the scattered pieces, her fingers detected something unusual.
Huh
She examined the underside of the folded paper.
There were tiny orderly dots.
Braille.
Even blind children of the Stormveil family were required to learn to read by touch.
One swipe and she recognized it at once.
It says...
The message read in a circle around the paper.
Nice swordwork, friendless three no Sword Girl.
Lyria's hands trembled.
Friendless... Sword Girl...
Instantly she remembered the title Grey Hat had used during the fight inside the exhibition hall.
He is not Mr. Gray.
He is Grey Hat.
She recalled how the real Gray had behaved earlier, fawning and flattering.
But the version she spoke to tonight acted calm, generous, heroic even.
Even she could see it now. She had been tricked.
So he never ran. After the roads were sealed, he returned to the scene and stayed by my side the whole time.
A knock sounded. The butler's voice came through.
Miss, someone just found the real Mr. Gray unconscious in the restroom. Grey Hat replaced him from the very beginning.
A witness said you spoke with the impostor earlier. Did he harm you
Lyria turned scarlet.
She had chatted happily with the man she fought, even received a blessing from him.
N no. I knew nothing about it.
The butler sighed in relief.
Only after returning did he think more about it. Something felt wrong.
Why does Miss sound exactly like someone hiding a secret
Lyria rolled back and forth all night, unable to sleep.
Her mind replayed Jace's message again and again.
You are the one who cannot find friends.
You are the one who is three no.
Jace lived on the second floor above the café, one room for each of the three of them.
I am exhausted.
He lay on his bed for a long while.
This had been the most dangerous night of his entire career.
He had been forced to use a hidden trump card, a variant of Channel Shadow Rend.
By spreading his qi across the floor, he created a domain like a massive cage.
Anything caught at the core under level fifty would die instantly.
Risk and reward always came together.
After a night of hardship, he finally held his prize.
He tossed Tears of Sorrow into the Grey Hat, silently wishing.
I want a weapon that suits me.
This battle made him realize how important a weapon truly was.
Small heists were fine barehanded, but facing someone like Lyria at equal level, the difference a weapon made was enormous.
Swordsmen had swords.
Martial artists had sabers and axes.
Mechanists had guns and cannons.
Only the cursed Thief class relied on bare hands to get rich.
Jace had had enough.
He had used the Grey Hat to acquire breathing methods and combat techniques.
Now it was time to get a weapon.
He reached inside the Grey Hat again and pulled out a pair of black gloves.
Knowledge of the gloves flowed into his mind.
Voidweave Gloves. Crafted from the tendrils of a void worm. They can release threads sharp enough to cut metal, catch weapons barehanded, and repair themselves when damaged.
Void worms.
Enemies of humanity.
One of the void creatures.
Their tendrils were soft yet sharper than steel, often used in traps, each strand worth a fortune.