Chapter 742: Lamb.

Dante watched as his heavyweight friend caught himself, stopping before he started to look around. It would be for the best if he didn’t inform his date that Dante was the one who moved things around to give them that table. Right now, he only needed to focus on his goal, and everything else would come later.

Dismissing the projected screen, Dante turned to his own date and smiled apologetically. Going by the slight frown she wore, it was clear that she didn’t enjoy giving up their table, even though she agreed to it when he asked. Dante had already informed her of the reason, but that did little to cheer her up.

"C’mon, Sunshine. No need to be so gloomy." He said. "I will make it up to you someday."

Letting her gaze fall, Merry slowly shook her head.

"No, it’s fine." She said. "I understand why you asked for it."

"And I’m thankful for that."

He was also thankful for the speed at which her mood reverted. All it took was for her to heave a sigh, and just like that, all the negative emotions seemed to exit along with her breath.

"He must be a really good friend for you to go this far for him."

"Well, he did take care of me when I first started freelancing," Dante said. "Even now, he still takes care of a few things for me."

A certain chestnut-haired boy appeared in his mind. Though Viktor was the one who had adopted him on paper, it was obvious that Boris was the one who watched over him the most. Dante owed him a lot, so he took every chance to repay him.

Nana was a great person, and she deserved to be happy. If being with Boris could help with that, then bringing them together would be the right thing to do.

"You used to be a mercenary, right?" Merry asked. "What kind of jobs did you take?"

Dante opened his mouth to answer, but then quickly shut it, his smile widening.

"I see what you did there."

"What?"

"Sorry, but I’m not going to answer that question." Grabbing the glass of red wine one of the servers had just poured for him, Dante raised it to his eye level. "If you want to interrogate me, then you should get some handcuffs first."

"Boo, I was just asking..." Merry puffed her cheeks.

"Which would have been perfectly fine if you weren’t a hero."

No matter how much he liked her, Dante wasn’t about to incriminate himself by telling her about his jobs, especially the one that involved stealing an artifact from a certain trillionaire.

’Come to think of it, that was where we first met, huh...’

"Then let me ask you other questions." Thinking for a moment, her eyes then went wide. "I know! Where did you go to school?"

"Some place in Vetrogard," Dante answered. "I dropped out, though."

"Is that why you started a gang?"

"Not a direct cause, but yeah."

Excited that their conversation was picking up, Merry was about to move on to the next question but then stopped, turning to her left. A strange sight had just caught her attention, and no matter how much she tried, her brain couldn’t comprehend it. Was she seeing things? How else would she explain that a pink sheep was currently chewing on the hem of her dress?

"Um... Dante..."

Dante was as shocked as she was, but for an entirely different reason. He had just watched a sheep with pink wool jump over the table behind his date, and another one followed right after. His Absolute Awareness caught the moment those creatures manifested out of thin air. Looking around, he realized that they were quickly filling the entire dining hall.

’Sorcery?’

[Yes.] Volcan answered. [Unfortunately, I have failed to locate the user.]

Sorcerers, or Aetherions as Volcan likes to call them, were the most difficult to detect. Their abilities worked by manipulating the Aether in the atmosphere, so it was quite troublesome to identify them when they weren’t active.

’Damn it...’

Dante shot up from his seat, his perception accelerating as he prepared a course of action. Was it another assassin? Were they after him? The place was a high-class restaurant, and the guests were all elites of one kind or the other. What kind of fool would start a fight there?

’Can you tell what effects they have?’

[They seem to be releasing vibrations of a certain frequency. They don’t seem to deal any direct damage, but...]

As his resident AI tried to explain, Merry yanked her dress out of the pink sheep’s mouth and stood up. The sheep, being unrealistically round, rolled back until it hit another table. Right after, it got back on its feet and shook its body before approaching them with slow steps.

Dante was worried that it would explode the moment it got within range, but that wasn’t what happened. Just like the others, it moved toward the table, then leapt over it. Dante followed it with his gaze, watching as it landed on the other side, then immediately began walking toward another able. Just then, another sheep leapt over their table, landed, then walked to the next one.

When he took in the entire dining hall, Dante realized that sheep had formed a train of sorts, following the same track as they jumped over one table after the other. With them ignoring the empty ones, the whole thing was starting to appear like a show of sorts, but the likelihood of that happening was very low.

’One, two, three, four... ’

Dante caught himself counting the pink sheep and quickly shook his head. If their number mattered, he could always ask his resident AI to tell him. Turning to the orange-haired hero, he found her yawning, a hand covering her wide-open mouth.

"Hey!" He called, trying to shake some alertness into her. "Something is happening. We need to get out of here."

Of course, he wasn’t trying to escape whatever it was. Dante knew with utmost certainty that he was its target, so he was hoping to spare himself the headache of getting all those people caught in his mess.

"Y-yea, let’s... go..."

Merry seemed to have lost all her energy all of a sudden. Seeing her drowsy state, Dante looked back at the jumping sheep, and a spark of realization illuminated his mind.

’It can’t be...’

Just when he thought he had figured out the effects of this strange sorcery, he began to feel a bit tired. Without Type 9 equipped, he was defenseless against Sorcery, but taking it out right now was a no-go. Clicking his tongue, Dante took Merry by the hand and dragged her along, heading for the exit. He was worried that something might spring up on them and block their way, but nothing seemed to happen. They reached the doors just fine, but just as they walked out of the restaurant, Dante was once again met with something he couldn’t explain.