BOOK 1 - Destiny (Shonen Anime Style)

Chapter 23: Just Business

Some time after Leah was kidnapped, she and the woman carrying her arrived to an old abandoned warehouse located quite far away from the crowded sectors of the Vestian Outpost. And after waiting in there for a very long time, the other male bounty hunter finally arrived as well.

"What took you so long?" the woman asked her partner with annoyance while tossing Leah to the floor, who was still handcuffed by the way.

"I had some trouble, but it's okay..." the man replied. "It's already been dealt with"

"Whatever you say... Did you get it or not?"

"Of course I did" he answered while showing his hand holding a turned off Wire.

Leah widened her eyes in shock once more after noticing that. "N-no way... Wire..." She then stared at both mercenaries with a defiant look. "Who the hell are you? What do you want?!"

"Oh my dear..." a sarcastic voice Leah had heard before said from behind. "...you don't need to be afraid"

The human girl turned around and then widened her eyes at the sight of none other than the old geezer who Ravi had accidentally bumped into the day before. "Y-you?! Wh-what's going on?! And what do you want?!"

"Isn't it obvious? Your little ghosts are quite rare specimens in these corners of the system. They'll surely be worth a lot of money"

"You are... going to sell them?!"

"Yeah... but not just them..." At that moment, the old man approached Leah and grabbed her face with one hand. "An exotic product like you will surely earn me quite a lot of riches as well... hehehe..."

Leah startled in fear at those words. She definitely had an idea of what the man meant by saying that, but was hoping she was wrong. "You... You can't be serious..." the huntress muttered as she uselessly tried to escape the old man's grip on her face.

"Oh, I'm very serious. It's nothing personal though... That's just how things are in this place. One has to find a way to make a living by himself. Whether it's through the weapon market, illegal spices, or even..." he then gave a quick but also very thirsty look to the entirety of Leah's body. "Well, you understand what I'm trying to say, don't you? Hahahaha...." the geezer began laughing hard as the poor young girl was one step away from crying.

After this, the old man ordered the pair of deadly mercenaries to stay there and protect the ghosts given that a client would soon come in order to buy them. Meanwhile, he also forced Leah to stand up while still handcuffed, and made her sleep with an old cloth covered in some kind of weird drug, after which he then disposed himself to leave along with the huntress towards his own hideout.

Nonetheless, it was also at that moment, as Leah was being taken away by force to yet another unknown place, that from the debris of the hostel that blew up some time ago, someone finally emerged from beneath it all with a great explosion and blast of fire.

That's right, it was Ravi. "Are you... all okay?" he asked some awoken people while panting heavily.

"Y-yeah... thank you a lot, sir" one of the awoken said. Turns out the explosion basically crumbled the whole hostel, and the warlock did all he could to protect as many of the people who were inside when it happened. Still, he couldn't save all of them... including of course Leah.

'Damn that guy!' the bluenette thought with anger as he remembered what happened before...

...