156 A wild guess.

However, just as the old lady had stood up, she sat back on the bench before chugging down half the bottle of wine.

"Tch! For a second, you had got me!" the old lady spat in her manly voice.

"What? No! I am not joking! I am sure that this guy is The Feral!" The brown-haired man insisted. He believed his conclusion to be true, and he stood firm on his decision.

"Yeah yeah yeah. Mark, No one has ever seen his face. How do you expect me to believe you that you saw him?!" the old lady said with scrunched up expressions. She was annoyed that the brown-haired man named Mark kept on his jokes.

"Cyril, I didn't believe that it was him at first either. But listen to me first!" Mark insisted.

"Okay, shoot," the old lady addressed to as Cyril said with a grumpy voice.

"You know that even when no one has seen his face, one thing everyone is sure of is that he has that black hat on top of his head all the time, yeah?" Mark said as Cyril nodded her head, listening to him patiently.

"Well, as I was reading the newspaper, I suddenly noticed a guy in the market with the exact same hat as in the rumors!" Mark explained excitedly.

"But-" Cyril was about to say something, but Mark didn't let her finish.

"No buts. Listen to me first. I know you can't just assume him to be The Feral. But what if I tell you that he picked up my intent right when it leaked?!" Mark asked with a smug smile as if losing control over his intent was something he took pride in.

Cyril shut up at this. She stopped to look at the ground in contemplation as Mark continued. He was not done with the things that pointed out this person to be The Feral.

"Just in that instant, I had gotten a big scare when that guy turned around and looked in the exact direction of me from tens of meters away! If I weren't quick enough to leave even earlier, he would've seen me!"

Before Cyril could say anything else, Mark added, "And if even all this couldn't change your mind, then let me tell you, there was a girl following behind him as well!"

"Just how many people in this continent are so strong that they are able to sense my location in a matter of seconds with the exact physical traits as him?!"

This last sentence of Mark made Cyril go into deep contemplation. Even in his mind, the idea of this person being The Feral was formed for many reasons.

First of all, these two were one of the elites and had an experience of decades in this field. Both being Rank-8 Mages, their names were known throughout the continent. As his partner for years, Cyril knew how precise and sharp Mark had honed his intent to.

All of these physical character traits were written in a book in Mark's hand under the name of The Feral. This was the Bingo Book that was provided by their organization.

This book contained information on hundreds of famous and strong people all around the continent who had a bounty on their heads. And the name of The Feral was somewhat popular among the people in their profession since he was known as an assassin that never left any clues behind.

Even for an organization as powerful as theirs, they could not get the face of him and just compiled his profile based on the most popular rumors, which seemed to hold some ground as feasible.

Because of the nature of their organization, they wanted to recruit this person in their ranks. However, the last guy that they had sent to force him to come to their headquarters had his body found in the sewers of an unknown city!

After that incident, the organization did not hold back anymore and placed the bounty on his head when some people with grudges asked to do so.

It was said that this person wasn't much powerful since the strongest that he had killed was only a Rank-7. But what made him more dangerous was his ability to go around unseen and unnoticed. Also, it was estimated that he might be around Rank-8 as well because of his skills.

"Hmm... Now this person really seems to be him. Let's check him out. If he really is the man, then we hit the jackpot!" Cyril said excitedly after giving it some thought.

They were both Rank-8 Mages who worked as the bounty hunters for the organization. Their work was to hunt down the people in the Bingo Book to get the reward. The Feral had a huge bounty on his head due to him being there on the book for a few years now.

Cyril was excited since if he really was the person, then it was nothing more than their lucky day since they were not even actively looking for him. Not to mention, Mark only had a wild guess on this being the case! So if it turned out to be true, he believed that the bounty would be theirs without any doubt.

"Don't get too happy now. It would not be so easy, I tell you. I couldn't even sense his presence, just like in the rumors. It means that this person is at least as strong as a Rank-8." Mark said when he saw Cyril getting all excited.

"Heh. He might be a Rank-8 Mage, but would he be able to take us both at once?" Cyril replied with a snort. 

"And what if this guy is actually a Rank-9?" Mark muttered, as a chuckle escaped Cyril's mouth.

"Yeah, right! And why would a Rank-9 Mage even bother to work as an assassin to kill small fries at Rank-7?" Cyril remarked as Mark also nodded his head.

Both of them shook their heads and stood up from the bench. As they got inside the dark alley, they were about to disappear when Mark suddenly said, "Dude, you are still an old lady."

"Oh!" Cyril exclaimed before instantly dropping off the disguise. The wrinkled old lady's skin, the wig, and the clothes all fell on the ground, revealing a blonde man around the same height as Mark. The old lady turned out to be a man, after all.

After that, the duo disappeared from the dark alley leaving the disguise of the old lady behind. Both of them had left their disguise clothes behind since they almost never used the same thing again to avoid creating a pattern that could lead someone to them.

———————

On the other side, it had been a few minutes as Ozul strolled through the city with Clara following behind him. 

Unknown to him, the person who had mistakenly revealed his intent had already guessed his identity with just a wild guess. Since they had not really seen Raven as well, those people mistook Clara as the girl who was always seen following behind The Feral as well. It was all really a big coincidence, but Mark and Cyril had already decided to check him out.

As he made his way towards the city's outskirts, Ozul did not expect that the person with the malicious intent would so quickly come back.

Only around ten to fifteen minutes had passed since then, and the person had come back with another presence following right behind him.

This time, he was as alert as he could get, so the small thread of the malicious intent suddenly appearing a few buildings away was instantly noticed by him. Only now did he have the chance to examine this person properly.

Ozul instantly concluded that the two people who had started to follow him were both Rank-8 Mages. His face remained apathetic as he casually turned a little left towards a more deserted area.

After they had arrived in an area without anyone around, Ozul stopped and turned around to look in a certain direction.

"Well, well! You do have the capabilities. So it seems that Mark was right after all," a voice came from that direction as Clara backed a little behind Ozul.

"What?! You still thought that I was joking with you?!" Mark complained as both of them came out from the shade of an abandoned building. They only had their suspicion about Ozul being the person in rumors reaffirmed when he could sense them in the shadows.

Ozul just looked at them with bored expressions. He only wanted to know what business these two had from him and who they were.

After their small bickering, Cyril turned towards Ozul and said, "I feel honored to meet The Feral~."

When Ozul heard the nickname, he kept staring coldly at the duo as his eyes almost twitched. He never liked the nicknames.

Behind him, Clara did not understand what was happening and who this mentioned person was, but she had no courage to ask anything when she sensed the tremendous pressure from these two new faces.

As Ozul did not say anything, an awkward silence took over.

"So... are you denying to be The Feral?" Cyril asked, a little unsure. Even with everything that pointed at this person before him to be the man of the rumors, there were no real facts to back them up.