Seeing 'Noah's' surprised expression was a funny thing to Arata. He tried to contain his amusement but he failed to contain it all.

The unconscious offended expression he received in return was well worth it in Arata's opinion but he was not so sure if Noah agreed with him or not.

"What's wrong? You looked surprised to see me denying knowing any more information. If you are thinking that it invalidates our deal then do not overthink it right now. I am just doing something I want to do anyway."

Arata explained to Noah, liking the look Arata was giving him in return. It was a funny one that made Arata chuckle and he held his amusement back.

"Are you saying that you are not interested to know about the ancient artifacts that could be the prize in this tournament?"

Noah's surprise was evident. Especially more so when you consider that Arata was the one who had purposed such a deal in the first place.

But Arata was also the one who knew how much trouble the news of an ancient artifact would bring him and his network. People would barge in and demand he tells them more about it.

And then they would hold him hostage so that he would not be able to leak this news out to others and increase competition.

In the end, the only one who would be made to face the situation was Arata and no one else. He was just that uncomfortable with things going this way for him.

"Yes, I am quite sure. At this point, it would be more of a burden to know these things than to not know them. I want to preserve my sanity so I would rather not ask you such things."

Noah finally looked convinced and he did not say anything. There was silence around the pair in the room before Noah finally stoop up with his papers in his hand.

"If this was all, then I would like to take my leave now. And before you call for any of the call-back favors in the future, I want assurance that we are even now."

Arata wanted to tease Noah suddenly. The lack of response on that face but the unique reactions he got from Noah were amusing.

"Aww, but our deal did not come to a satisfying end. Surely you will not leave me hanging like this, right?"

Arata tried to act cheeky but Noah's impassive and not-amused face looked back at him. It caused Arata to become sober and he instantly let his amusement fall.

"Fine, I assure you that our deal is over and done with. Now can you let me go so that I can head out? You are such a spoiled sport, not knowing the meaning of fun and games."

Arata complained as he stood up as well. He had wasted enough time playing around and time was money for him.

"Well, fun and games will not help me reach my end goal so they are useless for me. I would rather be a strict and no-fun grandfather than be a fun-loving but dead youngster."

Noah waved his hand in the universal gesture of saying 'bye' and left the guild.

Just for a second, Arata entertained the thought of putting a tail on Noah and knowing more about him. But as soon as the thought occurred in his mind, Arata squished it like a bug.

His client's privacy was one thing he was big on. These people had secrets that could kill any normal person and the burden of forbidden knowledge was often too much to bear for a normal person.

As such, Arata would only be preserving his sanity if he did not look.

'Although, a small look would not hurt, right? I am sure Noah did not have enough mana to even detect a tailing person.'

Arata's mind reminded him but he quickly punched that thought out of his mind. It was no longer safe in his mind as well.

......…..

Keith finally got out of the shop and into the street.

As soon as he was out, he checked his surroundings to see if someone was tailing him or not. But it did not seem like a tail had been put on him.

'I got lucky this time. It seems that Arata was rather satisfied with our deal and decided to leave me alone.'

There were three possible endings with Arata's route and Keith had tried so hard to get the safest one possible.

He could have either been spied on, taken advantage of or he could have been let go calmly. Keith was happy to see that the third one happened to him.

"Now that I have this entry form with me, I need to start forming a strategy for the first round. It is almost certain that it is a race to reach the arena on time. But I will need to gather clues where the first area was."

Keith knew he could ask Arata for this answer but he had a feeling he would have to pay a hefty price for that information.

What Keith needed to do was to follow the other contestants and hope to find the arena for the first round.

But Keith knew that worrying about this was not going to solve anything and he decided to head back to the guild for now.

There, he met Clair who had been waiting in his room along with Master Shinzou and Long Dong. He was surprised to see the three and almost slipped up before remembering that he was the grandmaster right now.

His body tensed up and his face went impassive. Keith was the very image of the cold and stone-faced grandmaster he was posing to be.

"Shinzou, Clair, and the extra one. May I know what you are doing here?"

Keith walked toward the group and sat down on the middle sofa. He would have preferred not to take this seat but he seemed to have no choice. In this regard. The choice seemed to have been made for him anyway.

"Grandmaster, we need to discuss Master Olivia's competition. Since we cannot participate, we decided to have someone participate on our behalf in it. We wanted to tell this you before we made a decision though."

Master Shinzou's earnest voice rang in Keith's room and he felt a headache form.

Why did these people think about doing such useless things without asking him beforehand? What if their participant managed to recognize Keith? What would happen then?

'Why did you not stop them, Clair? I trusted you to do such a thing.'

Keith tried to communicate with his eyes, waiting for Clair to catch sight of him and look his way. But the cat-girl only looked away from his eyes.

It seemed like she had given up on the company in front of herself as well.

"Master Shinzou, I know you are excited about this competition but we need to be careful while selecting our entry. Any normal person would not be able to take such harsh conditions and-"

"I know grandmaster. And that is why I will be entering my student into this competition. Since I have been training them exclusively, I know what they are capable of. I am sure they will be able to reach the 'Cross Arena' on time."

Master Shinzou was truly a piece of art. He revealed the location of the first competition as if it was nothing.

How he had gotten this information was not important to Keith, nor did he care what the other person had been thinking when he leaked this information.

Keith just knew that he had gotten extremely lucky regarding the competition and now he knew where he needed to head if he wanted to enter the competition.

"I see. So, you have a person ready to enter this competition. If you are sure that this person will win then I will not ask you any more questions. I will be out of town for a week starting tomorrow so keep me updated about the reports."

Master Shinzou looked proud and happy with the acknowledgment he had gotten from the grandmaster.

However, Clair looked unhappy and a little tired. She banged her head on the table as soon as she heard that Keith would be 'out of the town' for the next week.

"Grandmaster, you can't keep doing this to me. I am too young to do all your paperwork for you. Don't you feel sorry for me? What about labor laws? This is child labor you know. Please do your work for once."

Clair was demanding too much from Keith so he ignored her words. Clair looked resigned once she noticed that the grandmaster was not paying attention to her and resigned to working for the unseen future.

Meanwhile, Master Shinzou and Long Dong pretended they heard nothing. In front of the grandmaster's approval, nothing else mattered to them. And that was how things were decided that night.