"Mr. Raj, would you like to go ho or to a restaurant for dinner?" Jasmine asked, fastening her seatbelt.
"Since we still have ti, let’s eat outside," I replied. "You must be hungry too."
A smile appeared on her face as soon as she heard about food.
"Alright then, Mr. Raj, I will take you to the best restaurant in Dehradun!" Jasmine announced, pressing the accelerator.
---
She stopped the car on the side of a flyover at the centre of the city and got out.
"Co out, Mr. Raj," she said, opening my door.
"Is it fine parking the car on the flyover?"
"Oh, don’t worry about it, Mr. Raj. Awakeners often leave their cars on the road because these express flyovers do not have a way to enter the city."
"So how are we supposed to reach the ground?" I asked, standing on the edge of the flyover behind its boundary.
"We are awakeners, Mr. Raj," she chuckled, climbing the boundary. "We can simply jump down. Oh right, you have only awakened recently. Do you need to carry—"
While she was speaking, I placed my hand on the boundary and, leapt forward.
The flyover was only fifty tres above the ground. I had jumped from the edge of cliffs and trees taller than towers, so a height like this was child’s play to .
I landed on the empty footpath beside the lower road, and the next mont, Jasmine also landed on her feet beside .
"You are very brave, Mr. Raj," she complinted, giving a salute.
Due to our sudden arrival, various curious eyes turned toward us.
"Why are these people gazing at us?" I asked, feeling a little awkward from so many stares.
"Oh, it’s common. Since we jumped from the exclusive flyover, they must have realised we are awakeners. They are just trying to figure out if we are so big nas to get an autograph," Jasmine replied, moving forward, completely unbothered by their gazes. "Awakeners are no less than celebrities, so they often face situations like this. You must also get used to it, Mr. Raj."
She led to a Korean cuisine restaurant where we sat on the floor around a soban.
Many sobans were arranged at equal intervals, most of them occupied by custors. A LED TV was hung at the front, on which an anchor was providing the latest news.
"What would you like to eat, Mr. Raj?" Jasmine asked, her eyes quickly scanning the dishes on the nu card.
"I’ve never had Korean food before. Order anything you like. I’ll eat whatever you order."
"Uwaa! You are a complete green flag, Mr. Raj!" she exclaid, her professionalism slowly going out of the window.
She ordered five to six different kinds of dishes, and as we began to dig in, the anchor on the news channel called a familiar na.
"Breaking News! After five years since the catastrophe, a person has finally woken up from Mana Overload. The man in question, Raj Singh, is none other than the younger brother of the Guild Master of the Black Raven Guild—the Blood Demon Aryan!"
"What!?!? Soone actually woke up from Mana Overload!?"
"Not to ntion he is the younger brother of the Blood Demon Aryan. The Black Raven Guild must have used so kind of hidden healing tool or technique to cure him."
"What do you think? Will the Black Raven Guild share this technology with the rest of the world?"
"Anyone with humanity should! Since close to a million people are unconscious from Mana Overload."
The people in the restaurant murmured, their voices laced with shock and amazent.
"Ja-Jasmine, what the heck is going on?" I asked, my lips parted.
"Soone from the hospital must have leaked the information. Don’t worry, Mr. Raj! I will imdiately call the channel and put a stop to this broadcasting!" Jasmine declared, her fingers already moving like a flash on the phone.
"That’s not it! I’m asking why they are calling my brother a demon?"
"Huh? Is that what you are worried about?" she asked, taken aback.
I gave a serious nod, so she explained with a sigh, giving up. "Five years ago, the Guild Master was the first awakener who made a move against the monsters in India. He alone killed more monsters than all the awakeners of India combined and earned the title of Blood Demon."
"Oh! So the title is in a positive sense," I sighed.
She was about to say sothing, but then the anchor on the news channel continued,
"Reliable sources have also ntioned that Raj Singh is a blessed awakener, yet he only has the talent of an E-Rank. There is a possibility that his low rank was due to being in critical condition on the Day of Awakening, but we don’t have any concrete information about that."
"An E-Rank blessed awakener!?" Soone from the crowd instinctively laughed.
"Even late awakeners nowadays awaken with at least EEE or D-Rank talent."
"An E-Rank is basically a normal human!"
"Yeah, I heard that E-Rank awakeners can’t even reach D-Rank due to their low mana level."
"The Black Raven Guild wasted their resources to heal a talentless person like him. Guess it’s family above anything, even for the Blood Demon."
"If anything, the Black Raven Guild should share their thod of healing with the world, or at least India."
"This anchor is brave to expose the Black Raven Guild like this. We should join together to protect him from the wrath of the Blood Demon."
As the murmurs of the crowd grew more negative toward the guild, Jasmine couldn’t hold herself back and shouted,
"How could you people criticize the guild under whose protection you are safely eating your food here! If not for the Blood Demon, North India would have been destroyed five years ago!"
"Tsk! Is she another crazy fan of the Blood Demon? You’re talking as if they risk their lives for us when we already know how much money they earn by selling monster corpses and the mana stones they obtain from gates," one of them scoffed.
Following him, another added with a smirk,
"Exactly! And isn’t it already known that the Blood Demon is a psychopath who loves killing? Everything he does is only for his own satisfaction of killing—"
Before he could speak any further, an eerie dark pressure filled the restaurant, turning everything cold in an instant.
"One more word about Aryan, and I will show you who the real demon actually is!" I muttered, standing up from my table, one of my eyes turning completely black as I subconsciously released the Breath of the Grave.
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