Miru and Chiya having been silent spectators until now, both looked between the the groups. Chiya having no clue what was going on, stepped closer to Elizabeth. "Hee~ ? What's gonna happen?" She smiled excitedly. Miru having inched closer to Sora, was now a little divided. She glanced at Chiya, and the divided groups of people again, at a loss of what to decide.

Strangely, the group had began to separate themselves into two different groups. Had they already noticed his presence and split up just to lose track of him? Carefully, he listened to their conversation while still acting as his 'disguise'. "My group shall head down towards the slums, Wizard take them towards the middle class district, we can start from there." He heard Liz talking. Since my priority is on the 'Chosen One', I guess I'll just follow her, he thought. But just then, he had thought of an even better idea. However, he'll had to wait and observe the group for now till they began to move into their respective routes.

Haruko Suzume returned to her room and laid down on the bed, exhausted. She had recently received a lecture from her mentor about going too far away from the forest since it's too dangerous there as there were reports of someone had been killed there. Not just that, she even returned home late and empty handed. As she was trying to rest on her bed, she looked at Azoth on the table, sleeping soundly with his wing bandaged. Well, at least he is okay. As she she was about to be drifted into sleep, she saw that there was a rash on Azoth's body. Getting up with a worried look on her face, she began to get closer to Azoth and examined him. "That's strange.... I thought I already cured him just now," she thought to heself and soon the bird's skin began to peel off and it gawked in pain. Haruko panicked and didn't knew what to do. Then, she thought about her mentor and brought the eagle onto her hands and soon dashed out of her room.

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The lady seems pretty hurried as Xander knew that she was always frequently watching her watch, as though she was waiting for something. For some reason, that alone unnerved him. Why do I have a bad feeling about this? he thought to himself. Ignoring his uneasiness for a while, he decided to concentrate on his task at hand. .......Maybe I should return to them later. With that said in his mind, he slowly distanced himself from the group and disappeared before everyone even knew he was there.

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A woman appearing at her eighties sat down on her chair, reading something about medicines and the art of healing using her spectacles. Suddenly, the door to the study room burst open and she gasp at the sound. "Oh Divine, you nearly gave me a heart attack!" she said, but the girl just stands there and was about to say something. "T-the..p-," she said, with a chocked voice as she was trying hard not to cry. The old woman just sigh. "Well, spit it out. I won't get any younger any day now, will I?" "M-my pet..," she said, while revealing Azoth on her hands. Probably just another rash, she thought. "Have you tried the cure spell?" she said to the child. "Y-yes, but it d-din't work,". It didn't work, huh? she thought. Despite being very clumsy and clueless at times, the young girl was by far without a doubt one of her best apprentices even though she might not look like it. Either she failed to try to heal him or that the injury was more serious than she thought. With a reassuring smile, she patted on her shoulders "Don't worry child. I'll make sure that pet of yours will be healed by me," She simply nodded and wipe off some of her tears at her eyes although it hadn't fall off here. Although she may sometimes be rough on her apprentices, she still cared for them like her children.

Haruko simply waited while her mentor is treating him, hoping that he'll be all right. As for the mentor, she examined the eagle fully and realized that it was actually poisoned. Having expertised in the arts of herbalism and healing for many decades, she managed to find out the cause of the illness and went out to create a cure. Upon doing so, she'll have to sacrifice some of the rare types of herbs that took many years for her to found one and some of them have been paid at a very high price at the markets. "You better be lucky girl that I'm a travelling priestess once, or else I wouldn't be able to cure that pet of yours right now," she said and ordered the girl to grind some herbs into the pot. Damn it, I'm still missing some key components. At this rate, I can only reduce its pain but not completely curing it.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. "Coming," the young girl said as she opened the door but there was no one to be found other than the basket and some herbs on it. She gasped. Slowly but carefully, she took the basket full of herbs and went back to her mentor about what happened. "Granny, I've found the things that I've found in the forest," The old woman simply stared at her and the basket but was shocked as she already found what she was looking for. "Oh Divine, that's it!" she said and took some of the herbs on it and began healing Azoth the 'traditional' way. "Stay outside while I attempt to cure it," Haruko nodded.

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Xander stayed outside and leaned against the wall of the shrine as he sees and hear at what Azoth sees and hears. He was the one that found the herb gatherer's basket and stole the contents while she was lost. But now he decided to returned it to her, even placing some of the ingredients that was needed to entirely cure Azoth . After finding out that he was actually poisoned, he can't help but actually remembered about the part where Alicia placed some strange liquid on Azoth. I should have seen it coming, he thought. As an assassin, he learned many types of poisons and potions that had often been used in his assassination attempt.
.....As much as he knew how to cure it.

He does not only gather poisonous and dangerous materials to help him during his mission, he also had been gathering the ingredients for the cure as well for emergency cases such as this one. However, he knew that gathering the key components for a cure was not enough when it comes to a complicated type of poison. Luckily, the one that had found him was a healer so he breathed the sign of relief at that thought. For now, he can only wait.

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After what seemed to be an eternity for her, the old woman had finally went out of the room with Azoth on the table, completely bandaged. "It's done," she said and Haruko ran up to the eagle, looking a bit dazed but seemed okay. "He was a tough one to treat, but I've treated many that was far more worse," she noted. "He should be okay in about 2-3 days or so, if he had the necessary hospitality". Haruko bowed down to her sensei "T-thank you, sensei. I'll promise I'll be careful with it from now on," "I hope you do, because that isn't any ordinary poison that I tried to treat. In fact, it was a man-made potion that poisoned him," She was surprised, not knowing who could've done such a thing. "Do you perhaps see anybody suspicious along the way here?" she said, trying to figure it out how it happened. "Not that I know o-... wait," she said as she flashed back at the time where Alicia poured droplets of water at Azoth. "I think I remembered.... that some lady gave a potion to my pet," she said and soon realized who did it. "As I thought," the granny said. Still can't believing that she was the one that did it, the old woman patted her on the shoulder. "Next time, don't accept gifts from strangers," she said. "Especially when they seemed kind and try to act friendly," True enough, the old woman had some experiences back during her youth.

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"So, my assumption was right," he said as soon as he realized that his pet had already been healed completely by the healer. Sigh, who would have thought that he had to go through all this trouble just to save his pet. As he was walking away from the shrine, he tried to think of the one that poisoned his pet. Why did she tried to poison him? There must be a very good reason about this. Perhaps she knew who I am and knew that the eagle is mine. If that's the case then...... How the hell did she know about me and/or my pet? he thought. Annoyed by this turn of events, he quietly went passed through the alley and disappeared into the darkness, still thinking about the same question. ......How?!

Something wasn't correct. Alicia detected a faint whiff of a demon's aura as Xander ventured into the darkness. It was very faint, but still noticeable. The plan had clearly failed. It seemed that Xander was well prepared at times like this. However, it also confirmed her suspicions. Saying nothing, she took out a small scroll and scribed some inscription on it in dragonica (The language of the wandering dragons) :


Observations:
Enemy seemed to be having knowledge of toxic and herbs. Trained in arts of death. Enemy's familiar presumed to be recovering.
Target sighted at alley, however unable to conceal strong aura. Probably knowledge of demon magic.

Hypnosis:
Enemy have made allies with the local population in Rayelna.
Haruko Suzume is one of them with probably someone to back up.
Enemy familiar likely with civilian host.

Conclusion:
Will take counter measures by mixing stronger drug from home town. Unfortunately due to rarity, I cannot produce much. High Fatality.
May start to use stronger dosage - To bring down enemy.
Drug acts as seeker, I can able to sense it's aura stronger, even through Azoth recovers. However, enemy doesn't know this.


Alicia smiled as she finished the last sentence, and stuff the paper in her secret compartment.
Over?
Not by a long short.


Perhaps, more drastic measures needed to be taken. But first something has to be done ......

Hanna sighed , hoping she made the right decision to go in Sora's team.
Though she couldn't help but being worried about the hawk from earlier . It seemed badly injured.. though Alicia gave him something. She wouldn't hurt an innocent animal , would she? 'No , I shouldn't think negative' Just thinking about hurting a poor bird made her angry , so angry she'd smash something. ' Animals don't deserve to be treated badly , they are only loyal to their master, people deserve the pain the animals suffered, they are the ones that have conflicts , the ones that feel hatred' She thought 'Though , I'm sure Alicia is not like that' she sighed at the thoughts that crossed her mind as she patted Kat "I'll always protect you" she muttered softly to her.

Xander was still cursing slightly to himself for not noticing it in the beginning. If only he had done so earlier, he would have been able to plan his next step carefully. There's no denying it, she must have known something about me as well, he thought. Despite being able to blend in with the surrounding, that girl had somehow being able to sense his presence. If his enemies already had information about him, then how would Xander be able to gather the information from them now? It'll be too dangerous to continue my work. I have to rethink everything before I will make the next move, he thought. Azoth will be held in the custody with the healers at the shrine since Xander think that the potion Alicia gave to him might be more than just mere poison. If only he had known his enemies better. .... Damn it, why isn't Ezra here when I need him! ==, he thought. Although his facial expression doesn't show it, he was seriously irritated by that woman.

So he'll be backing down from the rest of the group and might not appear near them again.
...... For now.