At the first sounds of her voice, Valm trembled and felt his heart beat unevenly. Mad bitch! And, by the way, he wasn’t the only one who called her that. The unruly Goddess of War of the highest rank. The most unpredictable and uncontrollable person on the continent. And… his own executioner. As well as his savior, incidentally.

  Valm tried to grasp the door handle, but it was instantly crushed into a small steel ball that fell to the floor.

  “I need to…” he barely managed to squeeze out.

  “Everyone needs something, Valmyk, but… no one is going anywhere while I’m here.”

  “I think we’ve already been through this… once before.”

  The alchemist still couldn’t turn his head, but from the corner of his eye, he saw the white crown of the Goddess of War as she playfully ran a finger with a short pink manicure over his lips, silencing him.

  “But I still have a few questions about that time when you so deftly disappeared and even managed to disguise your aura in a rather peculiar way. Don’t you want to explain anything? Although, wait, we have extra ears here.”

  At these words, Pak, along with the chair he was sitting in, flew out the window, shattering the glass into thousands of shards. Valm watched in sorrow as his money disappeared into the night. The Goddess of War created an aura cocoon around the entire room, blocking out any external sounds.

  The alchemist realized that she no longer held him. But he no longer attempted to escape. Too late.

  “Honorable Goddess of War Aisha, I ask you to stop this… this pressure on me!”

  “Honorable?! Aisha?! And where’s your usual ‘Mad bitch,’ ‘Idiot,’ ‘Damn hag’? Damn it, Valmyk, what happened to you in these three years? Nails… Eyes… Even some semblance of bloodlust… My dear, don’t you want to tell me something?”

  “Honorable Aisha, I have no desire to discuss this with you. Please remove your aura and allow me to leave. I have much to do.”

  “Oh no, you’ve got hearing problems too… Or is it your brain? Didn’t you hear what I said?! No one leaves until I allow it!”

  Valm grimaced. That was her all over. Tyrannical in her own strength. An old hag acting like a foolish child.

  He looked at the beautiful face of a young girl… But he saw another—what she had been before taking his ninth-class elixir of eternal youth and beauty. And yet, he decided to try persuading her once more.

  “Honorable Aisha, I heard you perfectly and I understand. But since the day I fulfilled the ‘duty’ you imposed on me, I consider our relationship completely over. So once again, I ask—remove your aura barrier and let me go.”

  “Oh, Valmyk, why are you so cold and distant? I thought we were on better terms.”

  “There can be no relationship between us, Honorable Aisha.”

  “Are you saying that the two years we spent together meant nothing?!”

  At her words, something snapped in the alchemist, and he continued without even trying to be polite anymore.

  “Spent together?! Mad bitch! You kept me in a dog cage for two years! And you call that ‘together’?”

  “Oh! Now I recognize the real you! And no, Valmyk, it’s not ‘what I call together’—it’s a fact. And don’t deny the obvious. We were made for each other; you just haven’t realized it yet.”

  “You old bitch… You’ve completely lost your mind after seven hundred years! No one is made for anyone! How old are you now? Six hundred forty? Six hundred fifty? I don’t even remember anymore…”

  “I’m five hundred forty! Five hundred forty, and you damn well know it!”

  “Exactly! And I’m only twenty-eight!”

  “So what? Do I look bad?”

  Objectively speaking, Aisha was the most beautiful woman Valm had ever seen in his life. But there was one problem…

  “You think I don’t understand the effects of the elixir you forced me to create for you?”

  No matter how hard Aisha tried to maintain a friendly demeanor, she couldn’t hold back this time. Her eyes narrowed into slits, and her lips twisted into a horrible grimace.

  “You little bastard… You made it for yourself! So you wouldn’t feel ashamed standing next to me! And wasn’t it you who got the biggest benefit from it? If my memory serves me, it was during the creation of that elixir that you became the stepson of the Law of Alchemy! And now you have the audacity to reproach me?! You should be kissing the ground I walk on for giving you that opportunity!”

  “Sitting half-naked for two years in an outdoor dog cage is an opportunity?! You think I can’t create ninth-class elixirs without your pressure? You old idiot, you were nothing but a hindrance!”

  “Ungrateful wretch! I pulled you from the claws of the imperial court! What would you be now if not for me? A submissive lapdog of that worthless emperor? Just like your pathetic teacher?!”

  A loud slap echoed through the room. She didn’t even try to dodge, watching as Valm’s palm slowly approached her cheek. But the only one who felt pain was the alchemist himself. Even his claws couldn’t leave a mark on the Goddess of War’s skin.

  “Don’t mention my teacher, you old bitch! If not for his kindness, your bones would have been scattered by stray dogs across the empire long ago!”

  “Oh, go ahead, throw a tantrum, Valmyusha, I know you can!”

  The alchemist trembled with rage, forgetting his fear of her. She had won again. As always. The bitch had centuries of experience. He turned away and took a few steps back.

  “Go to hell, you damned bitch! If that’s all, then our conversation is over. I made you the elixir, you returned my freedom. From now on, we each go our own way.”

  “Oh, Valmyusha… You’re still so passionate… But really, think about it—what’s so bad about coming back with me? With your skills and my power, we could dictate our own terms to everyone around us, live as we please…”

  Valm had plenty of words ready to fly from his tongue, but he forced himself to remain silent. If only she would just leave.

  “Silent? I admit, maybe I came to you at a bad time. But I want you to remember—only I can guarantee your safety on this continent, understood? Or turn your life into a living hell whenever I decide it’s necessary. Your fate is not in your hands!”

  The alchemist remained silent. No matter how much he wanted to kill her, it was impossible. For anyone on the continent. But no matter how much she boasted, she also had no desire to confront the Law of Alchemy directly. And her pride wouldn’t allow her to deal with him through others.

  Though, of course, she could still make his life miserable.

  Aisha sighed and approached the alchemist, firmly grasping his head and looking into his eyes.

  “Amber… A pleasant color… Valm, I don’t want to force you or drag you away against your will. I still hope you’ll make the right decision. So we’ll leave it at this for now, but I’ll be back in a few weeks, understood?”

  Without waiting for an answer, the Goddess of War withdrew her aura cocoon and flew out the window.

  Valm sat in his chair and sighed with relief. At least for now, this unexpected problem had retreated.

  Expecting Aisha to forget about him was foolish. His only hope was to deceive her again and escape for a few more years.

  The office door opened, and Manager Pak, in a tattered suit, walked in and sat beside him.

  “You have some interesting friends, Mr. Valm.”

  “Did she ask about me?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you told her everything?”

  “Master Valm, we are friends, of course, but lying to that mad… that Goddess of War would be suicide on my part. So yes, I told her everything she asked about you as honestly as possible.”

  Valm sighed. So, she knew everything about his last year in this city.

  “And does she know that I’m planning to leave for a few months?”

  “No, she didn’t ask about that, so I didn’t say anything.”

  Well, then it wasn’t all bad. Maybe he could pull off that aura-masking trick again. Valm extended his hand to Pak.

  “Seventy-six thousand gold coins. Four thousand is the auction commission.”

  He placed a small storage pouch in the alchemist’s palm. Valm stood up.

  “Farewell, Master Pak.”

  “Uh… farewell…” Pak replied, surprised.

  As Valm returned to the Citadel, his thoughts were not on the upcoming journey to the dungeon, but on what to do afterward. It was a shame to admit, but he would have to leave the Citadel. That Mad Bitch already knew about it. She wouldn’t be lying in wait, of course, but once she lost track of his aura, she would start checking in from time to time. And it would be a disaster if she found Qian and Grem there. The alchemist gripped the capsule’s steering wheel tightly. Damn bitch!

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  It pained Valm to leave the Citadel, into which he had poured so much effort and wealth. Again and again, he questioned whether he had made the right decision in creating that damned pill, which had given away his location. For over three years, he had successfully hidden from Aisha, only to throw away his peaceful life with one careless action. Well, it was too late for regrets—he needed to figure out how to escape from her again.

  The next morning, as the girl was preparing for her alchemy lessons, Valm stopped her.

  “Qian, go to the market and buy transport suitable for moving Grem to another city.”

  “So we are moving after all?”

  “Not ‘we’—you.”

  “Master, I think you owe me an explanation…”

  Valm sighed. She was right.

  “You see, Qian, your master has…” He scratched his chin with a claw. “Let’s say, enemies. And yesterday, they found him… This time, your master managed to talk his way out—for a while—but they will come back, no doubt about it. So, it will be better for you and Grem to hide in the capital of the kingdom for now, where I will find you after I return from the dungeon. After that, I’ll figure out what to do next. And please, no arguments or suggestions—just do as I ask, alright?”

  Of course, the girl didn’t like it. Of course, she wanted to say a lot. But the expression on Valm’s face was so troubled that she silently took the money and left for the city.

  Inwardly, she cursed the alchemist with dirty words until she realized that the true reason for her frustration was fear. She was afraid of losing the peaceful life she had with Valm in the Citadel. Everything was collapsing before her eyes like a house of cards. And for the first time in a long while, she wanted to cry. Just what kind of enemies were they, that even Valm had to run with his tail between his legs? He was anything but a coward.

  At the city market, Qian bought a large two-axle cart with new suspension and big rear wheels so that Grem wouldn’t be shaken too much on the road’s potholes. Then she sat behind the levers. If they had to leave, they had to leave—she didn’t have much of a choice. Either obey her master’s orders or abandon him. And that, she was definitely not ready to do.

  “Rent a house in the outskirts of the kingdom’s capital and live quietly, without causing trouble. Understood?” Valm gave his final instructions.

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Don’t argue with the neighbors, don’t rob people, don’t beat up idiots, and don’t mess with alchemists. Got it?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “And one last thing. So that I can find you—every Sunday, four months from now, go to the fountain in the central square at noon. Don’t wait too long, just walk around it and then go home. Understood?”

  “Yes, Masteeer…”

  “Hey, what’s this? Tears from the biggest troublemaker of a beastkin I know?”

  Qian clung to Valm’s neck, sniffing.

  “I don’t… I don’t want to go anywhere! What if you don’t come? What will I do then?!”

  The alchemist firmly grasped her shoulders and pulled her away.

  “Qian, remember this—nothing will stop me from coming back. Nothing, understand? Alchemist’s word! Now get on the cart and go. It’s time.”

  Holding back her tears, the girl climbed onto the driver’s seat and rode out through the gates. She wanted to look back just once, but she was afraid to do so. So she just kept her eyes on the road ahead. Valm would come. He had to. An alchemist’s word… it had to be as solid as a rock.

  Valm closed the gates and activated the Citadel’s highest level of protection. Well, since his location was already known to everyone, it was time to engage in real alchemy, not just low-level potions. Valm grinned and pulled out fifty alchemical cauldrons from storage. He wouldn’t be making ninth-class elixirs, of course, but even this would be more than enough for them all! A celestial flame flared over his palm.

  Over the next week, the people of Tatan learned what true elemental terror was. Thunder rumbled ceaselessly, lightning flashed, thick fog with a stinging stench rolled in, rain froze into ice the moment it touched the ground despite the heat, snow fell that set tree leaves ablaze, and the sun in the sky changed colors—from red to green… But then, one night, everything vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

  Satisfied, Valm got to his feet and packed away all the alchemical equipment spread across the courtyard. It was time. He took one last walk through the Citadel, collecting monster cores from the defensive formations. If he ever gained the necessary strength… that Mad Bitch would pay him back for everything!

  Opening the gates, Valm took one last look at the place where he had spent so much time training with Grem and teaching Qian. Then he pulled out a large flask filled with red liquid and tossed it into the middle of the courtyard. “Good luck tracking my aura now, bitch!” he thought, quickly speeding away from the Citadel on his capsule.

  A minute later, behind him, a thin red beam shot into the sky and then crashed down, erupting into a massive sphere of flame that any seventh-circle mage would envy. It was so hot that the ultra-durable natural stone from which the entire structure was built melted like butter on a frying pan.

  It was already morning when the alchemist stopped his capsule near the crowded market and stored it away. Slipping like a snake into the crowd in the square, he removed a ring from his finger on the move and turned the thin band with a claw on the inner side of the storage. Putting the ring back on his finger, he pulled out an old gray cloak and quickly headed toward the Silver Dragons’ headquarters.

  If someone strong enough had been nearby, watching Valm, they would have noticed how incredibly his aura had changed. As if these were two entirely different people. But there was no one like that at the market.

  However, such people were present among the adventurers waiting for Valm near two large carts harnessed to third-class monsters. Ladbor watched in surprise as a tall, slender figure in a gray hooded cloak approached him and greeted him in the alchemist’s voice.

  “Good morning, Master Ladbor! Am I very late?”

  “Is that you, Master Valm?” he asked in surprise. “No, get in the second cart with our mages…”

  The alchemist climbed into the cart he was directed to and greeted the magician he already knew—Tani.

  “Hello, Tani. Won’t you introduce me to the others?”

  Inside sat two more mages and a sorceress. Tani started with her.

  “This is Kyra, our healer, a fifth-circle light mage, rank B.”

  Kyra was a short, thin woman of middle age with white hair and a dull face that seemed to have lost all human emotions. Even her smile upon meeting Valm felt more like a duty than a desire.

  “This is Nonk, a water and defense mage, fifth circle, rank B.”

  The red-haired young man smiled warmly, amusingly adjusting his neatly trimmed beard. Based on temperament and appearance, Valm would have called him a fire mage rather than one of the water element.

  “And this is Turan, just like me, a fire and metal mage of the fifth circle, rank B.”

  Valm looked at the man with gray hair, just like Tani’s, and couldn’t help but notice the resemblance in their facial features.

  “Are you… relatives?” the alchemist couldn’t hold back.

  “Yes, she’s my younger sister.”

  “I see… Well, I’m Valm, an alchemist studying monsters… which is why we’re heading to Tiktak, so I can research some of them.”

  For a moment, silence reigned, broken by Nonk.

  “Excuse me, but why would an alchemist study monsters?”

  Valm smiled, just about to answer when Ladbor’s voice rang out.

  “Move out!”

  The cart jerked as the driver lightly whipped the monsters on their backs.

  “Some will say it’s the whim of a crazy alchemist; some will think it’s an attempt to discover something new… You see, humanity has always survived and triumphed only by thoroughly studying its enemies. You wouldn’t deny that monsters are humanity’s enemies, would you?”

  “Hah! What’s there to study? Just kill them and rip out their cores, that’s all.”

  “Not so fast. Tell me, do you know how much tougher a horned goblin’s skin is compared to a human’s? Where its weak points are? How much force is needed for a weapon—or, in your case, a spell—to reach the monster’s critical organ to kill or disable it?”

  “A horned goblin? I wouldn’t even think about it, it dies from a first-circle spell…”

  “Sure. If it’s alone. But what if there are a thousand of them? Ten thousand? No one around to give you time to cast a high-level spell… What then, Nonk? Will you die of mana exhaustion?”

  The mage fell silent. He had no answer to such questions since mages never fought monsters without warrior protection. So he just waved his hand dismissively. Valm smiled again.

  “But with what I’ve learned from studying monsters, you could kill them using far less mana. No need to smash a fly with a sledgehammer.”

  Turan couldn’t hold back and joined the conversation.

  “Valm, what do alchemists know about a mage’s mana and how it’s spent? Do you think it’s just simple math with a linear dependence? It’s much more complicated…”

  “Oh, Turan, believe me, alchemists know just as much about mana, mages, and their mana circles as mages themselves. Perhaps even more since they create things like this.” Valm pulled out a vial of mana restoration potion and shook it in the air. “And potions are just the tip of the iceberg of our knowledge about mages and their mana.”

  “You say that as if your kind has already uncovered all the secrets of the universe,” Turan replied discontentedly.

  “Wait,” Nonk interrupted him. “Valm has a point. Mages can indeed invest different amounts of mana into the same spell, regulating its power. But to use that in battle against monsters, when split seconds decide whether you’ll live or die the next moment… No mage would perform that many calculations just to save a fraction of mana for the next spell. A mage would simply drink a potion. Or receive an enhancement spell from a healer.”

  “That’s true,” the alchemist replied to them both at once. “And while alchemists don’t yet know all the secrets of the universe, they do understand mana overuse and the limitations of healer support. Throughout history, alchemists have fought for the rational use of resources—whether it’s mana for mages or ingredients for their own potions. And I hope my research will help people spend fewer resources of any kind to destroy each unit of monsters.”

  They continued talking about alchemy, magic, and monsters for a long time, even the initially silent Tani and Kyra joining in. Some views aligned, some differed… That was always the case between mages and alchemists, and Valm didn’t try to change it, only standing by his own perspective.

  The conversation ended only in the evening when Ladbor stopped the carts for the night near a large roadside inn at the intersection of six highways. Remembering the agreement that Valm would cover travel expenses only after the expedition, he took a separate room and went upstairs without joining the communal dinner. The kitchen’s smells reeked of spoiled vegetables anyway, something an alchemist physically couldn’t stomach.

  Valm locked himself in his room, took a shower, prepared his own meal, and collapsed onto the bed, exhausted. Traveling all day in a cart turned out to be more tiring than it seemed at first glance. His back and everything below it ached mercilessly.

  Morning came at dawn for the alchemist, along with the bustle and noise of travelers preparing to set off again. The thin walls seemed to amplify the sounds from the corridor and neighboring rooms. Irritated, Valm quickly got ready and stepped outside. None of Ladbor’s team was there yet, except for the drivers tending to the monsters.

  Shedding his cloak and upper garments, the alchemist ran along the highway, occasionally shivering from the chill and morning dew. The habit of exercising seemed to have taken root in him. Too bad there was no time to pull a trainer out of storage. Finishing his run, the alchemist poured cold water over himself from a well and approached the carts where the adventurers were gathering.

  “Valm, you’re not just an oddball, you’re the oddest of all oddballs for an alchemist!” Turan shouted.

  All the mages laughed. But the warriors, on the contrary, looked at Valm’s lean figure approvingly.

  “Morning exercise lifts the mood and saturates the brain with oxygen, which helps thinking. Mages could use that too because I don’t know how you plan to walk to the mid-levels of the dungeon. Or do you think I’ll obediently pay you in full for idle hours due to your inability to walk long distances, Master Mage? I assure you, that won’t happen. Alchemists always use resources rationally. And money is one of the most important resources.”

  Now the warriors laughed, while the mages collectively turned red.

  “No matter how trained you are, you’ll never catch up to even a first-class warrior, so you shouldn’t—” Turan tried to retort.

  Valm just shrugged.

  “The contract states in black and white that the executor, meaning the Silver Dragons, escorts the client, meaning me. That means I decide the group’s pace. If I want to walk slowly, everyone walks slowly. If I want to go fast, everyone goes fast. If I want to stop, everyone stops and waits. Or do you think I’ll adjust to every weakling mage? You think too highly of yourselves. Or… you’re planning to breach the contract.”

  “Some alchemist is going to tell the Silver Dragons what to do?” the mage shouted so loudly that spit flew from his mouth.

  “Enough!” Ladbor growled. “Master Valm, no one plans to break the contract, though our mages are indeed… slow, let’s say.” He stepped up to Turan and hissed in his ear. “Just shut your mouth and stay out of the alchemist’s way!”

  Valm had deliberately escalated the situation to test the team’s resilience to stress. And now he saw—they had none. Only Ladbor’s fist held everything together. Reaching this disappointing conclusion, the alchemist shook his head and climbed into the cart. Perhaps he had chosen the wrong team.