Ep 112. Long Time No See. (2)

  Few ho, at Telberk…

  “What the…?”

  A sentry narrowed his gaze above the keep’s tower. After cheg over and again to ascertain what he was seeing through the scope, he began shouting down to the ramparts below.

  “Someone’s approag from the west!”

  The stationed soldiers stirred in unison as they turowards the sentry’s dire. Following suit, those statioop the ramparts sed the stretg pins to make out their supposed enemy.

  And among them was the hooded figure, narrowing his eyes onto the spe the distance.

  “That’s…”

  A strange girl roag from afar with shaky steps, e hair dragging along the ground.

  But soon, her slow advance came to a stop. The girl painfully gripped at her chest as her legs gave away, colpsing onto her knees in a seemingly paralyzed state.

  “…!”

  firming what they’d seen, the surrounding soldiers began to move about. Some began to form squadrons to iigate outside the keep, while some retreated into the keep’s interior to report to their emperor.

  But the hooded figure stepped off the rampart alone, disregarding the others and their regutions.

  “Wait, what’s up with him?! Heritch forbade us from moving on our own!”

  “Leave ‘em be. That fel ain’t got nothin’ to do with us, he’s directly uhe emperor’s and. Ye ain’t turning him ‘round.”

  “Ha! He’s still a soldier, isn’t he? Ag alone’s just asking for an arrow to the head.”

  “…That ain’t where you’re aimin’, is it?”

  Leaving the soldiers’ scrutiny behind, the hooded figure swiftly made his way towards the girl in lighteeps. A pair of goldeared down from within the hood’s shadow, noting the two horns protruding from the girl’s head.

  “…Aymeia.”

  “…”

  ‘It hurts.’

  I few hours, the star deity had struggled to evehe from the excruciating pain radiating within her chest. Even though she wasn’t hurt anywhere, she could scarce keep herself from gasping for air.

  And when she’d e to, Aymeia found herself in the middle of nowhere, far outside of the safety of her cavern.

  ‘…Where…am I going…?’

  The deity looked up with raspy breaths to meet the hooded figure’s gaze. It wasly warm, to say the least.

  “Mo…ve…”

  “…”

  At first, the hooded figure stepped to the side – as if he really would. But as he stretched out his hand, a broadsword shimmered iehin his grip.

  Unlike his puppet state, there was no mistaking it this time. The girl in front of him was Aymeia.

  For turies, the deity of stars had never shown face outside like this. But somehow, she’d e right to where he was – somehow, in aremely weakeate.

  ‘There’s no reason to hesitate.’

  After raising his bde high into the air, the figure struck down towards Aymeia’s neck.

  And, just as the bde was about to touch the girl’s skin, a weak voice slithered out of her lips once more.

  “…Move.”

  She had to go forth.

  Although she didn’t know why, she had to go – if only to know the source of her torment, of what was even making her move in the first pce. The answer surely y somewhere out there, far into the distance.

  She couldn’t waste time at a pce like this.

  When the bde touched Aymeia’s throat, the molten steel powerlessly bounced off of her. Its keen edge had disappeared, reduced to a heap of scrap junk.

  And when the hooded figure met the star deity’s gaze again, her eyes were no lohat of a human.

  “…!”

  An explosion of heat engulfed the surrounding enviro. Bzing lights swallowed Aymeia whole, f the hooded figure to retreat back several steps.

  An ephemeral deity floated some ways above, watg every detail unfold from the sky.

  “…Ah…haha. Hahaha. Hahahaha!”

  Felicir let out a mog ughter, watg the firestrow into a bzing sphere. Although he cked a physical body to feel the heat, it wasn’t difficult to imagine what it would feel like.

  The sun above was beginning to wane. But the sun below clearly had no iion of setting just yet.

  Beaming an amused grin, Felicir watched on as the hooded figure cwed at his burning cloak. He swiftly tore the cloth off of himself, revealing a bleak white aura buzzing about his figure.

  “Let’s see if you deserve your title, ‘hero.’”

  ? ? ?

  “Karas?”

  “Yeah. He probably knows the emperor through and through.”

  “Hm…”

  “I don’t know if he told you, but he’s got a really strong tie to this empire. I guarantee you that he knows things.”

  Hearing Raizel’s input, Serenis briefly closed her eyes to remihe crow-like professor.

  Admittedly, Karas had been quite knowledgeable in the field of history; it was the area he specialized in, at least acc to his own words. Although the professor had often omitted certaiails in his lectures due to being in a public schooling enviro, there was every possibility that he’d know something useful regarding the Akeian emperor.

  But…

  “While I agree he may be of help…Karas is in Partivi the moment. It’d take quite some time for us to return.”

  Even for Serenis and Raizel, the trip would take them two days, if not three. It le time for the emperor to hear about what’d happened in Zeria. If he were to choose to hide away, then there was no telling how difficult it’d bee to find him; at least right now, they had quite a specific location to look for him in.

  But in that moment, Eline poked out her head with Theolus, eyes gleaming with hope.

  “Um, actually…if you use the mae downstairs, it won’t take long at all…!”

  “? Mae?”

  When the dragons’ gaze fell on Elihe herbalist delightfully nodded her head.

  “Yes! Just one floor below us. It’s, um…it’s a portal the emperor made.”

  “A portal? That’s a spell, is it not?”

  “Um…the mae’s based on the spell! Siraveling far takes too much mana from the caster, he designed a mae that could use aernal mana sourstead. Or so I’ve heard…”

  Raizel frowned upon hearing Eline’s expnation. She briefly gowards the window, but the rest of the kin were already long gone.

  “Why didn’t you say that earlier? The others could’ve used it.”

  “I…did…”

  “Huh? When?”

  “I’ve…been saying it…for a while…”

  “…”

  “Nobody listened…”

  Raizel hurriedly avoided the herbalist’s gaze. As did the others.

  After letting out a quiet sigh, Serenis shook her head before tinuing the versation.

  “…I apologize in their stead. The floor beh, you say?”

  “…Mhm. I take you there.”

  “Good. Let’s be off, then.”

  ? ? ?

  After a while…

  “Hm.”

  “How is it, lord? Are you getting it?”

  Serenis tio s around the small room. At the room’s tre, a rge, silver-like ring was standing upwards, supported by metal arches to each of its sides; translut wires coiled around the ring and stretched out onto the chamber’s ers. The floor the structure stood on was engraved with giant runes, unmistakably of human magic.

  Despite the number of heads present, Serenis was the only one whnized and uood the engraved symbols. The dragons knew o nothing about human spell formus, and Eline only khe mae’s foundation based on what she’d heard, not because she was a mage. The herbalist knew as much as Theolus did regarding the mae’s actual ws.

  Thankfully, the dragnced back at the youngling after sing the runes on the floor, nodding her head firmly. Although she was still no expert on mankind’s magic, Serenis thankfully found this particur spell circle just barely readable. And…though she didn’t quite uand maery all too well either, she’d seen her fair share of oddities in Partivine duriime with Patrick. He’d had showranger traptions in their kit that funed on magical foundations.

  Putting the two together, it wasn’t difficult to deduce the ring’s funing.

  “I ’t say I fully uand it, but…it seems the portal’s been installed in the form of a rge spell circle. It should work with a simple destination coordihout requiring calcution or mana. As Eline said, it draws its energy from aernal source. However…”

  Serenis’ gaze followed the other end of the coiled wires. They ultimately led to one of the chamber’s ers, ected to a heap of assorted kirium boxes.

  The problem was, all of the stones were dull yellow. Had they been filled with mana, the stones should’ve beeing a bluish glow.

  “There doesn’t seem to be much mao take from. Perhaps the device has been used retly.”

  “...So we ’t use it?”

  “We still could.”

  Serenis then approached the boxes of kirium. She collected the numerous wires that had beeo the stone surfaces, holding them in her own hand before tinuing to answer Raizel.

  “I repce the supply. But if I were to leave afterwards, the device will shut itself off, and there wouldn’t be any way to return. Heneone else will have to ehe portal and call Karas.”

  “…Uh…”

  When the dragonlord’s expet gaze fell on Raizel, the youngling gnced left and right for an out.

  Not that there was one.

  Two elders, aher had a clue who ‘Karas’ was. A human who’d epped foot in Way, and…a hatg who could barely even speak.

  After firming the avaible didates, Raizel clicked her tongue before relutly stepping forth. Her expression crumpled into a vexed scowl.

  The ‘someone else’ Serenis spoke of was clearly referring to her.

  “…Tch. Damnit all.”

  Oher hand, Serenis beamed a proud smile at the sight of Raizel taking the initiative. She then began to el her mana through the wires in her hands.

  “Thank you, child.”

  “…You’re wele.”

  A low whirring noise echoed throughout the room. A violet portal sooo life within the tre’s ring, and Raizel swiftly disappeared into it.

  And the two elders who watched it all happen – especially Aether – could not believe what she was seeing. She lightly shook her husband’s shoulder, eyes still glued to the glowing portal before them.

  “Dear? Was Raizel always this…attentive?”

  “She’s grown tame, hasn’t she?”

  “Grown tame?! That’s not just on a level of ‘growing tame’! Where’s the Raizel who went around breaking everything? She’d never do something for someone else, that’s crazy!”

  “Well…for one, I’m not against the ge…”

  Serenis merely blinked in fusion, listening to the elders versing across the room.

  ‘…Were things truly that bad before? Our first meeting wasly ideal, but I still thought she listened rather well…’

  Although maintaining the portal was immensely draining, the dragonlord’s expansive mana pool offset the cost signifitly. And standing still like this, she could draw more from the star at will.

  Hence, Serenis lost herself in thought as she waited for Raizel’s return, her mind jumping from one random topic to another. Like how she should ask Iris to teach her portal spells during their meeting, or hoieces she should tear the emperor into.

  Meanwhile, Eline was also lost in thought – a very different one.

  ‘…Wasn’t this mae…one-way…?’

  The further the travelling distahe more it cost to maintain a portal spell. Maintaining a portal eg tial distances was…well, pure insanity.

  Hence, even the emperor himself only ever used this mae as a way to quickly leave the royal paot return to it. Because its upkeep would be a huge waste of resources, he hadn’t even sidered maintaining it for his return.

  But right now, the dragonlord was casually maintaining the spell. As if she nning to keep it this way until the youngling’s return.

  In fact, that’s exactly what was going on.

  ‘Do I…remember it wrong? Was it always this way…? Should I say something?’

  In the far future, a day does e where Eline is able to speak tons without fear of beien alive.

  That day is not today.

  Praybird