Nathan sat in a wooden chair as the Marchioness entered the room. Even the chairs they gave him were different. Vanessa was more bothered by that than him.

"I greet her ladyship, the Marchioness of Bern." Isa greeted. Vanessa repeated the greeting, and so did he.

The Marchioness looked at him sitting in a rickety chair weirdly but did not say anything

"I fear that I do not have good news for you." she said. "The scouts have been unable to find your parents."

Vanessa sighed, others might not recognize what she felt like, but he did. The little hope that she'd had just went away. Nathan wanted to hold her hand and tell her that he was with her, but Isa was sitting between them.

"I see." Vanessa replied. "Thank you for your help, Marchioness. I am grateful."

The Marchioness' eyes softened. "This is just what I should do, Viscountess. There are still two days till the festival, please make yourself at home. Meari might not be as old as Deadre, but it is still the capital of the march. I am sure there will be something there that will interest you."

"I am sure there will be, Marchioness." Vanessa said as they got up. The three of them walked away from the Marchioness' office, heading without any specific direction in mind.

"So, what do you want to do?" he asked.

"The Marchioness might have failed, but there is no reason for us to stop." Isa said. "Meari has a large market, one with plenty of information brokers, perhaps some can help."

Isa and giving up really didn't mix, did they? But even he had to admit, the chances of finding Vanessa's parents were low, they didn't even know their names, or what they looked like. The Marchioness had artifacts to verify if they were Vanessa's parents, but they had to find them first.

"Nathan and I already checked there," Vanessa frowned. "But it's been over a year since then, perhaps someone has some information to sell."

Nathan still remembered that. The brokers had laughed them out of their shops, the thought of searching for someone without name or description was laughable to them. Just the fact that the couple should have lost a child nineteen years ago did not give them much to search on.

But Vanessa was a noble now, that could perhaps help the search along. A Viscountess had to have some influence, right?

The three of them headed out of the mansion and towards Meari. The mansion wasn't in the city like Deadre, but it was close enough. Just ten minutes away by horse. Storing the horses at the city stables was a chore with its fees and glacial bureaucracy, but they finished it in half an hour. The market awaited them.

The Bern march might not be as populated as the Diery county, but it had a far larger urban presence. Meari alone had twenty times as many people as Deadre. And a much, much, livelier market.

The smell of food, sewage and feces merged in the air as he stepped through the small threshold that differentiated the market. The market occupied a large ground, large stalls arranged parallely in lines.

The stalls were separated into lanes by product, but some of the lanes were shared. The information brokers shared their lane with snack stalls, and 'miscellaneous’' stalls. The latter mostly being people trying to trick others into thinking their goods were valuable.

Or perhaps their services were. The fortune tellers for instance. There was no power in this world that allowed one to tell the future, at least that Nathan knew of, but there were people claiming to have it either way.

"How about we go straight to the broker's stalls?" Isa asked, looking at the snack stalls around her in distaste.

Vanessa giggled "Of course you want to do that. Come on, I will lead the way."

The lanes were quite long, the market itself was huge to begin with. Walking from one side to another was a chore, but it was at least interesting to walk through.

Vanessa pointed the stalls out to Isa, pointing out the food that she had liked. Nathan just tried to puke. This place was bad enough before his Fae powers awakened, but now that they had...the smell was a bit too much. How could humans not smell this? And why the heck was there the smell of feces here in the first place? This was a market with food stalls.

Nathan tried not to open his mouth and take shallow breaths, an effort made monumentally more difficult by the sheer number of people around him just jostling about, going from one direction to another.

"-the Ferosi is a specialty drink from Serenor. I had it last time, it's horribly overpriced. Just a little sweet and they are charging ten copper for it." Vanessa said as Isa just nodded along, not looking too interested but too polite to tell Vanessa to shut up.

Nathan wanted to, something distinctly revolting had started emerging in the air, and he did not want to breathe it anymore than he must. Why was Vaness being so pushy in the first place? This was not like her. Heck, she should know that he didn't like being here from last time. How was it that she was so focused on taking Isa sightseeing?

Nathan looked at his childhood friend with narrowed eyes as he gagged, trying to endure the smell. Was she trying to impress Isa? Thinking back, she had been sticking close to Isa a bit. And she had taken to practicing her combat ability a lot more.

Oh my gosh, she liked Isa, didn't she? Nathan had known Vanessa liked women long ago, for reasons that were better off not mentioned, but did Isa? The drama nearly had him forget the stench and open his mouth to speak. A mistake. The air snuck into his mouth, and as it turned out, it tasted far, far worse than it smelt.

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Nathan gagged vocally, his body pushing the air out. Mana activated within him as he detected what was in the air. “Poison…" he said softly.

"What?" Vanessa said, turning towards him, looking worried. "Are you okay, Nathan? What happened?"

"Poison! There is poison in the air!" he yelled, flinging mana around as he activated his element. Isa's sword came out of its sheet as a faint wind blew the surroundings away. Vanessa gathered mana around her as fire covered Isa's sword.

Nathan's shout might have just dazed the crowd, but Isa's sword had them panicking and running away. The market descended into further chaos as stalls were run over in the crowd's hurry to flee.

The city guard would be here in minutes, but Nathan wasn't sure what he was supposed to tell them. There was indeed poison in the air, but it was not a fatal one. And it wasn't a very well hidden one, either.

Why would one bother to put this in the air? To sabotage a stall? An unexpected excretion from some new experimental dish? Thinking back, calling the alarm was the wrong decision. Nathan had gotten too used to the peaceful and well-organized Diery palace, where anything even slightly off had to be an attack.

This was not the Diery county. There was literally a stall selling poisonous substances for people to get some kind of high from.

The sound of hoofbeats told him that the city guard was getting close.

"Come on, we can't get caught." Vanessa said.

Nathan wanted to mention that they were nobles now, the city guard had a horrible reputation, but they wouldn't dare do something to them. That would literally be an act of war. But then again, it would be embarrassing to the Countess' image if they got caught doing something like this.

Isa and Vanessa ran away as Nathan stepped towards a stall that was empty, calling on his mana. There was little chance he would outrun horses, an illusion was a much better option.

Nathan stepped into a stall, hiding under a table as he cast the illusion. The less attention it drew, the longer an illusion would last.

The horses stopped at the place of the incident, Nathan looked up as the city guard wandered around. The stalls were flipped around as the guard looked around haphazardly. Nathan hid under the table, pulling mana closer to him as he used his power to make viruses. The guards had to turn away. The only was if he manipulated them.

"Dive into their heads, not too deep, but deep enough to see what they are thinking." Nathan remembered as he gingerly extended his mana. The mana touched the nearest guard's head and seeped into it. And then, just like it did every time he tried this, the mana went out of control.

Like a wave had possessed it, the surrounding mana shifted towards the spell, drawing him deeper into the guard's mind than he wanted to go.

Nathan pulled back in a hurry, afraid that he would kill the guard by mistake. But he still took a chance and left a few words. "Leave". The guard looked around, his confusion painfully apparent as his mind tried to make sense of his sudden change in thinking. But he was barely an Apprentice. Nathan was nearly a Journeyman.

"There isn't anyone here, we should chase after the girls." the guard said to his comrades. The rest of the guards looked around as if wondering what to do, more than one growing suspicious of the guard's actions.

Nathan's heart beat against his chest. This wasn't going to work. There had to be a larger spell in place. A mind virus.

Nathan hesitantly concocted a sleep poison, and merged mind mana into it. The manual went on about how one had to be careful about mixing the two, or the mind mana would disobey him and ruin the virus. But he didn't have that problem. The mana was very cooperative, almost eager to wreck people’s minds.

Nathan sighed as the virus was prepared, and then waved his hand, deploying it against the people before him. There was only one reason for the mana's behavior. The sheer bloodthirsty and eager way it acted, surging right into people's minds. This was the power of the Fae.

The guards fell one by one, barely even realizing what was happening. This was the power of the royal Fae. A power so violent that he feared even using it.

Mana surged around him, eager to follow him, as if prompting him to finish the job. The virus replicated itself, spreading outward, jumping to the nearby people. Nathan picked it out of the air, curling mana to stop it from replicating.

But he was still too late, or perhaps he didn't want to stop it in the first place. An asleep market was much easier to escape from.

Nathan shook his head as he called on more mana, using a much greater amount of mana than he had in his life, and called the viruses back. The viruses followed his command, coming before him, and then he commanded them dead.

Nathan looked around and found a stall that gave him a bad sense. And beside it was a man, now on the ground, with a single burning cigarette in his hand. Tobacco. This was what he had smelled. This was what his mana reacted against. This was the cause of this entire idiocy. A single burning stick of tobacco.

sc

Vanessa

"Come on!" Vanessa yelled as she jumped over a stall, outrunning the chasing guards.

"Yes, come on." Isa said, rushing right past her. Vanessa narrowed her eyes. This was interesting. A smile danced on her lips as she asked.

"Are you asking for a competition while we run away from the law?"

"No," Isa smiled. "A competition needs a finish line."

But she still sped up, leaving the guards that were trying to maneuver horses through the stall far behind.

Vanessa sped up beside her. The guards got off their horses and ran after them, but that just gave them a bigger lead. The two of them were nearing the peak of Apprentice, far, far faster than the guards chasing them.

Fire arrows, ice shards and other elements shot towards them as they ran, but they failed to even breach their defenses. The single fold of space she had conjured around her, and the sword intent around Isa made a mockery of the attacks.

But the guards would not stop, it was as if they knew something that she didn't. Vanessa scouted ahead using her space element, but Isa had already found it before she could.

"There is some kind of magic cliff somewhere ahead of us, the earth will suddenly give way, trapping us." Isa said, delivering the bad news with a smirk.

Vanessa looked at her from the corner of her eyes, and found herself smiling. The tactic hadn't quite been prepared for something like this, but it would still work.

The two of them looked at each other, letting their mana gather as they let it propel them towards a wall. And then, using the superior physique granted by their mana, they kicked their feet against the wall. The wall collapsed, propelling themselves further into the air.

Isa called an air current behind them as she folded space ahead of them, shortening the distance further.

The guards watched with shock as they cartwheeled in the air, jumping over their heads and rolling onto the ground.