Chapter 6 : Uninvited Guests From Helios Empire (Uneditted)

Part 1

I stopped my hand that was about to open the door to William Bookstore.

Something wasn’t right.

What’s this?

This feeling…

Dark magic?

But who?

I don’t think William use dark magic.

If he did, I could have sense a trace of dark magic from his body when the last time I met him.

Did he use it recently?

No, that’s impossible.

The dark magic I sense is too strong for a beginner.

If so then is it Sarah?

But can automaton use magic?

Suddenly a familiar smell entered my nose.

The smell which I had always sense after killing a monster.

The smell of blood.

My expression turned into serious and without looking back at Cecil, I ordered her with a stern voice.

“Cecil! Quick go call city guards and knights to come!”

“Wha?’

Cecil was dumbfounded and just stood still behind me with her mouth opened.

I turned my head.

“What are you standing there for!? Go now!”

Cecil nodded and then rushed toward the nearest city guard post.

I quickly opened the door and scanned the store, but there was no one in there, so I ran towards the back room.

I could hear the sound of fighting from there, so without any hesitation I opened the door.

What I saw in there was a mess.

William was on the floor with a dagger stabbed into his heart.

I could tell immediately that he was already dead.

Next to his dead body was standing a handsome man with short blond hair, wearing a golden frame glasses, and a black robe with golden embroidery in front of it.

I could sense a very strong trace of dark magic from this man.

There was also a decapitated hand of someone lying on the floor near the man.

On one side of the room was Sarah, she was fighting with three people who wore black cloaks.

It seemed she was not in a good condition, her left hand had gone and there were a hole in her stomach and left chest.

She was cornered and one of the cloaked men was about to stab Sarah with a sword..

In reflex, I moved in an instant and stood between both of them, blocking the sword trajectory.

The man looked surprised but he didn’t stop his sword.

With two fingers of my left hand, I caught the sword and broke it into two.

The man lost his balance and with my right hand, I punched the man stomach.

The man flown away trough the room and crashed onto the wall at the back, making a loud sound of BAM! After that he collapsed onto the floor.

“Ah….”

Damn!

I forgot to hold back.

I hope he didn’t die.

Even if they are criminals and deserve to die.

I need them to be alive.

The city guards and knights still need to question them

That’s why I need to catch them and not kill them.

At the most I can only half kill them…..

Oh well.

There are still three more.

I guess killing one or two will be fine right?

I glanced at the two cloaked men who were staring blankly at me.

It seemed they were surprised after seeing their friend was defeated so easily with just one punch.

I took a step forward and showed them the best smile I had.

“Hello everyone, sorry to interrupt your party, but can someone explain to me what’s going on here?”

The other two cloaked men came back to their sense and took a few steps back, making some distant with me.

A long silence filled the entire room.

We just stared at each other.

And after a while, the handsome blond man stepped forward and greeted me with a noble style of greeting.

“Oh my how rude of me for not recognizing the famous princess of  Whitestar family.”

This man… have I meet him somewhere before?

No, I am sure that this is our first meeting.

But how did he know my name?

Moreover…. What the heck with that “The famous princess of Whitestar family” thing.

I never did something amazing enough to make me famous.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Princess Ariel, my name is Fabio the court magician of Helios Empire.”

Helios Empire was one of the three empires in Human Continent which was located in the North of Sylfania Kingdom. Along time ago, about 2000 years ago, it was a giant empire that ruled over the entire Human Continent, but because of their king tyrannical rule, people started to rebel and separated themselves from the empire, making their own kingdoms and empires.

That was why Helios Empire was always at war with the other kingdoms and empires, but since 30 years ago after their huge defeat against the other two empires and lost half of their military power, they never attacked and even signed a treaty of war with every kingdom and the two empires.

If this man really is the court magician of Helios Empire, than I can’t do anything to him.

If something happen to him in Sylfania Kingdom territory, Helios Empire will have a justification to attack and invade Sylfania Kingdom.

There is gonna be another war.

And I must avoid that.

Wait…

I see….  So that’s why he told me his identity so easily.

This man must have calculated this.

“Nice to meet you too Lord Fabio, can you explain to me what had happened here?”

I greeted him back with a noble style of greeting and a polite smile on my face.

“This man had stolen something very important from our empire, that’s why I was ordered by the King to get it back personally, but this man refused and tried to attack me, so… well you know the rest.”

“YOU -“

Sarah who was standing behind me rushed forward, intending to attack the man, but I raised my hand to stopped her.

I gave her a look of understanding.

I knew that this man is lying.

He made up that story.

I could tell that just by looking at his fake smile and his cold eyes.

“Kuh!”

Sarah reluctantly stepped back while grinding her teeth.

I returned my gaze back to the man.

“Do you have any proof of that man had stolen something from your empire?”

“Yes I have, but I didn’t bring it with me right now. One of my colleagues is searching the stolen thing on the second floor, if he found it than that should be a enough proof right?”

Fabio said that while pointing at the staircase.

I nodded and we waited for his colleague to came back.

After a few minutes, a man with a long scar on his face appeared from the staircase leading to the second floor.  

I had seen this man before.

Yes, it was the day of my sixth birthday, when I was on my way to take my new dress at Grisela Tailor Shop.

He was the man which I saw in the cake shop across from this bookstore.

“Ah did you find it?”

Fabio asked the man, but he didn’t answer and just showed a black book in his right hand.

“That’s good.”

Fabio nodded at the man and then turned back his attention to me.

“As you can see Princess, he found it.”

I can’t do anything to you even if you didn’t have a proof.

Well whatever.

I will leave this matter to Richard.

He knows what to do with this man.

I have more urgent thing to do right now.

“I see, if possible would you mind meeting my father? He would be very happy to meet you.”

Fabio smiled happily as he nodded.

“Of course, it’s an honor to meet the head of Whitestar family.”

Not long after that a few knights and city guards entered the room.

They scanned the room for a few seconds.

As soon as they saw William dead body, they took out their swords and pointed it at Fabio who stood next to it.

I raised my hand to stop them and looked at one of the knights.

“They are our guest from Helios Empire, please prepare a carriage and took them to the castle to meet my father.”

The knight nodded and then talked to the other knights.

He then guided Fabio out of the room.

The two cloaked man took their friend that was on the floor, the one that I punched, and the man with a long scar on his face were following behing Fabio.

The other knights also went as their escort.

I approached the rest of the city guards and ordered them to guard the entrance, not to let anyone to enter even if they were the commanders till I permit it.

The city guards nodded and then went away.

Now there is no one in this room except for me and Sarah.

I turned to look at Sarah.

First I need to fix this girl.

I lifted my right hand towards her and started to pouring my spirit into it.

The holes in Sarah stomach and left chest started to closed by itself, and her left hand which had been amputated started to reattach itself back to normal.

Not only that. Her worn out clothes and other wounds were also return back to normal.

Sarah stared blankly at herself with her mouth opened wide.

“H-how? I-I am an automaton…. healing won’t work on me…. but this…”

Her gaze turned toward me and with a disbelief look on her face.

Of course that wasn’t healing magic.

What I used was “Time Reverse”.

It was a magic that would turn back the time of the target I chose.

Though It wouldn’t have any effect to living being,

But I could use it perfectly for other thing.

I also had repaired my Caela right hand glove that was melted by the snake boss with this magic.

A handy magic if I wanted to repair something.

“That’s not important right now. Do you know where William stored the soul gems and other automatons?”

Sarah looked confused after hearing my question but she still answered.

“Yes…. In the lab.”

I smiled gently at her and nodded.

“Good, can you take me there?”

“I can show you where it is, but you won’t be able to enter it. There are a few safety locks and magic protections on the door, only William know how to open it. You can’t force your way in or else you will trigger the last safety to blow anything inside it.”

What the hell.

Is he a paranoid or what?

Making that many safety.

Moreover the last one is to blow away his entire lab.

There must be something very important inside it.

Like his research of dangerous weapon or something along those line.

And he didn’t want anyone to know or take it from him.

But this is troublesome.

I looked at William’s dead body.

There was a blue flame of soul floating on top of it.

Yes, that was William’s soul.

After a person died, his/her soul would stay near at the body for 24 hours.

And then the soul would depart to the underworld (Hell) or upper world (Heaven).

Though there was one exception to that.

That was when the soul had a deep attachment to this world, like a deep regret, hatred, etc, they would become a ghost.

To put it simply, my plan was to resurrect William as an automaton by storing his soul into a soul gem and put it as a core for an automaton.

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What should I do now?

Hmm……………….

Should I do that?

But if I do that I will invade William’s privacy.

………. Well I can just apologize to him latter.

After all this is an emergency right?

I walked towards William’s dead body and squatted next to his head.

I took a glance at the blue flame of William’s soul.

I hope you will forgive me for this.

Slowly I gathered my concentration as I close my eyes after a few moment, I put my right hand on his forehead.

I gathered William’s memories in my right hand, his pain, regret, despair, hope, sadness, happiness, hatred, love, knowledge, and everything that had happened to him in his entire life.

A few minutes later, I lifted my hand and put it on my mouth.

“Umph!”

Not too long after that, I started to vomit and coughing.

What I use was a forbidden magic of darkness magic system called “Brain Eater”.

As the name implied “Brain Eater”, I turned William’s brain into a magic wave of information and literally ate it.

It was a dangerous magic that would let you take someone’s entire life experience onto yourself, but there were risks you must face after using it.

If someone who didn’t have a strong mind and mental state use this magic, their brain would be overwhelmed by the information which led to change in personality, crippling his mind, comatose, insanity, and worse death.

If possible I was actually preferred to use “Mind Reading” than this “Brain Eater”.

But “Mind Reading” could only be used to someone who was still alive and not for dead people.  

Meanwhile “Brain Eater” could be used either way, though there was a time limit for using it to dead people, which was one hour after the death or else it wouldn’t have any effect.

Moreover after using “Brain Eater” you would feet as if you had eaten something very disgusting.

“Cough cough!”

Damn it!

I can handle the mind and mental burden just fine or rather have no effect on me.

No mind and mental burden worse than when using “Time Ark” after all.

But still, this disgusting feeling….. Uekh!

I swear I will never use this magic again!

“A-Are you okay princess?”

I heard Sarah worried voice came from behind me.

“Cough cough… I am fine just let me rest for a bit.”

I waited for ten minutes, waiting for the disgusting feeling to go away but it didn’t.  

So I took another five more minutes to get used to it, controling myself for not vomiting and then stood up.

Ukh…. I never thought that it would be this worse.

As expected of forbidden magic.

I took a few deep breathing and turned to face Sarah.

“I am fine now,… let’s go to the lab.”

Sarah looked more confused now but she nodded her head.

Before we went to the lab, I took a key from William’s pocket and grabbed his soul.

We got down to the basement and opened the only door in there.

When I was guided by William to his workshop, there should be a long hallway after we opened the door, but now there was only large storage room filled with crates and barrels.

Sarah walked toward one of the corners and knocked a few stones at the wall.

From the William’s memories, I knew that she was activating the mechanism to open the path to the long hallway.

After that we got out of the storage and closed the door.

Sarah took out a key from her pocket, REPLACEed it into the key hole at the door and then turned it a few times to the rights and lefts. As the finishing Sarah turned the door’s knob and opened it again.

Now there was a long hallway in front of us.

We walked through the hallway, passing three doors which had different sizes and made from different materials, and stopped in front of the fourth door.

It was a white metallic door with runes and diagrams were engraved onto it.

“This is the lab.”

I nodded at Sarah and took a step closer to the door.

At first glance you would think that these runes and diagrams couldn’t be moved around, but by concentrating your spirit at your index finger, you could moved them easily, and as long as you arranged them into the correct places, you would unlock a few dozen safety that were placed on the door.

To put it simply this door was like a big puzzle board with numerous traps and very difficult deciphering method.

It took me five minutes to arrange them into the correct places, and with the key which I took from William’s pocket, I opened the door and we entered the lab.

Inside It was a very large room about 120x100m, filled with many strange looking machines, a large working table, shelves of books and documents, some kind of an examination table, there was an automaton lying on top of it, a few dozens of automatons at one side of the room and many other thing.

I walked towards the working table at the center of the room and opened the second drawer below it.

There were a few dozen red gems in many sizes inside it.

All these red gems were soul gem, each type of automatons would need a different size of soul gem.

Now the problem is, what kind of automaton will suit William?

Should I use a monster type automaton?

Hmmm….. I guess it will stand out too much when he is in the city, so a no than.

…….. Oh well, let’s just use the human type.

I took one of the medium sizes soul gems and with “Soul Infusion”, I REPLACEed William’s soul into the gem and then walked to where the automaton were.

“Umm excuse me princess, but what are you doing?”

From behind, Cecil anxious voice asked.

“You will know soon.”

Hmm let’s see……. What kind of automaton suited for Wiliam.

Ah this one is good.

From his memory, He like this one.

What I chose was an automaton of a middle age man with black hair and thick moustache, wearing only long pants while his upper body was bare.

I put my right hand on its left chest, pouring my spirit onto it and a few seconds latter it started to open with a sound of compressed air.

To activate an automaton I need to put a bit of my blood onto the soul gems, it was to activate the soul gem so that the soul inside it could control the automaton, and also for a blood bind or contract between master and servant.

I took a knife from the spatial ring and cut my finger a little, blood started to drip from the cut and I put a few drops of it on the gem.  

I didn’t really care about the contract.

I only wanted to activate the soul gem.

After that I would let William decide what he wanted to do.

I wouldn’t order him as if he was my servant.

I put the gem inside the automaton and after a few moments, it started to glow.

Good, it works perfectly fine.

After confirming that, I closed back the left chest of the automaton and a moment later, the automaton started to open his eyes, showing a pair of black eyes.

He blinked a few times as he stared at me, and then he looked at his surrounding with a confused look.

 “What?..... Why I am in the lab?..... Wait… I should have died….“

With a satisfaction smile, I nodded at William.

“Good, it seems your memory is still intact.”

Part 2

A carriage escorted by a dozen of knights was passing through along the main street of Business district of Agatha city.

Four man was sitting in a carriage

Inside a carriage, a man with black cloak was lying down unconscious on the floor.

And there were four other men sitting inside the carriage.

They were Fabio and his colleagues who were heading to the Whitestar family residence with the escort of the knights.

By just looking at Fabio expression, anyone could tell that he was in a bad mood

“That damn man… how the hell he ordered that automaton girl to kill himself. He should be unconscious… or is he had programmed her to do that before hand? Damn it,”

He was in foul mood because William was killed by Sarah before he could finish reading his mind.

Their real objective was to gain a certain information of an ancient ruins from William but he refused, so Fabio forced his way by using “Mind Reading” on him.

When he was halfway on doing that suddenly Sarah appeared and stabbed him on the heart, killing William instantly and caused the spell to stop working.

What Fabio gained was only a small part of the information and its general location.

The man with a long scar on his face who sat next to Fabio, kicked the unconscious cloaked man, few second latter the man groaned in pain.

“Aargh… “

The man slowly got up as he held his stomach and then sat next to the other two cloaked men.

“That damn brat…. what the hell is she? Knocking me out with just a punch.“

“That girl is Ariel Whitestar the eldest daughter of Whitestar family.”

“Damn it! No wonder she is so strong.”

Whitestar family wasn’t just famous in Sylfania Kingdom but also in the entire Human Continent.

Their entire family strength and ability were capable of rivaling an entire army of a big kingdom.

It could be said that their existence was one of the reason why Helios Empire wasn’t able to win against Sylfania Kingdom.

The scar faced man scowled at the cloaked man.

“Even if you didn’t know her, you should be able to tell her strength when she suddenly appeared in front of you, but you still charging at her, are you stupid or what? You are really lucky that she only use her raw strength and not with fighting spirit, if not you will die instantly… after we go back to the headquarter I will retrain you with three times the usual menus, so prepare yourself.”

The man became silent after he was scolded and just looked down at the floor.

The other two cloaked man slightly shook their head, looking at the man with pitiful gaze, it seemed they knew this would happen and that was why they didn’t attack the girl.

“But still, to be able to knock out a saint rank swordsman with just a punch… moreover If I am not wrong, her age should be 8 this year… such a young age and she already this powerful. What do you think Marco?”   

Marco, the scar faced man nodded at Fabio remarks and thought for a while before answering.

“…. She is dangerous, from what I can tell, she is at least on par with me. It’s a good decision that you avoid a direct confrontation with her at that time.”

“You think so too huh… we should take a note to eliminate her latter…. By the way Marco, what book is that?”

Fabio turned his gaze to the black book in Marco hand.

It was the book Marco showed as a proof that William had stolen it from Helios Empire.

“Dunno, I just take it randomly from the bookshelf on the second floor.”

Marco was on the second floor when Ariel suddenly appeared. he heard her conversation with Fabio and decided to take a random book on the nearest bookshelf as a proof.

Marco threw the book to Fabio and he caught it swiftly.

As Fabio open the book and read its content, he started to laugh uncontrollably.