Chapter 141.

PART 1.

Manoj looks at the bloody scene, his own creation. He came into this orphanage, slaughtered everyone present, and took their blood. “Once I combine these samples with some animal blood, I will successfully create the chimera.” He said to himself. “Then I’ll attack the City of Throne, and rule the world!” he cackled at the very thought.

“It is well that Shakuntala doesn’t know about this. She would have complained so much otherwise. Idiots. They want power and backstab each other at the drop of a hat. And yet, a little bit of dirty work turns their stomach.” He gave a grin. “Once I’m done killing the king, I’ll kill her too. Weaklings like her have no place in my world.”

PART 2.

After the last case, Hatori does not have a new case to handle solo. Most of the cases are the old ones, which are handled by Munshi, given that they require going to the courts of various regions, Hatori is glad to be away from them, and that they are not his responsibility.

He did not sit idly during his free time, however. He researched some more, reading up on the theory to handle the positive lightning, and also made some headway to his lightning form. Still, turning his entire body into lightning is far in the future.

During his experimentations with his neutrino state, Munshi walked in. “The hell is wrong with you, boy?”

“Nothing.” Said Hatori, realizing that this was the first time the necromancer had seen him like this.

“Dammit, go back to normal!” he hits him with a Stinger spell, but the spell just goes through Hatori, and does nothing to him.

“What?” said Munshi, being too surprised to say anything else.

Hatori smiled. “Nothing can hurt me in this state.” He sang, and his singing gave a headache to this narrator and the author.

Munshi tried more spells, and all of them had the same effect. none of them touched him. though he refrained from trying some of the more powerful spells. “It seems you operate on an entirely different frequency.” Said Munshi. “Spells designed for hitting spirits and souls will not work on you.”

“Isn’t that good?” asked Hatori, resuming his normal form.

“Normally, yes.” Said Munshi. “But there are things which you may not realize about this form. Only use it during an emergency.”

“That makes sense.” Said Hatori.

After this conversation, a letter arrives. “Hmm. looks like your free time is over, boy.”

“A case?” asked Hatori.

“Indeed.” Said Munshi, handing the letter to Hatori.

“Guess I better prepare to travel.” He spoke.

“Be sure to take all the items I’ve given you, in addition to whatever Zeko has given to you,” said Munshi.

“Of course.” Said Hatori. He would like to say that he doesn’t need their help, but he is not stupid enough to do that, even if he is in the full swing of his teenage hood.

PART 3.

Shin is reading the notes given to him by Hatori to learn his runic dialect. He actually went to the local library, when Sangita stopped in a city to take a break. He found some more runic dialects.

Most of them were similar to the standard dialects, but others were different. For example, there was this one dialect that actually used whitespace entirely, or this other dialect, which used spaces to delimit the blocks. Shin didn’t like either of those.

‘I think I’ll stick with what Hatori gave me. reading these is even more of a headache than those parentheses.’ He thought, putting the notes down, and deciding to go to sleep.

PART 4.

James puts the book down. He is finally done with learning about the old runic dialects used by Samay the sorcerer for creating the room of frozen time. he is unlikely to learn anything new. The only thing that is left is to translate those runes and try to take the room with them to the world outside and abuse its advantages horribly.

Josh walks in just in time to see him surrounded by the books about the runes. They are sharing the dorms once more, so seeing James surrounded by the books is nothing new. But most of the time, those are about medical knowledge, but this time, things are different.

“I must admit, handling two things like this is impressive.” Said Josh.

“Yeah. It has to be like this if we wish to take that room with us,” said James.

“True. True.” Josh agreed with James.

“Besides, you are also handling two things, your internship, and your work as a president.” Reminded James.

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“Again, true.” Said Josh. “Do you remember the days when we used to get four months of vacation?” asked Josh.

“Don’t remind me,” muttered James. “The saddest part is, I think our days of rest and relaxing are now done. We’re unlikely to get any vacation, no matter how much we wish for it.”

Josh would like to deny this reality, but unfortunately, he has no reality-cancelling powers.

PART 5.

Raven is attending a press conference with General Sundar, where he is explaining to the reporters what the military is doing to counteract the insurgents. Raven went to observe one such place just last year, but he is appalled to see how they are making light of that entire situation.

The general wanted to teach him how to interact with civilian sources of information, to make sure that the right message was sent to the sheep. But what Raven is seeing now is just a circus. He doesn’t understand what he could learn from watching this, aside from keeping his tongue tied, and witnessing the entire thing without a complaint.

PART 6.

Hatori is dropped in the City of Spices, where the client has called them. They are lucky that they were still in the Keralam region when they got the letter. Hatori thinks for all his patience with traveling, even Munshi would have been annoyed at that repeat trip.

He goes to the tea shop, where the clients are waiting for him. Munshi walks in with him, and once Hatori is seated, he leaves him alone. however, once he takes a look, Hatori does not find the other person, while the letter clearly mentions two people. “Are you Vankat?” asked Hatori.

“I am.” Said the man. he is about four years older than Hatori, judging by his looks. “I was the one who sent that letter.”

“You mentioned that your friend is tormented by a spirit?” asked Hatori.

“Indeed.” Said Vankat. “We live here, and we’re also trying to find work in this same area because we don’t wish to leave. But one day, Veera, my friend mentioned in the letter, started to act strangely. He stopped eating properly, he doesn’t seem to get enough sleep, and has increasingly become gaunt.”

“You are certain that a spirit is involved?” asked Hatori.

“Yes. I saw that with my own eyes. A spirit comes in the night, it beats him up, takes his blood, and then leaves.” Said Vankat.

“Has he told you about this before you looked in the night at the spirit?” asked Hatori.

“No. he is tight-lipped about it,” said Venkat.

“Hmm. tell you what, let’s wait at your friend’s place for the night,” said Hatori.

“We live in the same place; it should not be a trouble.” Said Vankat.

They live in the same building. Venkat goes to Veera’s room and asks to meet with him. “So, would you like to tell me why does a spirit comes to you every night?”

“There is no spirit!” Veera refused to talk with them any further and pushed them out.

“I expected that.” sighed Hatori.

They can do nothing else, so Hatori waits in the night for that spirit to come. According to Venkat, it comes every night at the same time. that should make it predictable. And true to what Venkat said, it comes at that time. but this time, before it could lay a spiritual hand on Veera, who is huddled in the corner of his room, shaking, Hatori puts himself in the middle.

“You dare to interfere, trifling human?” said the spirit, and with a snap of its long fingers, seals the magic in the area.

Hatori is surprised. He has not faced many situations where the opponent has sealed the magic. mostly because it also makes them weaker. Thankfully, it seems his eyes are still functioning. “Now, die!” the spirit rushed at him.

Hatori grabs the overextended hand and slams the spirit face-first to the ground. “This may have worked on any other person. But it is your misfortune that you picked a fight from me.”

He then began to dismantle the spirit, using all those holds that he learned in his first year, breaking and snapping the bones. “Really, a spirit like you has no business existing. Now, die!” he stomps on its head, and the spirit explodes, throwing Hatori to the ground.

He gets up, feeling the flow of magic in the area restored. “So that is how a spirit dies, huh?”

PART 7.

Porus arrives in the city. But instead of people bustling, and living their lives, what he found is a quiet terror.

Apparently, several people have been killed violently, and it all began in an orphanage.

“What do you think, should we check this out?” asked Porus, after walking around the city with Zeko in the disguise of a tourist.

“Why not?” said Zeko. “You do have some items to deal with souls and spirits, right?”

“Yes, Munshi gave me those.” Said Porus.

“Good,” said Zeko with a distasteful look on his face. “Then let’s check out that orphanage first.”