“Yes?” I ask from behind the door.
“Lucillus,” I hear the familiar voice.
I open and find the gruff [Guard] looking at me. “The Adventurers came back from the raid. Antoninus ran to meet his mother. If you want to go out, we’ll have to swing by their place first. Or I can send a message and tell him to come back as soon as possible.”
“Nah, we can just walk to his place and then go out,” I nod.
“Adventurers?” Truffles perks his ears up. “All of them?”
“Yes,” Lucillus sighs, “they are parading around the city. Security is at an all-time high.”
“Joey, I need to go. My parents will probably be looking for me.”
Truffles doesn’t even wait for me to say anything and simply walks out the door, squeezing past Lucillus.
“Huh,” I muse, “that’s okay. If they are still parading around, do you want to wait and have something to eat? I still have more pasta.”
Lucillus shakes his head, but his stomach betrays him, suddenly grumbling.
“Come on in,” I laugh. “It’s fine. Clodia’s paying for you, and I’m sure she wouldn’t want you to go hungry because of me.”
…
“This is really good,” Lucillus says as he dives into a portion of Pasta alla Norma that I fixed up for him.
“It is, isn’t it? I like simple recipes. I gave this one my own spin, though. It’s not exactly like the original.”
“Does it matter?” Lucillus asks curiously.
“Heh, it depends. Some cultures are more attached to their traditions than others. The specific culture this dish comes from is very attached to their culinary traditions, even though some of their dishes are actually pretty recent.”
“Anyway,” Lucillus says between bites of rigatoni, “you wanted to go out the gates to shoot magic? Can I ask which spell?”
“Oh, right, I didn’t tell you and Antoninus. [Lightbolt].”
Lucillus’s hand stops midair, with the fork halfway through the pasta.
“What?”
“[Lightbolt]? Do you know the spell?”
“I know you took the [Light Mage] class for some reason. But why would you need to practice the spell outside the walls? I’ve seen mages practicing Tier 2 spells inside their houses. I’m pretty sure Lucinda is working on a Tier 3 spell. That’s what they said back at the Watch at least—well, it’s what Antoninus said.”
“Huh, she is? Cool, cool, cool,” I suddenly feel a tie in my throat as Lucillus brings up my first Elven redhead crush. “Well, do you see that?” I point at the hole in my wall. “I did that with a [Light] spell. I’m not going to risk Agostina putting a hole through me if I damage this flat further. Plus, I don’t know what the spell is going to do if I practice at the Pratus. What if it just keeps going and hits someone at the market? I don’t fancy myself in prison—I don’t think I’d do well.”
“Also, come on; it’s going to be fun! It’s a little excursion! And if you have a shield or some stuff, I can try and hit the shield while you hold it to see how strong the spell is against people. I was planning on shooting trees but shooting people holding a shield sounds hella fun. Boys will be boys, am I right?”
“What?” Lucillus looks confused, but the pasta clearly distracts him enough not to ask what I meant exactly.
“Dude, you know what? We really should bring a shield. Do you think we can, like, put the shield between tree branches, and I shoot it to see how high it flies—NO! WAIT! Take a smaller shield and throw it up in the air and shout ‘PULL!’ when it’s up, and I have to try and shoot it down. OH MY GOD! Why haven’t we done that with [Light] already? Jesus, that’s going to be super fun. Do you want to learn how to cast [Light] too? I can teach you, and we can have shooting competitions!”
“No. I don’t want any useless classes.”
“Ouch,” I scrunch my nose. “My man, I can assure you that [Light Mage] is pretty great. Can you do this?”
[Light Shaping]
I make a few penis-sized [Lights] hover around Lucillus as he eats.
“Do you like men, Joey?” Lucillus deadpans. “What’s this obsession with phalluses?”
“I mean, I wish. Sadly, I play against the women’s team. If I could switch, trust me, I would. They always look like they are having a blast on the other team.”
“But!” I interrupt Lucillus even before he can say anything, “[Lightbolt]! Do you have a shield? If not, where can we buy one? Doesn’t have to be cheap. In fact, we should probably go for a metal one. Enchanted too. That would be ideal. I don’t want to break it right away.”
“You are not going to break a steel shield with a [Lightbolt], Joey,” Lucillus sighs.
“I mean, again, I can try,” I smile like the Cheshire cat. “In the end, boys will be boys.”
…
“Who are Truffles’s parents?!”
“He said the two Named Adventurers?” I shrug. “Can’t remember the titles.”
We walk toward Antoninus’s house after a little rest and some more chatting at my apartment. Two hours went by, and Lucillus finally told me that they should probably be done by now.
“Are you telling me that Truffles is the Singing Blade and the Thespian Vanguard’s son?!”
“Those names sound super cool,” I nod as we walk to Antoninus’s house.
“How is he homeless?!” Lucillus looks beside himself.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
“He says he doesn’t want his parents’ money to practice Alchemy and that he should be making his own money. That’s why he’s homeless.”
“That’s… crazy,” Lucillus doesn’t know else to say. “Why would he do that?”
“He knows what he wants to do very well. You don’t really see him complaining much, in fact.”
“He could be living like a [King]…”
“Many [Kings] are probably miserable,” I remark. “Many. You want to be, like, the King’s right hand. You still have a huge influence, but if things go down and the common folks pull out the guillotine, it’s the King’s head rolling. Oh, right, the guillotine is—”
“I know what that is,” Lucillus scoffs. “The Elves invented it, Joey.”
Oh, ok.
“We are close, by the way,” Lucillus says. It’s prophetic since I see Antoninus wave at us, followed by a young woman by his side.
“Wait, is that his mother?” I look at the big woman with a similar constitution to the brute [Guard].
“What? No. That’s his sister.”
“That makes more sense,” I nod as we approach them.
“Yo,” I say to Antoninus and then turn to his sister with a smile and an extended hand. “I’m Joey Luciani, enchanted.” I give her a little bow when she shakes my hand.
“Hi, I’m Livilla,” Antoninus’s sister says, “I’ve heard about you.”
“All good things, I hope,” I say with a strained smile.
“Maybe,” she smiles back, but then she turns to Antoninus with a quizzical face before turning to us again. “Mom said she was going to go home ahead of us. She said she needed to rest because she was rotten tired from the trip. Apparently, she got hit with some [Curse], and she’s still feeling the toll. A few high-level [Healers] should come around in the next few days to check on her. Anyway, Antoninus, if you want to go, just go.”
“Joey, do you mind if we stop by my house first? I think my mom would be interested in knowing you.”
“Sure,” I wink at the man, “moms love me.”
“What is that even supposed to mean?” Lucillus shakes his head.
“Oh, you sweet summer child,” I say with a melodramatic voice. “Don’t you worry; let’s just get going.”
And so, we finally walk the last stretch before reaching Antoninus’s house. Apparently, both siblings still live with their mother. How very Italian of them, I must say.
For the better part of the road leading up to the house, I’ve been thinking about magic. The thing about getting a shield was absolutely genius. I can’t wait just to get out and pew-pew-pew some trees and a shield. Maybe some rocks, too, if my aim is good enough.
We arrive in front of the door, and Antoninus takes out some keys from his pocket. Medieval-style keys, no weird magnetic card, mind you. They look like those keys they would use for jail or something like that.
He puts the key in the hole and turns it. However, what awaits us on the other side is most definitely not what we were expecting.
A middle-aged woman, bigger than Antoninus, lies in a pool of blood.
“MOM!” Antoninus shouts and runs up to the woman.
“Shit,” I swear, going in right after him.
…
“It’s fine, it’s fine. Stop fussing, you damn kid,” Antoninus’s mother swats away her son’s hands as he keeps checking for wounds on her head. “I vomited some blood—big fucking deal. It’s a [Curse]. I expect to shit blood, vomit blood, and piss some, too, maybe. What did you expect? I took a good health potion now, I’m good. My stomach is much better.”
“Do you want to eat something?” Livilla, Antoninus’s sister, asks.
At that, Claudia, which is apparently her name, looks hesitant.
“Later, perhaps. I’ve had enough food on the way home. Do you have any milk at home? I’d go for some fresh milk.”
Lucillus and I eye each other. This feels like one of those things that, as someone that’s not part of the family, you shouldn’t be assisting. However, Claudia, as soon as she regained consciousness, insisted we stay.
She was very curious about me.
Still is.
“You are the Human who goes around the Pratus messing with the homeless, huh?” She says, straightening up.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, one good-looking friend my son’s made,” she laughs heartily.
I’ll be honest with you; I’m a bit embarrassed. Claudia is probably the biggest, tallest, most muscular woman I’ve ever seen. Clodia’s yoked, sure. Claudia? Claudia looks like she could wrestle a bull the same way a dad wrestles their five-year-old son.
“Thank you very much. You don’t look half bad yourself,” I say with a confident smile. “I hope the raid was good. I have heard stuff about it by now.”
It wasn’t really true, but sometimes a gentleman has to wear a good cap, if you know what I mean.
“The raid was nasty. For the rotten roots of the World’s Tree, I have never seen anything like it in almost thirty years of adventuring. Those [Necromancers]… do you guys know who Mauser is?”
I shake my head and turn to look at the others.
Only Lucillus nods.
“Mauser was the dark [Hero] in the Vanedeni history,” he explains.
“Yes. Mauser was a [Necromancer]… well, the [Necromancer]. He was slaughtering the Ahali, and he would have won the conflict over on Kome—which, by the way, is another rotten fruit that should be discussed later. Weird things are happening around the world right now.”
Claudia makes a small pause to cough loudly, the cough turning into a fit lasting almost half a minute. After she finally drinks some milk, she resumes talking.
“Mauser was about to win the war on behalf of the Vanedeni, but when they found out, he was actively killing his own people and making them into Undead monstrosities, a civil war ensued. Half of the Vanedeni sided with him; the rest sided with their Royal Family. The Ahali had to do nothing while the Vanedeni simply self-destructed. Entire bloodlines were wiped out during the conflict. Becoming a [Necromancer] has been banned on Kome for good four hundred years now. The problem is that some disgusting followers of his managed to escape the continent and formed new pockets of [Necromancers] worshipping him.”
Claudia coughs again and raises a hand in Antoninus’s face before he can fuss around her again.
“Apparently, they had been hiding in the North, and several of them were above level 40. The [Necromancer] leading them was in the high 50s. What was really scary about Mauser’s followers was that facing [Necromancers] usually meant wading through hordes of low-leveled Undead. For a Named Adventurer or even a Gold-rank, it’s easy making short work of a [Necromancer] who does that. These ones, though, were focused on creating single Undeads that could rival a Gold-rank in strength. We lost a whole lot of good people up North. Even though the crown will pay us chests full of gold and artifacts, I’m not sure it was worth it. Those bastards launched curses that empowered their Undead and weakened us at the same time. The strongest of them launched [Curses] that are still affecting many of us. I can’t wait to see a damn [Healer] to get rid of this.”
As Claudia finishes speaking, I notice that something is off.
She’s pale, obviously. It shouldn’t bug me since it’s pretty common for someone who’s sick, right?
But then, she puts a hand behind her back and starts groaning.
“Fucking [Necromancers], my back has been killing me since the stupid [Curse] affected me.”
That triggers something in me.
Her back?
She vomited blood and has trouble breathing. And now her back hurts?
I feel a lump in my throat.
No, it can’t be, right?
It wouldn’t make sense.
It’s probably just a general malaise affecting her.
I haven’t heard about anyone here having this kind of thing so far.
But the symptoms…
There’s something different about my brain today.
I don’t know what it is that it’s doing, but I feel… more intuitive than usual. And it’s telling me something.
Turn on the [Advanced Mana Sense].
It’s a hunch.
Just a hunch.
Why should I, right?
Shouldn’t we just hurry and practice some magic to blow up trees and shields?
Wouldn’t that be better than worrying needlessly?
But I can’t shake the hunch.
And so, I turn on [Advanced Mana Sense].
The world turns into the energy world I’m so used to by now.
People in the vision that [Advanced Mana Sense] gives you are clumps of Mana that are more or less bright, depending on their class. [Mages] can be like lighthouses in the dark, like the ones I met when I was visiting [Captain] Drusillus. [Soldiers] and [Guards] are generally very dull silhouettes, though.
And I suppose that’s what Antoninus’s mother is, some kind of a [Warrior].
But I stop breathing when I see several stains of Mana around her body.
They are like shiny diamonds in her body, brighter at the center and greyer around the edges.
I’ve seen this before…
On any other day, my brain wouldn’t have been able to conjure such images, but today it seems to work well enough to bring up all the CT scans, the X-rays, and the PET scans that my mother had hidden from me and that I had found after in her apartment after she died—they had been under my nose all along. It had been crazy for me not to notice.
And now, the same thing is before my eyes again.
All those images superimpose in my head with what I’m currently seeing.
It’s a perfect match.
This is no [Curse].
Antoninus’s mother has cancer.