Chapter 4: Recovery
“Your brother, Draken, died.” The man said as he handed Daragon some papers. Daragon stormed off and left the papers after throwing them on the floor. Relic approached the two soldiers and picked the torned up papers from the floor. Somehow, he had managed to piece them together and understood it.
“28 more minutes and you wouldn’t have been able to tell him.” Relic told the pair, making reference to the time. 11:32. Military deaths are to be reported within 8 hours of learning. According to the report, Draken died around 5 hours ago and deaths are not to be reported between 12am to 5am.
“Maybe you didn’t watch the news, but 100,000 other soldiers also died. So I’m sorry if we’re understaffed and can’t get to a remote hill first.” The blonde sarcastically remarked and took his stuff. “Anyways this is the funeral time.”
“We’ll hold our own funeral.” Relic rebutted
“I understand you want to do that but Draken is a very important member of the Army.” He commented. “The higher ups would like to host a military funeral for him.”
“Tell your General that Relic said it. He’ll understand.” Relic told him and closed the door.
“Relic? Do you know who that is?” The blonde asked as the man beside him had a face of terror. He stayed like that until the blonde continued. “Alright then. Next up is that Pendragon right?
“Huh? Oh yeah. The disgraced one. Thomas. Should have just executed him instead of banishment.” The other replied. Both Soldiers left.
Relic went up to Aisha’s room in the left wing of the manor. He knocked on the door three times. Aisha came out in her pajamas, tiredly.
“What’s up?” The woman said, rubbing her eye while yawning.
“It happened.” Relic answered. “Draken’s dead.”
Aisha’s face immediately grew pale. As she clenched her fist at her chest. She could barely contain herself but she knew this day would eventually come. Draken even told her it was highly likely. But even so, this was no time for her to be sad. The only thing that rang through her mind was ‘Daragon needs someone.’
Relic watched as she ran towards Daragon’s room. Relic himself walked outside as he sat in front of two tombstones The tombstones had Eccel etched onto them.
“I told him that her fortunes were never wrong.” Relic made reference to their last conversation together. Relic gulped on his beer can and crushed it. “Explosion huh?”
Relic thought back to when he saw the slip of paper that he assembled. According to the report, Draken died from an explosion.
“Was that the noise heard? A bomb? Must have been a big one to wipe out an entire fleet trained in Mana Coating.” Relic asked himself. The moon shone brightly on him. “Well, I shouldn’t linger on this any more. I have to get to work.”
Relic got up and opened a portal, seemingly out of nowhere just by waving his sword. He took out a pencil, paper and some equipment from it before beginning work.
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However, Relic didn’t know just how big of an explosion it was.
At approximately 6:40PM, an explosion was set off at the centre of Kedah. In the first 50 seconds, the blast travelled a 6.1km radius and destroyed everything. The next few minutes, buildings within a 32.6km radius collapsed, including those outside of Kedah such as Perak and Siam, and citizens were killed with only few survivors. Sonic booms travelled the Earth 5 times and Reinforcement Soldiers stationed outside in Perak reported 3rd degree burns and a giant mushroom cloud kilometres high. Estimated to be twice as powerful as the largest explosion ever seen since the War on Communism, which was only 50 megatons. It was said that this would be the 2nd largest explosion in human history clocking in at 100 megatons. Estimated Military Casualties: 100,000. Civilian Casualties: 5,790,000,000. Kedah and its Rebel forces were wiped from the face of the Earth.
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It was the next day. A knock on the door was heard and Relic opened it. A bearded blonde man in a suit appeared. His clothes were unwrinkled but his face was exhausted. He looked shy of being 50. It was about 8am in the morning.
“I'm guessing you're Tom?” Relic asked. “Aisha is upstairs with Daragon. I think he’s still asleep.”
“She is?” He looked relieved more than anything. But then a worrisome face appeared. “Then I guess I need to go call everyone. Then call a funeral home. And then set up the entire place. And then-”
“Tom. Relax. I handled it already. Draken told me to, in case anything like this happened. He also said not to call a funeral home because ‘they’re a corporate scam that preys on the weak and vulnerable’.” Relic assured Tom, patting his shoulder. ‘Besides we don’t even have a body.’
Relic took Tom to the tombstone. Tom got on his knees when he read it and grasped the grass. Water flowed down his eyes like a fountain.
https://i.imgur.com/uGC0Jdo.png
‘Here lies Draken Eccel
29th February 2974-3000’
“I told the military that we were going to host our own funeral for him. And I did not to include anything related to the military for Daragon’s sake. I heard from Aisha how he reacts to that stuff before.” Relic added. Tom just looked at him with teary eyes and stood up to hug him tightly. Relic could barely breathe.
“Sorry. I just needed someone to comfort me.” Tom said as Relic reassured him. “He was just so kind. Especially to his brother. He was one of the kindest souls I’ve met in my 35 years of living.”
‘He’s the same age as me? He looks like he’s twice my age!’ Relic thought to himself as he coughed aloud to gather his concentration. “It’s alright Tom.”
“Thanks.” Tom wiped his tears off.
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“Now then, I need you to get ready. You’re giving your speech after Aisha. Then it’s Daragon for last.” Relic informed him while walking away. “Oh yeah, be prepared to run after him.”
“Run after him? Why?” Tom asked.
“Just do it.” Relic responded and left while Tom stood there stunned.
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“This is so stupid!” Daragon shouted as he bolted off. Relic sighed in response as he looked at Tom. Tom nodded and immediately went after him. However, Tom did not go at full speed. Daragon needed to cool off and needed some alone time.
Relic tailed Tom the entire way through. While Tom climbed up, Relic stayed downstairs and closed his eyes. He breathed in.
‘[Earshot].' Relic thought to himself as he clapped his hands slowly and made a cross hand sign with one finger from each hand. Earshot was the spell Relic dubbed it. Instead of saying it out loud, his trigger was thinking it and then doing a hand sign. This ‘spell’ amplifies incoming sound waves from a particular direction, and interprets it as sound. This allows him to essentially hear better by cancelling out white noise.
Tom and Daragon had finished their quarrel. As Tom climbed down, Relic went to hide. Tom looked left and right as he sighed.
“It’s rude to listen in.” Tom said as he walked off. Tom had noticed Relic’s use of Mana and outed him for it. Relic thought he did a good job concealing it.
“Guess I’m rustier than I thought.” Relic said to himself as he went to climb upwards. Before he reached the last rung, it had started to rain. It was Monsoon season so rain was common.
Relic looked down at Daragon who curled into a ball. Looking at him reminded Relic of something but he immediately snapped out of it.
“Daragon.” Relic used a soft-spoken voice as he went close. Daragon pushed his hand away. “I know how you fe-”
“Shut up.” Daragon said. “You don’t. You never will.”
“Hey now. That’s not true.”
“It is! You’re a lazy drunk that can never understand anything. What do you know about lost?”
“You’re right. I don’t know how you’re feeling. But I do know how it feels to lose someone.” He said as he sat down, looking up.
“Who.” Daragon asked. His question sounded more like a statement.
“What?”
“Who did you lose?” Daragon repeated, adding more context.
“Oh.” Relic sat down and stared downwards. “My son. Well, technically he’s my adopted son but- he probably wouldn’t want me calling him that too. We got into a big fight before he left.”
“I hear you. Me and Draken got into an argument. I said some things I regret.” Daragon sighed. “He probably thinks I hate him.”
“No.” Relic stopped Daragon. “He doesn’t think that.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Brother’s fight. But at the end of the day, they know they’ll never hate each other.” Relic paused. “Draken’s ability to read people always made him popular. If he really were your brother, he’d know you never meant any of it.”
“...” Daragon sat in silence.
“Hey. I forgot to give you this. Draken wanted to give it to you himself but he forgot to. Probably because of your fight.” Relic said, handing him a letter.
Daragon took the letter but before opening it, passed it back.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t.” Daragon said, sniffing.
“You don't want to read it?”
“No. Whenever one of our birthdays passed, we would give each other cards because I didn’t have money to buy Draken presents and Draken always reciprocated a card on top of his gift to not make me feel left out.” Daragon answered. “That letter is going to be my last interaction with Draken.”
“Oh. Well when you put it like that. Alright then.” Relic felt even more guilty as he put the letter in his pocket. “I’ll keep it for you.”
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“It’s still raining.” Relic pointed out. The two sat next to each other against the wall, watching rain pass by. “This is boring.”
“Yeah. It is.” Daragon said. “You want to play cards?”
“Nah, I’ll just beat you. Plus there’s nothing in it for me.” Relic added and Daragon just pouted and elbowed him. Relic looked at Daragon’s face and then started to chuckle.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. You’re in a much better mood though. You kind of remind me of Encil.” Relic said.
“Encil? Is that your son? You named your son Encil?” Daragon questioned. ‘No wonder he hated you.’
“Well, no. That was the name his birth parents gave him. I think at least. The card was blurred but I saw the words ‘encil’ there.”
“Are you sure you didn’t misread it for Pencil?”
“Maybe.” Relic gazed upwards. “He had a noble dream, you know?”
“A dream huh? I remember having one.”
“What was it?” Relic asked.
“Promise not to laugh?” Relic nodded in response. “It was to win in Olympia.”
“You? Olympia?” Relic laughed at Daragon, who gave a straight face. “You’re serious? You do know what it takes to get there right?”
“Yeah, which was why I used to have it. Emphasis on the word used.” Daragon fired back.
Olympia. Olympia was held once every 4 years. The first half of the 4 years was seeing the essence of mankind. Restriction on using ‘Magic’. Only the human body and its capabilities, which was still a lot. The second half was one without restrictions. The peak of evolution and innovation.
“My dream was to win the fighting tournament. The one with Magic.” Daragon added. “But that dream won’t come true.”
“Why?”
“Because I suffer from NMV.” Daragon looked down.
NMV, Non-Magus Victus coined by the dead scientist using a dead language. Called Qi Deviation by the Chinese, people with NMV still have Mana. After all, they absorb it. However, they cannot release Mana in the process called Conjuration. The ability to use Mana to do ‘magic’ due to lacking the organ necessary. This can lead to OMED, Over-Mana Exposure Disease, but there is a cure for that. The disability is rare though with less than 1% of the population having it.
“Huh.” Relic mused. “You know, Encil has that too.”
“He did?”
“Yeah. But there is a workaround to it.” Relic proposed.
“I already know what you mean. Train my body and it will rapidly strengthen due to Mana’s side effects. And using magic tools won’t help since they are easy to dismantle.” Daragon sounded rather down. He had already been through this road. “But that won’t matter if my opponent can also do that and run away.”
“No no no. I’m talking about real magic.” Relic answered.
“Real magic?” Daragon asked himself. What exactly was Relic talking about? This wasn’t in any textbook he read.
“You know how the ‘magic’ you know can be explained using science? Real magic is what you call the unknown. Something unexplainable.”
“Do you know real magic?” Daragon asked.
Relic paused before answering. “How about a demonstration?”