Chapter 12: Paranoid for a Reason

Crimson cursed himself as he swiftly moved through the secret passages that he'd memorized long ago. He'd been found in the library and the opposing party seemed willing to talk instead of do anything, but then that fox-kin just had threaten him.

Casting the [Magic Light] had been pure reflex, they were within 10 feet of him so it hadn't been hard to gather his mana there fast. The issue was that it was too fast, if he'd taken more time to think things over instead of letting gut instinct take over he still would have tried to talk, that maid clearly wasn't the one in charge - it was the beautiful girl with the chestnut brown hair pulled into a bun with brown eyes that had flecks of gold in them, but the second he cast the spell that route was closed to him.

Since he'd already fallen down the rabbit hole, he'd made sure that there would be no way for them to catch him there, which had turned out to be a good choice. The brown-haired girl had wisely moved after him without any real hesitation, [Magic Light] wasn't exactly a dangerous spell after all - there wouldn't be any lasting or great damage to that fox-kin.

Now, while there was certainly no way she was fast enough to catch him based off the speed he saw from her, she could have gotten a good look at the secret passages and figured out how to follow him in there - something he wanted to avoid at almost all costs. He wouldn't be showing anyone around the passages unless they had his complete trust. At the moment, there was only one person who could fit that bill, so that made his decision to cast [Lesser Barrier] over the staircase a good idea in the moment.

Regardless, it didn't change his current situation in the slightest, he was still screwed because of what had happened. He had taken hostile action against someone who lived in the castle; someone important enough to have a maid following her around. There were only three women he knew of who fit the bill for that: The Queen, First Princess: Rhinese al voth Alda, and the Second Princess whose name he had forgotten.

Based on the age of the girl, it had to be Princess Rhinese, but that was assuming that there weren't any other women who could be important enough to have a maid following them around and appear to be roughly the same age as him. Based on those criteria, he felt safe in his assumption.

As he saw it, there were three possible "main" endings to the situation. The "best" end would be if nothing happened, if Princess Rhinese forgot what he looked like or decided not to press the issue for whatever reason. This one would leave him permanently locked out of the secret library, but so would the other two.

The second ending landed him in jail with some interrogation and an eventual release - probably with a banishment attached. The third ending would be death...he didn't like how likely the third one seemed to him.

While he could see some variances that could lead to other possible endings, they still fit into one of those three.

That left the question: what would his move be?

Well, his first move would be obvious: sit back and watch what happens. His following actions would depend on that first one. It was his only option since he didn't have any way to run. If he just tried to rush the gate he'd be caught instantly, there were too many ways to track him and too many procedures for him to dodge, it'd just call attention to himself, and it would completely close off any chance of the best possible ending.

With that closed to him, he decided to go grab his stuff out of his room and enact the idea that would best help him know how to respond: watch and see.

——

He had waited a week using the secret passages to scope things out. Since all the important building were made of stone, he was fortunate to discover that almost every single one of them had a way into the secret passages, a fact he used to his advantage to eaves drop. Shockingly, there was no bounty put up, no mention of his name, nothing. No one was on high alert, no one seemed to care, nothing. It might be because of Prince Kaine's birthday party, but if anything it would make more sense for them to be on guard even more than usual.

It put him in kinda a sticky spot where he wanted to come out of hiding to incite action, or to find if he was truly left alone. The paranoid part of him refused to let him move around in the open, the logical part of him was just confused, and he was emotionally frustrated, so he took all that frustration out on his training.

He had set his bedroll up in the place where the secret passages all converged, in front of that locked door that -even with his increased mana control- he couldn't open. It was there that he had enough space for his training so that's what he did. Morning, noon, night, training. All the breaks he took were to go eaves dropping, and to slip out to buy something to eat. It had taken him four days before he was willing to go buy food, and the only thing that really forced his hand was the fact that his hunger made it hard for him to train. That had been absolutely intolerable.

He wasn't worried about water since he'd used the passage that let out in the guild to grab a copy of the spell [Gather Water] which condensed the water in the air around him into a sphere and slowly allowed the water drain out the bottom. It was one of the two simplest water spells out there - the other being [Create Water]. The reason why he hadn't picked the second one was because the water created was undrinkable. Well, it was drinkable in that you could swallow it, but for some “reason” it just didn't help with survival. It probably lacked the minerals needed or something like that - he’d need to experiment on it later.

[Gather Water] was drinkable -if slightly unpleasant tasting- so he'd grabbed it and only finished the first chapter. He didn't want to take the time to finish the other chapters for the moment, he just wanted to throw all of his time into physical training.

It really was fortunate that the guild had given him permission to check books out to himself, he'd earned that degree of trust within the past month and few weeks, and Emma was sick of being dragged away from her desk to the third floor several times a day, so he'd gotten permission.

It was the only thing that kept him sane as he had hit a dead end with [Dancing Autumn Leaf], so he grabbed another style book he'd found in the guild library that had actually fallen behind one of the shelves by the wall. This one was called [Vengeful Flash] and it focused a lot on parry and deflection forms, so it seemed like a good idea to pick it up.

For Crimson, it was like he had a burning hunger to learn all aspects of combat to see where his focuses would lay - a part of him wondered if he would be able to "focus" on anything.

The unfortunate fact of [Vengeful Flash] was that he didn't have anyone to attack him, so there was nothing for him to practice on. He had a few of the forms down, but if he couldn't actually practice using them, there was absolutely no point.

In exasperation, he'd hit another wall with his training, so he went looking through the guild library once more while in stealth mode. Instead of focusing on fighting styles, he looked for more general styles. In his search he came across one called [Amzair] which is the Dark Elf word for "Unity."

It gave a heavy focus on improving balance and flexibility, with the later chapters of it showing why it was called "Unity" since they taught about the idea of using the entirety of his body for leverage and efficient movement.

He wasn't entirely sure how that would work, but he'd started from the beginning, and got as far as the book would allow him, and he had noticed that there were only 6 chapters - it was incomplete.

After not too long training it, with his muscles screaming and [Treatment] going into overdrive, he was definitely feeling the benefits when he found himself touching his toes for the first time. Flexibility had never really been his strong point, but he'd have to make it a priority, it gave him the same kind of satisfaction that the runs he did every morning did.

That was his week, training, watching people party from secret passages -mimicking a certain creepy clown- and reading. Because of the way he was, he couldn't really leave magic completely alone, so he finished two more chapters of [Lesser Barrier], bringing him to Chapter 7.

With it being Monday, a week and a day after he'd run into the assumed Princess, he figured he'd step out into the light. While it was quite possibly a stupid beyond all belief decision, he couldn't tolerate the stagnant week he'd had - better to confront the problem than wait for something that had shown no sign of moving.

Crimson showed up on the guild door step first thing in the morning, and waited for Emma to show up and unlock it. He molded and wove his mana on top of his skin to stave off boredom and practice, then switched to normal meditation. After about twenty minutes, Emma showed up.

Crimson could tell it was her from the sound of her breathing and the way her shoes sounded on the ground, which was a really weird trick he'd picked up. He honestly didn't know why or how it had happened, but it did, so he'd use it.

He cracked one of his eyes to see a very livid Emma. Her hands were balled so tightly into fists that he could see a bit of blood starting to pool from where her nails pierced the skin, and he could see how tightly she was gritting her teeth.

Crimson opened his other eye and spoke calmly, "You're hurting yourself."

"Where have you been?" the question was low and threatening, it was laced with a burning rage that brokered no mercy or respite.

"Training."

"Where?"

"I have a spot in Falst."

Emma's shoulders started to shake, and she lowered her head, "I don't know what to say to you. I didn't know where you were, I didn't know if you were safe, and I didn't know if I would see you again! I...was...scared."

Crimson winced and jumped to his feet, he could see tears starting to track down her face and drop to the ground beneath her feet.

At a loss for what to do, he extended one of his hands to her, hesitated, then started to retract it, but she slowly took it in both of her hands and pressed the back of it against one of her cheeks as she cried.

There was really only one thing he could say, "I'm sorry."

She gave a hiccuping laugh and tightened her grip on his hand, her higher [STR] than his making his bones creak dangerously, but he couldn't care.

"You are forgiven, but you need to make this up to me, and I'll take a long time to forget. You're just like my little brother, so I can't leave you alone. He's always doing stuff to get himself hurt too, so I get a little worried if I don't see him for too long. You get what I'm saying?"

Crimson gently nodded and passed her a small but clean handkerchief. She traded him the guild's keys for it, so he unlocked while she stood there wiping her eyes and hiccuping.

There was a bit of blood on his hand from her palms, but he wasn't too worried about it, more worried about her, so even though it wasn't very effective he stopped her as she stepped into the guild to use [Treatment] on her hands.

Her reaction to seeing him dual cast the spell was indifference, she just quietly stared at her slowly healing hands with a detached look while blinking tears out of her eyes.

Emptying his mana pool was enough to heal both wounds and she quietly thanked him after he finished.

Emma moved over to her desk with her footsteps echoing around the empty guild. Once she'd taken her place she pointed at a nearby table and spoke, "Sit, I'm not letting you out of my sight for a while."

Unwilling to fight with her, but not sure what to say or do, Crimson sat at the table and quietly watched her watching him.

She mutely started to work on her paperwork, but looked at him every few seconds to check, like she was worried that he'd disappear.

Crimson kept watching her while doing his best to ignore the itch that was slowly growing at the base of his skull, but after half an hour of waiting and watching he couldn't tolerate the itch anymore, so he started practicing with his mana.

His range was just short of 16 feet, so he worked and pushed, trying to get it all the way out there.

After a half hour working at that, Mars walked in the door with a dour expression, which slackened a bit upon seeing Crimson, before hardening into a glare.

Instead of speaking, he pointed to the hallway leading out back, to which Crimson pointed at Emma.

She glanced up when Mars approached her, them made a shooing gesture at Crimson, which he took as permission to leave, so he soundlessly stood.

Despite shooing him away, Emma followed Mars and Crimson out back to the training yard where she settled into a chair at the edge of the sparring area they normally used.

Crimson grabbed a dulled metal katana, Mars grabbed a wooden training spear, and they set to work sparring once more.

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The first round went like usual, Mars kicked him ten feet away and he wasn't able to get up because of his shattered ribs, but then Crimson started utilizing the forms he'd learned from [Vengeful Flash].

It was an instant game changer, since Mars was using [Skills] to blast him around, not pure strength like he'd originally thought, it allowed him to actually fight with the bear-kin.

Under normal circumstances, Mars could crush him like a one winged mosquito, but since he'd acquired limiters from the [Rituals] for his [STR] and [AGI] he was only a bit ahead of Crimson in terms of those stats, the bigger difference was in [Skills].

He wasn't sure which [Skills] his instructor was using, but they absolutely wrecked him, provided Mars actually hit him. If only their weapons made contact - he was spared, but if Mars made contact with him it was an instant broken bone.

That made the [Vengeful Flash] style extremely viable to face Mars, and fighting him was excellent at pressuring Crimson into using it at a level he shouldn't be able to normally.

Crimson even shocked both Mars and Emma when he called a break several times -something he'd never done- but when they saw him studying [Vengeful Flash] they both went "ohhh."

Crimson and Mars spent a few hours sparring and Emma was actually able to walk away for a few minutes at a time without any fear of his bones being broken every few seconds - it was every minute or so now.

It was an excellent round of training, he was almost able to finish Chapter 2 of [Vengeful Flash] and over the next several days of work he was able to finish Chapter 3 which allowed Emma a serious break from her constant healer duty as Crimson settled back into his old daily schedule.

He was still keeping his eyes peeled and stayed on guard constantly, but the edge of paranoia had been dulled slightly. He just made sure to avoid groups of guards when he was out on delivery requests and acted as normally as he could, but everyone close to him probably noticed something was off. He'd need to go back to working on hiding his emotions, the haunting echo of Evans laughing at his inability to do so still followed him.

His week was fairly normal up until "Fallday" which was pretty much Saturday, the guild's emptiest day. Crimson was pretty excited when he got a request from Damus asking him to meet early in the morning on Highday to act as an assistant. He'd almost finished [Lesser Barrier] and was eager to get his hands on the next spell he could.

First thing the next morning, he showed up at the temple after having used his morning run to get there and waited patiently until the temple door was opened by a sleepy-eyed apprentice [Priestess]. She was shocked wide awake when she saw him, and her eyes bulged even wider when Damus stepped past her to greet Crimson.

Damus gave a cordial little bow, "I take it you are ready for today's task?"

He nodded and bowed respectfully in return.

Damus genially responded, "Good, please follow me."

Leaving behind the [Priestess] -who for some reason still looked like she'd been fish slapped- Damus led Crimson around the fountain in the center of Phase 1 -the one he knew housed an entrance to the secret passages- to the opposite end of the courtyard from the temple.

It was an odd building that was made of dark stone, lacked any windows or other entrances, and had purples lines of paint running along the exterior. Well, it wasn't paint he noticed as he got closer, the purple was set into the stone like it had been inlayed.

He casually let his fingers slide over it as they entered the building and kept his face as neutral as possible while he noted with some amount of surprise that there was mana flowing through it, but he couldn't fathom the purpose. He couldn't even get a feel for what kind of affinity it was using - something that was usually pretty easy.

Entering, he was surprised to see that he was in a long stone hallway with slats in the walls and a few in the ceiling. From a few of them, he could see the glint of knocked arrow heads aimed at his head and his heart, as well as the head and heart of Damus.

The aim never faltered just as Damus' step never did as the dandy [Priest] led him to a solid metal door at the end of the passage.

Crimson could feel the back of his neck prickle a little from the pressure of the arrow directed at him, but Damus knocked unconcernedly on the door.

A slat at eye level slid to the side and Damus and the guard behind it shared a few words, before the door swung open to let them in.

Stepping into the room, the first thing he noticed was that there was a doorframe in the center of the massive concave room with steps leading down to it. There were pillars around the edge of the space and guards everywhere the eye could see.

At the opposite end of the room was a small building like a one room shack, but it was the most defended part of the space he'd seen, and the walls all looked to be over a yard thick with a door that had so much mana in it he could feel it from the opposite end of the space.

Crimson felt a sinking feeling in his gut as he started to realize where they were heading for the day...he was totally doomed. This amount of security, plus that door frame...it was like the ones he'd seen for the different secret passages, it would probably be taking him into the castle, which meant that there was a chance he'd be recognized and the Princess who had left him alone would push the issue instead of letting it lie, unless she was the one they were going to meet... Though small, because of lack of evidence, there was a chance.

Some guards approached them and asked for identification. Oh, they left Damus alone, they just asked him. He produced his guild card in response, and a guard with a feather in his cap inspected it closely. After a minute, the card was handed back, and the crowd of guards between them and the door frame stepped to either side with a gesture from the feathered guard.

After a long moment, the door of the shack opened and a wizened old man slowly trundled out. Crimson felt his eye brows raise when he saw what the man was carrying: a key, like a long rod without the usual designs, but the blade was about the same length of his pinky finger. So that's what the keys he'd been mimicking looked like, good to know, he'd keep his eyes peeled for them. If he could keep people from finding their way into the passages it would save him a headache since he seemed to have run of the place.

The old man had two guards behind him that put out a pressure less than the one that Mars and Lars gave off, but to Crimson it was like comparing a 500 lbs weight to a 600 lbs weight, one was definitely heavier, but he couldn't lift either of them in any case. Either of them could crush him like a one winged mosquito. The other guards would at least need to take a second to kill him, with the other two...he'd be dead before he noticed if that's what they wanted.

Instead of scaring him, the knowledge comforted him in a way, it showed that they were serious about keeping their king safe even though the last major war had been eighty years ago and the last time a natural dungeon had broken open near Falst was fifty plus years ago. Despite that, they hadn't slacked their guard. Well, he assumed they hadn't slacked it, but if this was what it was like when it was slack... Well, the king didn't really need to worry about invasions from outside forces. The issue was with the secret passage, if that got out...

Crimson shook the line of thought out of his head and focused as the old man reached the door frame. He was mentally cursing the fact that there was absolutely no way for him to get out of his current situation.

The old man inserted the key into a slot on the right side, then twisted it a quarter turn. Once the turn was completed, the space inside the doorframe seemed to warp and twist for a moment before showing a different sight than the room they were in.

Crimson glanced at Damus who gestured for him to follow, then they both stepped into the new room - there was a bit of reluctance on his part.

It wasn't that interesting, just a plain room with the door frame made of the same black stone as everything else, it was quite small too, and only had one entrance.

Moving through that entrance, Crimson found himself on top of one of the arches that supported the castle. It had low walls on either side of the path, but they did nothing to stop the blustery wind that ruffled their hair and actually made Crimson stagger for a few steps before he adjusted to it. He couldn't help but think that it would be a good place to train in spite of his nerves about the ongoing walk toward his doom.

They walked across the path with the wind acting as a pressure that was constantly pushing him one way or another as it constantly shifted directions, the huge castle with all of its spires seemed to have an effect on the regularity of the current which made it very hard to predict, but only reinforced his impression of the place as a good spot to train.

The added danger of possibly being thrown over the side would probably just help - humans grew the most under pressure after all.

They walked up to a decently sized door which led into the castle and were hurried inside by a figurative army of maids and butlers where they were given a quick once over.

It was at that point that Crimson was forced to relinquish his belt knife to a motherly old maid who placed it gently in a box before taking it to a room just off the entrance. He was a little touched by her care, but there was no need for it, it was just a 115 Royal belt knife, not something so amazing as to require real care.

After that they were led through passages, up stairs, and across small bridges as they made their way through the maze-like castle.

He couldn't help but note how many places that seemed like excellent spots for kill-boxes or ambushes as they were traveling; the place would make an excellent fantasy dungeon - it would make anyone without a knight build cry.

Eventually, they reached one of the spires near the north-west end and were led up a spiral staircase to the top where they were let into a rather stark mid sized room.

There were three people and three chairs, but only one of the chairs was occupied.

A bitter smile graced Crimson's face as he recognized two of the three. The first being the assumed Princess: Rhinese al voth Alda, the second being the fox-kin maid who was glaring daggers at him, and the only one he didn't recognize was a handsome but mostly plain man who Crimson got the "crush you like a bug vibe" from. Honestly, he could imagine the guy shouting "I will crush you!" in a strong Russian accent. His hands were the size of a bear's, but that wasn't what caught his eyes the most about the man. No, it was the lines of tattoos he could see running across the man's face and exposed arms.

They weren't unnatural, they were natural places where the pigment of the skin was pitch black running through a skin that was far, far paler than anyone with blood in their body should have. He was an Uluu, the first one Crimson had ever seen!

Among all the races out there, Uluus definitely held the most scorn and were treated the most poorly -Dark Elves in a distant second place- since they were considered something like demons or devils.

In essence, Uluus had only only one racial trait which varied just slightly, but it gave them ability to gain monster [Classes] - specifically, to take upon themselves the strength of monsters.

With Crimson's knowledge -gained from Raften- he knew that the trait didn't give them the ability to gain a monster [Class], but made the prerequisites much lower and thereby the [Classes] far easier to obtain.

Well, considering how difficult the requirements were for everyone else it could be considered that they, and they alone, were given the ability, but he refused to accept incorrect information - even of such insignificance. Based off the size of the man, he might have a monster [Class] like [Ogre] or [Golem], but appearance doesn't dictate a [Class] - it could easily be something like [Litch] or [Slime].

Crimson glanced at Damus and did his best to follow the man's lead as they both bowed deeply to Rhinese. He mentally tacked "Princess" on to her name so that he wouldn't slip up and forget it verbally - no need to add fuel to the fire.

Damus spoke with his air of nobility easily rivaling that of the Princess', "Good morning Your Highness, how were your morning prayers?"

"Good morning to you as well, [Priest] Damus. My morning prayers were excellent. Very enlightening.”

From her tone it certainly didn't sound likely they were excellent. She continued, "I am so very glad to see that you honored my request to bring your genius pupil."

Crimson slammed down hard on his facial expression to keep his eyebrows from shooting up. Damus' pupil? The man only occasionally gave him a copy of a spell book and had him do menial chores and tasks - nothing along the lines of a pupil.

"Of course I was Your Highness, how could I refuse such a determined request?"

Rhinese, no, Princess Rhinese turned to Crimson. He didn't often take note of how physically attractive the women he met were -like Emma, Sherry, or any of the female members of the harem squad- but he definitely had to for her.

Her chestnut brown hair was allowed to hang free with a pair of creamy white ribbons gently entwined with it which only served to highlight the soothing nature of the color.

Her face was perfectly balanced, everything from her full lips to the gentle curve of her eyebrows all adding up to be a breath-taking beauty that toed the line between real and impossible.

Like Crimson, her eyes were definitely her most outstanding feature. They were a warm and gentle brown that promised trust and patience, but carried an almost unyielding will with flecks of flittering gold floating through them. The gold flecks weren't stagnant, but were continually floating slowly around in a manner that was hypnotizing.

She was wearing a green dress that was modestly cut with sleeves that were snug around her forearms. It was loose in the right places and tight in the right places to show her slim figure and highlight her natural beauty - a complimentary piece instead of overruling.

Crimson mentally snorted, he was getting sentimental just because his "most beautiful women he'd ever met" list had a new first place.

Princess Rhinese smiled at him warmly, which seemed to highlight the glares of the fox-kin and the Uluu before she spoke, "Welcome, my name is Princess Rhinese al voth Alda, I am the first princess of Alda and I am very excited to meet you, [Priest] Damus has been vaunting to me about you quite a bit. Would you please introduce yourself to me?"

Crimson bowed respectfully once more, and did his best to match the formal manner of their speech while his mind went into overdrive to figure out what the girl's game was.

"My name is Crimson, I am an Adventurer of the [Brass] rank, but I don't believe myself to be deserving of such high praises."

His mind continued to turn, why didn't she just out him? If she did that she could do whatever she wanted. Maybe she just wanted to blackmail him? It would make sense, and it would explain why she hadn't said anything yet.

Crimson's train of thought was sent askew for half a second as she giggled, then responded, "My, I am certain you deserve all the praises your teacher has laid at your feet. Don't be so humble, it has no place here. I'd suggest you brag then give evidence for what you say, or just accept things as is - downplaying your strengths is considered dishonest."

A bit of his nature slipped through and he couldn't help the roughness of his response, "And if I feel I'm being honest?"

Damus clapped a tight hand on his shoulder, assumedly to keep him from saying anything else, but his piece was done.

Princess Rhinese looked a little...forlorn as she responded, "Not everyone considers honesty to be important - not in politics."

She looked quietly into the distance for a moment, then refocused on him, "Well, where are my manners? My maid's name is Sariya and our chaperone for the day possesses the name Richard."

Sariya bowed, then Richard dipped his head slightly without taking his eyes off them.

Princess Rhinese gestured at the two chairs across from her and implored, "Please sit, it wouldn't do to have my two guests remain standing."

After sitting, Damus took over the conversation and spent the next hour talking to her, sharing stories of the [Champions of the Gods] and discussing more about the gods themselves with her.

As he quietly listened, Crimson was able to figure out the purpose of all the stories: they were there to build the Princess' faith in the gods.

He wasn't sure exactly how -since it wasn’t a stat- but faith and the [Holy] attribute seemed linked in some way, so these stories would greatly benefit someone who needed to strengthen their faith. The Princess would probably be taking a [Holy] attribute [Class] once she turned 16, so it made sense having someone there to help her grow that faith to better capitalize on her strength. There might be more or less to the matter, but he lacked information.

At the end of the hour, Damus seemed to be preparing to leave, but Rhinese...Princess Rhinese stopped him with a gesture.

"Hold on one moment good [Priest]. I thank you for the teachings you have shared, I shall take them to heart, but there is something else I would like to attend to."

She smiled warmly at Crimson, but all he could see was a shark's smile in her beautiful face.

"Would you please give me a showing of your magic?"

So that was why she warned him about humility earlier, it was an indirect warning not to hide his abilities from her. With what she'd seen last time, there was no point in hiding anything either.

Choosing to remain silent, Crimson decided to use [Magic Light] as the spell, and combine a few Chapters to show off so that she wouldn't complain.

While he didn't need to, he pointed off to the side of the room and made a larger and brighter than average magic light appear ten feet away after taking a few seconds longer to hide at least some of his capabilities from her - even if she already knew about his speed, that didn't mean Damus knew.

The reactions in the room to the spell were as follows: Damus stared at it with a rigid expression; Sariya's tail hair stood on end and she covered her eyes, apparently remembering what happened last time; Richard's expression didn't change, but his hands tightened into fists; Princess Rhinese gave him a radiant smile with glittering eyes.

She spoke after a moment, "That is good enough, I think you will be able to fulfill my second request."

Crimson's eyes narrowed slightly before he caught them, it was finally time to see what her game was.

To his shock, she bowed to him and spoke, "Would you awaken my mana?"

Crimson's taut expression blanked from surprise.