Not knowing what type of face to make, the boy simply kept a straight face. Though Jessica knew this wasn’t his real feelings. In the end, she learned something new today. She had grown accustom to the ethics of Victorina. Having grown accustom to him, she didn’t have very much care for his antics by this point. She didn’t disturb his thoughts on the man, as the major reasons he was paying so much attention to him was to come.
Behind the counter was a large door frame leading to the backroom. Inside was a bunch of boxes and further in was a door. She didn’t hesitate at all to walk through the door frame. Seeing this, the boy had a large spike in emotions before very quickly calming down. Once the two walked through the image of Jessica rippled in the door frame, soon the image of her in the backroom started to stabilize as if the surface of the picture was made of water. As the ripples came to an end the backroom reappeared, however, there was no Jessica if anyone new entered the store.
The two were in the same room shown in the image through the door frame. Outside of being much darker, the room was identical. Looking over for confirmation, Jessica could only sigh with a bit of disappointment. There was no physical reaction on his face and while his emotions spiked when she entered and did the same when he entered, she felt he only entered because she did. For this reason, he didn’t have as large of a reaction as she was expecting. Being a bit disappointed, she still explained, as the boy hadn’t looked around the room once.
“How boring. The first time I entered this place, I almost started to hyperventilate. Making it worse, I was first one through when uncle came over to calm me down, I screamed and jumped at his touch. Even if you can sense it, isn’t your reaction still too dull?”
Letting out a sigh, without waiting for him to answer her rhetorical outburst, “This is the same room that you saw before. The door frame is equipped with a number of devices. Most of them were either made by uncle or modified by him. You can think of them as a security system. They will alert him of a new visitor, if they don’t match known visitors it will alert him of an intruder. Strangely enough, it didn’t react to you at all.”
The way she was looking at him, she wanted to hear his thoughts on this. He did have a thought but didn’t know enough to be sure, “I have been locked away for god only knows how long. Why do you think I will know something about this?”
Without looking back, she turned around and entered the door that was at the end of the hall. Inside was a long set of stairs that wrapped around for a good distance down. As she started walking she stated matter-of-factly, “Between this place and the laboratory which is more advanced? You spent so-called god only knows how long there.”
Pausing slightly, he couldn’t help but stop for a moment. Jessica continued going down the stairs. He hadn’t really thought about it. He had felt her peeking at him periodically. At first, he thought it was just the normal curiosity or the awkwardness that came from what happened before. Looking back it did appear she was more curious of him after making it to the city. He only assumed it was because she could show off her connections, never crossed his mind she had a deeper level of thinking to it.
Without waiting for him, he had to speed up. “If I had to guess, I would probably say because the detection only extends to inorganic matter…” This time she did stop, she tried to pronounce it, but he just cut her off before she could try to butcher the word, it happened once or twice before but if there wasn’t a good translation of the word itself would be sent to her in his language.
Reorganizing his thoughts, he tried to simplify it, “I felt it when we came in, while there was a screening effect, it didn’t just apply to the entranceway. In fact, the scan continued in. My guess is that to help with those attempting to dupe the system, they might try to use a concealing method to bypass the scan. What is very difficult to feel is there is some type of magic hidden inside the room just outside the door frame. This magic appears, to me, to be there to dispel or dissemble magic. Since my body is made of fog it was hard to see, but when I entered the outer layer was broken down.”
Seeing as the two had stopped on the stairs and facing each other, he paused to demonstrate a bit. The first time he made it obvious as his shirt and pants were broken down to their most basic layer hiding his body underneath. Because he didn’t remember any designs or anything else, he reimagined the same clothes but imagined her name written on his shirt. Only once the name appeared, it made it easier to see that the thickness of his clothes had really changed very minutely.
“From what I experienced, it was only meant to disrupt the use of mana. In that split second my clothes were affected, there was a second scan like the one before. Only this time I noticed that the boxes weren’t effected. It was the same with your clothes when you entered. The scan met them but didn’t affect them as the scan touched your skin before ending. And this is the key, my soul and body are currently being housed inside your arm. This body is simply like a spell, it isn’t the real me and just mana.”
Nodding her head briefly, she couldn’t help but look at his shirt, “What does it say?”
He had noticed it earlier that the clothes in this world were a bit primitive. They didn’t have the style of putting a logo or even pictures. Instead, they had simple and elegant designs. The name was soon wiped from the clothes, as it took more mana to materialize the surface of the clothes with it on, “It was the one of the ways your name was spelled in my language.”
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Nodding her head, briefly, they had at that point started to move again. This time he was in front, as he had started to move first. He could feel her interest in the letters, so it wasn’t a surprise when she asked to see it again, “Can you show me it again?”
Without much effort, he used his mana to have the name show up on his arm as he showed it to her. She felt like a child that learned to write her name for the first time. It wasn’t that surprising, as it wasn’t uncommon for people to show interest in their names written in another foreign language, so he didn’t think much about it. That was until her next question.
“Can you do that thing you did with the letters before?” She sounded a bit disappointed, looking at the plain text he used to write her name. When he applied it to his clothes to show her the difference of his mana being disturbed, he made them appear with bubble letters. With a bit more effort, he took a few attempts to get a better quality design from his head into the mana on his arm.
This time he had to stop as it took a rather great amount of mana to generate quality imagine as he went all out and even applied shadow. He couldn’t add color, even his appearance was jaded. He appeared like a normal person, while his skin was a whitish gray. The amount of mana used had decreased when they bound but he at most changed the color of his clothes.
“Can I use this?” She sounded a bit nervous.
He could only stare at her blankly for a moment before moving on, “I am your property, why do you need my permission?”
“I still want it!”
“I don’t care. Not like it can be used for anything else. You forget that unless you’re dying, you’re the only that can see… me.” He didn’t mean to cut himself off, but he remembered what happened in Green River City. He looked back but saw she was fixated on his arm instead of his words.
“What is taking you so long? I thought you fell again.” The voice cut through the silence before Jessica looked up startled before her face turned red.
Yelling back at the man, “I only fell once! When are you going to let that go?!”
Seeing he upset her, he could only frown slightly, “Why are you here?”
The man standing in front of them was standing in the doorway of a stone arch that was connected to a room giving off an insane amount of heat. The most eye-catching thing about him was his red hair, while his brown eyes blended into the background behind his striking hair color. He was somewhat short with a short beard and a set of hard chiseled features that gave him a hard and intimidating appearance. Much of which was lost while being stared daggers at by Jessica.
Hearing this, her stare turned a bit sluggish before she didn’t dare meet his eyes. He took a second to study her before his defined features turned rough and even more intimidating. Without leaving any room for negotiation he held out his arm, “Show it to me.”
Seeing her hesitation, he once again had a darker shade to his face, “Are you telling me they were completely destroyed?” This time he sounded a bit like he was in disbelief. Soon he calmed himself down before moving back into his shop.
Following suit, the two were met with a small hall similar to the one upstairs that was filled with different metal objects. It was a miniature-sized showcase room. Only nothing was finished and all the items were thrown to one or other side of the room like trash. Once through, they entered a room with an open contraption with a large assortment of tools around the opening of what appeared to be a furnace.
The opening of the furnace was even showing a rippling blue screen from some type of magic that was meant to keep the temperature at bay. Still, the room was boiling. Sitting down next to a workbench with a bunch of tools on it, the shorter man with a few crows feet just looked up at her with an angry expression, “Where are you going for my weapons to be destroyed?”
Seeing her keep quiet, he wanted to yell, only he couldn’t. How could he not know why the child was trying so hard to get that pointed fuck’s last name. If he himself had a last name, he would force it on her. He had watched the child grow up, and she was what he imagined having a daughter was like. If not for the old man refusing, he would have legally adopted her himself. Still, he was content with being called uncle.
A deep and emotional sigh came out of his mouth before he resigned himself, “So you just need a replacement? It will take a while. You know I don’t make inadequate items.” Seeing she looked up at him happily, he loosened his expression. “Go take two from the trash bin and hold onto them for now. Come back in a month and I will have them ready for you. Ha, going to have to delay some of my projects, but it should be doable.”
“Uhm, Uncle Beast… Is there anyway I can get them with as an advancement? I have the money now, but I need to use some of it…” Seeing her struggle so much, he had half a mind to remind her that after passing his pointless tests, he had already cut the price of his works down to next to nothing. It was her who paid more than he asked every time. By now, he would give it to her for free, if she would just accept them. But now that she seemed so hesitant, he knew it had to do with that him. Now he wanted to know why.
Seeing his trademark stare, she knew he would only relent if she gave him the reason. Quietly at first, she spoke louder the more she went on, “The old man, needs a new chair.”
Hearing this, the old dwarf couldn’t help but cough as if he swallowed saliva down the wrong pipe. Only once he stopped did he have time to speak, “I see. That makes sense. Alright, just pay me whatever you can or whenever you want.”
While they were leaving, she could see a slightly confused expression on the boy's face, however she didn’t explain. While he could read her emotions and understand her words. He didn’t understand anyone else without a translation. Even when she gave it to him, he didn’t know what the exact context was without the emotions. But if he moved just five or six more steps in, he would have seen the chair that her uncle was sitting on was very similar to the one the old man used. The biggest difference was the craftsmanship, it wasn’t that it was all that nicer, instead it was just newer. She now knew she would need to also make her uncle a replacement.