Max felt relieved to see Cy waiting for him outside of Elder Ji-min’s house before noticing his stance. Hunched over and with his hood up higher than normal, he was clearly uncomfortable being around the others.
“I must say Max, you have wonderful penmanship for a farm hand,” Elder Ji-min’s voice caused Cy’s hood to look up towards them.
“Yeah, thanks.” Max quickly moved to Cy’s side. “Well, we better get going.” Before anymore paperwork showed up. Why on earth did he have to sign over a hundred papers? The sheets weren’t even enchanted as far as he could tell. Did the old man just get a kick out of the smell of fresh ink?
“Then I won’t keep you.” The elder had a broad smile from having company for so long. “Oh, and Cyrus? Have you paid a visit to Elder Charaka since you’ve returned?”
Cy didn’t even appear to acknowledge he was being called by his name instead of the nickname. “No, not yet.” Max frowned. Didn’t he say he was going to see him? But he quickly dropped the expression when he realised he had made it. There was no reason to snitch on Cy’s lie. Cy’s hood turned to him, “We need to meet Elder Nova and get our lab set up.” Cy didn’t wait for a reply before leaving.
“See you boys later,” Elder Ji-min gave a gentle wave.
Max waited until the old man was out of earshot. “I thought you already saw the doctor?” Max whispered as a few passer buyers glanced at them. “Maybe Elder Nova could wait?”
“Why?” Cy snapped back. “I went to his office, but he wasn’t in, okay? There was a problem with one of Elder Obi’s kids, so he was called to take a look.”
“We can still wait for him to come back?” Cy just sighed at the idea. “What is it with you today? You’ve been a bitch since you got up this morning.”
Cy finally stopped in the middle of his tracks. “Oh, I’m sorry for being a bitch. If I’m such a bitch, then why don’t you just leave?” Max was out of words. This was out of character. He couldn’t understand it. The system prompts offered no hints. He was at a loss about what to do. There was nothing to guide him. His expression must’ve made his inner turmoil obvious. “…Sorry. I… I’m not feeling well today.”
“…That’s okay.” Max didn’t have a choice from the system to help guide his actions, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t give one. “Should we go to Elder Nova, Elder Charaka, or go home and call it a day?” Undecided, Cy adjusted his hood while he thought about his options. It was only for a split second, but he saw it. The small bruise on his chin that wasn’t there a few hours ago.
“I want to go home.”
“Okay, then let’s go back.” Max accepted the new change in direction without issue. It was probably safer for the community if they took the time to relax a little.
The inviting kitchen was empty as Max began rummaging through the cupboards. When they first got back to Darius’s house, Cy immediately headed straight to his room. Max attempted to coax him out a few times, but every suggestion was met with blunt refusal.
It was puzzling.
Cy had a certain degree of healing magic that he kept hidden from him. Why wasn’t he using it to treat the bruise if that was the issue? A physical wound should be easy to heal. Remembering Edric’s reports, it wasn’t too hard to come to another nasty conclusion. A curse was probably in place. Easy to heal and recover from, but the image remained for a certain amount of time without a great deal of intervention. It was just like a filter in place. Max had wondered why Lux’s file mentioned the unique magic skill, now it was becoming obvious. The only question was whether he was the culprit this time.
After spending the afternoon alone, Cy’s lack of presence was surprisingly lonely until he decided to turn his attention elsewhere. It was time to test the charm Edric made for him. A little rune here under this piece of furniture, a little carving in a thick root of a house plant, a little bit of smeared ink between pages of buried books; a little bit of preparation if anything were to happen. Max made sure to regularly take off the charm after ten minutes of use, so Darius had plenty to look at in case he tried to read his soul. Even if he could read it or were to find one by accident, there was nothing malicious about any of the runes around the house. Just protective, passive spells benefiting the occupants of the home.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Max froze as he reached up for one of the homemade pastries on a high shelf. Darius was suddenly behind him standing next to the doorway. Did he have some kind of spell protecting this kitchen? Maybe one that warned him when Max was in the room. Max couldn’t blame him, since so much love had been put into designing and stocking the place. “YOU BETTER NOT BE COOKING.” It was so accusatory.
Max relaxed his stance. “I’m not cooking. There’s no fire. I’m not touching any ingredients. You made the rule clear, I have no intentions of cooking,” he insisted, but Darius didn’t seem convinced. Time to play on a few heart strings. “I thought I was allowed to eat snacks from the cupboard? Cy has been in his room all day, so I thought I would get him some dinner.”
Darius noticeably calmed down at the mention of Cy’s name. “Cyrus is in his room?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Why couldn’t the system give helpful prompts? All that was flashing was the prompt about Max directly confirming the existence of the system or his past lives in front of Darius. Should he share what he saw on Cy's face? He didn’t really have a choice if he looked into his soul. But that just added to the thing nagging in the back of Max’s mind. Corruption was rampant here. Since all the Elders were committed to overlooking the obvious problems within their own community, how had it not fallen apart already? “He just… hasn’t seemed well all day. Earlier, he was going to see Elder Charaka, but the doctor was busy with Elder Obi.”
Darius gave a distinct frown before relaxing. “I’m sure he knows what to do. So, try not to worry too much, boss.” Max backed off as Darius approached the cupboard and began pulling out various ingredients. On the countertop closest to the door, he stacked the baked goods high on a plate before beginning to handle some flour on another surface. “This humble one asks you not to touch those, boss. Cy will come when he wants to.” Max didn’t say anything as he watched the man work the mass of flour. If anything, he moved slightly further away to reassure both of them. “I see you had a nice time visiting Elder Ji-min. It's hurtful that you're not as forthcoming to me.” His tone didn't show it. If anything, his voice sounded pleased.
Just in case, Max didn’t say anything to confirm. It was a relief that he had been able to reveal so much in front of the other Elder. Darius was probably clever enough to clock on that his silence was due to the system. Perhaps he even realised the exact conditions from his prompt.
“Since we have a moment alone, boss. Why don't you start fulfilling one of your promises? You offered to teach me how to write a distress call spell with the runes to Elder Ji-min. Now’s a good time to start teaching, boss.”
Another prompt pinged up warning him about teaching others. “Just to remind you, it’s not a good idea for you to teach others about runes.” It would be a shame if he got roped into a five-stars story.
“I can keep my mouth shut when needed.”
Good enough for Max. “Is there something I can use to write? We wouldn’t want me to draw out runes on something as shifty as flour.”
“No, we don’t.” Darius’s voice was firm before relaxing. “Why don't you use one of the papers left by Elder Edric?”
“What papers?” Max played innocent. “There are no papers with me.” Darius looked up and squinted at Max before giving a grunt. Edric was right about him overlooking things. He had seen the papers being delivered and read, but failed to spot them being gone once the sun rose. “How about I use the edges of one of these recipe books?”
Darius looked reluctant before giving his permission. “Grab the brown one. No, not that one. The other brown one.”
“…There are more than twenty brown recipe books,” Max grumbled, as he looked through the shelves on the walls. “Can’t you get it?” Darius just held up his sticky hands before working the dough again. Max put his hand over a book. “Tell me the direction from here.”
After some trial and error, they eventually located a book Max could use. On the kitchen table, he flipped the book open and dunked one of the flour-covered, quill pens in ink. “Before you learn something complex like a rune, I need to see how good you are at noticing details.” He covered the book as he wrote two characters: ソン. “Alright, do you see the difference?”
Darius frowned as he stared at the marks. “They’re not runes, boss.”
“Obviously,” Max couldn’t hold back a bit of sass in his voice. “But if you can’t see why these are different then it would just be a disaster if you tried to learn runes without a lot of training.” His comment was just met with scepticism. “The devil is in the details, remember?”
Darius looked over them again before sighing.
“Don’t know?”
“Obviously.”
“Then rune magic is probably not right for you. By the way, the answer is in the alignment. The first is aligned on the top. The second is aligned to the left.”
Darius didn’t seem interested anymore as he added more ingredients to his dough. Perhaps it was because he was evidently unskilled in a critical area for this type of magic? Max was a bit thankful of his bashfulness. It would’ve been hard keeping a neutral face and claiming coincidence if he realised the characters were from his original mother’s natal tongue.
“It would take forever to teach you… But maybe I could teach Cy.”
Max couldn’t cure Cy because of the system, but he could teach one person runes. Cy could learn runes. Cy could cure himself with time using the runes… It was an apparent way around the prompt.
Darius looked up from the overworked dough before throwing it in a bowl to rest. “Are you sure, boss? You could teach Cyrus? Weren't you insisting on only teaching runes to a singular, special person?”
“Cy might have an eye for details if he’s looking at everyone’s fate all the time. If he learned rune magic, he could send a distress call to Edric, do full counters, summon things… He could even start healing people with complex ailments if he wanted to,” Max placed heavy emphasis on his words. And if his history was something to go by, Cy was surprsingly good at keeping secrets.
“Who said I needed to heal people?” Both Darius and Max jumped from hearing Cy’s voice from the door. With his hood lowered, he appeared irritated but otherwise unharmed.
“It was just an idea,” Max tried to appear innocent, while Darius pulled out another pile of flour to keep his focus on. “You don’t have to. I just thought you might be good at it. You could go on to help other people with fixed fates, just like how I was able to postpone Straw’s terminal… prediction.”
Cy picked up the plate with the mountain of baked goods. “I’ll think about it,” he grumbled before leaving without another word.
They waited for him to be long gone before hesitatingly glancing at each other.
“Like I said… he seems to be in a bad mood today.”
“Not much we can do about it, boss.” Darius dismissed Max’s concerns as he began adding milk into the flour. “Or, at least, not much you can do about it, boss. Especially, while that system of yours has a collar around your neck. Tell this humble one, what did you think about the answer to that riddle of yours?”
Max couldn't say anything as he watched the dough being kneaded under the rough hands.
“Want a little hint, boss? A little deposit, as it were, for Cy's rune lessons?” His eyes stayed fixed on the dough. If he looked away, perhaps he would lose his neutral expression. "I'll take your silence as an agreement. Your summary to Elder Ji-min was missing some important details.” Important details? “Most things you know about the system are also wrong.” What? Darius picked up the dough and slapped it on the counter causing Max to jump.
“Let's make a deal, boss. You get Cyrus out of the sticky mess he's in because of the system. Then, when you finally find the wiggle room to talk directly to me, perhaps you and I could clear up some of those misbeliefs. What do you say, boss? Sounds like a deal?”