Up on the second floor of the building, the group settled on sleeping in for the night. With Will and Li out cold and Johann tired to the bone, Anastasia decided to oversee the boys sleeping soundly. At about 6 in the morning, Johann woke up, who called Li to help with him in the kitchen, and about 5 hours later, Will woke up... “No, wait, no, no!”, wails Will, waking up with cold sweat all over his body. Worried, “You good, mate?” asks Anna. After hearing various myth like stories from Johann about Will, Anna became more considerate about his life and burden. With more than a decade of ridicule and abuse, Will lived and carried on the weight of people’s expectations and hope. “Eh, it is nothing. Just another nightmare, like of any other day. Say, what is that I smell?”, says Will, smelling the fresh coffee and pastry. Looking to the direction of Anna, “The song of the Capeless Knight, I heard someone singing it when I was asleep. Was it you?”, asks Will. Giggling a little, “You slept like a little kid; I did not think you would remember it. I hummed it while deciphering the schematics. Turns out, there are a lot of info about where and how it was made. In collaboration with Suzaku Haru, Anastasia Vasiliev made a faithful copy of the schematic. And the schematic had its origins in the east, about Irkutsk and so the original is there somewhere in the Russian Siberia. Li helped me translate the Cyrillic”, says Anna.

Standing up as if he remembered something, “Speaking of, I need to give this to Li. If he cannot control how much he outputs, he would get in much trouble”, says Will, searching his coat and trying to find something. Reaching to her pocket, “Your lifesaver is what you are searching, right? Here”, says Anna, handing the watch to Will. “No, not that. I knew you had it, though. I had something I held so dear in here”, says Will, upset after not finding it in his coat. Removing the pendant from her neck and opening it, “Does she look like me?” asks Anna. Speechless for a moment, smiling, “It is you! Cassandra Trie Johannes – San!” says Will, more than happy to meet his childhood friend again, lunging forward in for a hug. “I knew you would not die. Why didn’t you say sooner, San? All those nights when I woke up from the same nightmares, it has finally ended; all those times when I thought about wasting my mana – I am so happy”, he says, tears about to burst out.

Entering in on the two, “Look who has decided to wake up?”, says Johann. “Oh, that is not a sight I thought I would see this morning”, says Li, bringing coffee up the stairs. As the previous night came by, Li jumped up in the middle of the night, scaring Anna. Upon waking up, he told Anna about the dreams he had all the time, about an old man. Telling this to the group, “He always say he has an unfinished business back where he was born. Weirdly, he says he is my familiar, more less, my grandpa. And that incident yesterday, I think he took over my body. But due to his inexperience with my unusually high mana, he over did his entrance and made a mess”, says Li. Slapping Li’s wrist, “If you do not take this off, your dreams will no longer trouble you”, says Will, giving him his watch.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

“Now that everyone is awake, the main discussion: What will we do now?”, says San, turning more serious. “The schematic said the original was found in the east. And with a name like Suzaku, some Japanese might have a copy as well. From what they translated out of the schematic, the ones we have now are only 2 pieces of a larger construct, resembling a floating disk with claw-like hands suspending it off the ground. The one Will had was of the inner disks, presumably, responsible for output and broadcasting. Li’s one was from the primary energy resource, the outer most rings. This series of schematics have immense implications in modern science and technology, as seen from the name – Flawless Transportation Mechanism”, says Anna, evidently stressed. Pulling up a map, “If we were to say Russia had one piece and Germany another, then how many of these pieces are there and where?”, says Johann. “One must be in China”, says Li, “I do not know why but I just know there is something hiding in the north”, he adds. “And Japan has at least one. I wonder who built such piece”, says Anna.

“What point is in this, anyway?”, asks Will, changing the topic quite a bit. “Think about it. What will this have for us? Johann would have to leave his bakery behind, so will Li who just got a stable place to be. I just found San who I would never want to lose again. And if we were to go on this expedition, we do not know what danger awaits us”, says Will, stressed and scared, hugging San. Suddenly, “Even if you are outcasted here, why are you opting to stay here, Mr. Will?” asks Li. “As you saw yesterday, I hid my mana to protect others but they shunned me instead. In this society, you cannot be the weak – it is either eat the poor or be the meal”, raising his voice, “Why do you want to be the meal of others, Mr. Will?”, he adds. Standing up and moving past Li to the kitchen, “Li is right. Even for me, this way of life is not something I would want. Too soul crushing and mundane, you know what happens when I get to a low point, Will. Besides, now that this kid is under my care, I would not want anything bad happening to him”, says Johann, his voice reflecting that he had enough. “Will, I know you have a burden to bear. But now, it is not yours alone. You saved Johann more than once; I would not be here without you sacrificing your future and Li would not be here, sitting with us, without your actions yesterday. If you want to protect your familiar, I would not stop you but all we are hoping is you coming with us to be with us”, says San, stating that she would go on the trip.