Scarlett counted the dead Mudhounds with a wicked gleam in her eyes. Alaric could already see the gold shimmering in her eyes as she dreamt of the reward they would reap from this big hunt. The boy just rolled his eyes as he watched her counting.

Once she confirmed that they summed up to a total of thirty-eight, including the big alpha, Alaric started storing them in his bracelet.

He brought his storage bracelet close to the largest creature first and focused aether into it. The space-time magic embedded in the device seemed to compress the alpha mudhound before sending it inside—wherever inside was.

The boy frowned and looked at the bracelet. This was the first time he had stored something that large, and for once, he was baffled. “Have you ever wondered how these devices work?”

“Yes… and I know how,” Scarlett replied. Now, please move your legs faster…”

Alaric shuffled faster to the nearest Mudhound, then started searching it for injuries. The plan had been to make sure they stored the Mudhounds with the least injuries. After checking three of them, he confirmed which one to send in and continued the process of sending the beasts into the Storage Bracelet based on hide damage, “How do they work then?”

“Well, it’s something to do with Spatial magic and Space-Time Magic. A combination of the two… from what I’ve heard anyway. Apparently, different smiths have different ways of achieving the same results. I’ve also heard that different methods have different weaknesses,” Scarlett explained.

To speed up this storage process, she started collecting the Mudhounds that were further away from Alaric and brought them to him, sometimes even tossing them at him—which wasn’t very ladylike, in Alaric’s opinion.

“The Runesmith that explained this to me said the commonest Storage Devices utilize Space-Time magic, acting as portals or doorways to pocket dimensions created with Spatial Magic. The size, nature and quality of the pocket dimension determine what it can keep and how much of it.”

“Nature?” Alaric wondered. Alaric could imagine what she meant by size and could try to guess what she referred to by quality but he was utterly defeated by the term ‘nature.’ Wasn’t a pocket dimension just a pocket dimension?

It’s not like he was lacking in imagination. This was just something he’d never given much thought. As it so happened, there was more to the simple devices than he’d initially thought.

“Yes, the nature of the pocket dimension. Spatial Magic allows someone to create dimensions of space on planes other than the one we’re on and Space-Time magic allows someone to create doorways to these dimensions. The nature of a pocket dimension is very important. The most basic ones can only store non-perishable items like rocks, swords and stuff.

However, some pocket dimensions possess unique attributes like the power to freeze an object’s time. Which means perishables can survive. Some pocket dimensions are advanced enough even to hold humans. I’ve only heard rumours of those though. I’ve never actually seen one,” the girl responded.

As the girl explained, she watched Alaric place one MudHound after the other into his Storage Bracelet with no sign of stopping.

One by one, each of the MudHounds vanished into the gluttonous bracelet, leaving nothing but a ravaged battlefield behind. Scarlett stared at the copper bracelet with a complicated expression, “Just how rich are you?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Rich?” Alaric asked.

“Don’t play dumb with me. That thing must be really expensive,” she raised her voice, disbelief lacing her voice.

Alaric eyed the bracelet and thought of playing along. Knowing Scarlett though, there was a chance she would see right through him if he suddenly went, ‘Oh yeah! I got it from a vendor in Earl’s Hollow. At the time, I thought the guy was ripping me off but we had it appraised and found out it was the real deal…’

The lie was perfectly crafted in his mind along with all the other small details. Gandalow had briefed him on a few norms the people of Earl’s Hollow liked to keep to, making sure Alaric was well-informed if anyone asked too many questions.

In the end, however, none of that would work against Scarlett. She kept him on his toes and just like his own sharp instincts, she had amazing intuition.

Still, Alaric’s identity had to remain secret. He stared at the bracelet on his arm and sighed, “Someone gave it to me. An old man with far too much money on his hands.”

Scarlett smiled, “He must really care for you.”

Alaric shrugged, “I don’t know his heart. Will this be enough for today or are we hunting some more?”

Scarlett looked up at the sky, “Let’s hunt for thirty more minutes. If we find some loners, we’ll hunt them down. If we find herds though, we are to report their location to the guild. If it gets late with us still fighting the Aether Beasts, we risk drawing the attention of demons beyond the Purified Zone.”

Alaric nodded, then followed Scarlett’s lead, dashing through the forest at high speeds. He split his attention, turning some of it on the mission at hand while the rest went to his guardian.

Alia had been awfully quiet and while it was not the first time she’d done this, Alaric found this time to be a little suspicious. She was normally fond of watching as he fought and, albeit rarely, offering him advice where he fell short.

This time though, she introduced an entirely new concept to him and went quiet completely, [ So, are you going to tell me what Tamers are? ]

The guardian remained quiet.

[ Or maybe you’d like to tell what I should have told that MudHound to persuade it to leave and not die ] Alaric tried.

[ You handled that situation well ] the guardian’s voice rang.

Alaric wanted to laugh. This reminded him a lot of the Coming of Age Ceremony in Jack’s Fall. Back then, the guardian had let him do things he had no idea about as well. This time though, a whole pack of mudhounds was dead, ‘How was that a good outcome?’

[ They are all dead and I’m now going to get the money their bodies are worth. Why… ]

[ That is how you honour the dead, Alaric. Those MudHounds were ready to kill you. Do you think they stopped for a moment to think they should have convinced you to leave? Don’t be so naive. ] the guardian hissed, silencing Alaric all at once, [ If you must kill something, then make sure you honour its death by doing what it is you came to do. ]

Alaric’s mind was buzzing from the argument. How was he the wrong one here? Had the world gone mad? Why was he capable of justifying the act of killing?

There was a loud sigh in his mind before his guardian started speaking again, [ You’re being too narrow-minded. ]

[ Narrow-minded? ] Alaric wanted to yell.

[ Yes, Alaric. Narrow-minded! Killing a MudHound doesn’t make you the same as Darth who nearly killed you and your friends. To say the act of ‘killing’ is evil without knowing everything that resulted in death is what I’m calling narrow-minded. ]

[ I’m not narrow-minded ] Alaric screamed back, [ I tried to negotiate with those MudHounds. I did everything I could. ]

[ Exactly, so what’s the problem? ]

[ I did everything I could… but did you? ] Alaric asked. The guardian remained silent, [ If you had told me what you know about Tamers, would those MudHounds have ended up dead? I would have found another… ]

[ Are you blaming me for this? ] the guardian asked.

Alaric felt his heart sink. Before he could say anything else, her presence diminished and she stopped paying attention to him.

The pain of not having her with him was quick to manifest. Like a hole had been punched into his very existence, constantly aching to be filled.

Alaric sighed…

Until Alia was done sulking, he was on his own. On top of that, he could feel a decrease in the power he had access to… as though part of the aether their bond allowed him access to had been cut off.

‘Just Great! Good going, Alaric,’ he berated himself. Were guardians even supposed to be this emotional?