Chapter 44 – In which some things are only natural

Vern fell silent for a second and then slowly asked:

“Can you let go of my arms?”

Crimo was clenching Vern’s arms even though he finished his inspection.

Crimo looked down and stared at his hands digging into Vern’s shoulders for a second.

Then he blinked and suddenly jumped away, in the instant distancing himself a meter away from Vern.

His face was a mix of shock and embarrassment.

It seemed that he didn’t realize he was holding Vern.

“… Sorry…”

He quietly mumbled and then silence fell.

The silence stretched from a few seconds to an entire minute.

Finally, someone coughed and got the attention of everyone in the room.

That someone was Sangria, who was observing the entire scene from the side, together with Scarlen.

Sangria walked up to Vern and said:

“I got the storage crystal like you instructed Young Master.”

He put particular emphasis on ‘Young Master’.

Vern guessed it when he saw Scarlen in the room, but Sangria gave him the last confirmation.

Considering that Sangria wasn’t someone who would spill the information about Crow’s identity, the culprit was obvious.

Unconsciously, Vern’s gaze turned towards Crimo, who avoided his eyes and bowed his head, mumbling another:

“… Sorry.”

“… It’s fine.”

Vern decided to just roll with it and accepted the crystal with all of his today’s spoils from Sangria’s hand.

“Thank you. You didn’t look inside, right?”

“Of course not. Besides, I think that Lord put a deadly curse on it if someone tries to open it before twenty four hours pass.”

“I see, thank you for your caution.”

Vern said it towards Crimo, who was sulking a few meters away (it seemed that he tried to hide, when Vern wasn’t looking at him).

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The mouth corners of Crimo, who heard it, raised slightly.

Vern then turned towards Scarlen, who was covering his mouth and observing the entire scene with shining eyes.

He greeted Scarlen with a slight bow.

“Grandmaster Scarlen.”

Scarlen returned the greeting, but his bow was slightly deeper than Vern’s.

“Young Master Vern.”

After completing formalities and confirming that the two knew each other, Scarlen stepped a bit closer, stopping in Crimo’s vicinity and said with a devil-like smile:

“I wished to talk with Young Master about freaking out my workers, but…” He glanced at the three siblings, who were standing frozen with their mouths hanging open. “It seems that it got resolved.”

As if Scarlen’s gaze made them come back to their senses a bit, the twin sisters mumbled:

“Am I having hallucinations?”

“Are you also hallucinating Lord Archmage?”

“… Whoa, a shared hallucination.”

“At least we will go insane together.”

Cuprit ignored his two older sisters and after opening and closing his mouth for a while, he finally addressed Scarlen.

“Boss, can I know what is going on?”

“Oh, all I understand is that you just got adopted by Our Dear Lord. By the way, remind me what age you guys are?”

“I’m twenty seven and they’re a few months older than me.”

“Got it.”

Scarlen’s smile grew wider, and he turned towards Crimo.

“Congratulations on adopting three children of your own age.”

Crimo just blinked dazed as if he had no idea what Scarlen was talking about.

It seemed he already forgot about the entire adoption thing.

Scarlen seemed to enjoy that expression very much, but he retrieved his gaze after short struggle and spoke towards Vern again:

“But there is something I’m really curious about. Can I ask you a question, Young Master?”

“There is nothing wrong with asking, you can only be wrong when answering.”

“Yes, His Reverence Vermillian was a very wise person.”

Vern was very glad he was still wearing a snake mask to cover his face.

“Then my question is how did Young Master bypass my defense formations?”

The unique glint of the mage, who made a fascinating discovery, sparkled in Scarlen’s eyes.

Vern observed the black like obsidian eyes of the man for half a second, before he answered:

“I’m not sure. It tends to happen around me.”

It was a half-truth.

Vern was truly not sure of why it was happening, but he researched before ‘what’ was happening.

All of those kinds of magic security formations relied on tracing the source of the disturbance and targeting it with an appropriate response.

If someone casted an offensive spell within Scarlen’s formation, a bit of their mana would be captured and then the specialized security spell would cross check everyone in the Magic Exchange’s venue and cast a curse on the person whose mana matched.

Because there is no spell which doesn’t emit any mana, besides Vern’s ‘Eternal Fire’ as it was nicknamed, this method was highly effective.

But it didn’t work on Vern for some reason.

As Vermillian, he tried to record the exact process when the security spell was working and made a surprising discovery.

The moment his mana entered the identification step, the spell recognized and classified it as ‘natural mana’.

Natural mana was the ambient mana that was in the air and a natural component of every existence.

Sometimes natural mana caused random ‘magic phenomena’ which could include sudden ignition or electric discharges, and those, because of their similarities with offensive spells, were often detected by the security systems.

To prevent the security spell from targeting some poor floor tiles, ‘natural mana’ signature was registered in the spell components and if detected, the spell was instructed to cease further actions.

But for some reason Vern’s mana was identified as natural by security spells.

That went against all common sense.

From the perspective of other mages Vern’s mana had a unique signature and was clearly different from natural mana. They could track it and identify it.

As Vermillian, he even researched the spiritual corner of mana together with Am, but even there, his mana was clearly different from natural one.

What’s more, if natural mana’s signature was removed from the spell components, the security spell tracked Vermillian just fine.

And it didn’t happen only with his mana.

‘When Am and Saf casted spells, the same thing happened.’

He understood that it may have something to do with their family, but he couldn’t tell what it was.

The only piece of wisdom he had was something which Saf offhandedly mentioned, when listening his mumblings:

— Maybe it’s like this. I have two cows. One white, one black. From my point of view they’re different, but from the perspective of a sword, they are exactly the same. They’re both cows, they’re both meat to be cut, they both bleed.

Vern thought it had some sense, but failed to capture the crux of the issue.

But he confirmed that the same thing happened in this new body, while experimenting with some security circles in his room for a week.

So when facing against ‘some very energetic customers’ he was sure he could use offensive spells.

“Is that so? That’s a pity.”

Scarlen said so, but the curious glint that danced in his eyes didn’t disappear.