Chapter 98 — In which things burn down (1)
Amara, who was sprinting to get back to the teleportation circle, briefly slowed down.
It was because his vision blurred, and he couldn’t see what was ahead of him.
But he couldn’t take off his mask to fix it.
So Amara only briefly slowed down and closed his eyes for a moment, taking deep breath and meditating.
A face flashed in the darkness under his eyelids, but it passed him too quickly to see clearly.
But the warmth in the corners of his eyes and throbbing heart were very familiar.
He chuckled to himself.
“I thought you were genius, who would succeed in anything… I’m glad…”
He mumbled, but completed this statement only in his thoughts.
‘… You didn’t succeed in burning your soul to ash.’
He hesitated before the door the manor where the coming-of-age ceremony was taking place.
He should be rushing to the teleportation circle, before the Archmage returns to his senses and he would have to deal with his puppets that were stationed at all entrances.
But if he left now, he would lose a chance to see all of those people, who held the pieces of his heart.
‘… It’s okay. It’s not like I’m burning bridges behind me here.’
They would meet again.
He was sure that his siblings recognized him, just like he recognized them, the strange bond connecting them burning brighter than the sun in the sky.
He could wait.
Just like he waited for 400 years to reunite with the person he loved…
He could wait a bit longer to reunite with everyone again.
When he returned to the courtyard, Seven and Alexandrit were just like they were before, but a bit more sweat gathered on Seven’s temples, as if maintaining the teleportation circle was becoming increasingly harder.
Amara didn’t waste time and stepped into the teleportation circle.
“Thank you…”
He quickly thanked the two as the light enveloped him.
But then something came to mind, when he saw Seven’s face relax in relief.
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“And please remind Estimated Archmage to eat something.”
Those were the last words he left, before disappearing from the Archmage’s mansion.
*-*-*
Saffra hummed to herself as she drew a magic circle in the corner, where the surveillance spell couldn’t quite reach and darkness of a dark room covered her.
While her golden mana drew perfect geometric shapes in the air, her happy song continued.
At first, she thought that this day was quite terrible.
She confirmed her guess that clones of Flavun’s envoy would appear, but failed to predict what they were aiming for and didn’t expect for Purplus’ envoy to be so brazen to actually held an entire ritual and interfere with the Archmage’s magic.
If many forces didn’t move together Saffra suspected the situation would turn into mess, and she wouldn’t be able to do anything, but watch.
But she was happy.
“I saw a flower in the field of wheat, I went to pick it up, but when the wind blew… I saw thousand of flowers in the field of wheat~…”
She just met people she wanted to see the most.
How could she not be happy?
She was almost so happy that she forgot about her wish to drown Purplus’ crazy priests in ice water.
But she didn’t.
With the last stroke her spell was completed.
It flashed in the air and then… All ice cubes placed around the manor exploded and melted, the cold air blew.
“Ah~ Much better.”
Saffra, the only one in the building who enjoyed the cold temperature, sighed with a satisfaction.
*-*-*
Vern carefully picked up a ‘gift’ from the box.
‘As expected…’
This room was directly connected to one of the main pillars supporting the roof over the main ceremony hall.
And what he held was a pretty powerful bomb.
If it was to explode in this room at least a half of the roof could have cave in and there certainly would be injured people.
If Vern was attacked in such a situation… And Crimo was under a heavy mental pressure…
Someone surely would die.
He sighed.
Thankfully the bomb wasn’t hard to disassemble.
While getting rid of the problem, Vern thought with a slight smile.
‘Did Saf and Am notice that something was wrong?’
He was relieved to see them, but he found it was funny that their first ‘meeting’ after 300 years was when all three of them were rushing off to prevent a disaster.
Somehow it felt just right.
‘But Am seems to be going to…’
He checked the surveillance spell he kept floating around him and as he expected, he didn’t see Am anywhere in the ceremony hall manor.
He left the building.
‘He must have gone to Crimo.’
Vern also checked his communication stones, but as he expected, there was no answer from Crimo or Sangria to whom he sent a message before.
But knowing that his younger brother went there, Vern wasn’t too worried.
As he expected, Am returned about a minute later and saw him enter the teleportation circle.
He was sorry to see him leave, but he just promised to himself to visit Purplus as quickly as possible.
A few seconds after Am disappeared a message from Sangria arrived:
[It’s ok]
Vern smiled and completely broke down the bomb.
*-*-*
“Then we should return to Priest Phlox’s side now. Are you okay to walk?”
After making sure that the teleportation was successful, Alexandrit turned his head Seven.
Seven looked at the teleportation circle as if he had a lot to say, but closed his eyes for a second and then opened them again with a resolute look.
“Yeah. Just give me a second.”
Then he prepared to clean up his traces.
Alexandrit decided not to comment on how he was still leaning against his arm.
Most because his attention was drawn to the teleportation circle that burst into black flames.
“Mr. Seven.”
He calmly addressed his companion.
“I understand that all mages have their own way to visualize destruction of their magic circles, but have you ever considered that explosion of flames under a tree might give some people quite a fright?”
Seven was silent for a moment and then looked into Alexandrit’s eyes with a very serious look.
“But those flames are black.”
Alexandrit just silently looked down at him.
*-*-*
“Seems like it’s finished now. This humble one will be going now, Mister.”
“Um… who was the person, which teleported to ran off somewhere for two minutes and then comeback?”
Geod just smiled meaningfully.
Cuprit made a face as if he ate shit.
“Have a nice day, Mister.”
“Are you not even going to explain why the leader of your envoy is beating up your people?”
“Just a type of midday exercise.”
“They fainted.”
“Isn’t that better? You’ll have fewer people to keep track off.”
“… Why do I feel like you’re fucking with me?”
“Have a nice day, Mister.”
Geod bowed instead of answering and left the surveillance room.
*-*-*
In another room, Citrie held a candle in one hand and a lump of wax in another.
With a grim frown on his face he mumbled to himself:
“Would that be considered a murder or not?”
*~*~*