Early Afternoon - Mid Spring : Kingdom of Kaelallan

Hearing Helen call the maid for drinks and bread, I was expecting a long and arduous talk about why I didn't do anything about the assassins earlier.

"Vasilias, please take a seat.." Helen leaned back on the couch, stretching out and taking a deep breath. "I'm not sure what the reason you wanted to come to this meeting was.. but thank you... Sincerely.. from the bottom of my heart, thank you.."

Hearing her words, Lucy looked like she was about to start crying.

-I guess she is finally realizing the gravity of the situation..-

"Ah right, are you okay?" Helen had a face of worry as she looked at my hand.

-Ah right, I still have poison on my hand- "Im fine as far as I can tell" Quickly accumulating some water, I cleaned the poison off my hand and created a small aluminum vial to store it in. -Well it shouldn't be corrosive.. hopefully..-

Seeing my display of magic, Lucy's urge to cry subsided. "How did you.."

"How did I what?" I casually responded as I made a little stand to keep it from spilling. "I'll set this here for you to examine later, maybe it'll give a hint on who they were."

Lucy wasn't the only one stuck with a look of awe though. Helen couldn't understand either. "How did you use so many attributes so swiftly.. and how did you make that container out of nothing.."

"Well I have attribute nodes of every attribute, and I created the vial by using earth magic on the air. Just think that I took the materials to make it out of the air."

"Huh? W..what?” Lucy looked like her whole world was turned upside down. Her expression was truly priceless.

Helen didn't try to understand it though and was much better off. “Haah.. I guess dragons are just blessed by the heavens, huh.." Helen let out a deep sigh, finally easing some stress from the incident.

-Well, I can't deny that..- "I'm not normal even for dragons though, so don't feel bad." I tried to put on a comforting smile.

Thankfully Helen was quick to move on. "That doesn't change the fact you made such a beautiful vial out of nothing so quickly.." Carefully picking up the small vial, she admired its shine.

A smile slowly crept onto my face from the ‘compliment’. "Thank you for the praise."

Finally returning to the room, Martha set a plate of bread and several cups of tea on the table and Helen gave her some more instructions. "Martha, please get the alchemist to come in and look at this vial of poison. See if he knows anything about it." Seeing her give a quick nod and leave the room once more, Helen handed me a piece of bread.

"Thanks.." Even though I had lost my preference for it when I became a dragon, I decided not to reject it. -Its not bad, I guess.- It tasted pretty similar to white bread from earth, just less fluffy.

"Well now that we have some food, I feel like I need to ask something.." At long last, Oliver finally finished sorting his thoughts.

-Is he going to ask for a favor?- "Go for it."

"I heard from your father that you two planned to leave in a few days, but I was wondering if I could be so shameless as to ask you to stick around a little longer.. I could really use your help in this.. 'case'."

Although I was curious about the situation myself, it wasn't much beyond that. "What's in it for me then?"

Hearing my response, Lucy snapped out of her existential crisis and gave me a shocked look.

-I guess she didn't expect me to be so upfront.-

"I will let you take any single artifact from the vault." Oliver understood what dragons wanted from father, treasure, money, or something interesting.

-He really knows how to rope a dragon in, huh..- "Alright sure, I'll help you out."

A humble smile quickly came to his face. "Thank you... Well let's go inform your father of the situation, by then our knights should've gotten some information out of the assassins."

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I simply nodded my head as we decided what to do next.

As we were walking in silence, I noticed Lucy was pouting at me.

“What is it, Lucy?”

"Why did you wait so long to deal with the assassins.." Her eyes narrowed like she was going to be very judgemental about my answer.

But that didn't change my answer in the slightest. "I waited to see if things would get more interesting, which they did, if only slightly."

Seeing Lucy getting mad at my response, Helen interrupted. "we gained some useful information from him waiting for them to attack.. don't get mad at him sweetie."

As if not expecting Helen to take my side, Lucy just gave an annoyed pout and looked away.

Immediately after, a few maids passed us and Helen leaned over to one of them. "You two can have the leftover bread and tea since we left a lot."

A youthful smile instantly appeared on the young maids face as she nodded. "Thank you!"

The maid bowed her head nearly to the floor, but Helen just gave her a warm smile as we left.

Although it seemed a bit odd to ‘let’ them have the leftovers, I figured it was like that because they were royalty. -I guess in this era, that kind of treatment isn't common..-

After that, it didn't take long to make it back into the shelter.

-Where is he.. ahh..- Looking around it only took me a moment to see father and Ilios laying in the shallows of the hotspring.

"Oh, welcome back Vasilias." Father looked over for a moment before closing his eyes again. "How was the meeting? Seeing that everyone's faces are a little pale, I'd assume not very well."

"Ah, there was a poor attempt to assassinate Oliver, that's about it though." I spoke casually as I changed to my dragon form and stepped into the hotspring with Father. -Mmmm.. that feels nice..-

"That sounds quite extreme.." Fathers interest in what happened instantly rose.

"Ah, speaking of Oliver, I made an agreement with him that I'd stay a little longer than we originally planned to help him with this case."

Finally opening his eyes again, Father took a moment to look me up and down. "That's fine but we need to inform your mother first, she'd get worried if we took longer and said nothing."

-That's a good point..- "Alright, I can fly back tonight and let her know tonight or something."

"No, I'll do it, you need to stay here for your agreement and I also have some other things to talk to her about.." His tone was very serious which made me wonder what he needed to talk about, but I decided not to question it.

-If it's something I need to know, I'm sure he’ll tell me..-

After that, we idly chatted for a while until I needed to get back to business.

This time, when I got up to leave, Ilios hopped up with me.

Oliver was quick to give me some instructions. "Go on ahead with Helen, she should be in the throne room. I have some things to discuss with your Father first." It sounded like an excuse as he uncomfortably shifted around and mumbled under his breath. “Helen is better with that kind of thing anyways.”

"Alright, I'll do my best to get all the information I can. Is there anything specific I need to know beforehand?"

"Helen will tell you all you need to know.."

"Alright, well, I'll be back in a bit then. Let's go, Ilios." Quickly turning around I made my way onto the lift and left the vault with Ilios.

- (out of earshot) ~

"So what did you give him for payment?" Osto gave Oliver a curious look.

"I told him he could take one thing from the vault."

"Hm.. I guess that's a fair payment.."

"Did you expect something else?"

"Haha, I figured you'd try to hit him with gold first."

"Haah, Im not dumb enough to try and take advantage of his barely even existent childishness.."

Ostos demeanor quickly changed. "Yeah.. his maturity isn't normal.. but to be fair, if he wasn't mature and had that kind of strength itd cause some major problems.."

"He has a good personality for his strength as well.."

"Mhmm.. I still can't believe he had the thought to keep the assassins alive to get information from them... A 10 year old who hasn't even seen the world shouldn't know things like that.."

"He is still your son though, no matter what kind of oddities he possesses."

“Haah..” A warm but complicated smile crept onto his face. "I can't wait to see how he will grow.."

Understanding his words from a fathers perspective, Oliver showed a similar smile. "Only time will tell how he turns out, especially since he brings a new definition to the saying 'blessed by the gods', haha."

Oliver spoke with a bit of sarcasm but Osto took it seriously. "The gods would never bless a being such as Vasilias.."

Oliver's laugh was cut short by Ostos somber statement. "Huh? Why is that?"

"They wouldn't bless something more perfect than themselves.. they are too selfish.. they hated Bahamut for the same reason..."

Deciding he was in above his head, Oliver just gave an awkward nod.

The room fell into silence except for the two girls hollering behind them, causing the guys to look over.

‘"Oh look at how you've grown!"

"Sarah, don't touch me there!!"’

Oliver watched the scene with nervous eyes. "Haah.. a part of me wishes Lucy would mature like Vasilias. She is mature when it comes to politics but with people.. I'm still too nervous to even let her go to school..."

"When is she supposed to start?"

"In a week. Helen wants her to go and I also think it'll be a good experience for her but I'm too nervous currently.."

"She needs to meet others.. as a royal heir she needs to be good at dealing with people."

Turning back to the girls, the two fathers both wore warm smiles. "She reminds me of Krystallo.."