Chapter 66: Interlude
Alfred Conad glanced around the corner before entering the hallway, making sure no one was in sight. He had already been almost spotted twice, so he had to be extra careful. He didn’t want this to be traced back to him. Luckily, almost everyone was asleep. It was way past midnight after all.
He sneaked forward, careful to avoid the squeaky floor boards. He’d already scouted the area out previously and knew which ones were safe to stand on. A few minutes later, he reached his goal—an unassuming door. It was what was stored behind the door that he needed, however. But first he’d need to get in. A simple task, considering he had stolen the key from his sister earlier this evening when she visited him.
He opened the door and quickly slipped inside, making sure the door closed quietly behind him. Since he was alone in the room, he took off his hood, revealing bloodshot eyes. Alfred already knew he’d come to regret the stimulants he’d used later, but for now it was what he needed to stay awake and alert.
The room was filled with cupboards and shelves stocked to the brim with alchemical ingredients in bottles and jars, while equipment stood on small tables. It was his sister’s make-shift lab. Perfect.
He put his cloak away and grabbed a recipe from his backpack. It wasn’t his own, but he’d paid good money for acquiring it—recipes for advanced explosives were unsurprisingly difficult to find. He read through it again, then got to work.
The reason he had to use his sister’s lab was that he’d already gone through all of his own stuff while practicing making these explosives. But he had a handle on it now, and all he needed was the ingredients. Luckily, his sister’s lab was still almost fully stocked. So he could finally make the traps he wanted and needed. And he would need them. His own traps could only kill the smaller monsters and maybe distract the bigger ones on good days. He was man enough to admit his own shortcomings, and this was definitely one of them. Something his teammates also constantly felt the need to point out. Assholes.
So he got to work. Luckily the walls were soundproofed, so he didn’t need to worry about his neighbors finding out what he was doing. He did cover up the window, however, as he couldn’t exactly work in the dark and he didn’t want light to seep out. He worked for several hours and only stopped because the ingredients he needed had run out. That was annoying, since he felt like he could’ve made more if he’d been better at the process, but it was what it was. He’d make do with what he had.
He did consider for a moment if what he was doing was right, taking his sister’s stuff like this. But then he remembered how the potion of head start that was meant for him had been given to her instead, and he stopped thinking about it. It wasn’t like she used her reagents, anyway. The lab wouldn’t be nearly as stocked if she actually needed them. He was sure she wouldn’t mind, and if she did? Well, that was payback for her stealing his thing. But he was sure she wouldn’t mind if he got a chance to explain. After all, the only reason she’d said no so far was because of that stupid beast and that annoying lizardkin whispering lies into her ears.
By the moons, Alfred hated those two. They were always around his sister and wasting her time when she could be doing alchemy with him, or watching some tournament at the arena together. And everyone treated that beast—Felix—with way too much respect. It was nothing but a brute. He still remembered the way it had beaten him into the ground, almost burying him half in the mud. It was nothing but a monster. Alfred shivered at the memory. He definitely wasn’t going for such a direct confrontation again.
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He was glad he wouldn’t have to worry about it much longer, though. While those two would be walking into the caves, they wouldn’t be coming out. Alfred was going to make sure of that. He’d clear up his sister’s schedule and clear her head of their awful lies. Then they could spend their time together as siblings, just as it was meant to be.
Just a few more days.
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Elias Sythias, Felix’s father, walked through the dusty corridors of the archives. He had finally completed all those gosh-darned tasks the empress had given him. He’d hunted down high-level pirates and bandits, had cleared monster infestations, had slain the Totally Evil Hydra of the West, and various other terrors. And now finally, he was looking through the darned archives he had been literally fighting to get into.
And there was nothing there.
Even with his Skills, like [The world is a contract], he didn’t find anything. Not anything that could help, anyway. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, he had found something. It just wouldn’t be of much use to anyone.
The reason he had come here, the small village here in the Jostium empire that supposedly had an entire generation without a System, had never existed. He’d searched through the whole archive and had discovered that it was actually part of a myth that had gotten very distorted over the years. The fragment he’d found in the Academy’s archives didn’t even come close to the original story.
It went as follows: once, a very long time ago, there was one more world connected to the network. One where the indigenous people thrived with technology over magic. Elias could easily believe that was actually true. Unlike the popular belief that the connected worlds were unchanging, they had actually changed quite a lot.
Worlds connected and disconnected all the time. The evidence was all there in the ambient mana. It happened over incredibly long timeframes, however, and you’d know decades in advance before one left or joined the network. In fact, another would be joining within the year—a well-kept secret. No one wanted another gold-rush. This time the Academy would keep a close lid on the whole situation. There’d be no unnecessary deaths this time. No more unnecessary orphans. Never again.
The rest of the myth was a lot less believable. The world in question was said to not have a System. It simply wouldn’t go there, as if something was missing. The story told that anyone who already had a System could go there without issue, but everyone born there simply didn’t have one and could never have one. It was why they excelled with technology over magic. They had no other choice.
It also sounded very familiar.
Just a few months ago Elias would’ve laughed and walked away, thinking someone had a very active imagination. Now, however, he had to seriously consider the possibility. It was certainly not impossible. No one knew exactly how the System worked, after all. Maybe it really just didn’t function in that world. There was just no way to know.
It didn’t help that the fragments he’d found were, well, very fragmented. He’d found only a line here, and a paragraph there. A mention in some history book, briefly skimmed past as irrelevant to the more pressing problems of the time period. It happened thousands of years ago, and incredibly little information remained of that time.
All in all, it was fascinating, and could actually help figure out what exactly was going on with Felix. But the world was gone now. Disconnected and drifting in the void, with no way to get there. But maybe he could find more information on the world back in the Academy's archives again, now that he knew what he was looking for. Maybe something to help explain what had happened with Felix. At least, Elias truly hoped so, because if he couldn’t, that would be it. No answers, no solutions.
This was the only lead they had.