The whole interaction lasted about five minutes before then the man said goodbye to her and headed into the building. Lucas considered whether he should continue following him or switch targets and follow Aysha. However, the thought of trailing Aysha didn’t sit right with him. She was still a friend, and he owed her respect.
The connection between the two was unexpected. Lucas had mentioned the man to her about a week ago, but she has never mentioned him in their brief encounters since. While not entirely surprising given their busy schedules, their relationship presented an opportunity Lucas had been looking for. If she was on good terms with that man, and he was friends with George Hastings, it meant that she could potentially get in touch with him without raising suspicion from him or his bodyguards. As long as Aysha was willing to cooperate, there was a possibility…
Lucas considered discussing the matter with Aysha, but he hesitated. He didn’t know where she stood on the issue. They were friends, sure, but what if she felt closer with this guy than to him, and didn’t want to harm their relationship? Lucas would risk exposing his plan for nothing if that were the case.
That didn’t mean that he should drop the idea, only that if he was going to take that risk, he needed a solid plan first. So he decided to stop his spying for the time being. What he needed to do now was think and research. He needed something that wouldn’t kill George but might incapacitate him permanently—a plan was already forming in his mind. But before he could proceed, he needed to ascertain the feasibility of his idea.
Returning to Hilda’s new place, Lucas inquired about some of the potions she hadn’t mentioned before. He told her that he was looking for a way to deal with the owner of the Alchemy Emporium and wanted to see if there was an alchemic solution to the problem.
She told him to be careful but was very helpful, going through a variety of potions with multiple purposes, ranging from making gravity lighter around someone to transforming them into a frog. However, one point during her speech caught his attention.
She said that there were a few potions that were forbidden. When Lucas insisted on the subject, she told him that a few alchemists produced a potion capable of enhancing someone’s status ten times over for a short period of time. However, they came with severe side-effects—they were highly addictive, and some even acted as narcotics or hallucinogens.
A few went as low as to manufacture potions that only had the negative side-effects and none of the benefits. Hilda told him that past epidemics of addiction led to the prohibition of these potions.
…
“What the fuck is he doing, man? It’s already been two weeks, no?” A tattooed, skinny man said to the other, who walked shirtless by his side.
“I don’t know. You know how he is,” he shrugged.
They remained silent for a while until the skinny man spoke again, annoyed.
“Why there’s no drugs and no hot elves on this damn planet? What kind of fantasy world is this?”
With the shirtless men silence, he continued his rant.
“What, are we supposed to slave away to these robot motherfuckers to earn some dough? No, fuck that; they should be working for us.”
“Things have changed. We’re not in charge anymore,” the other replied lazily.
“Well, we should be in charge. What is Trey doing? Now is the time for action. We need to take over this city before more people get here, and he is sitting in a room playing with his…”
“Are you talking about me?” A muscular man with a big smile on his face spoke from behind them. As they turned to look, the skinny man began to shake upon seeing that person in front of him.
“Boss! My bad, I didn’t…” But the muscular man waved his hands.
“It’s all right, I’ll let it slide this time because I’m in a good mood.”
The shirtless man, with an expectant look on his face, eagerly awaited his boss’ news.
“Did you do it?” he asked. The muscular man, called Trey, took out a flask with a purple liquid inside.
“You tell me,” he said mysteriously, but the other didn’t tarry and grabbed the flask, chugging it down in one gulp.
“Wow!” he yelled, before making even more guttural sounds. Muscles in his body that weren’t there five seconds ago bulged, and his eyes turned red as he began running around, screaming and beating his chest. The skinny man’s eyes widened at the scene.
“Is this…” he didn’t manage to finish his sentence as Trey threw his head back and let out a mighty laugh.
“HAHAHAHAHA,” and afterwards, he showed a confident smile before saying, “We’re back in business.”
…
Hilda’s history lesson was interesting, but it wasn’t what he was looking for, so he went to the only place he could in this situation: the library. When Lucas didn’t know an answer to a problem, whether in school or college, he went to the library. Libraries were almost like second homes to him, and he felt comfortable there, but this time he was nervous.
He had been hoping that Hilda would have the answer he was looking for, but she didn’t. The library was only his second option, and if that didn’t work out, he would need to go back to the drawing board. He spoke briefly with Alva before he went to the row of books. This wasn’t a matter that consulting with her would solve; the least she knew about what he wanted to do, the better. Besides, he doubted she knew what he needed anyway.
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
He decided to start in the herbology section, where he believed his best chances were. But after four hours of flipping through books, he gave up. The thing he was looking for might very well be hidden in one of those million pages of the herbology section, but he thought it would be best to try his luck somewhere else.
That time he spent reading wasn’t useless; however, as he found a lot of interesting information on those books, he only wished he had the ability to read books faster. He remembered a guy in his class who had the ability to memorize everything he saw. Lucas envied the man the entire time they studied together, but even if he had that advantage, Lucas never let the man surpass him or take his spot as the first in class, and he wouldn’t let himself be beaten this time either.
Previously, Lucas had thought that this “quest” wasn’t meant for him to win, but now he was beginning to believe it wasn’t meant for him to win right now, but over time, when he became so powerful that no amount of influence could stop him. However, as he wasn’t willing to wait all that time, he had to find an out-of-the-box solution to his problem. He had to think of something not even the designers of this quest had thought of.
He spent the rest of the day in the bacteriology subsection before he called it a day. It was already late, and he needed to go to sleep. Like a zombie, he walked back to the hotel he was staying at, really considering if he should buy himself a house. When he finally arrived, he passed out in his bed a few seconds later.
Early in the morning, as soon as the library opened, he was back at it again. Alva even asked what he was looking for, but he was dismissive, saying that he was researching for a project. His research lasted for three entire days before he finally found what he was looking for in a book about fungus. Saxispiralis animi—that’s it, finally!
He had found the key to his plan. Now came the hard part, he needed to talk to Aysha about it. If she just refused, it would be fine; he could try to find another option for what he wanted to do. It wasn’t impossible; it would just be a lot harder and riskier. But if she refused and decided to tell others what he wanted to do, then he was screwed. But he decided not to be so paranoid about it; he had known Aysha long enough to know a little of her character. She wouldn’t turn on him like that.
So, gathering his courage, he went to find her in the place where she has been most frequently lately: the city hall. Actually, she was mostly out on quests, but since it would be impossible to find her out there, he decided to wait at the entrance of the city hall.
“You look terrible,” she greeted him, after a few minutes had gone by. Lucas looked at her and realized she had a new shiny bow on her back and new arrows too.
Elf — Lvl 13
“Thanks, I’ve been working on it,” he replied. Seeing her make such progress made him anxious about his current situation. He was still stuck at level 10; she had already surpassed him. He had made a conscious choice before to slow down his level ups to focus on his battle ability, and he didn’t regret it, but seeing her surpass him made his competitive side kick in, and he couldn’t wait to be over with this whole affair.
“So, what have you been up to? Are you finally here to take some quests?”
“No, not yet. I’m here to see you, actually,” he began, hesitant. Aysha seemed surprised.
“Oh, I’m honored. It’s been ages since we had a proper talk,” she said in a weird way, which left Lucas confused, but he continued.
“How about we go to someplace more private?”
“Is there such a place in this city?” she asked, looking around. And like to confirm her words, a bunch of people entered the City Hall’s building.
“I know of a place. Let’s go,” Lucas said.
A few minutes later, they were standing in front of Hilda’s new house.
“Whose house is this?” Aysha asked with her eyebrow raised.
“Do you remember that quest to find a cat that led to me taking alchemy classes?”
“Yes… and?”
“Well, this is the house I bought for my teacher,” Lucas said simply.
“You bought a… why?”
“Come inside; I’ll explain.”
It took a while for Lucas to explain the whole affair with Hilda and the Alchemy Emporium. When he arrived at the part about her talking to that man in front of City Hall, she had a weird expression on her face. But then it turned serious once more when Lucas said that he planned to take action against George Hastings.
“So, what do you need me to do?” she said resolutely. Lucas was surprised by her reaction, but maybe he shouldn’t have been. Aysha was the same person who betrayed her family to warn everyone that the ships would fail and that they should accept the prompt to leave their world. After Lucas told her about his plan, however, her expression changed once more.
“You want me to be friends with that man?” she said, a disgusted look on her face.
“I thought you already were,” Lucas said, confused.
“Of course not. I despise him. He never stops talking about me being an elf, and how he finds elves awesome, or how many merit points he has. Ugh. Are you sure I can’t just shoot this Hastings guy?”
“But you seemed pretty friendly with him yesterday.” Lucas scratched his head, having to hold back his laughter after her outburst, happy to confirm the guy was a jackass.
“I’m a princess, remember? It’s literally my job to pretend I like people.”
Lucas wondered if the same applied to him but didn’t voice his concerns. “Sorry, but you can’t just shoot him. I told you, you wouldn’t be able to get out alive,” Lucas shook his head, he had thought about this over and over, and his plan was the best he could think of. “But since this guy is so into you, maybe you can use that to get to George Hastings.”
“Into me?”
“Yes… isn’t it obvious?”
“Ugh… fine. But if I’m doing this I need a reward. This is more dangerous than all the quests I have done so far; I’m not doing it for free.”
Lucas was prepared to hear that, but before he could offer his money, Aysha raised a hand and spoke again.
“I want ten percent.”
“Of what?”
“What do you mean what? This alchemy business,” she said with her hands in an ample gesture towards the house. “I’ve thought about it. As a princess, I never had to do any work—not really. And now I have to work every day just to earn a few coins to be able to rent a place to live, but that only hinders my progress. I want to have more time to focus on more important matters. I need to be able to face my family with my head held up high, and that won’t happen if all I do is hunt for some extra coins all the time. Anyway, I need a constant income, and your store will offer me that.”
Her idea was sound, but there was one thing that Lucas didn’t get.
“And what makes you think that this alchemy store will be any good, or that it will have any profit at all? Even with George out of the picture, that doesn’t mean the Alchemy Emporium will just disappear. Maybe they will suppress us before we can grow.”
She smiled, her eyes shining. “One of the things my father used to say to me was that, royals didn’t need to be special themselves; they only needed to have good eyes to spot a good talent when they saw one. To make sure this talent was on their side, and not on the enemy’s side. I never agreed with him. I wanted to have merit on my own account and not on the account of others.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying that you agree with him now?”
“No, I still think that my efforts are what’s most important. I’m only saying that perhaps your lucky encounters weren’t so lucky, but they turned out this way because of you.”