The two hugged each other. Relief, sense of achievement, happiness – they were feeling so many emotions.
This past month, Sam had constantly been on the run and Astoria was treading on thin ice; running around the headmistress and finding out information only to barely tip Sam off and help him keep ahead of the search.
They were under huge stress this whole time, and finally, it was all over!
The duo started laughing like maniacs under the moonlight.
Half a day later.
Sam and Astoria were walking back towards Jain village, having successfully completed their mission. Astoria got the Zenith pill recipe she wanted, and Sam got revenge on Henry.
In fact, it was much better than he could have anticipated. Seeing Henry be beaten and disowned by his own father, Byron and all the guards looking at Henry as if he was a scheming, treacherous, perverted, scumbag, and arresting him, was the best ending he could think of.
He had been observing the whole confrontation from a secret spot.
It was incredible to watch. Best of all was Astoria’s performance.
He had never seen anyone act so perfectly. She played everyone for a fool. Henry, Byron, all the guards, and the maids and servants in the house.
The only person who saw through her was the headmistress, and she killed her with her own hands.
Not to mention, she poisoned and brutally murdered two guards who trusted her, betraying them too, before framing the man who thought of her as the love of his life, for all the murders by using his love against him!
This little girl before him. Can there be any human being more cold-blooded than her?
Her appearance might be that of an innocent young angel, but underneath it all, she was a cold, calculating, ruthless, scheming, manipulating demoness!
He shuddered in fear just thinking about everything she did.
“Remind me never to make you my enemy,” Sam chuckled.
Astoria laughed. “I could never hurt you, Sam.”
Sam smiled dryly.
Astoria couldn’t help but think back to that day in the woods. She had been so completely useless. After they were rescued by her father and the other villagers, Drake told them everything that happened. Once Elwin found out, he flew into a rage.
Before anyone could stop him, he charged into the woods like a lunatic. There, he found the injured minotaur and clashed with it head-on.
The minotaur was a servant class oni. Although it was originally injured, it had marginally won the fight against the demon bear and was completely spent. However, a servant class oni was still not something to be underestimated. It activated its Berserk skill and grew to more than three times the size of Elwin.
Yet Elwin showed remarkable skill as he engaged it in combat.
Father and the rest of the villagers who chased after him stopped in their tracks upon witnessing their fight. It was like a scene from a legend. His every move was calculated and refined as if he were a seasoned veteran. The only thing holding him back seemed to be his young body, as he couldn’t wield a large sword.
However, since the minotaur was heavily injured, its body was weakened, allowing Elwin to ruthlessly target its injuries. Miraculously, Elwin landed the killer blow.
Astoria had speechlessly witnessed the whole fight. She thought about Drake and then saw Elwin. Drake was known for his intelligence and kindness whereas Elwin was strong and upright. Her two brothers, younger and older were both so talented. Far more talented than her.
She remembered thinking to herself, ‘If only I had the same strength as Elwin, I could have fought the minotaur and protected Drake instead. Or at least, if I wasn’t so stupid, I wouldn’t have screamed and put us both in danger.’
While on one side she really loved her brothers, but on the other side, she always felt helpless as she watched them march forward while leaving her in the dust.
But not anymore, she smiled to herself. I won’t lose to you two anymore.
The two were halfway through their journey when they unexpectedly saw two figures approaching them from a distance.
It was quite rare to see people far away from the villages, but it still happened, so they continued their journey.
However, the two figures kept coming closer and closer.
‘Were they heading for us?’ Sam and Astoria were confused and wondered who they were.
The figures walked quickly and soon reached Sam and Astoria.
“This girl is his daughter. She will be useful for our plans,” one of them said.
“Indeed, you’re right. Let’s take her and kill the man,” the other replied emotionlessly.
Sam and Astoria became alarmed.
Who were they? Why were they randomly attacking them?
They were wondering what to do when the two released incredibly strong and sinister auras.
They were both grand mages!
…
“Master, I did it!” exclaimed Drake.
Ray saw a small light orb floating around Drake. He had watched his disciple struggle for over half a month before finally succeeding in his first summon. This was considerably longer as compared to how quickly he learnt to summon artifacts, but still quicker than the average time people took to learn to summon their first simple spirit, which was a month or two.
‘Maybe he just has a gift for summoning artifacts?’ Ray thought.
“Well done, Drake,” Ray said plainly.
Drake smiled and after playing around a bit, his light orb disappeared. It took about ten per cent of his total mana to summon a light orb spirit and used about the same amount of mana to retain it for an hour.
But this wasn’t the only spirit he learnt to summon. He closed his eyes, focused on his mana and willed it to materialise into a spirit.
Twenty-five per cent of his mana disappeared, and a small, green, petite fairy appeared before him.
This was the other summon he learnt, the summon his father used that day to heal him.
Ray advised against him multitasking, however, Drake wanted to look at both summons simultaneously so he could compare and contrast the different runes, spirit bodies, etc, and understand better how they worked.
Seeing the fairy, Ray was slightly surprised.
‘Never mind,’ he thought.
Learning to summon two spirits in two weeks from scratch as a beginner was definitely not normal.
His student was a freak.
Drake summoned a small needle artifact and used it to cut his own skin. The fairy immediately approached the injury and placed her palms on it.
Now he knew how it worked. Her palms carried healing runes that she was flowing her mana through. The mana became transmuted into life mana, and entered his injury, healing it.
Within a few seconds, the bleeding stopped, and the wound closed.
‘This is so cool!’ Drake thought to himself.
He wanted to experiment with spirits some more but his mana was running low, so he decided he’d go for a walk while waiting for his mana to recover.
Drake skipped across the bustling streets of the village, followed closely by two guards. People were visiting the various shops, yelling out prices and bargaining. It was lively.
However, he wanted some quiet time, so he turned a corner into a less busy street. There were a few shops and some trees littered around, but there was much less activity here. He paused at a shop which was selling some sweets. The shopkeeper was an old man and recognising Drake’s clothes and the guards as a symbol of wealth, he immediately approached him with a smile and started fawning.
“Hello, master, how can I help you today?”
Drake thought for a moment and decided to buy a few sweets to celebrate his breaking through to the true mage realm.
“Thank you, master, please come again!”
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Drake enjoyed the sweets as he walked along the quiet streets of his village. It reminded him of the walks he used to take along the park with his dog, back on Earth.
He missed those days.
“YOU! STUPID! BRAT!” screamed a voice, and each word was followed by a whipping sound and a scream.
Drake was brought back from his thoughts and immediately approached the voice to find a middle-aged man whipping a boy.
The boy was on the street, crying and begging the man to stop. He had a collar around his neck, indicating his slave status.
Slave collars were an artifact made using magic. It would cause the slave intense pain if they disobeyed their master. Attempting to remove the collar would result in instant death.
The man stopped whipping and started kicking him instead. Then he picked him up and started punching his face.
“STOP!” yelled Drake furiously.
The man was startled to hear the unfamiliar voice and looked in its direction. He spotted a young man dressed in expensive-looking robes, followed by two huge guards. He seemed like the son of someone wealthy.
Immediately, the man chucked the boy away and bowed to his visitor.
“Hello, kind sir. May I know who you are, and what you are doing here?”
Drake ignored him and approached the slave boy instead, who was bleeding all over his body and was almost unconscious. The man was irritated at being ignored but he couldn’t do anything, especially given the two huge guards who were present.
“How much?” Drake asked.
The man looked confused.
“I want to buy him, how much?”
“This…” the man hesitated. He didn’t know who this boy was or why he was interested in the slave.
“Two… no three silvers!”
Drake threw five silvers towards the man without hesitation. The man’s eyes lit up with greed as he flew to pick up the silvers from the floor.
“Thank you, mister, you are so generous. The boy is all yours!”
Drake picked the almost unconscious boy up and brought him to a corner. Then he closed his eyes and summoned the healing fairy and instructed it to heal him. It took a few minutes, but most of his wounds were healed and the boy regained consciousness.
The boy looked at Drake terrified, but then realised all his injuries were healed. He then remembered what happened and realised that Drake had saved him.
“Um, thank you, master,” he replied weakly.
“Do you have a family?” Drake asked.
“Um,” the boy hesitated and then nodded slowly.
“Then take me to them.”
The boy looked at Drake pleadingly.
“Please master, I will serve you forever, but please, please don’t hurt my family!”
Drake was taken aback and then felt even more pity for him. He was so young, yet the idea of freedom did not even cross his mind even when offered to him.
There were three types of slaves in this world. Debt slaves, who were sold as slaves to pay off a debt, criminal slaves, who were sold as slaves for punishment, and illegal slaves, who were trafficked human beings. Although all slaves were treated badly, debt slaves were better than most, and they had the chance to be freed once their debts were paid off. The other two suffered the most and it was basically impossible for them to taste freedom unless their master willingly released them.
This boy was likely either a debt slave or an illegal slave, most likely the latter.
“Don’t worry, I won’t harm you. I want to free and return you to your parents,” Drake consoled.
The boy was speechless. He didn’t know what to believe.
“Really?” he asked softly.
“Yes, so take me to them.”
The boy wiped his tears and started running enthusiastically. Drake followed with a smile.
…
“RUN!” screamed Sam as the two sprinted for their lives.
But what was a grand mage? A realm that truly began to show the supremacy of mages. There was only one grand mage in the surrounding three villages and that was Myra Wan of the Elven village.
But two grand mages had suddenly appeared!
The one on the right chuckled as he summoned a dark light which transformed into a huge tarantula. It bared its fangs and rushed at the two. Everywhere it went, the surrounding air turned corrosive and poisonous, making it hard to breathe. They were both captured within its legs and brought before them.
“Please! Let us go, we’ll do whatever you want!” cried Sam.
However, the figure chuckled and the one on the left was about to attack when Astoria screamed.
“WAIT! Please hear me out!” Astoria begged.
The two figures became intrigued so they turned towards her. The pressure on Sam and Astoria’s bodies decreased slightly.
“You have thirty seconds,” one of them said.
“I don’t know who you are or what you want, but you want me right? I will cooperate completely with you. I will do whatever you want. In exchange, please let him go. We have never met before and I am sure we don’t have any personal enmity between us, so please, just let him go!”
“WHAT!” Sam cried. “No, Astoria, you don’t have to do this.”
While Sam was terrified, the two were discussing amongst themselves.
“This is unexpected, but if she willingly cooperates, that will make our plans easier,” one of them said.
“Yes, but we can’t let him go. He would expose us!” the other disagreed.
The two stared at Sam wondering what to do.
“I… I won’t tell anyone about what happened here!” Sam quickly spoke up.
They laughed.
“Why would we believe you?” one of them said.
He walked over while summoning a tiny leech spirit. It launched itself towards Sam and burrowed into his throat. Sam screamed in disgust.
“You!” Astoria was shocked but before she could continue, the man spoke.
“Don’t worry you’ll be fine. I just used a spirit to stop him from talking about this incident or this girl to anyone else. So long as you keep your mouth shut, you'll be fine. Otherwise, you will die a miserable death.”
Sam kept coughing from the leech burrowing into his throat. It felt disgusting at first, but he could no longer feel it now.
The spider spirit suddenly released Sam and he fell to the ground. Sam breathed a sigh of relief, he really thought he was going to die.
Astoria turned around to face him.
“Sam, when you reach Jain, I need you to deliver the box to the youngest son of the village head, Drake Reynard, as soon as possible. Also, show him this, it will prove to him that I sent you,” she said handing him a simple bracelet.
This was a gift that Drake had personally given her, and she cherished it.
Sam didn’t understand what relationship Astoria had with the village head, but just accepted the bracelet and nodded.
“What are you going to do to her?” he asked them.
“Haha, you don’t need to worry about that!” they replied, before taking Astoria and walking away.
Sam stopped for some time to see Astoria’s figure disappearing into the horizon, along with that of those mysterious mages.
He sighed, and then began quickly making his way to the Jain village.
Soon, he arrived at the Jain village and after paying the entrance toll, managed to enter.
Like how Astoria originally was, he didn’t know anything about this village’s geography so was struggling to find his way around.
However, the village head’s manor was one of the most important places, so he quickly managed to find it by just asking around.
However, he was stopped at the gate by the guards.
“Please, you must let me through! I have an important message to deliver to master Drake!”
However, the guards sternly refused. “Outsiders are not allowed into the building without permission. Also, master Drake has been diligently cultivating ever since he became a mage, so he won’t easily come to see visitors either.”
Sam became extremely worried.
He didn’t know what happened to Astoria, but it was clearly important to her to have the recipe delivered to Drake. So, Sam thought that they must have some kind of a relationship and therefore hoped that this Drake could help her somehow.
“What’s going on here?” someone asked as they walked out.
Sam saw a boy wearing dark clothes and staring at him curiously. However, Sam was slightly surprised to notice that this boy resembled Astoria a lot.
“Greetings to Master Hazezel!” the two guards called.
Sam realised he must be someone important and lightly bowed to him as well.
“Master Hazezel. My name is Sam and I carry an important message that I must deliver to master Drake immediately,” he said.
“Drake?” Hazezel mumbled, taking another look at Sam.
He was a scruffy young man with a tanned skin. However, his clothes were tattered, and he was bleeding in several places as if he had just been through a fight.
Hazezel was sure that Drake didn’t know any such shady-looking men, so didn’t want to allow him to meet Drake.
“Whatever it is you want to tell him, you can tell me first and I will pass it on.”
Sam hesitated for a while, but he shook his head.
“I am extremely sorry, but I must talk to master Drake directly!”
Hazezel’s gaze darkened, and the guards looked at each other in disbelief. Wasn’t this implying that he didn’t trust Hazezel? It was quite disrespectful.
“My brother is cultivating and is not to be disturbed unnecessarily. You can tell me the message and I swear on my name that I will pass it on.”
Sam was really hesitant now. He didn’t want to continue declining Hazezel, yet Astoria was very clear that the box had to be delivered to Drake so he didn’t know if he could trust this Hazezel.
They had worked so hard to get the recipe. He didn’t want it falling into the wrong hands now.
After a lot of contemplation, Sam finally answered again.
“I am extremely sorry, and I mean no offence. However, this matter is of the utmost importance and requires the greatest confidentiality. I must talk to master Drake and master Drake alone! Please don’t worry. When he sees what I have to give, he will definitely not be disappointed.”
Hazezel’s pupils shrunk. ‘Drake… what are you up to now?’ However, he finally agreed.
“Okay then, I will take you to Drake and he can receive your message. If you try anything funny or if you are simply wasting our time, don’t think I’ll go easy on you!”
Saying this he walked inside, and Sam quickly followed. Soon they entered the back garden where a young boy was cultivating underneath a garden umbrella. Next to him sat a young-looking elf with long white hair who was also cultivating diligently.
Hazezel approached Drake but didn’t speak. He knew that forcefully disturbing cultivation could cause a backlash. Drake would have sensed their presence and would soon stop his cultivation and greet them.
“Hazezel,” spoke Drake after a while, glancing curiously at Sam.
Sam saw Drake and was intrigued too. Was this the boy who was responsible for making Astoria steal the Zenith pill?
“Drake, this man here claims that he has an important message to give to you,” Hazezel explained.
Drake was even more curious as he didn’t recognise him.
“Very well, I am Drake, the youngest son of lord Holt. What business do you have with me?”
Hazezel was surprised that Drake didn’t seem to know him, but he now stood to the side to watch the show.
Sam spoke hesitantly, “I have something very important to give you master Drake,” he said and handed him the box containing the pill recipe, along with the key.
Drake opened it curiously and found a grand scroll lying inside. However, upon reading its contents, he couldn’t help but gasp in surprise!
“This!” he stood up looking at Sam with wide eyes. “How did you get this!?”
Sam was taken aback.
Why did Drake not know about the Zenith pill recipe? Did Astoria not steal the Zenith pill for him? What was going on? He then remembered something else and took out the bracelet.
As soon as Drake saw it, he couldn’t remain calm anymore.
“You! What have you done to my sister?!”
Even Hazezel was flabbergasted.
Everyone was looking for Astoria, yet this mysterious man showed up with her bracelet, two months after her disappearance! What did he do to her? If he hurt her then…
‘No calm down Hazezel’ he told himself.
Astoria had left so suddenly. If Sam really did hurt her, why would he bring back her bracelet to show them? Wasn’t that just idiotic? Clearly, Astoria must have given him that bracelet to prove that she had sent him here. That was the only explanation.
Drake of course realised this and calmed down. But Sam was thunderstruck.
Sister?
“She… Astoria is your sister?” he didn’t know about Jain village, so he didn’t know the details.
If he had enquired about the village head’s family before coming, he could have found out that Holt’s daughter was called Astoria and that she had gone missing. He could have put the two and two together to deduce everything.
But he realised it too late now.
It was clear that no one knew about Astoria’s actions from their expressions which meant that she had acted secretly. So, they must have been searching for her when he suddenly showed up like this.
If they ask him to explain what happened to her, what could he say?
He had a spell restraining him!
How could he deal with this situation?
“Yes, she is my sister and has been missing for a while. Where is she and what relationship do you two have?" Drake questioned.
Drake was extremely worried and had already forgotten about the pill recipe.
"This…” he wanted to explain but as soon as he even thought about telling the truth, he felt a searing hot pain build up in his throat.
“I can’t answer,” Sam finally said.
“You! Who do you think you are?” Hazezel boomed. He couldn’t stand idly anymore.
“It’s not that I don’t want to… I just can’t,” he replied vaguely, cursing himself.
If only he had investigated first before coming here, he could have handled the situation differently.
But he was now a prime suspect in the disappearance of the village head’s daughter!