Since the day Shargein had Awakened, Solus had devised a magical formation for the tower that checked Elisya’s and Valeron’s cores for the fluctuations deriving from the use of a breathing technique.
So far, they had heeded Lith’s words but he was too paranoid to trust even a child.
“How can you be so sure?” He asked.
“Jirni is as paranoid as you. She knew you would make me listen to the conversation and she used the codeword ‘cut and dry’. It means that everything is fine.” Kamila shrugged.
“What if she said that the case is a walk in the park?”
“Then it would have meant that she had been kidnapped and they were currently moving her to an unknown location.”
“Seriously? What the f..arm?”
“Guys, look at this.” Solus walked in accompanied by Shargein who was their guest for the day along with Salaark.
The Overlord was exploiting the Library and Soluspedia to clear the paperwork of days in just a few hours. The Wyrmling had quietly slept on a sofa beside her for a while but now he was getting bored.
Solus handed him a Rubik’s cube with every face split into 49 small cubes instead of just nine and already scrambled. Shargein pulled and pushed until he understood how the various parts moved and then solved the cube in less than a minute.
She handed him several different puzzles and he solved them with the same ease with which Lith opened a door.
“Is he a genius or was that just Dragon Eyes?” Lith asked.
“Eyes.” Shargein and Salaark replied in unison.
“You can’t even play cards with a Dragon. They are natural-born cheaters.” This part the Overlord said it alone. “Look.”
She took a sealed deck of cards, shuffled it, and handed it to Shargein who shuffled it again.
“That’s far from impressing.” Kamila said. “I can do that too.”
“Really? You can do this?” Salaark opened the cards in a fan, revealing that they had been split by suit again and the cards of each suit were arranged low to high. “Because I can’t, at least not without magic.”
“My bad. I stand corrected.”
“I wonder if all the baby Divine Beasts are so smart of if it’s just Shargein.” Lith conjured a normal Rubik’s cube, scrambled it, and handed it to Elysia. “Come on, baby girl, show Daddy what you can do.”
Elysia pulled and pushed until she understood how the various parts moved and then bit the cube in frustration before tossing it away.
“That’s my girl!” Lith lifted the baby Tiamat while she was still snarling and peppered her with kisses and compliments while Solus laughed her ass off.
“Why so happy? She didn’t solve it.” Kamila asked in confusion.
“Because except for the biting part that’s my/his exact same reaction when I/he got my/his first one. I/he never managed to solve one of those.” Lith and Solus said in unison.
“Come on, you are a Magus. This thing can’t be so hard.” Kamila said and she was still trying to solve it when an hour later they received the second call.
“Hey, Lith. How are you doing?” Nalrond contacting Lith was no surprise whereas his appearance was shocking.
The Rezar looked like someone who hadn’t had enough to eat for days and had pulled one all-nighter too many. He had dark bags under his eyes, unkempt hair, and his skin was gaunt, making his features as sharp as knives.
“I’m fine, thank you. What about you?” Lith recognized the Ernas Mansion behind him which made things even more confusing.
‘I would get it if Nalrond were in the middle of nowhere, struggling to find a safe place where to rest and taking care of rationing his supplies. Yet he’s living in one of the most comfortable and rich households in the Kingdom.
‘No servant of the Ernas would dare disrespect an esteemed guest of their lords and even if they did, Nalrond is a very powerful mage. Something’s fishy here.’ Lith thought and Solus agreed.
“I’m doing great.” The Razar gave them a wan smile. “I’m just tired. With Friya gone I don’t have many distractions so I get easily carried away with my experiments and I end up losing track of time.”
Nalrond wasn’t lying but he wasn’t telling the whole truth either. He had taken advantage of Friya’s absence to collect more data about the process that he hoped would bring his human and beast sides to merge into one.
He slept and ate regularly but the wounds he self-inflicted in order to weaken his life forces and study how they interacted once the protective wall separating them thinned were taking a toll on his body.
“What experiments? Aside from writing a grimoire of the spells of the Rezar tribe to prevent your tribe’s legacy from getting lost in case something happens to you, I don’t remember you working on a project.” Solus asked.
“You are wrong. I’ve been working on a cure for my condition since the day we met and I’ve never stopped doing it.” Nalrond’s voice became cold, annoyed by his alleged friends forgetting about his first and only goal in life.
‘Alleged? First and only?’ He was ashamed of himself as soon as those cruel thoughts crossed his mind. ‘Gods, exhaustion is turning me into an even crankier Lith, I need a break.’
“I’m sorry, Solus.” The Rezar gave her a small bow in apology. “I didn’t mean to sound like a jerk. As I said, I’m tired and I probably should get some rest. Before I go, just one question.
“Why is Friya’s amulet still unavailable? She was supposed to come back with you and I’m starting to get worried.”
“That was the original plan, but after what happened with the lost city and the Black Tide, Friya didn’t feel like leaving Quylla alone.” Solus replied. “She asked us to tell you that she misses you and to not worry about her.”
“Fine.” Nalrond stiffened at the news. “Do you know when Quylla will be done on Jiera and return to Garlen?”
“A few weeks tops.” Lith furrowed his brow at the odd reaction but asked no questions. “Just the time to discover and classify the most infectious diseases against which the people of Garlen have no natural defences.”
“I see. Thank you.” Nalrond sighed.
He had hoped for a different answer and a swifter return.
The reason he had ended up in his current condition was that he had been trying to determine how much he had to weaken his life forces to conduct a magical procedure of his creation.
If everything went well, Body Sculpting would break the effects of Forbidden Magic without forcing him to choose between his bloodlines.
The Rezar believed to have found the perfect balance between the human and the beast side but he had already learned the hard way that he needed someone to infuse him with vitality and heal his wounds if he wanted to survive.
Quylla had agreed to help him, but only under the condition that Nalrond discussed his plan with Friya first, something he had yet to do. After the promising results of the latest series of test, he was confident in the chances of success of his procedure and was ready to have that conversation.
It was time to take the Dragon by the horns and face the consequences.
