Volume 2, Chapter 9: Lady Calina Serle and Magic

{280 Days Remaining}

It was beneath an almost cloudless sky that I met the Third Minister of War. The rain had stopped since early morning and it was now afternoon.

We were outside of the Third Manor House, in the center of the third garden. Surrounding us in one of the domed shaped buildings where we sat inside were intricate statues of wolves. There were also a variety of plants and hedges around us.

“Do you know something, Commander Verath,” the Third Minister of War said, pausing a short moment before continuing, “or rather Sir Verath...which do you prefer?”

“It does not matter, Third Minister.”

“Commander Verath it is then. I believe that title suits you more. Now, where was I. Ah, right.” The Third Minister of War stroked his long, flowing beard with an experienced hand.

And what I mean by experienced is that I received a feeling that the minister did this stroking motion quite frequently.

“Do you know, Commander Verath, that I am quite fond of this adage? When comes your turn to roll the dice of fates, do it with the belief that you will die tomorrow.”

I nodded at that, not even the slightest bit hesitant, even though I had never heard of such a saying before. But who was I to go and contradict him. No, a wise man—or dragon—would stay silent and agree with his administrator.

“That said, I wish for you to act as a bodyguard for Lady Calina Serle starting tomorrow; she has personally requested it. You shall wait for her outside of the Fifth Manor House. Ask for directions if you do not know where that is.”

“Very well.”

“Excellent. Have a good day now, Commander Verath, and I shall call upon you when I have another task for you,” said the Third Minister of War. “I also commend you for accepting this task without hesitation, or even knowing what is to come.”

As he stood up to leave the domed shaped building, the old minister took out his intricate folded fan from underneath his robe. He left the gardens while muttering to himself.

Even with my human ears, I could overhear some of the words, which were “annoyance,” “weird,” and “luck.”

It did not really mattered though.

I had finished my report of the subjugation. Now, I only needed to do this side job while investigating some of the suspects whom I believed to be the cause of my father's death and mine.

The next two on my list was the Guardian of the East, and the merchant known as Kafer.

Having finished the more pressing matters for today, I spent the remaining day subtly asking around for news of the two suspects, before finally retiring to sleep in the Silver Beauty Inn. Of course, Alice Silver also struck up a conversation upon my return, but that was not particularly interesting, so I shall not speak of it.

I did not sleep at the many garrisons like most of the soldiers did. Instead, I chose to sleep at the inn. The reasons are obvious, as I would have more time this way. I also wasn't lacking for money, having won the thousand gold coins from the tournament.

<><><><><>

{279 Days Remaining}

Underneath the clear skies the next morning, just outside the gates of the Fifth Manor House, I met Lady Calina Serle. It had been a long wait and I was a little relieved that she finally showed up.

Dark, gloomy, and mysterious. Those were the words which would perfectly suit the fifteen year old lady. I knew the ages of all the people in the Serle family, and Lady Calina Serle was no exception to this. It was because the eldest sister, Iona Serle, had taken the time to introduce her siblings and their ages during our initial meeting.

And if I have not mentioned this before, but I have an exceptional memory.

Wearing a simple black dress that showed off her bare and slim, white arms, Calina greeted me.

“Good morning, slave,” she simply said.

I gave her a bow in return, not the least bit offended by the term she had named me. I also did not ask her the reason for why she had reduced me into that role, not particularly caring about it. She would either explain the reason, or she wouldn't. It was that simple.

Well, not exactly. I did not call out to her on that because I somehow received the feeling that she was joking with me.

Also, an interesting trivia for you.

The black dress with the few black frills Calina was wearing was known as a Gothic style type of garment. This style of clothing is somewhat popular with some of the more esoteric and stranger nobles in Shail Kingdom.

“Follow me, slave. I have a few places I would like to visit today.”

I decided to humor the short-haired noble lady. “As you wish, mistress,” I said in a complacent tone.

At least, I tried to make it complacent as I could. No doubt, I failed miserably.

We walked for a while, Calina in front and I closely following behind, before she finally broke the silence between us. She turned her head a little to meet my eyes with her twin, grey orbs.

“Answer me, slave. Do you ever feel like dying sometimes?” Calina said in a voice devoid of any emotions.

“No,” I replied back honestly.

“I see...” Calina took four more steps before speaking again. “Do you believe in love?”

“No,” I replied back honestly again.

“I see...”

Coincidentally,while Calina had been asking about belief in love, we had passed by a couple who were arguing boisterously on the city streets. Perhaps this had been why Calina had brought that topic up.

“Do you find me lacking, slave?”

I did not know where the fifteen year old girl was going with by asking that question, but somehow I had a feeling that she was referring to her small breasts.

“No,” I said without hesitation.

“I see...”

Calina halted suddenly and turned around, her grey eyes fully met mine in a full attentive look, unlike the half-attentive look she had been casually giving me previously.

“Tell me, slave. Do you have a family?”

Even with my dampened emotional capacity, I could somewhat tell what the short-haired girl was thinking and perhaps what she was even feeling. My years of experience in my past life from observing human interactions helped in this regard.

She was most likely referring to her mother's recent death upon asking me this question. Baroness Serle, the wife of Baron Serle, had passed away due to an illness a year ago. I had heard among the tales, stories, and gossips that not even a healing mage could prevent the illness.

I started my answer to her question with the one word, which was quickly becoming my main vocabulary. “No,” I said, “I do not have a family.”

“Oh.”

Calina remained silent after that, a sharp contrast to the noisy streets where bartering, haggling, and conversations were taking place among the stalls.

The silence between us stretched on for a longer moment, before she finally stopped at a place and turned toward me. “We have arrived, slave.”

The place Calina had stopped in front of was a plain-looking building, about medium-sized. There were no descriptions or any outward signs on it that would suggest as to what the building was. The only apt description I could think of was that the strucutre was plain and brown looking. It even had a brown wooden door with no special marks or patterns on it.

Unvarnished and austere...just plain-looking.

“Well, what are you waiting for, slave. Come in,” Calina said from through the opened door.

Inside the store, I found myself in a bare room devoid of any furniture. The walls were grey and sombre looking; there were no patterns or any lively marks on them. Disregarding the uninteresting appearance of the room, what I found intriguing was the old man standing still in the center of the room.

In his right hand, the old man was holding a long, black cane with intricate patterns , which he used to support his weight. The old man's face was clean shaven, and I could see a pair of black-tinted glasses nestled comfortably on the bridge of his nose. His hair, which had turned white from old age, fell down to his wide shoulders.

Sporting a grey and red tunic with a brown coverall, the wizened man looked at Calina with a large smile on his weathered face. There was a long scar that cut a swathe on the left side of his face, starting from the forehead and going through the eye before finally ending at his cheek. It was most likely an age-long wound that had been made from a sword, or perhaps a dagger.

“Ah, Calina, you have kept me waiting,” he said, pronouncing the first two syllables of her name with a distinctive accent. It made the syllables seem like one continuous slurring.

“My apologies, Zor Alzeroth.”

“And who is this beside you, Calina?”

“My slave, Zor. I wish to bring him with me to the Mage Academy as my slave bodyguard.”

“Hmmm... yes. I do sense some magic in this slave of yours and I see that he seems competent with that weapon of his. So how old is this 'slave' of yours?”

“Wait, what! He has magic in him?” Calina shouted in a surprised voice. It was the first time I heard her speak that way other than in her usual, monotone, and emotionless voice.

Calina looked toward me with a questioning look, waiting for me to answer Zor Alzeroth's question. She, after all, did not know my age.

I was unsure on how to proceed, having heard such a startling revelation from Calina and the old man. At the same time, however, I felt that going to the Mage Academy of Shail Kingdom would coincide perfectly with my investigation. The reason being that the location was close to the merchant Kafer and the Guardian of the East.

I was also surprised that the old man had been able to sense my magic. I was, after all, trying my best to hide it. I guess I still lacked finesse in that area of magic.

If I judged from my current transformed human appearance, I looked perhaps 18 or more. On the contrary though, the eldest had told me that a two and a half years old dragon was around 13-14 years old in his human form. Still, it was better to say I was older. And I looked older than my supposed age anyway, disregarding my true age.

“I am 18 years old,” I replied.

“Hmm...I guess that is alright. The Mage Academy consists of students from all classes from age 13-22, after all.”

“That is nice to hear, Zor Alzeroth,” Calina said, her voice already back to its usual monotone.

“Oh yes, by the way, Calina. I am afraid I shall have to cut short your summer lessons until you return to the academy. I have some pressing matters to attend to.”

“Yes, Zor Alzeroth. I shall see you in a week. I was growing tired of this summer break anyway.”

Giving Calina a slight nod of his head, Zor Alzeroth turned toward me. “You must forgive my student's antics. I know for a fact that you aren't a slave. That said, I shall leave you two now.”

With a hint of a smile on his face, the old man tapped his black cane onto the ground and disappeared. Silence.

Nothing. There were no signs that Zor Alzeroth had ever been in this room. He had disappeared almost instantaneously. I did not even see his magic, which made me believe that he was either adept at hiding his magic, or had a much more stronger magic capacity than me. Personally, I believed it was the former reason, but I was not entirely sure.

“Well slave, I had taken you for a simple swordsman, but now I am not sure whether I should be positive or negative about this turn of event.”

I could see a hint of a blush on Lady Calina Serle's face. Or was it just my imagination?

“Sorry, mistress,” I said in a whimsical voice with a hint of dryness.

“...”

“Yes?”

“Nothing, slave. Let us leave this place now.”

<><><><><>

After escorting Lady Calina back to the Fifth Manor House, I bid her a farewell.

“Slave, do not forget to meet me here the day after tomorrow in the early morning. Prior to meeting Zor Alzeroth, I have already obtained father's permission on letting you accompany me to the Mage Academy, so there shall be no excuses if you do not show your face on that day.”

“I shall be there, Lady Calina.”

“...”

Noticing that she remained silent, I turned around to leave after saying that.

From behind me, I heard Calina's soft whispered voice, which broke the small, silent pause.

“Call me mistress...slave...call me mistress.”

I pretended not to hear that soft mutter of hers, which, if I could be trusted, contained a hint of sadness.

To be honest, I had no clue why Lady Calina Serle had requested me to be with her today, when I barely knew her. It was a puzzling matter, especially since she was asking me all those awkward questions.

She had certainly chosen the wrong person to discuss her thoughts with. A family member, such as one of her older sisters, would have been a much better candidate, for I could never truly feel such emotions—only imagine and observe them.

But I decided to humor the fifteen year old girl. Words, after all, could not harm me. And neither would calling her mistress harm me. Still, I was a little curious as to why she had chosen me to accompany her to the Mage Academy as there were much better choices.

Oh well, I thought.

Perhaps Lady Luck was finally looking my way.

Just like what the Third Minister had said the previous afternoon; “I would roll the dice of fate.”

<><><><><>

{278 Days Remaining}

It was early morning and I was currently outside the city. It was at a desolate place inside the clearing of a forest far away from the city that I was practicing my magic.

There were no pressing matters for me at the moment. The Third Minister of War had given me no messages, so I suppose that the news of my role as a bodyguard to accompany Lady Calina Serle had been spread among the baron's households.

Prior to coming here, I had obtained a nice breakfast of bacon, eggs, and bread from Alice Silver, the daughter of the inn-keeper at the inn I was staying.

I deeply breathed in the fresh forest air, which was reminiscent of the verdant greens and flowers. I felt the undercurrent of magic inside me, so close at hand that with just the slightest will to summon it, my metaphorical gated pool of magic would open.

I knew that the distance I could spread my magic was well over a hundred feet, perhaps somewhere around a hundred and thirty feet. Now that I had some free time, I would test out the area my magic could cover.

With just the slightest thought and willpower, I summoned my magic and from the soles of my booted feet, black-colored magic started spreading out. The blackness of my magic against the green forest floor made it look as if the ground was getting swallowed. A short moment later, I discovered the limit I could cover an area with my magic.

On the ground around me, there was a covering of black magic. It formed a circle of perhaps around forty feet in diameter with me as the center.

Then I released my hold over my magic, willing it to become fire magic. There wasn't really a need to imagine this happening or even think about it—you just needed to will it and the magic becomes fire. Imaging your magic also sort of help you focus, but it wasn't really needed.

This was the process of how my magic transformed into the earth and fire based magic, and how I transformed, but that was just me; I was not sure about how the others did it. The eldest, it seems to me, also follows this process.

The twenty feet radius circle of black-colored magic around me changed before my very eyes, becoming pillars of fire. These pillar of fires were more than ten feet tall and blazed a fiery, orange red.

I was surrounded in a sea of fire, but I was not harmed by it. The reasons were because I was particularly resistant to fire and the magic was my own, so there was natural aversion in the magic to harm me.

This was a facet of magic I had discovered and found particularly interesting; it somehow made magic seem alive.

By the way, my clothes were also not burnt.

Why, you ask?

That was because I was practicing my magic entirely naked; I had removed every article of clothing I had worn on the way here and had thoughtfully laid it out in a clean place far away from the area where I was practicing.

I did not mind my nakedness, for there wasn't anyone around to watch. And to be frank, I would not have cared even if there were spectators. Lots of humans, after all, had seen me naked, though I must admit most of them are dead.

The morning eventually turned into afternoon as I continued practicing magic.

One of the results I obtained from my practice was that there was a difference between the size of area I could affect based on my fire and earth affinity.

For fire-based magic, I could affect about a twenty feet distance in all directions, whereas for earth-based magic, I could only affect about a fifteen feet distance. The disparity between the two magics was interesting.

For the rest of the afternoon, I practiced the sword forms I had learned from the short grandmaster whom I had met during the Tournament of the Wolf. He had sought me out afterward and had made me—forced me, to be exact—to learn a sword style.

The forms he had taught me in the time I had been here were River Crushes Boulder, Leaf Twirling in Wind, and Walking Mountain, to name just a few of them. These forms are part of the sword style the grandmaster had decided on teaching me.

It is called the Wandering Flame, a sword style known for its aggressiveness. There are only a few defensive forms in that style, or so the grandmaster had told me.

During my time with the short grandmaster whose name is Kizan Vulcram, a renowned grandmaster swordsman from another kingdom, I had been informed that the Shail Kingdom soldiers use two sword styles: Flowing Water and Moon and Void.

I knew of these two sword styles only by name in my previous life, as I was not particularly interested in military things. I had been a merchant in my past human life, after all. In addition, I had also been busy with learning and observing many aspects of life.

Thus, I grabbed the longsword I had placed nearby and started practicing the Wandering Flame sword style.

It was until night that I finally stopped my practice. My lunch and dinner had been the raw meat of wild animals—a rabbit, a deer, and a bird.

If you want the specifics, the rabbit was female, the deer was male, and the bird was male (I think).

Also, I cleaned myself inside the river, meticulously washing the taste of blood from my mouth and my body, which had sweated a little.

Now, I would head back to Asolance and spend the night drinking with my subjugation squadron at a tavern. The soldiers in the squadron would be temporarily assigned elsewhere, since I would be busy with Lady Calina Serle for a while.

So until my return, the soldiers would be working elsewhere in other divisions.

<><><><><>

It was probably well past midnight by the time I returned to the Silver Beauty inn. There had been some lively outbursts during my time drinking with my squadron in the tavern, especially when most of the females were trying to get me drunk.

Sad to say (for them, not me), it did not went as planned. My alcohol tolerance was surprisingly high. It was most likely due to my dragon constitution, and not to mention the fact that I had also been more tolerant than the average person in my past human life. All of this combined allowed me to win the drinking contest by a far shot.

I also paid for the majority of the bill after they had looked at me with pitiable and begging dog-like eyes. I gave in, since I had no particular attachment to money, and the total cost of the drinks would not amount to much anyway.

It was, to amusingly put it, “no scales off my back.”

The female scout soldier, Leana, had also followed me to the inn where I was staying. She had been, by far, the most enthusiastic of the lot of soldiers.

You can infer from this that Leana was also the most drunk, since she had many glasses of alcohol which almost rivaled the amount I had ingested.

By the way, Leana was also a violent drunk. During our party, she smashed a few of the tavern chairs into pieces, causing me to pay for the costs of it all to the owner.

Thankfully, however, she did not get into any brawls, as doing so would have gotten all of us kicked out of the tavern—the tall, muscular, bald owner had been starting to become annoyed with our antics.

Inside my room, Leana undressed atop the bed and revealed a thin, see-through, light-blue gown underneath.

“Mhm...Verryth. Fuck me,” she said in a drunken slur, her hands lightly caressing her small, shapely breasts.

“Sure. But before that, why don't you just lie down on the bed for a bit.”

I patiently waited for a moment as Leana laid down on the bed. It took only a short while before she fell asleep and I heard her lightly breathing.

Then I pulled a chair to the window of the inn and gazed upon the twin moons, reflecting upon the things I had learned today. The only sounds that accompanied my thinking were the light breathing from Leana and her soft mutterings.

Early morning tomorrow, I would accompany Lady Calina Serle to the Mage Academy, which was located at the central region of Shail Kingdom.The academy was also close to where Merchant Kafer and the Guardian of the East lived.

One of these two suspects would have deep ties to Malice, the Dark Brotherhood, the assassin organization that had killed Rhea of the Wanderers at the behest of one of my father's enemies, rivals, or perhaps even friends.

It was time to finish what I had barely started—I had, after all, only eliminated a branch of the Dark Brotherhood who had killed Rhea, before I had died in my human life.

The dice of fate had been rolled and I would see through the events that would play out.

In the end, though, I would be the victor...regardless of the costs. There was nothing and no one that would get in the way of my vengeance.

The cold, indifferent anger burned inside me as I gazed upon the twin moons.

Volume 2 (Chapter 10)