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Chapter 42 – Catching up

Merlin looked around him and was surprised to see that he was alone in the room. He hadn’t expected his parents or aunt to be by his side, but Adelle, Lupa, and Bastet would usually be all over him, even more so with him being sick or in a coma. Merlin slipped out of the bed, went to the full body mirror in a corner of the room, and was a little surprised when he saw the image reflected on it.

It was only at that moment that he finally understood the real meaning behind Lokiseth’s words, when he was told the changes in his body inside the pseudo-realm would affect his real body, it also included the growth! The boy reflected in the mirror didn’t look like the 7- year-old Merlin actually was, he looked to be 12 or 13 years old.

Having recovered from the shock, Merlin extended his spiritual awareness to sense who was in the house, and discovered that only Adelle, Lupa and Bastet were, along with two other women he didn’t recognize. One of them seemed to be around 30-40 years old, while the other was around 10.

That was one of the tricks Lokiseth had taught Merlin during his martial training, to extend his spiritual awareness to his surroundings, and sense the spirit of those around him. It was a trick only a person who had forged their body and spirit for more than 50 years could use, however, Lokiseth had enhanced Merlin’s spiritual awareness, allowing him to use it. The advantage of this trick over tracking spells, was that it located the spirits of the other people and couldn’t be countered with magic, locating even those hiding with magic spells or artifacts.

The only drawback it had was it didn’t work if someone had enough control over his or her spirit to hide it, but at Merlin’s current level, the few people capable of doing that wouldn’t even bother to look twice at him, much less attacking him. The certainty of that fact had been what made Lokiseth keep quiet and not to warn Merlin, nevertheless, he would tell him had Merlin ever encounter one of them.

*Who are those 2?* wondered Merlin. *As expected, many things seem to have changed in a year.*

Merlin decided to open his status window to see exactly what changes had occurred as a consequence of him using Lokiseth’s power.

*Ding*

Status WindowNameMerlin PendragonAge7Race**** HumanLevel65GenderMaleHealth2800/2800Health Regen.0.009 / SecMana171Mana Regen.0.017 / SecMagic

“Imagination Creation Magic (lv. 2)”,

"Status Window Spell (lv. 2)",

"Analytic Observation Spell (lv. 9)"

“Elemental magic (lv. 2)”

Attribute affinityFire (extraordinary), Water (extraordinary), Wind (extraordinary), Earth (extraordinary), Space-time (extraordinary), Light (extraordinary), Darkness (extraordinary), Non-attribute (extraordinary)Skills

“Otherworldly Martial Art: Aikido (lv. 7)”

“Otherworldly Martial Art: Karate (lv. 6)”

“Otherworldly Martial Art: Taekwondo (lv. 7)”

“Lotus Crescendus” (lv. 6)

“Ki Strengthening Technique (lv. 7)”

“Marked mate tracking (lv. 10)”

“Intermediate compounding Av. In (lv. 10)”

“Pendragon Clan Traditional Martial Arts (lv. 10)”

Merlin: “WHAT?”

Merlin completely forgot to keep his voice down, for what he was seeing had started to drive him crazy. He had half-expected it due to Lokiseth’s words, but confirming it with his own eyes had hit him hard. His mana pool had been reduced to the point that a single middle-ranked spell would completely deplete it, that is, if he was able to cast it.

In the back yard, Lupa and Bastet perked up their ears to the shout, looked at each other and run into the house. Glenna, Tessa and Adelle were left in the back yard, dumbfounded. Their sense of hearing was worse than that of the 2 beastman girls, so they didn’t hear Merlin, nevertheless, realizing that Lupa and Bastet weren’t coming back, the three of them hurried into the house to see what had agitated the two girls so much.

Back in his room, Merlin heard someone running upstairs and with his spiritual awareness he discovered it was Lupa and Bastet, while the other 3 were entering the house. The 2 girls opened the door, and saw Merlin standing in the middle of the room and looking back at them. After a short moment of awkwardness, Merlin greeted them.

Merlin: “Hi, Lupa, Bastet… I’m back.”

The 2 girls lost all strength in their legs and dropped to their knees tearing up. Merlin was surprised that they didn’t run at him to kiss him, but he guessed they were overwhelmed by their emotions, and couldn’t even think doing that. Soon after, Adelle and another girl Merlin didn’t know ended up in the same state as Lupa and Bastet. The unknown older woman looked at Merlin, agape, and with a look of incredulity that puzzled Merlin even more.

Merlin: “Who are you? And who is the girl?”

Glenna: “Hello, Merlin. Nice to meet you at last. I’m Glenna, a friend of your mother’s, and Tessa’s mother.”

Merlin: “Nice to meet you too. So, you are a friend of my mother’s and the new girl is called Tessa and she is your daughter. Ok, now, could you tell me why are they acting like that?”

Glenna: “You were diagnosed with a poisoning from ‘The Devil’s Scythe’, a poison from the Great Magic Era for which there exists no cure. The people from the Healers Guild said they didn’t expect you to recover, ever.”

Merlin: “I just went over my limits and exhausted all my magic, didn’t my mother read my letter?”

Glenna: “What letter?”

Merlin: “Never mind that. Could you, please, send someone to tell my parents that I have finally awoken?”

Glenna: “Yes, of course!”

When Glenna left, Merlin looked at the four girls without knowing how to console them. He knew their tears were those of relief, not of grief, but even that being the case, Merlin was helpless and didn’t know how to react.

*****************************************************

Merlin’s POV:

Ok, it’s official: I hate seeing people crying! First the four girls: Adelle, Lupa, Bastet, and the new girl, Tessa. Later, it was my mother, and my aunt, even my father was weeping! I understand that they thought I would never wake up, but isn’t this a little too much?

Of course, the situation was actually as I feared. My mother read the letter I had left for her, but she thought I knew about the poison, and wrote the letter to put them at ease even though I was done for. Hearing the diagnosis of the healers just confirmed their suspicions, and it never occurred to them that what I wrote in the letter might actually be the truth.

I really wish I could have taken a picture of the faces they made when they realized, after my explanation, that the reason for my coma was actually mana exhaustion. However, they were horrified to learn that most of my mana pool had disappeared, and that I planned on joining the Adventurers Guild and go on missions until the time came for Lupa, Bastet and Adelle to go to the Hexenwunder Royal Academy.

They tried to dissuade me from doing it, but I explained that going adventuring was my only chance of finding a way to recover my mana pool before going to the academy with the girls. When they finally understood that it was my only chance and that it wasn’t even certain that I would manage to do it, they agreed to my plans.

It really came as a surprise to me that my eldest brother had finally grown a pair and married Rose, but she soon explained to me how it happened… *Arnold, you better man up or I’ll kick your ass and force you to!*

Adelle, Lupa and Bastet, haven’t tried to kiss me yet, but they still blush whenever they look at me, so I guess, although their feelings for me haven’t changed, they have matured and act more ladylike. The one who unsettles me is the new girl, Tessa. She looks at me in a strange way, *I just hope that she isn’t like those 3, they are a handful already, I don’t need a new addition to the play!*

After the heartwarming family reunion, I passed a message to Argenta, and ordered the members of the council that were currently in Laklostia or Ragnarök, to meet in my room at midnight.

***********************************************************

Midnight. With the exception of Mina, who had already departed for the Hexenwunder Royal Academy, and Mandy, who was in Klausna Kingdom, the rest of the members of the “Council of ten” were in Merlin’s room. Aimi blushed as soon as she spoke with Merlin, she too had matured, and understood the true meaning behind her mother’s words. Merlin, on the other hand, was oblivious to her reactions.

Merlin: “In the end, did you discover anything about the illegal slave trade?”

Janus: “Yes, master. It seems that the origin of the problem is an underground organization called ‘Chimera’. Their aim is unknown, but they seem to have bases all around the continent. They smuggle illegal slaves into the continent, or between kingdoms, and they take a fifth off the slaves to their bases, to never be seen again.”

Merlin: “Any ideas of what they do with them?”

Vania: “No, master. The possibilities are endless. It could be something as simple as illegal mining, or they could even be building an army!”

Merlin: “Let’s hope that’s not the case! Sokar, how is it going in your end?”

Sokar: “It couldn’t be better. The Craftsmen Guild is at odds with us, because we don’t share our newly trained blacksmiths and craftsmen with them, but when they were told about the soul contract, they stopped trying to force our hand. However, they have increased our annual membership fee to 100 gold instead of the usual 10 gold.”

Merlin: “Can they do that?”

Sokar: “The minimum they can ask is 1 gold and the maximum 100 gold. The usual fee is 10 gold, though. Anything above that is usually a penalty to the member, to end up leading him to bankruptcy if he doesn’t abide by the rules of the guild. Nevertheless, in our case we make 100 gold every month, so it doesn’t actually affect us much.”

Merlin: “All is good then. Argenta?”

Argenta: “There have been no attempts against your mother’s life, or against the life of any other member of your family.”

Merlin: “Good, Shin?”

Shin: “Everything is going as planned. I recruited 15 suitable people, and their training is a little slow, but it was to be expected given how late they have started to train.”

Merlin: “Good. You all have done a good job while I was in a coma. Thank you all. You are dismissed. Shin, you stay, there is something I have to discuss with you…”

Shin: “Yes, master!”

After everyone else had left and they were the only ones in the room, Merlin took a stone from a drawer and crushed it against the floor. It was a soundproof barrier generating stone. Making sure the barrier was in place, Merlin turned around and looked at Shin.

Merlin: “Shin, I need your help with something.”

Shin: “What is it, master?” *He wants us to speak in the common language?*

Merlin: “You know that my mana pool has been crippled, don’t you?”

Shin: “Yes, master. I heard about it, I wish I could help you with that, but…”

Merlin: “You can!”

Shin: “Eh?”

Merlin: “I won’t beat around the bush, Shin. I know that shinobi have a way to increase their mana pool by killing. I need you to teach it to me!”

Shin: “What? How did you…?”

Shin was horrified by Merlin’s words. It was true that shinobi clans had a way to do what Merlin had described, but it was considered a forbidden practice, since using it usually led to insanity and giving birth to bloodthirsty killers who indiscriminately massacred villages in order to increase their power.

Merlin: “How I know about it is not important, don’t worry, I won’t go insane or kill indiscriminately, but I need to increase my mana pool to at least a normal capacity before going to the Hexenwunder Royal Academy. I only have 2 years to prepare!”

Shin: “You do realize the biggest drawback of that technique is that although it increases the capacity of your mana pool, it is just temporary, and once you use the mana, you won’t recover it unless you kill again, don’t you?”

Merlin: “I am aware of it, but that is the only way I currently have to quickly increase my mana pool.”

Shin: “Very well, I’ll teach the technique to you. After all, I had promised to teach you our ways. I just hope I won’t have to regret this in the future!”

Merlin: “Don’t worry, I won’t disappoint you!”

________________________________________________________________________________

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