Chapter 114: Last hurdle (Last Part)

Ten years.

That’s the time I have spent in this new world after my death.

This didn’t represent that long of a time all things considered, but although I’ve been able to use magic for an even fewer number of years, it was difficult for me to imagine going back to a magicless life. Summoning the elements and using a part of their power to make it mine was certainly a feeling hard to describe and even harder to give up. However, more than these growing abilities to bend the elements to my rule, the other capacity I would have the most trouble renouncing was my ability to sense mana.

Whether it was to feel the presence of others or to take a glimpse at the mysterious world of mana invisible to the naked eye, I could no longer consider living without this ability that already saved my life more times than I could remember.

Even so, I became painfully aware across my journey that this power wasn’t foolproof and needed more refining.

Difficult to forget how I was totally unable to sense the invisible monster that decimated the camp near the first Advanced town after all.

Ever since this moment, I became more careful with this ability, not always taking anything I sensed for absolute while trying to find ways to improve it.

However, I never would have thought that this old man would show me another weakness of my senses, a flaw that I was completely unaware of and which explained the strange feeling I had when I closed my eyes to focus inside this small cavern.

Unlike normal lifeforms, the elemental stones released a constant flow of mana disrupting my sensorial abilities. The combination of the elemental stones disseminated around and spreading their respective mana in a confusing entanglement along with the strange mana-enriched walls of the cave made it impossible for me to naturally feel their otherwise overwhelming presence.

The old man had noticed this point and slowly developed the ability to read the flow of peculiar mana that these stones emanated. It took him years, but through hard work and perseverance, he learned to interpret these results which allowed him to meet his monthly quota while sparring a great deal of effort and fruitless digging.

However, it was still a long and tedious work that didn’t reward us with a single elemental stone yet.

We amassed quite a lot of incomplete ones though. Not fully formed, they had little value on their own but apparently could still be of some use for the nourishment of the Lost magic triggering the wall and by extension for our survival.

There was another kind of quality in quantity after all.

Maybe it was to gather an overwhelming number of these incomplete stones that Zinovitz — the wounded dwarf commander — gathered so many inexperienced people for this task. However, I quickly dismissed this thought. I had trouble believing that these lackluster stones could play a decisive role in our survival no matter the quantity after all. Alianelle agreed if her disappointed face each time one of these stones was dug was any indication. It certainly reinforced her initial statement when she spoke about all the other people that came down with us to help the city survive: if they were all blindly searching around, then we couldn’t hope for any success on their part.

That’s why we desperately needed this old man’s help.

To be more precise, all we could do was watch him anxiously work while doing our best to get rid of the crumbling rocks so that none got in his way.

When Zinovitz had proposed this solution to go into the mine to help find new elemental stones, I was relieved as it offered me a way to be useful to the defense of the city without having to go to the frontline while leaving Alianelle and Paul behind completely defenseless.

Now, I was starting to seriously regret my decision.

Even if I wasn’t as strong as Jazor or Ilan; even if I couldn’t use my sacred magic with allies nearby and thus couldn’t change the course of the battle alone, I would have still been much more useful than down here.

It was too late to regret now, but I wasn’t used to hoping others would save me.

Moreover, the digging of elemental stones didn’t go as I had imagined.

At first, I was confident when I saw the old man’s magically created claws dig through the reinforced wall — almost impervious to pickaxes — as if he was tunneling through soft dirt. However, after half an hour of furious digging under our attentive and expectant gazes, the old man interrupted his work and started to dig in another direction altogether.

Apparently, even for someone as experienced as him, reading the flows of mana despite the mana-enriched walls made acute analysis difficult and required constant correcting.

As a result, he had to constantly adjust his digging as he went along to correct his trajectory.

How long would it take him to find an elemental stone in these conditions?

Even he didn’t know, but it was dubious that we could get a single elemental stone of a high enough rank today even with his help.

And that wasn’t something I could accept.

So, I abandoned my passive role, and after much effort, I convinced him to stop his digging and tutor me on how to correctly read these flows of mana. Even after accepting and carefully describing the tricks and clues he used to guess the correct location of the stones, the expression on his face said it all about what he thought of my demand. For him, I couldn’t be of any help.

Maybe he was right.

Maybe I was wasting his time.

However, I couldn’t just let him dig on his own or wait for anyone else in the mine to get lucky.

If I did that, I would leave my fate, and that of the people I cared about, to chance— something I would never be able to accept ever again.

Moreover, my confidence didn’t come from nowhere.

There was a reason why I was able to discover and develop this ability to sense the surrounding mana on my own. Amanda didn’t talk about it at all during her four years of magical tutoring while Hirillë — the queen of the Great Forest of the West — had simply made me understand just how important this ability was to become a full-fledged mage.

The reason for my successful reliance on this single ability to cross the wilderness when I was completely blind was simply because I was naturally overwhelmingly more adept at it than others.

Of course, there were major differences between races with the Elves being the more proficient and the Humans hovering at the very end of the ranking which certainly explained a part of their often massive differences in magical abilities. My abnormal ease to sense mana in detail was one of the reasons why Hirillë believed that I wasn’t completely Human.

However, whether this ability came from my reincarnation or from a secret that my parents had kept from me didn’t matter. All I knew was that my capacity to sense and differentiate the various kinds of mana particles around me was far superior to what any Human could do, probably even superior to the majority of the Elves. This power that Amanda ignored had proven invaluable to my survival and the development of my current magical abilities.

So, for long minutes after the end of his explanation, I tried to put this latent potential to use.

Surprisingly, Alianelle didn’t seem much more optimistic about my chances to prove useful in this search than the old man. In retrospect, she had spent the majority of our journey asleep and never really saw the extent of my abilities. Paul did, which explained his more relaxed attitude during the long minutes I spent with my eyes closed, carefully feeling the variation of mana all around me.

I soon understood why it took so long and so much effort for the old man to invent and improve this method. The swirling wave of mana was dizzying and difficult to understand. Fortunately, the precise instructions he gave me made this puzzling mess much more manageable and in less than an hour, I was able to have an actual idea of where we should dig.

“Maybe try more to the right,” I tried tentatively.

The old man who was using his magical clawed hand to dig faster than any of us could, stopped and turned to look at me with a raised eyebrow. Paul and Alianelle who were helping with pulling out stones and taking out the accumulating rubbles also turned around.

“What?”

“I think you’re slightly off course, try a little more to the right,” I repeated.

I could almost hear the dozen of criticism, insults, and mockery crossing his mind, but a discreet sideways glance at Alianelle was all it took for him to swallow them and follow my suggestion. Just like Paul, he knew just how lucky he got with our trade. One of Alianelle’s feathers was incredibly valuable and irreplaceable for whatever he planned to do with a newly evolved Primordial stone.

So for another hour, he followed my clumsy instructions without complaint, but with obviously growing doubts until finally his efforts were rewarded. A pan of the wall gave way under his magical claws and revealed a dense wave of pure mana that hit me in the face without warning once its owner was freed from the rock and exposed to the air of the cave.

“This…”

“Did you find one?” asked Alianelle excitedly.

The old man rummaged through the rubbles with practiced ease and took out a stone smaller than the nail of my pinky finger and held it out under the flickering light of the cave so we could all see what he had found.

“Another elemental stone?” asked Alianelle without hiding the doubt in her voice.

I had the same opinion.

Compared to the stone the old man showed us, this one was smaller, didn’t have any luster and appeared almost too ordinary. If not for the constant, but discreet wave of mana surrounding it, I would have probably missed it.

“Yes, it’s an elemental stone,” confirmed the old man. “Probably of the third grade,” he added after another look.

Third grade.

Compared to the elemental stone that he showed us, this stone certainly appeared lacking, but we weren’t in any position to be anything but elated at our discovery after the mountain of rumbles and half-formed elemental stones we extracted from the magically hardened wall in front of us.

Whether it was enough to have any real impact on this town’s defense and survival remained to be seen though.

However, I was still so relieved with our finding and the confirmation of my senses’ effectiveness, that I nearly missed the look of pure shock that the old man — who stubbornly refused to share his name with us — gave me.

“You…” he stared, before being interrupted by a violent earthquake that made me stumble forward.

Alianelle couldn’t repress a scream as she was caught by Paul just in time to prevent her from falling. Even the old man was caught completely unprepared by the violent tremor that made me wonder with fear if the whole cave wouldn’t simply collapse on us. When the vibration finally stopped, I couldn’t repress a sigh of relief from escaping my mouth. A solace apparently not shared by the whole underground mine, as a sudden wind of panic started to spread. Screams and worried whispers distorted by the ambient underground reached our isolated abode and echoed all around making it appear as if hundreds of people were screaming one after the other — which in retrospect may very well be the case.

Few knew who was responsible for this magically created earthquake, but I had seen and felt this ability too many times to mistake it for anything else.

“Jazor…” I muttered while taking out his birthed hourglass from an inner pocket.

I barely repressed a sigh of relief when I noticed that the artefact that he entrusted to me was still intact. Created at his birth by the most skilled artisan of his dwarven clan, it was magically linked with him making it an object with great significance in his culture. It was also extremely useful to know its owner's current health.

Apparently, if he was seriously wounded, or worse, the artefact would crack and then destroy itself.

The fact that it was still intact meant that for now, Jazor was still alive and relatively healthy, but this sudden earthquake also served as a reminder of the true urgency of our situation, slightly dulled by this new morose environment completely cut off from any other outside interference.

Sharing the same sudden realization, Alianelle and Paul both joined me to urge the old man to quickly return to his promised task. Something he did without completely wiping the nasty smile at the corner of his lips. For him, this earthquake didn’t spell urgency or fear like the rest of us. His will to live and survive was mostly gone, replaced by a deep-seated resentment nurtured by years of labor underground without seeing the light of the day.

For him, this earthquake that threatened to make the whole mine collapse on us was probably the first real proof he had that this town’s survival was currently at stake. I could understand why his heart was devoured by hatred, or why he wouldn’t view this situation in the same way as we did, however, we needed him more than anything right now.

Fortunately, he was still able to put his feelings aside to hold his word and resume his work with the same efficiency as before.

A working speed that now appeared desperately too slow.

Unable to bear it anymore, I covered my hands with the hardest earth I could create to mimic him and assist in digging while Alianelle and Paul both carried the rumble out of the way.

Furiously.

Almost desperately.

We worked with the impending doom of this city almost upon us, because we knew that we were running out of time.

It was nerve-wracking, not exactly the best frame of mind to be in for such a difficult and sensible task, but the superiority of my senses didn’t betray me this time.

After our initial success, three more elemental stones of the third grade followed in a little less than half an hour. If everyone — me included — was surprised and elated in equal measure at our success, the old man was completely stunned. When he found the fourth stone, he froze and slowly turned his head to look at me with a barely hidden scowl and another thing much less welcome plain for all to see.

Fear.

“Just… what are you?” he asked a little louder than necessary.

Alianelle also turned around to look at me as if seeing me for the first time. I had shown prowess a child my age should have never been able to accomplish when we escaped the Advanced town. However, it’s probably only in this instant that she truly realized how abnormal my abilities truly were.

I did my best to ignore her questioning gaze and simply stared back at the old man in silence.

Even if I could answer their question, I wouldn’t.

Nothing is more frightening than ignorance and mystery. That’s why even the bravest men feared what was hidden behind the impervious veil of the dark. And I needed him frightened — or at least wary of me— if I wanted to leave Alianelle and Paul behind alone with a semblance of peace of mind in case he suddenly decided that a single feather wasn’t enough for him.

Because there was no doubt that leaving them behind was my only choice left.

I could sense that we had already exhausted this small cave with our successive discoveries. There was no more elemental stone of a significant grade to hope to find here. It was now time to get these stones where they could be of some use,

Better not have Alianelle anywhere near these elemental stones when I gave them to the man in charge of collecting our harvest.

When I turned around to declare my intent to my companions, a raspy voice preceded me.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” interrupted the old man with a serious expression very different from his usual arrogance and mirth at this city’s predicament.

“What?” I asked while turning back to face him once more.

The fear he had shown for a brief moment was gone, but the concern was plain for all of us to see.

“You intend to give these stones to a guard, don’t you?”

“So what?” I asked back, annoyed. “It’s not like I intend to give them to the guard immediately next to this place,” I retorted.

The mockery was back on his face as soon as these words left my mouth.

“And you think this will be enough to avoid any unnecessary questions or keep them away from the missy? You’re dreaming, boy! The guards here — all the guards — are more than aware of the rarity of elemental stones, even of the lowest grade. Even if they don’t try to find out where you got all these elemental stones, don’t you think that they would question how you could find four elemental stones of the third grade in such a short time frame?” he finally asked as if this question was so obvious that he didn’t need to say it aloud.

Of course, I was aware of this.

If elemental stones were as rare as he declared, suddenly discovering four would be beyond suspicious, and attracting attention was the last thing we wanted to do for Alianelle’s sake. However, we couldn’t withhold the stones either. This city along with our survival depended on it.

“You care about her, it’s plain for all to see, but you should also worry about yourself!” he declared with the same hoarse voice no doubt birthed by years spent inhaling dust in the forsaken place. “Her very nature puts her in danger more than anyone else here, but showing a talent for locating elemental stones is just as bad unless you’re eager to join me underground for the rest of your life.”

For the first time, I didn’t have anything to answer his biting words.

The old man was right, and now that he had finished explaining his point, I felt terribly stupid for not thinking about it sooner.

No, that’s wrong.

I did think about it, but I was so focused on Alianelle’s security and on the ongoing battle that I neglected this aspect of the problem. Once everything is over, it will become urgent to reconstitute the depleted reserves of elemental stones for the Ryunno clan. In this situation, I doubted that the Dwarven clan responsible for the mining of elemental stones would be reluctant to force me into slavery if I proved to be an asset even with Jazor’s backing.

“Don’t make this face, there is a way.”

The old man’s words brought me back from my thoughts.

“What way?” I immediately asked, all too eager to find a solution to this frustrating predicament. We had already accomplished the most difficult part of our work for this town’s survival after all. The four elemental stones were tightly clenched in my hand, ready to be used to replenish the Lost magic powering the assailed wall of the city.

“Look at your feet— all the rumbles and half-formed elemental stones mixed together. The Dwarves are many things, but they are not desperate fools. They are pragmatic. If all was lost, they would have all gathered together to die with their brothers and sisters weapons in hands. They also know the scarcity of elemental stones more than anyone else and certainly didn’t hope for any of the civilians to get lucky or for a freak of nature like yourself to make the balance tilt in their favor. The fact that they let all of you underground was to gather as many incomplete elemental stones as possible. If I’m right, they will soon ask everybody down here — slave or not — to gather the rumbles and carry it above ground. Use this moment to get the stones where they will be used,” he explained.

“Are you sure of that,” I asked without hiding the doubt in my voice.

His words made sense, but I wasn’t really comfortable with the idea of waiting any longer than necessary, not when the potential survival of the entire city was literally in my hand.

“I am as sure as anyone else can be… All I’m saying is that Dwarves are rational beings— much more than Humans. They prefer a slow and tiresome but certain solution instead of an easy but elusive one. They don’t count on chance and certainly didn’t count on any of you all to get lucky and find an elemental stone. You realized it too, haven’t you? How weird it was for them to make you all dig with these crude tools without any sort of explanation or advice.”

I cast a furtive glance at the bent metal rod that they gave us to dig on our own and realized that his words were a perfect reflection of my thoughts when they gave us this task more than a little unrealistic without experience or proper material.

“We rarely use this method as most of the incomplete elemental stones are invisible to the naked eye and stuck among other rocks. To transport, and do the two refinements necessary for these pieces of crap to become useful is a logistical nightmare, so we usually gather all of the rumbles away without giving it any more thought. However, once in a while — mostly when we are lacking for our monthly quota of elemental stones for the Ryunno clan — the Dwarves make use of these inert stones.”

“Why are you telling him this?” suddenly interrupted Paul.

Paul was of the silent kind and rarely spoke up like this unless it was for Alianelle’s sake, but this time he didn’t intend to stay silent.

“You don’t care about this town’s survival, you made that point clear and you already obtained what you asked for. So why would you go out of your way to prevent Sillath from getting into trouble?”

Paul’s observation was reasonable and made enough sense for the three of us to focus our attention on the old man and wait for his explanation.

“You think of me so spiteful that I would deliberately let a child be captured if I could do anything about it?” he laughed, but without any trace of amusement in his eyes.

Maybe.

I barely repressed this word from crossing my lips, when the old man continued his explanation — apparently not expecting any kind of answer from us.

“I don’t have any obligation to answer to you ‘fallen’, but if you want a reason… It's because today, thanks to your daughter, and for the first time in decades, I have found my hope back no matter how tenuous it may be! You’re right to not trust me, and I don’t really care what happens to you, but whether we like it or not, we all found these stones together and I would prefer if no one took notice of me after finding out who exactly dug them for you. Nothing good ever happens to slaves who get the attention of their captors.”

This time Paul didn’t have anything to oppose the old man’s words.

On my end, there was only a single thing that I was curious about.

“Then, if they intended for us to simply carry stones outside, why didn’t they start the moment we entered the mine?”

“Two possibilities,” he started to enumerate with two of his blackened fingers — closer in appearance to sharp claws — raised.

“As I said, this operation is a nightmare to organize for many reasons, including the material necessary for the refining and the manpower needed for the efficient transportation of these stones to the surface. They once tried to expand the tunnel leading to this cave to allow for wagons’ safe passage, but digging the magically reinforced walls proved too much work for dubious results. If my memory serves me right, the last time we did this operation, they did the first refining — consisting of roughly separating the incomplete elemental stones from their rocky envelope — inside the mine to save as much manpower as necessary. If I’m right, then this is just what they are currently doing, and when this is done, they will gather everyone to carry all this stuff above ground.”

“And the second possibility?” added Alianelle.

“The second?” he asked back apparently surprised by her question

“You said that there were two possibilities to explain why they didn’t immediately order us to carry these rocks to the surface,” she repeated, exasperated.

“Oh yeah,” he exclaimed as if suddenly remembering his previous words. “The alternative is that I’m completely wrong and they don’t plan to make any use of the half-formed elemental stones at all.”

“Wh…” I sputtered, nearly strangling myself in the process.

I had a dozen rebukes ready in my mind, but none that would change the reality of our situation.

I could wait here for their call and use the crowd to get unhindered to the surface. This was certainly the safest path to avoid any danger and unwanted attention for me and Alianelle, but it also meant taking the risk that the old man was completely wrong about that. At the very least, it would make us deliberately lose time which was something we all knew we cruelly lacked.

“We can’t afford to wait,” I finally declared after a few seconds of thinking. “I will carry it myself to the surface.”

“And how exactly? You will simply hope that everyone is blind and that none will feel you carry four elemental stones in your pockets,” sneered the old man. “Your ability to sense mana may be well beyond what I ever saw in my life, but don’t expect that the experienced guards will miss elemental stones just under their noses.”

“And yet, they did, probably for a long time,” I smiled back at him, my eyes insistent and enough for him to understand what I meant after a few seconds of silence.

“Oh, so you want to know how I do it, don’t you?” he sneered.

“Exactly,” I confirmed, remembering the overwhelming amount of mana that emanated from his elemental stone that immediately disappeared when he willed it.

“And what if I don’t want to tell you,” he asked with a provocative smile on his lips while clenching and unclenching his razor-sharp hands. The grating noise of metal echoed around us as the tension suddenly heightened.

I didn’t expect the old man to care so much about his method to hide elemental stones. Was it simply because he was afraid that if I got caught his method would become useless or was there something else here that I was missing?

“Two more.”

I didn’t have much more time to ponder the question or try to think of a non-violent way to change his mind when Alianelle’s delicate voice put an end to our standoff.

“What?” asked the old man dumbly as he turned at the same time as me to look at her in incomprehension.

“I will give you two more feathers if you accept,” she simply stated, obviously not wanting to beat around the bush anymore.

The old man’s eyes became round as soon as he understood what she was proposing. He stayed silent for a few seconds, apparently unable to believe what he was hearing.

“Are… Are you serious?” he asked with a voice a far cry from his previous arrogance.

“I am,” she declared calmly.

When the old man hurriedly accepted with a shaking voice, I finally understood why asking for one of her feathers was such a big deal. They were certainly beyond precious in more ways than I could imagine, but more of all, they were finite.

Once taken out, they wouldn’t grow back and would thus definitely weaken Alianelle’s magical abilities for the rest of her life.

Or that’s what would normally happen for a normal member of the third clan.

However, Alianelle was like her mother.

Even if her wings were completely ripped off, they would eventually grow back. Losing a few feathers was nothing to her. However, when Paul and I exchanged a glance, I immediately understood his meaning.

No matter what happened, this secret could never be known.

No matter what.

—-----------------------------------------------------

It didn’t take me as much time as I initially thought to retrace my steps on my own across the cave.

The few guards I crossed paths with simply shook their heads in disapproval, apparently not believing that someone — even a child — could choose to get out of the mine given the city’s current circumstances simply because they couldn’t bear the environment. Their gazes filled with contempt for my apparent weakness and naivety pierced me like sharp blades, but even outside of their field of view, I didn’t relax my small kid act, not until I finally reached the entrance to the tunnel.

The last guard in front of the dark entrance looked at me for long seconds before finally allowing me to return to the surface on my own. Except for the same contempt, he didn’t seem worried that I was a slave trying to escape. I first thought that he knew all of their faces, which was a possibility, but the small green circle I found near the entrance — and that I had missed on my first passage — with a round stone embedded in its center was more likely the answer to his easygoingness.

This was the Lost magic that the old man told us about.

The one preventing him and all the other slaves from leaving the mine.

Few slaves wore a collar to restrain their magical abilities and prevent their escape, but their chains were still very real.

Fortunately, that wasn’t my case so I was able to cross the threshold and once more enter the dark upward tunnel that would lead me to the surface.

I finally released the breath I had been holding ever since I left our small isolated cave with the elemental stones, worried that the old man’s method would fail or that a guard would simply refuse to allow my departure.

Both proved to be needless worries.

Not bothering to feign weakness and fear anymore, I picked up the pace and traced my steps back as quickly as possible, until finally, a few minutes later, I was greeted by the warm rays of the sun offering me a very different kind of heat from the one underground.

It took me a while to adapt to the sudden brightness, but when I did, I noticed with dismay that no one was around. Compared to when all the civilians entered together in a long frantic column, the place appeared now completely deserted. If not for the not-so-distant noises of battle, I could almost believe that everyone else had already evacuated the city.

I looked around, but no one was there to show me the way to the Lost magic powering the wall — the only place where the stones I had snuck out could be of any use.

Not believing that I could truly find no one around, I was ready to close my eyes to spread my magical sense as far as possible when a sharp pain in my left hand prevented me from doing that. I hurriedly looked down at my hurriedly bandaged hand still stained with blood.

The pain disappeared just as fast, but it still made me realize that I would be wiser to retrieve the elemental stones first when no one was around. I unwrapped my hand and opened my palm to look at the long vertical cut that I had done to myself. As soon as I opened my hand, the pain immediately returned with a vengeance. A sharp and blazing pain as if a white-hot metal rod was going through my hand.

Definitely not the kind of pain one could expect from a fresh, but not so deep cut.

Unfortunately, this time the pain didn’t subside and forced me to clench my teeth to bear it while I was awkwardly splitting the cut apart with my free hand to retrieve what the old man told me to put there.

One elemental stone at a time was pulled out from the wound. They were small but not small enough to completely fit inside. This didn’t matter as long as it was thoroughly covered with blood. An explanation I would have trouble believing if I didn't witness its efficacy for myself. When the finger-sized stones were completely detached from my hand, they immediately released a violent wave of pure mana that I had no trouble sensing now that they were exposed to the fresh air.

This bloody method was the one the old man was willing to share with me after Alianelle promised him two more of her feathers. By hiding it in our own body — even partially — it was possible to block everyone else from sensing the constant waves of mana emanating from the stone. This crude method was possible with stones this small, but seeing how painful it was and how his elemental stone wasn’t covered with any blood when he took it out, I had my doubt that he had another — less bloody — method that he didn’t share with me.

Nonetheless, this technique had worked and allowed me to cross the mine unimpeded which was all I could ask for. I still cursed the old man in my mind for conveniently forgetting to talk to me about the painful reaction this method would produce.

However, now that the pain in my hand had finally lessened, I was ready to resume my search.

“What the,” I exclaimed, unable to restrain these words from escaping my mouth.

I couldn’t find the fourth stone.

No matter how wide I spread apart the cut, I couldn’t sense anything more hidden inside.

I had bandaged my hand immediately after putting the stones there and was sure that there were four. It wasn’t possible to be wrong for something like that.

However, it was gone.

Long seconds elapsed as I stood petrified in front of my bloody hand, my mind working overdrive to understand what had happened as I was sure that I couldn’t have lost it, not with my hand bandaged so tightly; not with the quantity of mana these stones release on their own when directly exposed.

If I hadn’t lost it on my way, there was only a single possibility left. When this idea finally crossed my mind, it was so ridiculous that I immediately dismissed it.

However, like most uncomfortable ideas, they were the most difficult to forget, but also the most probable to prove true no matter how eccentric they may seem at first glance. I felt my blood turn cold as a hypothesis started to form in my mind.

Like a scattered puzzle that finally found its last piece back, the whole picture I could never totally understand was finally laid bare in front of me.

Impossible.

Even then, I denied it.

As strongly as I could.

There were probably other possible explanations, but I had a disturbing feeling that this possibility was the most probable.

If I was right, my parents were hiding more than one secret.

If I was right, this meant that I was…

“Lost in thought?”

A voice that I only heard on one occasion echoed much closer than I was comfortable with. Any thought swirling in my confused head disappeared as my heart skipped a beat in fright. Like a waking beast taken by surprise for the first time in a long time, my mana awoke ready to be unleashed at a moment’s notice to defend my life while I raised my head to look at my interlocutor just a few feet away from me.

Half of his face was hidden by hair that couldn’t dissimulate his long pointy ears.

Sooreman was standing in front of me with a nasty smile on his face.