Aside from the giant serpent that snuck up on them, and then pestered Bruno until he scratched the monster’s nose, Sylver’s retelling of events almost sounded like a report a subordinate would give to a superior.

Bruno was the only person Sylver could genuinely consider an equal.

He liked Lola, he trusted Lola, he relied on her, and as much as he hated himself for even thinking in those terms, Lola was far too young for him to see her as someone he could confide in.

Bruno listened intently, he interrupted only when Sylver hadn’t made a certain piece clear enough, and even though Sylver didn’t consider this wise, he told the ancient reincarnator about the “prophecy” the book had screamed at him.

For a good 10 minutes, they stood next to each other in silence. Sylver spent the time observing his surroundings, the inside of a small hole that had been carved into the wall. It contained a table, two chairs, and enough anti-scrying spells that Sylver felt physically sick for the first 5 minutes.

There was also a bunch of blankets on the floor, that Bruno wordlessly kicked away into the corner.

“Ignore it,” Bruno decided.

“That’s the plan,” Sylver agreed.

“If it’s a real prophecy, you won’t be able to stop it, not at the level you are now. And if it’s a fake just to fuck with you, ignoring it will render it powerless,” Bruno explained.

“It’s already fucked with me… But I agree, trying to search for the names isn’t going to achieve a whole lot…” Sylver said.

Another minute of silence passed.

“How do you mean she isn’t affected by magic?” Bruno asked.

“I’ll bring her over to show you, or come to my house, she’s currently acting as Chrys’ translator. Her soul is massive, and she has another function that I’m not at liberty to speak of,” Sylver said and felt a companionship he hadn’t realized just how much he would miss, up until he lost it.

Being an ancient lich was a fucking curse if you didn’t have an ancient healer to talk things over with, joke around with, someone to bounce your thoughts and ideas off, to make sure you haven’t gone insane.

“You said Schlagen mountains, right?” Bruno asked.

“Hmm? Yeah, at least according to Lola’s notes, that is the most logical place to go to. I’ll be able to triangulate his position anyway, but I don’t know if he’s moving, or in one place,” Sylver said.

“Raw mana though… How do you stain a sword with raw mana?” Bruno asked.

In the distance, the slightly dark orange cows made a noise that Bruno described as a “moo” but to Sylver’s ears sounded more like someone’s first time playing the tuba.

“In Edmund’s culture, a person’s weapon, specifically a sword, is a representation of them, but it’s also an extension of them, like a child. In his eyes a sword that has a chip, that’s scratched, that doesn’t have a polished handle, is like seeing a parent with a starved child. It’s indecent,” Sylver explained.

It was a concept that he himself didn’t fully understand, but understood enough to know to always keep his daggers and weapons clean and presentable.

“Faust mentioned something like this. I’ve seen him pick fights with other swordsmen because their leather scabbard was tarnished,” Bruno said.

“This part is hard to put into words… In his culture, you’re supposed to get 1 sword and use 1 sword. His people have a whole ceremony where the warrior enters a room full of blades and picks one out for himself. They have this thing, if you take a sword from that room, you have to bring it back.

“A proper warrior doesn’t die in battle, he survives everything, returns to that backwater shithole of a city, and puts his sword back into that room, and spends what little days he has left passing on his wisdom to the next generation. Now, there is a sort of exception to this,” Sylver said.

“When it’s broken, right?”

“Exactly. If your sword breaks, that means your spirit wasn’t tough enough, the blade didn’t accept you, long story short you can get a new one if you can bring them the broken blade. In the Ibis it’s customary for apprentices to be given to other masters to study under. One of Edmund’s was this hermit, lived inside the skull of a dead giant, super weird guy, made tea from elephant turds,” Sylver said.

Even now he could remember the feeling of that slimy liquid disappearing down his throat as that old fuck told him what he had just drunk. The fact that it actually tasted quite nice, didn’t matter.

“Very rare that a “master of the sword” actually does something. They love hiding in the middle of nowhere though, to “train” their mind,” Bruno nodded along.

“Anyway, he taught Edmund this one neat trick. You know how archers can adjust the path of their arrow by heating or cooling the metal tip to make it bend a bit so it will go in a certain direction?” Sylver asked.

“Sure.”

“Well, Edmund being a pyromancer, he figured out a way to do that to his sword. Not just a little, but enough that his blade was liquid. Ignoring that it’s considered a “form” when he does it, but “cheating,” when I do something similar, it really is a good strategy. The power of a sword, with the unpredictability and flexibility, of a whip,” Sylver reminisced.

“I think I can see it. He uses the same spell to bend the sword of his opponent to render it unusable. But because it isn’t “broken” the warrior is required to break his own sword, if he plans to continue being a warrior,” Bruno said.

“Yep. Although he only used it 3 times that I’m aware of. To him doing that to an opponent’s blade is the ultimate sign of disrespect. Because in his eyes, what he’s doing is crippling his opponent’s child, and thus forcing them to kill it with their own hands. It’s a pointless act, the people he did it to just got a new sword… well, I mean they died, but if he hadn’t killed them, they would have just gotten a new sword,” Sylver tried to explain.

He never fully grasped the idea of “dishonoring” someone before their death.

If Sylver wanted someone dead, he killed them, torturing them achieved nothing and was a waste of time since they would be dead all the same.

Now, if he needed information out of them, or needed them to suffer for a ritual, that was an entirely different matter, Sylver could torture if the pain the victim went through served a purpose. Or if he needed to do it to send a message, but the way Edmund did it was completely pointless.

“So you think he fought with the [Hero] and left his mana in the sword? To mark it, or was this a failed attempt to dishonor the [Hero],” Bruno asked.

“I don’t know. I mean, I honestly don’t know. It might not even be his mana.”

“But the woman in white, Rose, she-”

“She said Lola would know where he is. She doesn’t know where he is. I find it hard to believe that it’s a coincidence that a spell only 5 people were aware of, and had the power to utilize, was the spell used to fuck up the [Hero]s sword. But, once again, I don’t know,” Sylver explained.

He reached up to his mouth and wiped away some kind of dirt that had fallen down onto his lip from the dirt ceiling.

“So what’s the plan for all of this?” Sylver asked as he gestured out towards the large field. “End goal, where do you see yourself in 10 years?”

A serious look appeared in all 8 of Bruno’s eyes.

“World domination,” he said as he stared out towards the fuzzy orange cows.

Sylver slapped the man on the back and started laughing.

“No, come one, be serious,” Sylver said, as he continued to laugh.

“I am serious,” Bruno said and turned to face Sylver.

His top right eye twitched.

“Fuck!” Bruno swore as the smile he had been holding back was released and allowed to spread into a giant grin. “Admit it, half a second, you believed me for half a second,” Bruno said, as he started to giggle, and then laugh along with Sylver.

Sylver wrapped his arm around the ancient reincarnator and the two continued laughing like children.

“Alright, not half a second, maybe a quarter, a third at best, you’re too smart to do try to do something that stupid. World domination, I can’t remember the last time I heard those two words together,” Sylver said.

“I think I’ve tried it more than once in my past lives. But you’re right, guess the world can continue being the way it is for the time being,” Bruno said.

“So what’s the plan? 10 years from now, 20 years, 100 years,” Sylver questioned.

“I think I can conquer this whole dungeon in the next 10 years. It runs deep, I’ve never seen anything like it. After that… I don’t know… I started this when I was furious, and then I blinked, and a year passed without me noticing,” Bruno said.

It was a feeling Sylver understood all too well. Bruno continued speaking.

“I couldn’t have done it without Tera, I was a husk for a good month after the outbreak. She helped me get back on my feet, and then provided constructive criticism when I started spawning chimeras, and then acquired all the illegal ingredients I could ever want,” Bruno reminisced, as he remembered the early days, where every second egg was a dud.

“I noticed most of the kids are missing,” Sylver said, as he let go of Bruno, and the two sat down on the ledge of the hole carved into the wall.

“Silian academy. Nadin, Karina, Oliver, Lukas, and Isaac all left to study. Only Mary, Corina, and Isabell are left… Did Tera tell you about the present?” Bruno asked.

“For who?”

“For you… she didn’t say anything? I thought for certain it would be the first thing out of her mouth,” Bruno said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Bruno stood up and dusted himself off, and Sylver did the same shortly after.

“It will be easier to show you than it is to explain it. Have you got enough space in your shadow for a couple of chimeras? I bred them specifically for you to convert into shades, the bodies are perfectly preserved, and their souls haven’t moved an inch since the day they died,” Bruno said.

Sylver placed his hand over where he had gotten used to his heart being.

“I’m touched Bruno, really, thank you,” Sylver answered, and the two men hugged again.

“You’re going to love the horse chimera. It is insanely fast. And with just a small amount of mana, it can effectively fly… It’s only got 7 legs, the 8th had to be removed, but I’m not lying when I say that it made it even better when I got rid of it,” Bruno promised, as he and Sylver jumped out of the cave and Sylver caught Bruno with his shadow so he didn’t break anything as they landed.

“I can’t wait to see it,” Sylver said.