#75
“What?”
I couldn’t understand what nonsense she was saying. How could I have come here if Yaksi hadn’t cast a spell? I glanced at her with suspicious eyes. While I didn’t expect Yaksi to willingly divulge all information just because I looked at her that way, I couldn’t silently accept her words either.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t do anything to your sword.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Well, asking one more question wasn’t part of our deal, but I’ll tell you as a service.”
Yaksi moved closer to the iron bars and whispered to me in a low voice.
“I only summoned something that was in your sword. And you were dragged along with it.”
Suddenly, I remembered what the Duke and Kara had told me. The ‘voice’ that had spoken to me had disappeared from inside the sword. Did that mean there was something other than the ‘voice’ in the sword? Or if not, was there still something in this sword…?
“Now, I’ve told you something. It’s your turn, Young Master. That story. Who told you about it?”
Yaksi stepped back with a smirk on her face. I briefly contemplated whether I should honestly tell her who had told me or if I should lie. The moment I mentioned Ramtel’s name, his safety could be at risk.
After a moment’s consideration, I opened my mouth to address Yaksi.
“I figured it out on my own.”
“What? That’s ridiculous…”
“Surprisingly, that’s what happened. Due to several circumstances.”
I had no obligation to tell her the truth. Yaksi saw through my lie and frowned. She must have thought I would readily reveal everything. But I wasn’t that naive.
I couldn’t put others at risk, not just myself. Perhaps finding my brazen answer absurd, Yaksi let out a short, derisive laugh.
“You’re telling me a student who couldn’t even properly understand the difference between mana and magical energy figured out about the Clum overflow by himself?”
“I’m more capable than you think.”
I was aware that it was an absurd lie. Nevertheless, I had no other option. Yaksi, who had been staring at me intently, shook her head. Just as I thought she was going to back down, which would have been a relief, her voice pierced my ears.
“Well, fine. There’s someone who’s probably expecting this anyway. Most likely the Prince you hang around with. The royal family would know about Clum, after all.”
I hadn’t expected Persis to be mentioned. Although it seemed Yaksi was reacting this way because it was information any royal would know, anxiety washed over me. Had I endangered Persis while trying to protect Ramtel? Unable to suppress my urgent feelings, I pressed against the bars. Yaksi put on the robe she was holding and smiled at me.
“Don’t worry. How could I do anything to the Prince? Bringing you here was already a big deal for me. Besides, as a member of the royal family, he should know about this much. Well, sharing information about Clum with someone who isn’t of royal blood is problematic, but that’s not my concern.”
Surprisingly, Yaksi wasn’t curious about this matter anymore. I had thought she would ask more questions or probe further into my lies. Yaksi turned her back and climbed the stairs, standing in front of the door.
“Wait here. I’ll let you out when it’s all over.”
After saying that, Yaksi opened the door. I quickly gathered magical energy at my fingertips. A small red orb of magic, smaller than a grain of rice, floated above my index finger. Before Yaksi left, this was my chance. I moved my finger and quickly shot the magical energy at Yaksi. It was such a small amount that Yaksi didn’t notice the magic I had sent.
I fixed my gaze on that magical energy. This was a very basic magic that Kara had taught me—a tracking spell that placed my vision on the magical energy to see distant places.
As Yaksi went outside, the view beyond the door unfolded before my eyes. I had to concentrate because controlling the magic became more difficult the farther it got from my body.
It was still hard to determine where this place was. Yaksi continued to climb dark stairs. At the end was a laboratory I had never seen before. The laboratory, filled with various medicines and books, had not a single ray of light entering it.
Yaksi took off the robe she was wearing and put on the one she often wore at school. This revealed that her claim of not being Yaksi was a complete lie.
Since she had thrown away the robe she had been wearing until now, even the magical energy I had placed on her moved away. At this rate, I might not be able to figure out where this place was. As I grew anxious at this thought, I saw Yaksi opening the laboratory door to greet someone. Although I couldn’t see the face of the person standing at the door talking with Yaksi, I could recognize the outfit they were wearing.
That was the uniform worn by the palace employees. That meant we were inside the palace.
Yaksi was a court magician. Though she was teaching at school now, her original workplace hadn’t disappeared. Of course, she would have her personal laboratory inside the palace, and beneath it would be various spaces for experiments. Converting one of them into a prison wouldn’t have been difficult for Yaksi.
Even so, I hadn’t expected her to do something like this inside the palace.
Now that I had confirmed where I was, there was no need to handle magical energy anymore. After releasing the spell, I slowly blinked to restore my vision. The eyes that had been observing Yaksi’s laboratory now took in the dark prison.
Having concentrated so intensely, my head began to throb. Feeling a slight ringing in my ears, I pressed my forehead with my hand. There was no time to wait for my body to recover. The Duke’s household must have been turned upside down searching for me after my sudden disappearance.
I lowered my gaze to look at the sword. Yaksi said she had called something from this sword. And then I had been dragged along with it. That meant there was still something in this sword. And that something might be the ‘voice’ I had been desperately searching for.
Just as I had sent magical energy to Yaksi’s shoulder earlier, I once again gathered magic at my fingertips. I drew out more magic than before. It was similar in essence to the tracking spell I had cast on Yaksi, but I wasn’t sure if this would work.
I was about to search for something inside the sword. Based on Yaksi’s words, the ‘voice’ was in here. That’s why I had been brought here.
I inserted the magical energy gathered at my fingertips into the sword. The red magic touching the sword entered the black blade, creating an eerie light. It was a chilling scene even to glimpse briefly.
“Ugh…”
Perhaps I had used more magical energy than I thought, as my vision became blurry and my head dizzy. Even when experimenting with Clum, it hadn’t been this difficult, but now my head was hurting abnormally.
Grasping onto my consciousness as it was about to fade, I grabbed the strand of magical energy that had entered the sword. The inside of the sword was more vast than I had imagined. Within a place where I couldn’t tell where the beginning or end was, my magical energy lost direction and wavered. At this rate, it wouldn’t be strange if it simply dispersed.
At that moment, something inside the sword pulled at my magical energy. It felt like it was showing me the way, saying “here.” As if all my previous struggles had been an illusion, I was drawn to some force inside.
What was guiding my magical energy was a force so minute that I could barely perceive it. When I looked more closely to figure out what it was, I discovered a thin thread connected to that force. It was so thin that it seemed it might snap at any moment.
For some unknown reason, I felt I needed to pull on that thread. I inserted my magical energy, which had been touching the force, into that thread. Then, something unexpected happened.
My magical energy flowed rapidly somewhere along that thread. It felt like being caught in a sudden current. My magical energy, swept away so forcefully that I could barely breathe, stopped at a brightly shining place.
Due to the bright light, I couldn’t fully confirm where I was before my eyes began to hurt. It was strange. The bright light entering my previously fine eyes didn’t seem real. I felt as if my limp body was floating.
Suddenly feeling a chill, I tried to wrap my arms around myself, but my body wouldn’t move as if it had stiffened. Nevertheless, I managed to open my eyes with great effort, and at some point, the light disappeared, and a dark space came into view. I was floating inside what seemed like a transparent tube.
The space surrounded by stone walls somehow looked familiar. Looking around carefully because it seemed like I had seen it somewhere before, my eyes met someone below me. The face smiling at me had features I had seen somewhere.
The moment I opened my eyes wide, I saw his lips slowly moving. Even though I didn’t hear his voice, I could understand what he was trying to say.
‘There you are.’
At that moment, my vision darkened, and I was pulled back inside the sword. Only then did I realize that until just now, I had briefly entered someone else’s body, not my own. The thin thread connecting the force inside the sword to something had become much thicker than before.
「No! Andelion!」
And the voice I had been so desperately searching for began to call me.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
