"So, what do we do now?" Deltan asked. Although he believed in his brother, there was still sparks of unsettlement that made itself known in his mind from time to time.
"Continue as usual," Nine said, her voice low with unspoken anger.
Deltan suppressed a shiver. For some reason, he felt like his younger brother felt like indiscriminately hunting down whoever had placed the mark on him. For the first time, he felt like having such a talented and terrifying younger brother was actually pretty good!
Nine looked at Deltan and he immediately shot off her bed.
"Then, I'll be going back now, younger brother," Deltan said, sweating. That one glance from Nine had made him feel an unprecedented sense of danger.
In reality, Nine had just been taking a casual glance at Deltan while she pondered on her course of action, so his vast overreaction baffled her.
She frowned slightly. "You're staying at my residence until we find a solution," she said lightly. Deltan could hear the spoken 'or else' at the end of the sentence.
He immediately deflated. He felt like crying but had no tears. Didn't this mean he would be seeing this little devil day in and out?! But wait, since he was in grave danger now, his younger brother would go easier on him now, right? He immediately cheered up at the thought.
"Your quality of life won't deteriorate, so I won't allow you to slack off on your training. Now that you've touched the Fourth Circle of magic, we can gradually step up the training."
Deltan felt like curling up on the ground. The already intense sparring was going to be stepped up even further?! Was it too late to beg for mercy? Ah, he should just fall asleep right now.
Nine twitched her finger and pulled him along using magic. Deltan yelped when he was unceremoniously dragged by the back of his shirt in a position that was parallel to the ground. Where could he maintain his dignity as a prince? He floated in the air like a wooden plank that was floating on the sea.
Nine dragged him along the various bookshelves placed inside her room, placing various books on top of the floating body. Deltan felt like complaining but quailed thinking about how training could always get worse.
He floated behind Nine with a long-suffering look.
°•°•°•🐢. . . .
As Deltan and Rainier faced off in a spar in a virtual forest via the training room in her residence, Nine was rummaging through the various books in her mental space, trying to recall anything else that would be useful to get rid of Deltan's mark. Everything that she had 'read' was already part of her memories. It even felt like she had been the one who had written the books herself, so if she couldn't recall it, it meant that it didn't exist.
Nine sighed lightly.
Because they were treading into uncharted territory, there was no guidance nor any precedence about this sort of thing. Everything would have to go through trial and error. It looked like Deltan was in for some tough times for now.
Six months might have sounded like a long time, but it really wasn't. She had to compile a whole new method from scratch, test it, and apply it. It was unknown the amount of trials and errors that they would have to go through in order to find a feasible method.
Nine sat down at a familiar table as she calmed her mind, getting rid of any extraneous thoughts. The vague feelings of worry and anxiousness faded as her mind regained its usual calm and indifference. She likened her mind to a surface of still water, not a ripple appearing above, while fish and animals darted about beneath it.
While putting everything else on hold and working solely on Deltan's problem might sound like a good idea, she wouldn't take any chances with his safety for now since she didn't know if the Vampire had any ways to monitor him. She would do everything possible to avoid tipping him off and increase the chances of finding a solution to the Red Spider Lily.
More than that, she knew from experience that if she obsessed over the results, she would eventually end up losing sight of herself. She would dwell and obsess so deeply that it almost bordered on madness as she shut out the world. Nine was apprehensive of sinking into that state once again when there was a clear deadline. The only time she would come out was when she had found her answer, but she wouldn't know how many days had passed or how she had passed the days until she surfaced again.
She wouldn't allow herself to sink into that kind of state. Not when she had other things she wanted to keep an eye on. It was one of her flaws that had been observed when she had still been the head of Acadia in her last life, so she rarely allowed herself to reach that state of unawareness.
Repeating the same actions over and over lead to stagnation, so she would go to class, continue to teach, harass Deltan, and continue her research, all at once. No one ever said she wasn't a master at multitasking.
Nine tapped a nail on the table as she ran through her plan of action. Her face was blank and her eyes were deep. They was so deep that one could have sunk into the depths for all eternity, unable to find the bottom. There was a tinge of madness that lurked in the depths of that pool, able to devour and consume until there was nothing left.
By the time Deltan and Rainier exited from the training room, she had regained her normal indifference, showing no sign of the anger she felt.
She picked up Rainier, her eyes flashing with surprise when she realized that Rainier had actually reached the Fourth Tier.
She blinked in curiosity when she realized that unlike other Magic Beasts, Rainier wasn't showing any signs of patterns that signified the elements he was able to use. She tilted him and examined him from all angles, finding no trace of patterns. Her eyes flashed.
"What are you doing?" Deltan asked with curiosity.
Nine looked at him and sighed, looking at him as if she just couldn't comprehend. "I'm just wondering how you could take so long to get to Fourth Circle when Rainier just started at First Circle and has already reached Fourth Circle in such a short amount of time."
Deltan's face immediately reddened in anger. "That's a Magic Beast, okay! I'm a human!"
Nine cast him a look of disdain. "Both of you received the same teaching from me, so why are you just breaking into the Fourth Circle now?"
Deltan let out a wordless scream of rage as he glared at Rainier. Exactly in what way was he inferior to that slime! A twenty-year-old reaching the Fourth Circle was already something that was shocking to the masses.
He stalked off, his face as black as the bottom of a pot. He'd show them!