"What the hell happened to you?" Korbyn yelled, he had a look of concern and astonishment as Me, Lilith and Kale walked our way to the castle doors. Korbyn was watching the guards when he noticed us.
The day after the incident, Me and Lilith told Klae about my suspicions of Adam Mallory and the stone. Something about this whole situation made me question him, especially that stone that he had with him. Kale don't question it at first, but he did question the ring that was on Lilith's ring finger.
I didn't really give him an answer to that, but Lilith happily replied "His parents got it for me!" And that made Kale not question it, something that included my mother made him angst a lot and I couldn't blame him. Still, he gave me a side eye when we walked back to the castle.
Lilith seemed to be in a brighter mood today, she gave Kale an explanation of her now powered left arm. I told Lilith to keep out the weird things that accompanied her gaining of it, as I think that would worry Kale even more. So we came up with just a much simpler explanation that the Dragon eye was slowly unlocking things for Lilith, which Kale took in stride as he examined her arm.
Anyways, we woke up today pretty early so we can meet up with King Vergis. Our plan today was to get more information on Mandy and the robot hand Bodyguard they had, And then meet with The Mallory Family to figure out what was going on.
And that's when Korbyn noticed us.
"Oh…"Kale nonchalantly looked at his arm. There were still bite marks from the monster, I was able to heal it but unfortunately they came out as scars. "I got bit." His whole demeanor at this point was from the fact that he didn't sleep at all last night. His baggy eyes and worn expression made it pretty clear to Korbyn.
"What the hell bit you?" Korbyn said, concerned. He then looked at me and Lilith. He noticed Lilith's burnt left sleeve and pointed at that. "The hell happened to her?"
"We got ambushed at the Mallory house." I explained. "There were two Necromancy monsters and kale got bit by one. We killed them though. But I think we need to make King Vergis Aware of our situation."
Speaking of those monsters, Kale said he couldn't find any more during his little night walk when we went inside the house. I guess the Barrier spell worked and nothing else was able to get in. This morning, we went to check again just in case and ultimately found nothing. Even in the well where Lilith killed the monster, there was no sight of it. The two monsters were made up of Mana, an effect from the Necromancy performed on them. From what kale told us on the way here, Necromancy is a full conversion of the body that accelerates the process of mana conversion. Kinda like the Carbon Cycle. Only that instead of being fed back into the cycle, The mana being converted is controlled by the user and manipulated to form back into their original form…only that it doesn't. They turn into what we just saw, Majority of the time.
How does Kale know this? Well he's run into this sort of thing on his adventures before, So I'm Pretty sure Korbyn has to.
"Necromancy, huh?" Korbyn slowly nodded. "Damn, and you guys took them out." He looked at kale, gesturing at the castle door. "Vergis is back in the same room we were in, He's teaching Chris some…Noble lessons, I don't know."
"Stuck staying out here?" Kale asked Him, raising a brow. Behind Korbyn was the Training Ground, the guards were either practicing in the Pen or doing some exercises on the ground.
"Uh, Yeah. Me and Elena have a Rotation on teaching Earth King style to these poor bastards…and unfortunately they get me every morning." Korbyn shrugged, his facial expression changing to a more annoyed one. "You know how hard it is to wake up and get dressed to teach a bunch of people a single move? It su-."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, You suck at training people. Got it, no need to explain." Kale grabbed Korbyn by his shoulders, smiling. Korbyn looked at him with disgust as he realized that Kale quite frankly…did not give a shit. "Now come along with us, You are a part of this situation too."
"….I hate you for not listening, but I'll forgive you since you're taking me along and that means I get to do more work." Korbyn smiled. The two men smiled at each other before the two shook hands.
Soon, we found ourselves inside the castle and knocked at the meeting room where King Vergis and Chris were at. Korbyn knocked on the door in a specific pattern, probably for identification. After a short moment, It was Elena who opened the door.
"You three are back?" She said quizzically. "The king and Chris are still in their Lesson, You'll need to-" Her gaze turned to Korbyn.
"…you." She stared at Korbyn. "Skipping Training duties?"
"No…" Korbyn paused. "Well, Yes but no. Kale has something to report about the Mandy situation and it seems quite serious."
"Is that true?" Elena looked at Kale, her eyes quickly veered to the bite wound on his arm and then Lilith's burnt sleeve. Judging by her more serious look, she found her answer. "…I'll let my brother know you three are here." And she quickly shut the door.
"…She's always hanging with him. Talk about Sisterly love." Korbyn shrugged. "I wish Tera was like that with me."
Kale's ears twitched when he heard her name, his eyes slowly gazing at Korbyn. "Yeah…Tera."
"What? You think she doesn't love me? Her own fantastic brother? Hey, you've seen her recently. How is she?"
"Uh…I can say that with all the conversations we've had together in Prusha, she has not once talked of you." Kale nodded, keeping a poker face. "But she's been fine….Great, Actually."
"What's she even doing there in Prusha? You never told me."
"She's Kota's teacher at the University there."
"A teacher? Ah, why would she even be that? Do you even know how she acts? She's like a hungry woman!." Korbyn gestured his hands around to imitate a bite. "A hungry wolf who preys on men…"
"She hasn't done that, Your sister is keeping that on the down low. I'm keeping that whole thing calm, don't worry." Kale assured him…Least that's what I think he's implying. I'm pretty sure he meant that in like two ways. Either way, Korbyn didn't notice.
"You better. Keep my sister safe." The dark skinned elf pointed a finger at Kale. Kale was taken aback by the pointing until Korbyn slowly turned it into a fist, as if inviting to fist to bump. "That's a brother's promise I'm asking."
"…Yeah, I'll do that." The two proceeded to fist bump, just in time for Elena to poke her head out of the door.
She stared at the two men momentarily before she shook her head and spoke. "My Brother is ready for you all." The door creaked open and she pulled the door, letting us in.
As I walked in with Lilith, I saw that Chris was sitting next to King Vergis. The small boy was looking at us for a split second before standing up immediately, His eyes flickered with happiness and joy.
"Kota! Lilith!" He greeted us. "King Vergis was teaching me some lessons in running a Kingdom!" Beside him was this stack of paper which he grabbed one of them and held it up. "Listening to him and his stories made me inspired, so I wrote some more!"
Sliding it across the table, Lilith gingerly grabbed the piece of paperwork. She eyed it for a moment, her eyes looking at each line with focus.
"Hm…" She hummed, her mouth forming a frown. "I see…"
"What? Is it actually good?" I asked her, peering from her shoulder.
"No…Can't read it." She held the piece of paper towards me. "Read it."
Phooey, Forgot Lilith can't read to an extent still. Guess I'll have to figure out what it's saying. I picked it up and gave it a quick skim through, Couldn't really waste much time as we were here to report something.
Something about Chris's writing just reminds me of those stories you read off those fanfic sites from my old life. Here it seems like a revision of the last story I read from him, where we killed the Large Owl monster. Only now…it actually does seem like he got better at writing, It's not the best but it's manageable. And he didn't add any weird romantic stuff like his last one. He seemed to focus more on how he wrote our characters and explaining things.
"Uh huh…Nice, this is Very nice. Impressive." I said out loud. "Could frame it on your dad's wall or something…"
"What's it about?" Lilith asked.
"Just a detailed story of when we saved him. Better than before."
"It's that better?!" Chris exclaimed. "King Vergis helped me with it. I didn't know Vergis was a writer, But it turns out he has some books in the library that he has made!"
"No need to brag about it, Chris." King Vergis spoke, he had a small smile. "I admire your tenacious determination to create, you should be speaking of yourself instead of me." His gaze then turned to all of us. "Now…Onto the more serious topic. I see that you and the girl have been through quite a lot."
Kale moved forward in the room, he had his hand rummaging through a pouch as he spoke. "Yes, King Vergis. Just last night, the three of us were attacked by monsters made from Necromancy. And from the last encounter we've had with Mandy, I'm certain that they are the one behind these monsters."
"Attacked? Where?" King Vergis asked.
"We stayed at the Mallory's secondary house, much to their kindness…Though I'm starting to think that's a facade." Kale then pulled out the stone I had during the attack. He probably picked it up when he was still out last night. "This…was used to find us."
"A magic Beacon." King Vergis looked at the stone. "Some of our traders here would use these when they needed to keep track on their way back." He went on to grab the stone, examining it. "Who is this from? Once a beacon is activated, it'll pulse the location of the other…"
"It pointed here in Ozoth. Not sure the exact location, but it's here. We can try to activate it again, but I can't figure out how it works." Kale said. "But I think our boy Kota has an idea of who it is."
Suddenly, it felt like the room began to stare at me with everyone suddenly looking at me.
"Is that so? Well I would've thought this whole Mandy situation would've gone on much longer…If we did find someone, then that'll give us quite a jump in progress." King Vergis said. "So who is this suspect?"
"King Vergis, I believe it is Adam Mallory. I think he's an accomplice for Mandy." I stated. "When I was inside of his home, I noticed he had the same exact rock in his room. So…I'm certain it's him."
"Hm…Korbyn, what do we know of Adam Mallory?"
Korbyn shrugged. "No illicit trading or any sort of serious business issues. He's a clean slate."
"Hmph…" King Vergis thought for a moment. "…We can't go off with just speculations. At this point we can't do much."
Shit, he's right. I don't have enough solid evidence to really make him involved in this.
"Hold on." Kale butted in. He began to rummage for another item in his pouch, A wrinkled paper revealed itself. "You might not have him on a clean slate, But he has connections to this." He patted the piece of paper onto the table.
It was a receipt from someone, particularly from the Demont Family. The same family who paid for Claire to be a slave. There was a red wax seal at the bottom of it, a lion in casing. There was also a faint Signature as well.
"Hey…Isn't that the letter I found back in Prusha?" Lilith noticed, leaning on the table to look at it. "Oh…Yeah! King Lucian said that the Demont family was the one behind them. Why'd you keep the paper?"
The older blonde hair man brushed his hair. "Well, I wanted to ask him about this. Perhaps he knew of the Demont family, maybe as acquaintances or business partners? Anyways, I wouldn't leave him out as a suspect. King Lucian wanted us to figure out who was truly behind the kidnappings."
"Ohoho, detective Kale is on the case!" Korbyn gave him a small applause. "Look at him, Doing his job!"
Wait…Doesn't Adam know the Demont Family? I remember having a conversation with him about this. This could be my other solid source!
"Actually Kale," I said. He then turned to me. "I think I've answered that question for you…"
"Hm? Wait, you just took the majority of my work." Kale gave me a quick sarcastic look. "What'd you find out?"
"Well, while being at the Mallory house, I talked more with Adam. Besides the stone, he talked of how he knew of the Demont Family and how they were acquainted through Business.."
I was slowly recalling that conversation now. And thinking about it, he did give us a little look of disappointment. Was…was that a look of disappointment at their plan failing? It's hard to say, but I think we should follow Kale's route and question him on it.
"We should question him further." I proposed. "We can visit this today and see if he's able to talk."
"Let us tag along. Me and Elena." Korbyn invited himself and her. "I wouldn't suspect Adam to fully comply."
"I agree. And if it does come to the case that he is a part of this, we'll be able to apprehend him." Elena nodded, she glanced at King Vergis. "Is this fine?"
"Of course…Though I think this is just Korbyn trying to excuse himself from Training duties."
"No…yes…But no! I'm asking because I haven't seen my good old friend for some time, it'd be nice to do some cool things with him while he's here." Korbyn laid his arm on Kale's shoulder. Kale quickly shrugged him off though, almost giving him a disgusted look.
"Get your arm off me."
Ignoring the two, Vergis answered Elena. "That is fine. But try to keep all of this Maintained, don't let this come to violence."
"Understood."
Vergis looked over at Chris. "While they continue their work on the issue we have, Let us continue your learning. You still have a lot to learn, and considering you've been writing secretly…We might need to restart the last lesson we did."
Chris gulped when he heard that, slowly sliding a piece of paper away from himself. "I-I was not…"
"Haha, No need to feel afraid. Let's just start back again, this time we will get it, yes?"
"Got it…"
Seems like Chris and Vergis are getting along quite well. It kinda also seems like Chris was actively trying to push himself, something I didn't really see in him before. King Vergis must've talked some sense into him last night.
"Alright, guess it's time we all head out to have a chat with Adam then." Kale nodded his head. "Kids, you lead us to the house. The two of you have been their already."
"Or you know, ask the two people that have lived here to take you." Korbyn shrugged. "But if you want the kids to, so be it."
"…Do you actually know where they live?" Elena looked at him with annoyance. "Because I don't."
"…I thought you would've, I take back my claim. Let's follow the kids." Korbyn bowed his head to me and Lilith.
"…Idiot." Elena scoffed, she then walked around the table and headed her way towards the door. "Me and Korbyn will gear up, we shall meet at the entrance." She quickly then grabbed Korbyn and the two left the room.
There was an awkward pause before King Vergis spoke out. "Korbyn is a strange fellow…But besides his odd behavior and tactics, I believe they do have some usages for the kingdom. Him being a King's Guard was an intentional choice of mine."
"Well…I'd have to agree." Kale nodded. "With my time traveling with him, His antics got us into a lot of trouble…But somehow managed to also get us out of it. And his swordsmanship is alright."
"Another reason why I chose him." King Vergis smiled. "He talks a lot about you, And your skills as well. I trust his judgment." He then waved his hand. "Now off, Chris will be fine with me."
We then left the room, waiting at the entrance of the castle for a bit before Elena and Korbyn finally arrived. And then it was off to see the Mallorys Once more.