Viltz changed direction again and as he drove while Magna beside him kept frowning.
"You wonder why I lied to the old man earlier right?"
Magna just looked at him and said nothing, tacitly agreeing.
"You see kid, what do you think would have happened if I told the villagers that their children had been abused by a baron? Do you think they would continue to treat those children the same after learning the truth? Or would they start to think of them as the disgrace of their families?
The tainted, the impure. That's what they would call them in their subconscious and they would slowly distance themselves from those children, not to mention that this is a big scandal that if it gets out could cause some problems to some noble families who would not hesitate to use extreme violence to solve those problems.
But that's just a side thing, the main thing is that I benefit from the driades taking the blame for the disappearance of 20 children from the kingdom.
This is the first thing I will show you, if you see an opportunity to benefit from something, take it without hesitation.
Now a quick question, what do you think will happen if the monarch of Povis finds out that the driades are going around kidnapping his youngest villagers?"
"He'll be furious?"
"Exactly! But he won't do anything about it, there have already been several monarchs who have tried to conquer the forest of Brokilon but they always fail."
"Then why do you do it?"
"That's easy, if one or two kingdoms feel dissatisfied for a while with Brokilon nothing might happen but what if there was a hand in the shadows manipulating certain events to make it look like they were done by the Brokilon driades? What if four, five or even six kingdoms were dissatisfied enough with Brokilon to decide to make a joint siege to put an end to the forest once and for all?"
"That's your plan? Blame the driades for the kidnapping and then stir the waters enough for the affected kingdoms to unite to lay siege to the forest?"
"That's right, I need something from the forest and their queen is too stubborn for her own good, it's better to take her out directly using the hands of others rather than dirtying my own. Besides, I'm not powerful enough to take on all the driades in the forest.
And there goes my second and third lesson of the day boy, if you can use others to kill your enemies, just do it and if they can't finish the job, just finish the job yourself, and always measure your own strength and don't get carried away thinking you are invincible.
Well, enough wisdom for today, my mind feels tired of giving you so much enlightenment."
Closing his eyes, Viltz seemingly drifted off to sleep as Magna panicked at the sight of the carriage swerving from its original direction.
After a time of taunting the boy, they finally arrived at the new village where Viltz had to repeat the same performance as with the previous village before teleporting back with Rita and picking up the new group of children.
A couple more trips later, Viltz finally finished the job and met up with Rita.
"So, when do you plan to visit me?"
"How about tonight?"
"Fine."
Viltz said goodbye to Rita before opening a portal back to Stigga's castle, where the first thing Magna saw was a giant blue vortex form in the sky before spitting out three ships and disappearing without a trace.
Magna followed the ships with her eyes and watched as they fell over the lake, shattering as they fell from such a height.
"You'll get used to it don't worry."
Leading the boy inside the castle, Viltz found a girl sitting on a huge pot while a small wolf nibbled on a bone.
Lena turned to see Viltz and shot him an angry glare as she slams into the pot she was sitting on.
"You're late! I'm starving! Sasrir is starving! You are irresponsible!"
The girl pointed her finger at him and accused him in a cute way that only made him laugh.
"Oops? I forgot about you, I thought I left you enough food for these days but since you're always such a glutton..."
"Is she your daughter?"
"No! She's my little sister."
Magna looked at him strangely but as she promised not to ask about these subjects she decided to remain silent.
"Lena, this is Magna, my apprentice."
"Magna, this is Lena, my little sister."
"And this little guy here is Sasrir, Lena's pet."
Lena stood over the pot to match Magna's height and puffed out her chest proudly before holding out her hand to greet him.
"Just so you know I repeat the meal first, got it?"
Magna rubbed his cheek awkwardly before shaking his hand.
"Okay, you guys stay here and do kid stuff, I'll go check things out."
Opening a portal, Viltz teleported to the lakeside, repeated the exact same precess as always, gathered the corpses, looted everything of value from the boats and then burned them before reanimating all the corpses and ordering them to enter through the portal that took them to the corpse cryogenization chamber.
Finishing with the job, he prepared dinner and called the two children to eat before assigning Magna a room to live in.
The next morning, Viltz prepared breakfast and after finishing, he looked at magna and said, "Get ready, you're coming with me somewhere today."
"Okay."
Magna said nothing more, finished her breakfast and changed clothes, putting on more comfortable clothes for combat and strapping a dagger to her waist.
Viltz opened a portal and teleported along with Magna and Storm to the outskirts of Vizima.
"Where are we?"
"In Vizima, the capital of Temeria, but we didn't come here to visit the place, we have somewhere else to go."
Viltz mounted Storm and helped Magna mount up behind before leading the horse in a westerly direction.
A couple of hours later, Viltz opened a portal and ordered Storm through it before closing it.
"A graveyard?"
"That's right, there's something here that interests me."
Viltz headed for a chapel on the other side of the cemetery.
At the entrance to the chapel were two stone statues of angels flanking the door.
"Lesson of the day, never overlook details, something that may seem normal can result in life threatening danger."
As he spoke, Viltz looked directly at the wings of the statues and carefully avoided looking them in the eyes, never taking his eyes off them at any time.
After a couple of seconds of silence, Viltz out of nowhere opened a portal just below the two statues that swallowed them whole.
Magna watched Viltz's actions with confusion on her face, not knowing what she was doing.
Viltz looked at the confused boy and explained, "Those things are not just normal statues, they are known as Weeping Angels, they are a race from another dimension with a special ability that makes them turn to stone if they are observed, they call it quantum lock.
In this state they can't move but at the same time they become indestructible, if you have one right in front of you, it would be enough for you to blink just once for their quantum lock to deactivate and get close enough to break your neck."
Magna rubbed her neck and swallowed saliva, she clearly remembered blinking more than once since they approached the chapel.
"Sometimes an enemy can prove invincible to you but when you know them well enough, what their strengths and weaknesses are, dealing with them becomes as easy as snatching candy from a child."
"What are their weak points then?"
"They are two, the first is that if your opponent doesn't break eye contact with them, their ability works against them and turns them into mere immobile objects, and their second weakness, best if you see it for yourself."
Viltz opened a portal and they both appeared in front of two cells separated by a wall.
Viltz snapped his fingers and suddenly six mirrors appeared from all corners of the angels and locked them inside, forming two cubes.
Two horrible screams were heard and inside the cubes, the pair of angels began to petrify with nothing they could do about it.
"If they themselves or a being of their own race looks directly at them, they will turn to stone permanently.
That's why to confront them, it's best to use a mirror to make them look at themselves and become petrified."
Viltz snapped his fingers and the cubes opened, revealing the pair of statues.
Now they no longer had the same saintly appearance as before, instead they now grew claws and fangs and their expressions were sinister.
Viltz avoided touching them directly, instead casting a spell that reduced them to toy size and using magic, levitated them before stuffing them into two boxes that had mirrors inside.
Closing the boxes, Viltz filled them with seals and chains before opening a portal to his lab, where he left them in a safe.
"You seem cautious enough, are they strong enough to threaten you?"
"Ha! Strong? Those things have ridiculous abilities! As if their quantum blocking wasn't troublesome enough, these guys have an even more troublesome ability with which they can send you to a random point in the past with a single touch, in fact that's the way they use to feed, they send people to the past to consume a special kind of energy produced by altering the victim's destiny, basically they feed on your future potential eliminated thanks to sending you to the past.
I don't want to become food for those things."
"I understand..."
Viltz dismissed Magna and started to think about what else he should do.
After a while of thinking, he left the castle, mounted Storm and opened a portal to the outskirts of Vizima, where he took a specific path again.
"Sigh, I wish I could just snap my fingers and appear wherever I want..."