Chương 39: Apprentice

Ch 39: Apprentice Despite our best efforts to arrive at the school quickly, it was already night when our hired transport dropped us off near the school entrance. We ignored the earlier failure of the Presence Erasure spell, relying heavily on it as we Hasted ourselves near Elitha's tower, always watching our surroundings to ensure there were no more of those armored people waiting here to ambush us.

"Do you think she will let me in?" Sahirah had never entered Elitha's tower, and I gave the question some thought before reaching for the door knob.

"If you step inside and she don't teleport you out immediately, it means you have her permission," I said.

"Trust me, she already knows we're here." I opened the door without ceremony, grabbing Sahirah's hand and leading her inside. We exchanged a look of concern when we noticed the ambient mana moving toward us, but to our surprise, the mana tide passed through our bodies and simply closed the door behind us.

"Why did you bring a guest to my tower, little lamb?" Elitha's voice came from everywhere, her casual tone betraying nothing about the fact she most likely already knew the reason why I had brought Sahirah here.

"Zorik has signed Sahirah's adoption papers. She's legally the responsibility of the Krosak family now." I swallowed.

"And when their soldiers came to collect her, I killed their leader in the middle of the street." Laughter came from everywhere, echoing against the walls in a way that made the archmage seem to be standing right in front of us. Sahirah took a step closer, locking our arms tightly. This made me realize that she was probably scared the same way I had been the first time I had visited Elitha's tower.

"Let's talk somewhere else." The space around us suddenly distorted, and that disorienting feeling of being moved through space embraced us both at once. Before my eyes could even adjust to the new environment, I noticed a cold breeze. Sahirah made sense of where we were quicker than I did.

"That's the school..." she said.

"We are on top of the tower." Recognizing the library, I realized this wasn't the tower's top floor but the roof itself. And Elitha Hearthstrong was here as well, standing dangerously near the tower's edge with her back facing us. She held her bandana between her fingers, the object fluttering with the wind as her gouged out eyes remained hidden from our sight.

"How are your memories doing, little lamb?" she said.

"Was the third stage enough to fill the gaps in your knowledge?"

"Not all of them. But I probably remember enough now to at least help you create a light detection spell with enough definition to rival your lost sight." I hadn't decided yet how to bring up the subject of asking help from Elitha, but before I knew it, someone else did it for me.

"Does this mean Eric is valuable enough to you that you won't let him get arrested for murder?"

"Keeping Sahirah from being adopted should be our first priority if you can help me." Elitha turned around with a smile covering her face. Sahirah gasped, shocked at seeing Elitha's face for the first time. I couldn't help but notice that the archmage was doing this on purpose, either to confirm whether I had kept her secrets from Sahirah, or just because she decided to share it herself.

"Love is beautiful," said Elitha.

"It's a pity it's not enough to keep you alive and free. For that, you need power. Enough of it so that your enemies will think twice before using you as a stepping stone for their own interests." After everything we'd been through, I couldn't say Elitha was wrong in her reasoning. But why had she said that? Did that mean she intended to help us or not? Sahirah seemed to be thinking the same.

"Do you have enough power to keep Eric away from jail?" Elitha's gouged-out eyes met Sahirah's gaze. The archmage smiled, and answered a question with another question.

"Do you think power is something I lack?" She shifted her attention to me.

"As for you, you should learn more about the people you kill, little lamb." She finally decided to tie her bandana behind her head, fastening it with a knot at the back.

"You have killed a noble from a small family. He was someone lord Krosak recruited freshly out of the military academy. The kind of favor that ensures a young noble never meets real danger in their lives, all in exchange for a lifetime of loyalty and servitude." Before I could even consider the consequences myself, Elitha explained how screwed I actually was.

"You have broken that contract. The Krosak family had lost merely another pair of hands, but his family possibly lost their heir and a lifetime of salary. What do you think will happen now?" I offered my best guess.

"His family will take me to court and try to lock me in a cell for the rest of my life?" Elitha laughed.

"That would be the case normally," she said with a smile.

"But what do you think is going to happen when the Krosak family finds out that the two of you have become a bonded pair, and that their weapon will never reach its full potential without the human they locked in a cell?" This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Sahirah and I exchanged a look, learning only now what the hidden goal behind her adoption actually was. A weapon. The Krosak family had seen her potential and they had decided they wanted her.

Yet, a few questions remained unanswered. Could it really be that my link to Sahirah would save me from jail? But even if that was the case, then my get-out-of-jail card would come at the cost of a lifetime of servitude, wouldn't it? Sahirah and I would not be the free owners of a company that would change this world forever with a system, but just the rare species pets of a bunch of nobles... No. I couldn't accept that outcome.

"What would it take to get your help to solve this?"

"Solve this?" Elitha turned her back to us again, getting close to the roof's edge once more.

"I won't kill the Krosak family for you, if that's what you're suggesting. I also don't possess the influence to stop them. What do you expect me to do?" A cold feeling stirred inside me, yet before I could negotiate, Sahirah herself made an offer.

"A girl can't do much right now," she said.

"But if those people think I'm going to be strong enough to be considered a weapon one day, I don't mind owing you a favor if you help us. I swear I'll repay you in the future."

"Silly girl," said Elitha.

"There's nothing you can do in the future that I can't do myself in the present." So... that was it? Elitha wouldn't help us, and we would have to abandon this school and hide somewhere? I didn't like that. In fact, I hated it in my bones.

"No. You're going to help us," I said.

"I feared you the first time I entered your tower, but I know you much better now." Sahirah hit me with her elbow in an attempt to warn me about my loud tone, but I ignored her.

"You enjoy our conversations, and you actually learn a lot every time we talk, just like I learn from you." I took a deep breath and asked, "So why don't you skip all this nonsense and tell me how I can get myself out of this mess?" Suddenly a faint red aura emanated from Elitha, quickly growing in intensity until it surpassed even Sahirah's maximum output. It didn't stop there, surpassing any measure of reasonable.

"You know I could easily kill you for disrespect, don't you, little lamb?" My knees felt like they wanted to buckle. Even Sahirah was struggling with the sheer pressure. And yet, I simply smiled.

"You could kill me," I said.

"But you won't. Because even after everything they did to you, you still love learning new things, and you didn't become evil. This is why I think you are the strongest person I will ever know, and I say that regardless of how powerful you are." Moments after I uttered those words, her pressure ceased, vanishing as though it had never existed. Silence took over for a short while. And then Elitha spoke.

"The girl will live in my tower as a guest. She will clean. She will water the plants. She will read for me. And I might teach her a few tricks whenever I feel like it." Sahirah's jaw dropped, all her sharp teeth visible at once.

"The Krosak family–""They won't dare take her," said Elitha.

"And if they do..." She never completed her sentence, the silence that followed sending a chill across my whole body. With her head still facing the school even though she had no eyes to see it, Elitha added, "With the girl outside their reach, you'll be in a position to negotiate. Whatever you make out of it is your own problem." Then the world dissolved around us. Moments later, Sahirah and I found ourselves alone on the first floor of the tower, the teleportation so smooth it was hard to comprehend.

When she overcame the confusion, Sahirah simply stared at me in disbelief, the expression of someone who had just realized she had basically become the apprentice of an archmage etched on her face.

"A girl can water plants for a while." I smiled, but said nothing. Suddenly a voice sounded inside my head. It was meant for me, and for me alone to hear.

"You misunderstand something about me, little lamb. The only reason you feel I'm not evil is because you and the girl don't have a single drop of Grey royal blood running through your veins." I treated that comment as though it had been something I'd imagined, forcing myself to ignore all implications except for one. Yeah, this archmage was a time bomb that could go off at any moment.

Sahirah had stayed behind in the tower when I made my way to the school. I wasn't even bothering to use the Presence Erasure spell as I walked toward Principal Dickhead's office. Some teachers and even the staff stared at me with complex expressions on their faces as I advanced, but I ignored them and kept walking, focusing on my objective. The Krosak family's ambassador. He was someone constantly pressuring Zorik about Sahirah's whereabouts, a powerful caster that Elitha had warned me about.

When I arrived in front of Principal Dickhead's office, I knocked on the door right away.

"Haven't I told you I have an important guest and I can't talk right now?" I had no idea whom Zorik had confused me with, and I just reached for the door handle, opening the door myself. The sight that greeted me was of Zorik sitting on his chair, and the tallest Grey I'd ever seen standing across from him. He wore a long coat, adorned with three distinctive insignias on his upper arms.

"You..." Zorik stuttered when he saw me, not even knowing how to react when the person he'd been looking for so long just showed up out of nowhere. The ambassador said nothing, raising a hand toward me, and summoning a complex magic circle. Yet he didn't activate the spell.

"You have some courage to show up here after killing one of our associates."

"It was an accident. I didn't mean to kill him," I said simply.

"Where is the girl? If you tell me where she is, I might be able to keep you from spending the rest of your life in a small cell." Before replying, I checked on Zorik. He had recovered enough from the initial confusion to smile at me with the face of someone who had already won. I smiled back at him.

"Sahirah is safe inside the archmage's tower," I said, "feel free to send a team there to capture her if you dare to." Both Zorik and the ambassador exchanged a look of confusion, the principal standing from his chair to point a finger at me.

"The human is lying," he said.

"The archmage never interferes with the matters of the school, she would never get in the way of this adoption!"

"Well, if you don't believe me you can go there and check for yourself, but that's not the only thing I came here to discuss today." Neither of them spoke, just glaring at me as though I weren't right in the head. I pointed at Zorik.

"That guy tricked the Krosak family." Before either of them could interrupt me, I went on, "So let's be real and drop the adoption term. I know Zorik sold Sahirah to the Krosak family. But what he failed to mention was that we're not one asset, but a package deal." The ambassador frowned, lowering the spell he was threatening me with a bit. I kept going, "Yeah, we reached the third stage of dual cultivation and we're bound together now. And I can prove that if you want."

I raised my hand, and the magic circle of the Pain Inducing spell took shape above it. Nearly thirty runes made of pure mana hovered in the air without even using the Casting Assistant. When the ambassador saw this, he knew instantly that I wasn't lying. He shook his head, staring at Zorik with an expression fitting someone who had been scammed.

"How is that my fault? They were not bound the last time I saw them!" Zorik tried to defend himself, but the ambassador kept shaking his head in disapproval.

"Now," I said, "if the Krosak family wishes to negotiate this double adoption of Sahirah and me, tell them they have to negotiate with us directly from now on. Because if you arrest me, she will never develop to her full potential. And everything your family has already spent, the papers, the payment to Zorik, the man I killed, will have been for nothing." Of course, I didn't intend to negotiate anything at all, but for now, pretending we weren't totally against it and buying time was actually the wisest strategy.

All I needed to do was stall as much as I could and ensure this negotiation went nowhere. The ambassador released his mana and canceled his spell.

"I won't get you arrested today, human. Whether we call it an armor failure or a murder gets decided later. I'll come back soon, once I deliver the news to lord Krosak that you tricked us by binding yourself to our asset." The ambassador exchanged a few more words with Zorik, and left mid-complaint as the principal tried and failed to convince him that his part of the deal was fulfilled and that the Krosak family should pay the agreed amount to the school in full.

I watched the scene unfold with a smile, waiting until only Zorik and I were left in the room.

"By selling her, you played your last card, Zorik," I said to the principal.

"But you'd better watch yourself, because I haven't even started to pay you back yet." I left after saying those words, knowing that my freedom was still hanging by a thin thread, and that keeping Sahirah inside the tower was a temporary solution at best. Yet, I wasn't that concerned anymore as I returned to my room, a plan to get us out of this mess for good already taking shape in my mind.