Bleap
patreon
Chapter 31
🕑 Added 2025-07-11 17:44:00 +0000 UTCI woke up really early the next day, at the very break of dawn even, when the first wisps of warm morning sunlight broke through the window, inviting in the cool September air that carried with it the scent of roses and lilies from the castle's garden.
Luviagelita was softly snoring then, still asleep, clutching her cheap teddy bear that I'd painstakingly replaced myself with. So after properly covering her and washing up, I started wandering the castle's eerie halls. They were deathly quiet at this time, and the few servants paid little attention to me past a polite bow before they returned to rushing about their duties.
How could anyone live here? I wondered earnestly.
Yes, rich people had 'exotic' tastes, I knew this. Rich magi too. But... weren't the statues a bit too much? Then there were the murals, the sculptures. All with eyes that I knew followed my every movement.
"I don't think I'd ever get used to such a creepy place."
I uneasily tightened and loosened my fists, a bit too high in energy for this early in the morning. This was truly strange. I was the sort of person to sleep in till I was so hungry I hated everything about the world and got up.
Wait... bodily fluids carried magical energy. If this had something to do with that then I could definitely understand the sudden burst. After all, there was certainly an exchange of such 'fluids' late into the night.
I pushed down those thoughts as I stepped into the dining hall. It was built in one of those typical rich people styles, with a long dining table made of dark wood lined with candle holders and expensive tableware. The head chair sat directly in front of a large fireplace with a massive painting of a Throne; a great blazing wheel lined with eyes wide open.
"Creepy ass motherfu-..." I rubbed my nose with a sigh.
Jiroubou was already there, leaned far back into his chair in a way that he'd slide right off with the slightest movement, arms crossed and one eye closed. There was a white ceramic bottle lying next to him and a small cup half full of some clear liquid that I knew was definitely not water.
After telling a dark haired maid to bring me my breakfast, I took the seat right across from him.
Then, suddenly, for a reason I couldn't hope to place, the whole of last night's events flashed through my head again, in great detail. It was as if the reality of my actions done while high or something was settling in on the next morning.
She... loved me... damn.
My heart picked up, hammering against my chest as I downed a glass of water.
"So... I have a girlfriend now? Is that the right word?" I murmured to myself.
It was a strange experience to be sure. There had never really been anyone I couldn't see myself without, no one I really desperately wanted to stay with me. But, she was so cool, so nice and so incredibly hot with how she lived. There was no way to fault myself even if I wanted to.
Who in my position would have done something dissimilar?
She adored fast food while having enough wealth to buy out five star restaurants.
She liked anime and stuff, man! Even, games and simple shit like a walk in the park where she could have easily been a haughty bitch from the lifestyle her wealth afforded her.
More importantly, Luviagelita Edelfelt deeply cared for a person so starved for it that he forgot he even needed it.
I put a hand over my head.
"Man..."
But, the clarity also brought with it another realisation. There was no need to worry about standing. I could analyze spells in real-time, break them down, tamper with them, make entirely new ones by piecing together bits of their 'code' at a subatomic level. If I truly tried, ascending through the ranks of the Clock Tower would be easy... but not without backing.
And, there was only one faction willing to back me.
"I'll see about it when we get back," I nodded to myself.
"What's got you so giddy in the mornin'..." Jiroubou groaned suddenly. He stretched his arms and arched his back before wiping his face with a hand. "Did a hot lady wander into your bedroom or something?"
I gave him a subtle nod.
The Japanese youth paused for a moment, "You... don't tell me. That hot blonde-..."
Another nod.
He practically leapt onto the table, eye wide. It shook under the sudden force.
"Ya serious?! Goddamn! I only got tea with that knight guy! Unfair! Totally unfair!"
Okay, not to stereotype but, was this guy a japanese ecchi shounen protagonist or something? He definitely had the extremely eccentric looks of one, what with the eyepatch and the long white robes and the jagged black hai-... Yeah, he was definitely one.
"Ahhh, I wonder if one of the maids fancies my handsome face, preferably a younger one?"
The maid putting down my breakfast trembled in disgust and quickly excused herself with a bow. I ignored the dude and eyed my food. Four pieces of fried bacon, two sausages and three toasts. All cheap stuff. I could go for exotic foods but this was what I was honestly craving.
"Say..." I started, biting into my bacon, "You wouldn't happen to be the sole survivor of some incident that killed your family, yeah?"
Surprised flickered in his one eye as he perked up, "How'd ya know?"
I could only deadpan at that.
"Well, it's not an incident per se you see." He sheepishly scratched the back of his head, smiling awkwardly. "My old man slept around a bunch and popped out like a ton of us. But, he was a magus, and y'know how magi have only one heir right?"
True. The other children were often either backups and political chips in the best scenario, that spoke a lot to the worser of the possibilities. It was mostly because a magi's children were less people and more property up till a certain point in their life. So, most often ended up horribly neglected or worse except the heir.
It was strange. Why did these supposedly 'intelligent' people not realise how hard that could bite them in the ass?
"So yeah, the rest of the kids got jealous cause he focused on my older brother. You remind me of him..." His tone grew more and more somber. "Then, one day, they decided it was enough... they all banded up to rebel against my father and brother."
There was the 'bite in the ass' I was talking about. Magi were human too. Although, this case was a little too extreme.
"How could they do anything though? Even in numbers, they barely knew anything. My father was a magus. He slaughtered them all... but he got injured too. They managed to set fire to the temple he was in."
Sheesh... a father murdering his children was crazy work. I pursed my lips, and pushed down the shitty joke I was about to make to cope with the sudden turn of conversation. Instead, I asked a genuine question.
"Where were you?"
Jiroubou trembled at that, his gaze downcast. "I was scared so I didn't join 'em. I hid. And, I loved my older brother. He was like you even. The type to genuinely like learning this crazy stuff with proper joy. He used to look so happy... even though I always thought it wasn't worth the trouble. I wanted to save him."
"But?"
"By the time I got there. My father was dead, my brother was on his last, burned alive, along with the crest. He shoved it on me and told me to carry on. The dick..." He chuckled, wiping his one eye. "So yeah, I gotta restore this. No matter what I have to do for it. For my nii-san."
"For your Nissan?" I quipped.
He chortled. "You bastard. For my brother."
That was... some heavy ass shit to tell me over breakfast. That didn't mean I'd stop eating though. In fact, I was shamelessly downing my last sausage by the time he finished dumping his story on a total stranger.
"You sure you wanted to tell me all that?" I asked after a moment of silence.
"Heine seems to trust you."
Was trust a thing so easily given?
"'sides," He tapped a finger against his bottle. "I'm drunk as hell. This is some fine stuff they've got over here."
It came as a real surprise that the guy with something that heavy weighing on him was drunk so early in the morning.
"Yes, because drinking away your troubles is just great for your health." I swiped his drink from across the table and tossed it into the fireplace. "Sober up, so we can go about fixing that crest of yours."
"Oi!"
Maybe it was because of Luviagelita softening me, but his story worked. If I could, I wanted to help this seemingly horny idiot who liked making pedo jokes. He reminded me of one of my lost friends with that sense of humor.
He made to throw his cup at me but before he could, an overly dramatic scream broke the silence of the castle. The sort that you'd find used in a cheap D-List horror flick with underpaid grads instead of actual actors.
But, well, it didn't matter. It did its job.
Before long, all of us had gathered where the scream came from, the main lobby where the details of the will were revealed. Orlocke and Waver stood side by side and Heine covered little Rosalind's eyes, hiding her behind him.
Flueger hovered near me, and Jiroubou too. All that was missing was Luviagelita, but I could understand why she'd missed the screech after last nig-... Ehem, the Edelfelt Princess wandered into the lobby too, refined as ever, with grace befitting only royalty. She cast a shy, unsure glance my way, before once again donning that distant guarded expression nobility wore.
Now, there was only one person missing.
Hishiri Adashino.
And she wasn't really missing either... considering she was the reason for the scream that gathered all of us here.
The overseer from the Department of Policy was impaled on the sword of an angel that'd been moved to the center of the lobby in spectacularly brutal fashion. A pool of congealed blood gathered on the white marble floor under her, her jaw hung open and most glaringly, both of her eyes had been gouged out... rather clumsily at that, so the reptilian woman's face looked unrecognisable to the point it'd be impossible to recognise her if she wasn't wearing that flowery, long-sleeved kimono of hers.
I sighed... of course there were going to be casualties. This was a renowned magus we were talking about here. There was no way it was going to be a simple puzzle. I just didn't expect the first one to be the one responsible for ensuring fairness. Nothing past that, I didn't know Hishiri to any extent, her death meant fuck all to me past its consequences towards our goal.
Contrary to my expectations however, the highly talented magi gathered did not think even for a second that it was something the master of the castle could be responsible for. No, they immediately directed their hostility towards each other instead. In the blink of an eye, the cordial air from yesterday vanished fully.
I could see it in the way Flueger uneasily shifted, how Heine's hand subconsciously neared his neck, how Orlocke glared at Luviagelita and how she glared right back...
Waver lit his cigar, and pulled deeply, a hand in his coat pocket.
"It begins, huh."
Honestly, I just wanted to spend the day hanging with my girl but ah well... there was going to be plenty of time for that.
-
Hope you enjoyed.
Feel free to comment any thoughts and suggestions or whatnot. I appreciate them a lot. No, I thrive on audience interaction.
