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Chapter IV
🕑 Added 2025-03-08 19:34:46 +0000 UTCStanding under a bus stop to avoid getting my clothes wet really reminded me of my discrete lack of wealth. Maybe I could have afforded an umbrella, or even visited a charity shop if I hadn't left all I'd pried off those thugs on the table for Mama Smith to find before I left home.
Instead, here I was, at ten in the morning, getting weird stares from people on account of the threads the Fish & Chips owner had lent me. A black turtleneck sweater that was a size too big and the only clean blue pair of jeans I'd found lying under my sofa.
Hmm... The weird stares were probably because of the heavy shades on a bleak, grey morning accompanied by soft rain.
Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long. A fair lady was standing at the bottom of the steps, an umbrella held over her by the most stereotypical shady bodyguard ever, black suit and all. Her golden blonde hair was done in ringlets and swept over her shoulder, held together by a navy ribbon. She wore a blue satin dress that clung to her 'generous' body and was slit just below the waist to reveal black stockings finished off my blue heels. She had a blue (how surprising) cloak slung over the other shoulder.
Passers-by avoided her like the plague, almost afraid. I couldn't really blame them. She practically screamed royalty and her amber eyes were unsettling in the same way as Inorai, just to a much lesser degree. Nobody wanted to shoot their shot there.
But I wasn't nob-... No, the only reason I was drawn to her in the first place was because her bodyguard was holding a whiteboard with my name written on it. That and the fact that droves of mana roiled and coiled within her body, swarming to her arm, or rather a symbol etched onto it.
A closer look quickly revealed that that 'symbol' had mana of its own... and that it was loaded to the brim with all sorts of sequences or 'programs', some I recognised from my books, most I couldn't place. Manipulating my own mana to mimic them seemed a distinct possibility.
Only I had none to work with.
My instincts told me it was possible.
Taking a deep breath to hide the surge of excitement, I resolved myself and crossed the road to approach her. Her bodyguard put out a thick arm to stop me in place as soon as I stepped close.
He began to push me away, "Shoo. This isn't a place for y-."
"Wait." The young lady cut in. She narrowed her eyes then huffed, tossing her ringlets with a hand. "Let none say that the Edelfelts do not care for their lessers. Here you go, young man. Now, shoo. I have pressing matters to tend to." She pulled a ruby from somewhere and tossed it my way.
...Did she think I was a beggar?
Well... huh... that was an unexpected hit.
I did quickly pocket the ruby though. Then, I pointed to the card in her bodyguard's hand.
"That's my name."
"Ohohoho...!" She cackled like a hyena, "Of course it is! "
Bitch.
"It really is my name."
"And I am the director of the Clock Tower." She cackled louder, shooing me with a hand. A good few minutes passed before realisation finally dawned her. A bit later, and I would have thrown her bodyguard into oncoming traffic without regard for the consequences.
"Oh dear, it is you, isn't it?" She pursed her lips and cocked her head. "So I was disturbed to fetch a mere pauper? I came here from Finland, you know? I expected something grander from Lord Valualeta... not a regular patron of the local soup kitchen... not that there's anything wrong there."
...
Fuck it, I guessed.
"Well, I'm sorry." Her chest swelled with pride as I started.
"You really should be! To waste my tim-"
"I'm so sorry my whole sense of self-esteem doesn't come from others thinking I'm better. I know I am."
"Wha-"
"Clearly, that isn't the case for you. I'm sorry you're so fragile."
Her guard moved to presumably throttle me. What he didn't know was that good ol' William Hardt had an insane number of inane hobbies. A good number of them were martial arts practises. That was what tended to happen when money wasn't a problem.
I stepped aside, grabbed his oncoming hand and used his own weight against him to throw him over my shoulder onto the concrete. He gasped for air and reached for his back. Quickly, I kicked his head from the side to knock him out.
There was no pettier bitch than I, and if this world wanted to be my problem. I was going to myself its problem.
Of course, the world seemed to take my thoughts as a challenge because the next thing I knew, the lady from before had her hands wrapped around my belly.
"What the fu-"
"Mmmph!"
She suplexed me.
She actually suplexed me.
When I finally managed to get up, I barely saw the mana rushing to coat her arm before she landed a right hook straight from the depths of Satan's domains on my cheek. On all things holy, I actually spun before landing on the ground.
"I guess... I really hurt your feelings... 10/10... would do it again."
A woman that could hand my ass to me on a silver platter was the best kind of woman.
"Those eyes... hmm..." I heard her mumble to herself, "It really is him."
-
I woke up to the soft hum of an unfamiliar car engine, seated beside the Edelfelt lady. She was sipping on some champagne as her bodyguard, sat across from us, massaged his head with an ice pack.
"Oh? You're up?" She tilted her head innocently, as if she hadn't just knocked me the fuck out and thrown me in some car headed to God knew where. "Allow me to apologise. We got off on the wrong foot."
I groaned, rubbing my bruised cheek, "You think?"
With a small giggle, she put a hand over her chest, "I am Luviagelita Edelfelt. And, I suppose I see now why you would attract the attention of one of the Twelve Lords."
Luviagelita turned to her bodyguard and snapped her fingers before holding out an open hand. The burly bodyguard quickly retrieved a small black case from his coat.
"These are a gift. That is what I was told." She said, opening the case to reveal a pair of slick aviators, lined with gold and dark as the night. "Mystic Eye Killers. They will help your predicament. Even if it is a shame you have to use them. Those eyes are quite fetching. But do go on, try them. "
There was something poetic to be said about receiving a gift from someone who kidnapped me. Unfortunately, my vocabulary was quite limited on account of a piercing headache. Quietly nodding, I put them on.
In a flash, my vision was reduced to that of a normal person's. The detail with which I could see everything was gone but that wasn't important... I couldn't see mana anymore, even faintly. It was a strange sensation, strange enough that I quickly took off the glasses.
"And I was told to do this as well. Pardon the intrusion."
In a blink, she had grabbed ahold of my hand and before I could say a word. A burning sensation, like a sudden discharge of electricity, took hold of my whole body. It felt as though I'd plunged my hand into a socket, barefoot.
"I imagine you'll want to thank me now."
I wanted to punch her in the fucking face as hard as I could.
That was before a massive amount of the mana around us rushed to fill my body. It coursed through a network of nerves etched all over my body. My eyes allowed me to process and parse the occurrence in real-time.
I was taking in mana, converting it into... usable energy and then producing my own as well. My own 'stores' were swelling with each moment.
Then came the sudden feeling of being able to do anything. Like a hit of acid. I could suddenly, naturally, manipulate the energy on a subatomic level. I willed it to my arm, then to my eyes, my heart.
These... 'nerves'. They weren't a part of my body. No, they seemed metaphysical in nature. My soul then?
Perhaps the greatest realisation that came that day however was the fact I could replicate what I had seen Luviagelita do with her arm to a tee... no, even better. Because I had fully analyzed the phenomenon, I could edit it as need be.
Moreover, the 'nerves'... It felt as though, through them, I had connected to something that wasn't quite 'real'.
"Those are magic circuits," Luviagelita interrupted my thoughts. "they are what make a magus. If you have the talent or the ethic, you will learn much. If you don't, well, there are examples enough of squandered potential. Do you think you can pinpoint how many you have?"
Magic circuits... that term was vaguely familiar.
"Thirty." I replied.
"That's a lie." She crossed her arms under her breasts with an amused smirk. "Well done. A magus must be naturally cautious, and supremely doubtful of his peers. Trust no one. Being killed for what you have will be a lucky outcome if you do. I expect this will be truer than usual for you who have caught the attention of the Twelve Lords."
"Wasn't it just the one?" I murmured absently, poking and prodding at the circuits with mana. There were over a hundred... and I was still counting.
Did Luviagelita know the real number?
She cackled again, like I'd made the funniest joke, before sighing deeply and turning to look out the window at buildings passing by. My aggression at her behaviour had waned completely by now.
How could it not?
She'd just given me magic.
"Barthomeloi. Trambelio. Valualeta. Meluastea. El-Melloi. Animusphere. Brishisan. Archelot. Eulyphis. Gaiuslink. Jigmarie. Solonea." She spoke with reverence.
"The Twelve Lords are the absolute monarchs of the Clock Tower. Equal to none, superior to all. By extension, they command the Mage's Association at large, and as such, the entirety of the magical world." She looked my way with a grin. "You think they wouldn't keep tabs on each other? Spies, and saboteurs and politics galore. They have no peers in what they are willing to do either."
Sounded like I needed to keep a low profile.
But... I had already made my decision as to how I was going to live. No amount of danger would change that.
"Miss Luviagelita."
"Hm?"
I copied what she had done, and 'reinforced' myself with mana to the utmost.
"Respectfully, get off that dic-"
The car shook violently.
-
I feel the need to clarify that what you read about magecraft here is through Henry's perception and might not necessary be factual for fate, even if it is so for him. That's cause each magus in the series has his own perception of magecraft save for a few concrete concepts such as the the metaphysical 'weight' of things or the Thaumaturgical Foundations.
This is to the point where every magi has a different way of performing the same spell.
