"This way, future young master."

I sneakily rolled my eyes at the braided maid's words and told her, "Yes, I know. This is not my first time." While I might have grumbled, I still followed after her before adding, "Also, I asked you already, but please stop calling me that."

"What could future young master be referring to?"

"... Do you really intend to keep going? Is this some kind of passive-aggressive power play?"

"Please forgive me, but this lowly servant still cannot understand what future young master is talking about."

It was at this point I could no longer hold my exasperation at bay and I let out a groan that made my throat sound like it was made of sandpaper.

"Fine, do whatever you want."

My words, which were not an admission of defeat, by the way, made the chambermaid visibly brighten and she told me, "I shall endeavor to do so."

I decided to leave it at that, and for a while, we silently walked through the corridors of the mansion. To be honest, I was feeling a little tired at the moment.

It might sound obvious, but even if you love spending time with your significant other, devoting your full attention to them for an extended period of time can be a little exhausting. Considering I followed that up with a family dinner with my self-proclaimed in-laws and then a business discussion with Abram, it was no wonder I was feeling a little puckered out.

However, there was one more item on the table for today's agenda, and I was heading right towards it, which only added to my enervation. Needless to say, I blame all of the above for the fact that I was caught completely flat-footed by Melinda's next words.

"Does future young master's sister enjoy the uniform?"

"Pardon?" I blurted out in a surprised and uncomfortably high-pitched voice.

The chambermaid looked at me like I was an alien or something, and it took me several long seconds to finally realize she wasn't talking about the magical uniforms.

"Oh, you meant the maid costumes!" I exclaimed as I theatrically hit my forehead with the heel of my palm. "Yes, she liked them very much. Thanks for giving them away."

"The uniforms technically belong to the estate, so please direct your gratitude towards Lady Eleanor."

"Yes, I know, but you were the one who was using them, so it's only fair that I thank you too. Anyhow, Snowy doesn't have many chances to wear a maid uniform during the day, but she dresses up every evening when we make dinner and wash the dishes."

"Is that so?"

"Yes. I think she even customized one of them a little by adding more ruffles to the edges and to the headpiece. Oh, and now that I think about it, she only wears stockings with the other one. She even made a lacy garter for that. I never would've figured, but she is surprisingly handy with the needle."

"Shocking."

"Isn't it? You would think as the ex-heiress of an Abyssal house she would be pampered, but instead it turned out she's unexpectedly self-reliant. Though again, since her brother is an asshole, I guess it might not be that surprising after all." I paused here for a spell, then I hastily added, "I meant her blood-related brother, not me."

"Naturally."

"Anyhow, the important part is that she really likes the uniforms, she made them cuter, and she looks cute in them. That’s all that matters."

"I'm glad to hear that."

That's what she said, though she sounded quite unenthusiastic. But who knows, maybe she did mean it? Maybe there was a form of unspoken camaraderie between maids and maid-enthusiasts and she was just shy about sounding excited about it in front of a relative stranger. It wouldn't have been the strangest personality quirk I've seen. Not by a long shot.

Anyhow, while we kept noncommittally chatting about maid stuff, we quickly arrived at a certain annoying butler's study.

"Thank you for your guidance. I'll take it from here."

My words were little more than a formality, yet Melinda acknowledged them with a graceful curtsy. She held the pose for a few seconds, and I had an uncomfortable feeling that I was supposed to do or say something in response, but before I could figure out what, she straightened her back and wordlessly walked away. That was weird, but I had no time to ruminate upon its implications, as already stood at the doorstep of the lion's den. Though again, maybe calling it the dragon's den would have been more accurate. Or was it too on the nose?

Semantics aside, I took a deep breath to prepare myself and knocked on the fancy hardwood door in front of me.

"Come in, it's open," came the surprisingly neutral response from the owner of the room. I wasn't shy enough to just meekly stand in front of the door even without permission, but since I was invited in, I had even less of a reservation about throwing it wide open.

"Good evening!" I greeted the visibly startled old man sitting at the heavy desk at the other side of the room, my upbeat tone further reinforced by a shit-eating grin so wide it made my mouth hurt.

"Oh. It's you." Sebastian accentuated his dour response by pointedly setting the porcelain cup he was cleaning down onto the desk with a sharp clanking noise. "I was told you would be paying me a visit, but I didn't expect you to arrive so soon."

"What can I say? Visiting you is like pulling a tooth. The sooner it's done and over with, the better."

"You are charming as always."

"Thank you, I'm trying."

Saying so, I closed the door behind me and took a slow, meticulous look around the study.

It wasn't the first time I was here, but the thick, slightly moldy scent of history still tickled my nose with every breath. More importantly though, maybe because now I was just a teensy bit more acclimated to the magical sub-layer of the world, I couldn't help but marvel at the various, softly glowing curios lining the walls and filling the shelves. I couldn't wait to get my hands on them, but as much as I wanted to just rummage around, I was still in my girlfriend's home, so a certain amount of tact was required.

"So? Why exactly are you here?"

The bothersome butler raised the obvious question and I promptly told him, "I came over to play with your toys!" Hey, I said 'a certain amount' of tact, not a lot. Still, Sebastian looked unduly surprised by my response, so I amended, "And by that I mean I came over to study some of your artifacts. Didn't Abram tell you about it?"

The old man rewarded my slightly more forthcoming words with an odd look, and he followed it up with a tired sigh.

"No, he didn't. It appears the family head hasn't grown out of his mischievous phase. Still a child in every manner but his stature."

"Are you sure it's okay for you to say things like that about the patriarch?" I teased him a little as I walked closer to his desk, and he invariably rolled his eyes.

"Don't feign idiocy, boy. You know of my identity, so you should be well aware that if there is a person on this island who may call the esteemed head of the Dracis family the child he is, it is I."

"Got it, great-great-great-grandpa. Just checking."

He obviously found my stellar wit too much to deal with, as he let out a defeated sigh and stood up with an excessive display of weariness.

"So, you wish to 'study' my collection. I never imagined you as an admirer of antiques."

"Nah, I'm more interested in their enchantments than the items themselves," I admitted freely.

"Really? Do you perhaps fancy yourself as a fledgling artificer, boy?"

"It's a recent interest of mine, old man," I retorted back with an absolutely genuine friendly smile.

"Normally I wouldn't tolerate the idea of allowing your grubby hands to lay a single finger on my possessions, but as it was a request by the family head, I'm willing to make an exception under one circumstance."

"Which is?" I asked, ignoring the devious way the old man was angling his brows.

"It is quite simple." He slowly walked around the desk, his right elbow set in his left palm while the fingers of his other hand began to slowly and methodically stroke his beard. I had to give credit when it's due, the guy got the 'diabolical mastermind' look down pat. "I only require you to ask. Humbly."

"That's all?" I inquired a little suspiciously, but Sebastian nodded in the affirmative. Was that really the whole breadth and depth of his demands? That was... kind of adorable, actually.

"Okay then," I responded absent-mindedly before I took a deep breath and put on my most innocent face. "Sir Steward? I humbly request your permission to study the magical properties and enchantments of your prestigious collection. May I have it?"

The antiquated butler looked at me like I was a white raven riding on a black sheep for a couple of seconds before he ultimately let out a supremely baffled 'huh'.

"I am not going to lie, boy; I thought your pride wouldn't allow you to agree to my request so easily."

"Oh please. Why would I have a problem with something like this? They are just words, nothing more. Kind of like your idle death threats."

Sebastian's eyes immediately narrowed into annoyed slits and he vehemently started, "I assure you, my boy; my threats are anything but 'idle'."

"And if you can honestly believe that, I bet you can also believe that my previous words were sincere." The skunk-striped butler let out a groan that sounded like it came from the bottom of his soul (or at the very least his pancreas), which I naturally disregarded, and instead I asked, "So? Can I start?"

Sebastian gave me a look that said that he could drown me in a spoonful of vinegar (in other words, slightly more agreeable than usual) and stated, "Whatever piques your interest. But be warned; I'll be watching you."

"Naturally," I responded before I carefully swept the whole room with my eyes, looking for my first object of interest.

There were certainly quite a number of attention-grabbing items on display, but none more prominent than the spear in the corner. In fact, it was practically impossible to miss, as the bloody thing was glowing as bright as a neon sign. I even found myself subconsciously filtering out its light so I could see the other enchantments, and while it was tempting to go for it right away, I was afraid picking up the dragon-slaying lance first in the dragon's lair might lead to a misunderstanding.

As such, my first 'victim' was the creepy Japanese doll sitting on the shelf by the doorway.

"I'll start with this," I told my observer while lightly shaking the doll, which earned me a curiously raised brow.

"An odd choice," Sebastian mused under his breath, but I simply ignored his comment and used my phantom limb to peek inside the enchantment on the creepy little thing, and it didn't take me long to furrow my brows.

"Hey, old man?"

"Have I told you that I disapprove of your disrespectful conduct?"

"Not today, but that'

s beside the point," I dismissed him while shaking the doll again. "Did you know that this thing is cursed?"

"Cursed," he repeated after me, his voice more than a little baffled. "How so?"

"Obviously," I retorted, but since he didn't seem to appreciate it, I cleared my throat and clarified, "I mean, you could tell just by looking at it. It is a creepy doll straight out of a cheap horror story. Furthermore, if you put it under the right circumstances, which is, if I 'read' this right, a high school classroom after midnight, it will cause people in a large radius to become paranoid and hallucinate all kinds of nasty things and then try to murder each other while thinking that the others are monsters or something." We both fell silent after my explanation, but as I looked at it one more time, I couldn't help but let the bubbling indignation trapped in my belly out by loudly asking, "By the way, just who in their right mind would even make something like this?! And on a related note, why would you have it?!"

"For the record, regardless of the nature of the enchantment, it is still a unique, one-of-a-kind item," Sebastian stated a tad defensively.

"I hope so!" I exclaimed while indignantly shaking the thing in my hand. Again. "Having just one creepy doll from a cheap Japanese horror story is bad enough; I don't want to live in a world where there are more of them!" It took several deep breaths to regain some of my cool, after which I promptly asked, "I hope you don't mind if I'd take apart the enchantment on this thing."

"I absolutely would!" Sebastian responded rather indignantly. "Studying my collection is one thing, but I never granted you permission to—"

"Oh come on! This thing is literally cursed!" I interrupted him while waving the object of our argument in front of his nose. "Why in the nine layers of hell would you want to keep a curse on a doll?!"

"It's a collector's item!" he riposted and tried to snatch it out of my hand, but I was just a smidgen faster and managed to evade him.

"Okay, calm down!" I stressed hard while keeping the doll away from him with one hand and holding him back with the other. "How about a compromise?"

"What kind of compromise?" the old man eyed me suspiciously, no doubt weighing his options. I really hoped one of them wasn't about whether turning me into a pile of ash on the floor was a reasonable response.

"Simple. I'm not going to destroy the enchantment; instead, I'll modify the trigger mechanism. Say, I add a few more conditions, so it would only activate under needlessly convoluted circumstances. Say, only after midnight, in a high school classroom, with a single person present, and only if said person is dressed as a clown. You can keep your stupid curse, but at the same time the activation trigger will be so unlikely it might as well not even exist. Think of it as removing the firing pin from a gun in a museum. It's for safety."

The owner of the doll kept eyeing me without even bothering to hide his suspicion.

"Are you able to make it so?"

"I'm fairly sure I can." My words apparently didn't project enough confidence, at least according to the skeptical look Sebastian was giving me, so I amended, "I mean, modifying the framework of an enchantment is somewhat more involved than tweaking just the effect, but it's doable."

The old man ruminated on the idea for a disturbingly long time, but eventually he gave me a nod, though his expression said he could not believe he was doing it.

"You are correct in your assertion that removing the trigger of a cursed item is the prudent thing to do. However, if you damage my property, I swear I will make you pay."

"There you go with the threats of violence again..." I shook my head, but the man only scoffed at my comment.

"No, my boy; but once our family lawyers drag you to civil court over property damages, you'll wish for corporal punishment."

"Scary," I stated while channeling my inner Judy before I pointed at the antique sofa by the similarly aged coffee table on our right. "May I sit down?"

"Of course." The annoying butler indicated where I should take a seat by a courteous wave of his hand, though considering the context, he was probably sarcastic. It didn't stop me from returning the gesture with a polite nod that was about as sincere as a presidential campaign speech, after which I casually plopped down onto his vintage furniture.

Now, to be perfectly honest, what I was going to do didn't require me to sit down. In fact, aside from the middle stage of the process, it didn't even require too much concentration either. I didn't lie when I said that the modification I was attempting was 'involved', but it didn't mean it was particularly complicated. How should I put it?

How about this: in essence, an enchantment can be broken down into multiple, interlocking functional parts. For example, the 'Magiformers' were designed to remove clothes from the wearer, store them, and then replace them with another, preset outfit. The first part was essential for its functionality, as it was impossible to put a full set of clothes on a person without removing the one they were already wearing. The second part was slightly less rigid, as, for example, instead of storing the clothes, it could vaporize them to make space for the new ones. As for the 'preset outfit' part, it was by far the easiest to modify, as the whole framework was designed with that option in mind.

Now, the enchantment I literally had in my hands was slightly different. Since it was a curse in the broad sense of the word, it wasn't designed with post hoc modifications in mind. It only had two main components: a detection mechanism tied to the trigger, and the 'curse', which was an ongoing perception manipulating spell. There were also some miscellaneous parts as well, such as the mana accumulation and storage elements which allowed the whole thing to work, but those were beside the point.

What wasn't, is the fact that, since the curse/enchantment wasn't meant to be changed after the fact, it was like a giant clockwork filled with interlocking gears that were already in motion, and moving any one of them would wreck the whole thing until it would collapse in on itself. In retrospect, I figured my anti-magical abilities probably worked on a similar, implody principle, but that was beside the point now.

So back to the enchantment: to modify it, first I had to isolate which of the gear-analogs belonged to which of the various parts that made it up. Funnily enough, this was the easiest part, as I could tell them apart at a single glance. I had a feeling it was supposed to be a lot harder, but I decided that it was something to think about for later.

As for the second step, it was... how should I put it...? I would like to say I had to unravel the enchantment, but I already went with the clockwork analogy, so... let's say that I had to take the gears and... so, it's like the gears are made of plasticine, but they are frozen solid, so before I could do anything with them, I had to thaw them, but before I could thaw them, I had to make them stop spinning, and once they became pliable I had to…

…

Damn. Maybe Judy was right. Maybe my analogies are horrible.

…

Or maybe it's the system that was horribly counter-intuitive and complicated. Actually, it was probably the latter. Definitely.

After I concluded that, I took a deep breath and began the process, which was… not particularly riveting. I mean, what I was doing at the moment was… hard to describe without another analogy that may or may not backfire on me, so let's just say it was simple, repetitive, and unfortunately absolutely crucial. So, I did it in silence for about a solid minute… right until the moment when I ran out of patience with the butler intensely staring at my face.

"Is there a problem?" I inquired with a single brow raised high, and Sebastian sharply shook his head in return.

"No. I was just observing what you are doing." He purposefully paused here to lean a little forward and stroke his beard before he added, "It doesn't look particularly impressive so far."

"I'm laying the groundwork as we speak," I told him a little bit indignantly, and it was his turn to raise an intrigued brow.

"Then why are you talking to me instead of focusing on your task?"

"It's not particularly hard, so I can pay attention to other things as well."

"Really?" Sebastian straightened his back again and mused, "I thought paying attention to two things at once was only something women could do."

"Nah, I think it's one of those pop-science generalizations that people just believe because it sounds nice. I personally think the individual differences dwarf the general trends."

"I see," the old man responded a little absent-mindedly before he finally sat down on the nearby canapé. "It can be hard to keep up with the shape of the ever-billowing cloud of human knowledge."

"That's a needlessly fancy way to say it, but yes, I agree. I guess it must be even harder for someone like you."

"Someone like me?" he repeated after me with a critical edge to his voice, so I proceeded to clarify my statement.

"I meant someone as old as you are. I imagine it is hard to keep up with modern minutiae, such as whether or not women are better at multitasking, when you were born before they were even allowed to vote. Or rather, before democratic votes were even a thing."

"My boy, I might be old, but I assure you that ancient Athens was before even my time," Sebastian emphasized a touch indignantly, and I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

"You know that I meant modern democracy; don't be a pedant."

My incensed host let out a soft grunt, which I could interpret in a myriad of ways, but I naturally picked the one where it meant he was ashamed of himself and his heckling ways. Hey, I didn't say I picked the most likely one, did I?

Anyhow, the silence in the room was getting heavy again, so after making sure things with the enchantment were progressing smoothly, I sharply cleared my throat and turned a very cordial smile towards my grumpy host.

"So, staying on the topic of you being an old geezer..." When I said that, he whispered something along the lines of 'Rude as always' under his breath, but I effortlessly passed over his comment and continued, "Can you tell me a story?"

"What kind of story?" he blurted out, apparently baffled by my suggestion.

"An old one?" came my clarification in the company of an innocent smile. "For example, how about you tell me about your romantic escapades? I bet you've accumulated quite a number of them over the years," I posited harmlessly before I added, "Or if that's too personal, you can always tell me about your collection here, like how it came to be and such."

My request was very much on the nose, but it naturally wasn't without reason. As a wise man has once said, asking a question from your enemy without an ulterior motive is a breath wasted. I would've only liked to add that, if you are already asking, having just one ulterior motive is an exercise in inefficiency. As such, I found it quite respectable that I managed to squeeze no less than three of them into one request.

The most obvious one was naturally how I might sneakily learn something about relationships from the old man. I mean, he should have quite a lot of experience, and even if it turned out his history with women (or men, I won't judge fire-breathing flying lizards) was an absolute royal mess… hey, a bad example is still an example! However, if he decided he didn't want to share his love history with me, by providing him a second option to talk about, he would most likely pick it before even recognizing he had other alternatives, like talking about his old pet turtle called Perry or something.

However, my request also had a third layer to it. Here's the thing: at this point, I have more or less concluded, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was a constructed, artificial world. That meant someone made it, which meant that it had to be 'finished' and 'turned on' at some point. In other words, this world had a beginning. My question was: when?

I had two hypotheses at the moment. According to the first one, the world we lived in began recently, maybe as recently as the day I first woke up, while the second hypothesis said that the world had been around for a long time and it's only the 'plot' that picked up not too long ago. In some ways, the two options were a microcosm of the whole young-Earth versus Big Bang debate, except for the first option also making a modicum of sense, but I digress.

Let's look at the options in turn: if the world was young, it would explain why everything is clean and brand new, why placeholders would be underdeveloped, and why things have been rapidly adapting to our expectations, at least on the technological front. On the other hand, it meant that all the memories of the people around me are also artificial and have been already in place the moment the 'simulation' started, or they were retro-actively created when the framework at the bottom stratum of the world decided that they needed fleshing out.

While this option sounded fairly reasonable, and it fit a number of our previous observations, such as how placeholders developed, it left a bad aftertaste taste in my mouth. I mean, if this was true, it would make Judy and Elly less than two months old, and it would make me a bloody toddlercon!

…

By the way, don't look up the definition of that term. Just don’t. The internet is the final frontier, and it's a scary, inhospitable, and oftentimes rather a squicky place.

Anyhow, let's focus on the second option, which thankfully solved the whole underage issue, but it regrettably did much worse when it came to explaining the other problems this world threw at me. In this scenario, the world itself wasn't brand new, and it had been running for some time, which would allow the ages and elaborate, independently verified memories of my friends to be true, but in exchange, it did little for resolving the questions of the brand new world or placeholder behavior.

And so, we were back in the present situation. As the oldest living person I know, followed by Brang, probing Sebastian for his early memories, however insignificant they might've seemed, could help us shed some light onto the timescale of the world and refine our current hypotheses. He was especially useful in this regard as, unlike my self-appointed Faun subordinate, the Dracis steward was likely much more involved in human affairs and history, and thus his memories might be cross-referenced with records.

Now, granted, there was no way for me to know whether those records would be 'real' or generated in real-time to fit his memories and keep the world consistent, but if I kept suspecting that every single memory, record, and element of the world might be subject to retroactive continuity, I might as well hang up the proverbial brainy specs, because then there was no way to ever gain any reliable information about anything ever. And yes, I just said 'ever' twice, because it's just that big of a deal.

As such, for the time being, I decided to shake the tree and see what falls down, because the alternative was an existential nightmare where I couldn't even be sure that there was even a tree in the first place. Speaking of which, my idiomatical woody perennial plant let out a soft grunt and seemed to come to a conclusion of some sort.

"You wish to hear a tale of romance? How peculiar." He fell silent for a few seconds, with only his left hand stroking his beard in slow, methodical motions befitting of a hard thinker, or failing that, someone with an itchy chin. "Very well. I might as well indulge your curiosity."

"You would?" I exclaimed in surprise, and Sebastian seemed to wring an uncomfortable amount of joy out of my expression as he replied with an almost grandfatherly smile that simply didn't look right on his eminently annoying mug at all.

"Certainly. For you see, my habit of collecting rare memorabilia is intrinsically linked to my last companion. Oh, but I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I?" Sebastian let out a mild chuckle that was so natural that for a moment I almost believed he didn't do it just to annoy me. In the meantime he also rested his back against the canapé and, after a wistful sigh, he began to speak in a clear, somewhat melancholic voice. "I have lived a long life, yet I only ever loved three women. Do you find that hard to believe?"

"Not at all," I answered, mostly just to keep the conversation rolling.

"Is that so?" He sounded genuinely surprised, but it didn't last long, as he immediately proceeded to continue his tale. "My first lover… she was one of my kind. She was older than me when we first met; not by much though, just about a century or so, yet she captivated me the moment I laid my eyes on her."

"I guess she must have been beautiful."

"Beauty… such a thing means little to my kind," Sebastian shook his head with an amused little smirk and continued as if he was explaining things to a child. Well, to be fair, from his perspective I was one, so there should've been no hard feelings, but it was still annoying. "We are radiant beings, not this crude flesh and bone."

It took all my willpower to stop myself to ask if he was making a thinly veiled reference, but after my recent blunder with the princess, I managed to keep the question down. It must have been just a coincidence.

"If so she chose, she could be the most gorgeous woman in a king's court, or an old crone selling apples in a market. She was a free soul, and no place or identity could hold her for long. I adored her for it, and wherever the wind took her, I followed. My courtship lasted for well over two decades."

I wanted to point out that following someone around for twenty years sounded incredibly stalker-ish, but I figured the jab wasn't worth breaking the current peaceful atmosphere, so at the end of the day I only muttered, "That's a long time."

"Indeed it was," the butler agreed with me, much to my surprise. I would've thought he would have a different outlook on time, but based on the self-deprecating chuckle he followed his words up with, I figured he was aware of how weird his situation was. "Our hearts could not connect with ease. It wasn't her fault, but mine. In my youth, I used to be brash and oftentimes quite irascible. It led to… complications."

"In your youth?" I couldn't help asking, with an added load of implications, and my host gave me a critical look in return.

"Yes. If I was as short-tempered as I was back then, you would be but a scorch mark on my floor."

"… Point taken," I relented a little reluctantly before clearing my throat and asking, "So, if you pursued her for twenty years, I imagine you were madly in love with her."

"Yes," the old man readily admitted in a clear way only old men could. "I can still remember the feeling; the constant, burning yearning in my chest, the deep, immaterial pain of separation whenever I couldn't meet her, and the sweet bliss of speaking with her again."

"Sounds intense."

"In a way you most likely couldn't even imagine."

"I think we can agree on that," I admitted absent-mindedly before pausing for a moment to tweak the enchantment a little. Once I was done, I turned back to Sebastian and stated the obvious. "So, after two decades, the two of you finally became lovers."

"Yes," he confirmed with a nod and a nostalgic look in his eyes. "We shared our lives for three centuries. We never stayed in one place for long, and we saw much of the world, from the throne room of Charlemange to the gardens of the emperors of the Song dynasty. We sailed on the boats of the Viking to the cold north and visited the Empire of Ghana in the heat of Africa. There was no land on this world our feet didn't touch."

"… Wow. I'm not going to lie, that actually sounds kind of awesome."

"We had all the time in the world… or so we have thought." Suddenly Sebastian's tone took a sharp left turn into melancholy-country, and for a moment I was tempted to just outright ask about what happened to her, but I decided I might as well not poke at some millennium-old wounds. In its stead, I inquired about another thing that was on my mind.

"Did you have any kids?"

The irritating butler's expression turned on a dime and he frowned at me as if he wasn't sure if I was serious.

"No, of course not. It is well known that we cannot have children among ourselves."

"What? Really? I didn't know that."

"Are you serious?"

Sebastian looked exceptionally skeptical, so I gave him an enormous nod to emphasize my words.

"Yes, I really didn't know. But if you cannot, you know, 'procreate', then where did you come from?"

"The mountains," he stated matter of factly, but he must have recognized the puzzled look on my face, as after a tired sigh he proceeded to explain himself. "We are born from nature itself, much like the other phantasmal beings of the land. Leviathans of the seas, behemoths of the rivers, rocs of the skies…"

"… dragons of the mountains," I finished his sentence for him, and he nodded in acknowledgment. "Wow. So, does that mean that you don't lay eggs?"

"Even if we laid them, 'I' obviously wouldn't," Sebastian scoffed at my question. I didn't mind it though, as this was brand new info, or at the very least I didn't remember reading about this anywhere. Though again, considering how surprised Sebastian was about my lack of knowledge about the subject, maybe I should ask Judy first, just in case it was already in our notes and I just skimmed over it.

Anyways, that was for later, as I already had another question on the tip of my tongue.

"So you cannot reproduce with each other, but you can with humans?"

"After taking a human form, obviously."

"Yes, obviously. If you couldn't, there would be no Dracis family."

"Correct."

"The same goes for the other… what did you call them? 'Phantasmal beings'?"

"No," Sebastian categorically denied my words. "Unlike us, the 'others' were far more territorial and less inclined to mingle in human society. Because of this, they didn't leave behind many offspring of mixed heritage, if any. Quite unlike my more infamous kin from history."

"Please don't tell me you are referring to the whole 'dragons kidnapping princesses' thing…"

"No, of course not." It wasn't particularly surprising, but my host sounded almost offended by the concept. "That was done by first- and second-generation draconians hoping to preserve the strength of their bloodline by choosing what they considered to be 'outstanding' partners. It was a reasonable assumption at the time, considering nobody had any idea about genetics and inbreeding." He paused here for a while, only to awkwardly scratch his chin and add, "I may have also engaged in the practice a few times, but only for sport. It was a phase."

"I'm not questioning that part," I cut in, completely disregarding the way he downplayed this 'phase' that, if my sources are to be believed, lasted for well over a century, and focused on the more important point. "If it's not the kidnappery, then who were you referring to when you said 'infamous'?"

"Zeus."

"… Pardon?" I responded, so surprised that I almost botched my enchantment manipulation. After making sure I didn't mess it up, I let out a relieved breath and inquired, this time a little more calmly, "Excuse me, but did you just say 'Zeus'? As in, the Greek god Zeus?"

"Among other things," Sebastian told me in an awkward fashion, as if he was talking about an embarrassing uncle. "My older kin have developed certain, somewhat unsightly habits over the centuries. Posing as the gods of the fledgling human civilizations and taking advantage of them was but one of them."

"Wait, hold on for a bloody moment!" I cut him off again. "Are you telling me that the greek gods were dragons?"

"Some of them."

"What about the other pantheons?"

"The same. I mean that literally. Unlike your ancestors, mine had access to wings and could travel around the continents. One of them could be Zeus on Monday, Donar on Thursday, and on the weekend he could be Indra."

"And all of the demigods are…?"

"First- and second-generation draconians, though it is likely even they weren't aware of their true origins. After all, in ancient times, there weren't any theologians to debate the nature and definition of gods, so as far as they were concerned, their deities and my kin were not fundamentally different."

"Wow… So, I guess if even just a fraction of those legends are true, there were hundreds… no, rather thousands of draconians all around the world."

"You are most likely correct."

I'm not going to lie, I was floored by this discussion. I expected that I would hear some supernatural tidbits about the world, interwoven into the old man's romantic endeavors, but I didn't expect that it would all go back to ancient Greece and the Greco-Roman pantheon! Thankfully I quickly recovered when I realized that the enchantment finished 'thawing', so I quickly did all the necessary modifications while I could. If truth be told, I felt like there was an easier way to do all of this, without all the extra steps, but I figured it was important to get a solid foundation via practice before I would start experimenting.

Sebastian must have realized what I was doing, as he also fell silent and merely watched me work, though he probably couldn't see anything of the actual process. Subjectively the recalibrating of the enchantment's trigger took about ten minutes, but if the time dilation effect stayed the same as before, about a minute should have passed on the outside. At last, I let out a pent-up breath and, after shaking the doll a little on principle, I handed it back to the elderly steward.

"There you go. It should be relatively safe now."

He reached out and gingerly took it from me, and after a few seconds of intense scrutiny, including actually smelling the damn creepy thing, he stated, "I can't say I can discern any changes."

"What kind of changes did you expect? I simply altered the trigger conditions, nothing else."

"If so, then how can I be certain you did anything at all?"

"It's simple," I answered with a wide grin. "Take the doll to a high school after midnight. Nothing should happen. Then put on a clown outfit, and then you should get cursed, proving that I changed the trigger. It's simple as that."

At the outset, the Dracis ancestor looked at me funny, but after I met his gaze for a few seconds he exhaled a defeated sigh and told me, "I shall take you on your word then."

Saying so, he stood up and walked over to the shelf from where I took the doll in the first place. In the meantime I stretched my back, followed by a small groan, prompting the old man to send me a curious glance.

"Do you want to take a break?"

"… Maybe?" I answered, a little uncertainly, and after a soft grunt, the owner of the room walked over to the cabinet at the back of the room.

"Do you drink tea?"

That question also threw me on a loop for a moment, but after inspecting it from every angle for some kind of trap, I tentatively nodded.

"Earl Grey, English Afternoon Blend, or Russian Caravan Tea?"

"Um… Surprise me?"

That was apparently enough for my suspiciously amenable host, as he began to methodically prepare something in a large, vintage metal kettle. In the intervening time I also stood up and began looking through the shelves for my second 'victim', so to speak.

After some consideration, I decided on the small fertility idol that caught my interest the first time I came to this study. I carefully poked its insides with the phantom limb, and after less than a second, my facial muscles cramped up in indecision over whether I should look intrigued, incredulous, or just straight-up baffled.

"… must be a fluke," I muttered under my breath as I placed the idol back down and I picked up a small, blunt knife; maybe a letter opener of some sort?

Anyhow, after a short inspection, my facial muscles got even more indecisive, so I hastily put the item back down and moved over to a nearby cabinet, where I chose a large metal brooch of some kind. It was quite eye-catching, as it was in the shape of a large fly or cicada, with gems in place of its eyes. I raised it to my eye level and went through the whole routine again, and this time all the tiny muscles in my face reached an agreement and they twisted my expression into a supremely exasperated one.

"So, Sebastian?" I called out to my host, who was in the middle of sorting out various tea leaves in waxy brown paper bags.

"Yes, my boy?" he looked at me over his shoulder with a somewhat apprehensive look in his eyes, but I completely disregarded his body language and showed the item in my hand to him.

"I was just curious, so I wanted to ask you a question."

"About that fibula?"

"It's called a 'fibula'?" I mused as I was momentarily tossed off my tracks, but I hurriedly recovered by shaking my head and telling him, "No, actually, I was curious if there is an item in your collection that isn't cursed?"