"So… thoughts?" Alfred, the head of the magical investigation on the city, asked his assistant, Lara.
"He didn't lie, at least I don’t think so…" Lara answered.
"You think so?" Alfred asked her.
"Let me say that the results from [Appraisal] and [Field of Truth] were weird. First, he didn't tell you his whole name, but when I [Appraised] him, it was there, clear as day. Though, I feel his parents were a little entitled" She said with a shrug.
"Oh? You think I need to create a file just for him?" Alfred said, already pulling the paper and magical pencil needed to create information files for criminals.
"While I doubt he is any kind of criminal, I do recommend you make a file for him, I'm sure it'll make the headache when the higher-ups begin asking questions lower" She said.
"Very well. What's his full name?" He asked.
"Denaru Theris… Nahala" Lara said after a small pause, which caused Alfred to look her in the eyes with a raised eyebrow. "I said I feel his parents were entitled"
"...Right…I sure don't want to be him when those guys find out he's flaunting that name around. Tho, to his credit, he didn't really say it out loud" Alfred commented. "Next, age and level"
"That's when it starts to get weird" She said, causing Alfred to ask her to explain. "His age marked 0 and his level was 7, almost leveling up but the mana burn won't let him"
"He's 0 years old? Are you joking?" Alfred angrily said, after all he was creating an information file of someone that was clearly not an infant.
"I swear I'm not joking. That's why I said the results were weird. [Field of Truth] as well, sometimes it felt as if the spell wasn't working correctly and I had to recast it multiple times during the questioning" She said.
"...Do you think he had a disguise ski-" He was saying but was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Enter" He said.
The door opened revealing one of the secretaries that usually deals with sending and receiving reports and orders to and from the command office in charge of all the cities in the region.
"Sir, an order came from captain Jason of the 37th battalion" the secretary told him as she delivered a small package of papers.
Alfred accepted the package and began skimming over the contents and sighed.
"Lock the city" He said after understanding what was in the orders he received.
It took me some hours to manage to walk around without the need to stop to catch my breath. I went to the bathroom without really thinking about it, as it was basically the norm for me when I got out of bed to go to the bathroom.
When I walked in, the bathroom was everything but usable, I even had to double check to see if I didn't accidentally entered a room in construction, but no, the missing portion of the walls, the lack of a toilet, the pipes all around the ground told me enough to realize what Jana meant by "took apart the bathroom". She meant that literally.
"Hum. Jana, where should I take a shower?" I asked her.
"Oh yeah, we're out of a shower. I've been bathing in the room next-door, that I also rented" She answered me from the kitchen.
"... Did you rent the other room before or after you examined the plumbing?" I asked, wanting confirmation about one thing.
"It was after, why?" She asked in return.
I placed my palm on my head in a literal facepalm.
"Nothing, just wanted to know" I answered her as I got out of the waiting to happen property damage lawsuit.
As I moved slowly to the front door, Jana came to me and handed me a metallic card with the number 7 on it and told me it was the key to the other room. I left and saw a small corridor with a few doors, each being another room in this inn. Looking back I saw the room we were in had the number 6 written on the door.
I nodded to myself as I memorized the room we were in, as the last thing I want is to get lost without remembering where my room actually is.
Moving to the room with the number 7 on it, I tried to look on the door, trying to find where I should put the card, but the only things on the doors were the handle and a small square metal beneath it. Without much thought I placed the card against the metal square and a few lines of light suddenly appeared on the card and on the metal square, before I heard a clicking sound, meaning the door unlocked. I pushed the handle and the door opened without any problem, revealing an identical room as the one we’re staying in.
I went to the bathroom and looked around. It was a normal bathroom, a little too much in the medieval style for my taste, but it was what I had, though I was surprised when I saw a mirror on top of the sink. Seeing myself in the mirror revealed how much damage I had suffered as I could hardly be considered a humanoid black cat, saved by a few patched of black fur here and there I could easily call myself an humanoid sphynx cat and even my skin was showing lines of cracks that would change color when I viewed it from another angle.
[The cracks visible on your skin are pieces of your body that have reached the Rozemyne’s limit and are in the process of exploding, but due to the nature of the organic tissue as well as how they are connected to living tissue it won’t result in an immediate explosion but a long burn that will erode the damage body parts until there are none left]
“Huh, but why did I need to change into a cat body instead of keeping on my real one?” I asked.
[Dragon tissues are made of both magicules and organic matter, the reaction of this kind of tissue reaching the Rozemyne’s limit are both immediate and more powerful than other species. In your original form, the damage was way to extensive for you to keep living, but when changing to your current form the concentration of full organic tissues on your body made possible for you to survive]
“....” I stared blankly at my reflection, then I turned to the shower and opened it. After confirming there was a towel in the bathroom, I began taking a long cold shower.
I only left the shower after almost an hour had passed, and after returning back to the room we were staying in, Jana offered me clothes and suggested we go visit some places around the town as I barely saw anything in the short stay before the dungeon incident.
The walk around town was slow, even slower when you considered I needed to stop walking after just a few minutes to regain my breath before continuing. I felt horrible as I couldn’t just walk normally, but [Automata, God of Axioms] confirmed my condition wasn’t getting worse and that I would be walking normally in around 5 days. During the walk, we passed where the entrance to the dungeon was, but the area was closed off for repairs. I wondered why it would take such a long time to reconstruct the walls if you could just use magic to raise the stone from the floor itself, but Jana answered it before my skill.
“If they just used earth magic to raise a wall, it would create a pocket of nothing below the walls and it would weaken the overall structure, so they need to bring stone from a mining site to properly build a wall. And I heard around they were recreating the “defensive wards” on the walls, whatever those are” She explained.
I guess it made sense as the matter needed to come from somewhere as you can’t just create matter out of thin air.
[Negative. With the proper knowledge it is possible to create what is known as “Temporary Matter” using molecular structures made out of magicules. The reason it has “temporary” in its name is because due to the nature of magicule, it will start to decay after some time has passed, returning to its natural form]
…Ok, I guess you can create matter out of thin air afterall, but you need real matter to make any permanent changes to the environment. And the defensive wards Jana mentioned must be to avoid such incidents happening in the future.
We kept walking and eventually we arrived on a large street that had one end connected to one of the four entrances the city has. Jana said that the direction leading to the city’s entrance didn’t have anything interesting, so we began walking to the middle of the city.
Eventually we came into view of a large structure that I would call a soccer stadium, or a colosseum if I wanted to name it after the roman building. Jana said that Celeber told her this is where she and her team would be playing Manaball when the academy she studied in made the proper arrangements to the “Manaball Student League”. I had no idea of what that was, but I could deduce if I compared it to the things I saw in the movies where a lot of schools come together to organize this massive event of a sport. We didn’t get closer to it as it was only open to the public during some kind of event.
Next on our stop was the academy Celeber studied, and of course by stop I meant we just saw it from the street as the fence and gate were enchanted with a barrier that blocked anyone from trying to enter, at least without authorization as we saw some young people walking inside the gate without hitting the barrier. The size of the whole thing was absurd, at least for my perception of schools and universities, the Manaball stadium was big? The academy was even bigger. It’s so big that when I asked about the size of it, [Automata, God of Axioms] just gave me a map of the city, and the city itself was like a small piece on the side of the academy.
“Wow, I wouldn’t be surprised if whoever built this place was compensating for something. This thing is ginormous” I said out loud without really thinking.
“Hey!” A male voice shouted in my direction from behind me, causing me and Jana to turn.
A human man with the same clothes the people I saw entering the academy approached us angrily.
“Did you really just make fun out of the greatest magical academy in this whole kingdom?” He angrily asked.
Oh boy, here we go. I muttered in my mind.
“No? I was just commenting on how big the academy is” I said to him.
“Don’t think I didn’t hear you, you… you… what the Infernum are you?” He said after eying me up and down.
“Look, I wasn’t trying to be offensive, if it sounded offensive to you I’m sorry” I said, trying to deescalate the situation.
He snorted at my words, apparently I wouldn’t get this guy off me this easily.
“You think I’ll let off the hook only because you apologized?” She said.
“Yes?” I immediately answered.
“You’re Godsdamm wrong” He said as he pulled a wooden wand out of his pocket.
“Hey, he said sorry already, could you please let us go?” Jana tried to intervene, but the guy just shoved her aside.
“You need to learn some manners, you hairless rat” He insulted me as the tip of his wand began to glow.
