In a Civilized Manner

“I might end up killing you.”

The viscount tensed visibly at his words. Edris chuckled, which only sent chills further down his spine.

“Calm down. I’m just here to ask a few questions. I do consider myself a peaceful person, after all.”

“…What do you want to know?”

“The Queen and Prince Treo’s illnesses. Who’s behind it?”

Eathe stared at him intensely, trying to dig out his intentions. But no matter how hard he looked, that calm-looking face gave nothing away.

Instead, Edris gave him a modest smile, an act thoroughly incompatible with everything he'd done so far. Eathe shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

Right as he uttered his sentence, a shadow flashed behind him, followed by a loud crash and bursting debris. The intermission caused them both to look over toward the scene.

The next second, Eathe's mouth dropped.

The hypnotist slid down against Plunge, trembling. A white-haired man, the one who was with the prophet, landed lightly across from him. In his hand was the white mask that had belonged to the former.

From the front, it appeared to be an ordinary mask, but at an angle, one could see that chunks of bleeding flesh were dangling from behind.

The white mask wasn’t a mask, but a literal face.

Edris creased his brows.

“This person was hypnotised himself. The real culprit behind all this is not here.” Ace tossed the bloody mask onto the corpse. Withdrawing his gaze, he lifted his blood-covered fingers and examined them with narrowed eyes. “Disgusting.”

Watching as the hypnotist slumped onto the ground, both Edris and Eathe shuddered, but for different reasons.

The former was simply grossed out by the sight, while the latter was horrified by the white-haired man’s brutality.

“So, viscount?” Edris smiled at the man who was sweating profusely on the floor. “The Queen and the first prince’s illnesses. Who’s behind it?”

“I really don’t know!” He cried out in a voice crack. “Even though I’m a viscount, I’m still just a lower-tier Nest member. Everyone in Nest uses dark magic, and there are people outside of Nest who also use dark magic. Like you! You probably use some form of dark magic!”

“Nest?”

From a distance away, Ace looked up.

“I never said the illnesses were caused by dark magic.” Edris raised an eyebrow in amusement.

“I heard it from rumours, all rumours! All I know is that it’s something the higherups have been planning for a long time, but nothing else. I really have no idea, I swear to Serenity.” Words poured out of his mouth like a waterfall as Eathe’s eyes constantly darted between the prophet and the white-haired man, as if a second slower would lead him down the same path as the corpse on the side. “People like us don’t have access to details for things like that, and we’re not allowed to either.”

Inconsistency tugged at his explanations, and anyone could tell that the man was lying. Edris, however, was more concerned with something else.

Blood vessels leaked to the centre of Eathe’s eyes, but the viscount seemed not to have noticed as he continued blabbering on, his voice becoming more intense by the second. Veins bulged all over his face and neck, giving the man a swollen appearance.

“Do you know who’s above me? Nest won’t let you get away with this. They’ll peel you layer by layer, feed your skin to your family!” At this point, incoherent phrases started to pour out of his mouth as the viscount twitched on the spot. “You’ll keep shrinking, keep shrinking ‘til you become nothing.”

“His symptoms are similar to the girl. Someone is trying to hypnotise him,” Ace said, taking a glimpse at Edris. “A dark magic user. It’ll be annoying if it succeeds.”

With that, he walked over to the viscount and, without another word, clutched a fistful of his hair. Lifting the man into the air, Ace was about to plunge his hand into his chest when Edris grabbed onto his wrist.

“One last question,” he said, turning to the viscount. “You said you’re a lower-tier member of Nest. So who sent you here?”

At his question, the viscount only responded with laughter, splatters of blood flying out of his mouth as he did so. Furrowing his brows in disgust, Ace dropped him back onto the ground.

“You’re done for…” The viscount choked out through his blood and laughter. “When Nest finds out… When Robin finds out…”

Before he could finish his sentence, a foreign presence filled the chamber, causing Edris and Ace to turn their heads simultaneously. A teleportation circle had appeared under the Plunge and, in the next second, devoured the entire sacred artifact right before their eyes.

More precisely, the sacred artifact, almost three times their heights, was condensed right before them. Edris didn't think it was possible, but the artifact folded onto itself, shrinking into a thin slit of paper.

A card fluttered in the air, but he didn't get a chance to look closer.

It was because even though sacred artifact had disappeared, but the teleportation circle remained.

Suddenly, Edris felt a chill up his spine. He instinctively looked towards Ace, who seemed to be sharing his thoughts.

“Things are not finished yet.”

As if responding to their words, a silhouette soon arose from the teleportation circle. A person strode across the stage, his entire body concealed under a robe and his entire face covered by a white mask—just like the fake hypnotist from earlier.

Raising an arm to the air, the figure pinched onto the card in midair, and it disappeared with his touch.

“Is it the real one this time?” Edris frowned.

He and Ace stepped backwards, keeping a careful distance between them and the robed man as the latter continued to move forward. The man walked dazedly, without acknowledging any other beings in the chamber as he stopped before the viscount.

“Mister Robin—” Eathe opened his mouth to speak, only to widen his eyes the next second as the robed man bent over and pressed his lips to his forehead.

From across the stage, Edris took in the situation with a blank face.

“ …Hm.” He scrunched his nose.

He didn't know how to react to this sight.

Everyone who used dark magic seemed enigmatic to at least some degree.

Although Edris had many questions, he forced them down his throat after seeing the viscount’s expression. It wasn’t confusion or shock but complete horror. The robed man, Robin, leaned back with a dreamy smile, lips smeared with dashes of red.

“Good night.”

Blood spurt from Eathe’s eyes, nose, and even ears. First a viscous red, then raven black, they oozed out uncontrollable, like rolling waves at midnight. The blood began to evaporate, creating a thick layer of fog around them.

Three seconds passed, but that was all it needed to leave the viscount shrivelled on the ground, his body deflated like a balloon. Edris’s eyes shook at the deformed lump of flesh that no longer resembled anything human. Only one thought was in his head:

Dangerous. That person is extremely dangerous.

Without hesitation, Edris brought his thumb to his lips and bit into it.

A dot of red emerged from his pale skin, and he pressed it onto his left ear. The blood was instantly gobbled up by the earring, creating a massive torrent of outpouring mana. The white torrent lunged towards Ace, integrating into his body at the moment of contact.

At the same time, Edris threw his arm sideways and activated the Tempest. A purple storm erupted from his palm, hovering over the Awakeneds at the edge of the chamber.

Two contrasting powers poured out of him simultaneously, painting the surroundings in a collision of white and purple. The release of both the Tempest and a large amount of mana tugged at his bodily limits, and he could feel his organs writhing into each other.

Edris glanced sideways stiffly.

“Ace.”

“I know.”

The white-haired man took off at once, sending a gust of wind behind his steps. His obsidian eyes were like two bottomless voids as they peered ahead towards Robin, who remained unstirring at his approach. Light condensed in Ace’s right hand, sculpting itself into the shape of a gladius.

The sword glowed like a torch of hope in the abyss, illuminating the entire underground chamber.

***

“How much longer until the portal’s complete?” Dolan asked.

“Patience, patience.” Mia sighed loudly. “Magnus’s working on it right now.”

Having updated the twins about most of what's relevant to the situation, Dolan was now pacing back and forth in the mental space, what Mia called the Playroom.

Magnus had returned to the physical world to gather reinforcements. Usually, he would be required to submit a Force Deployment request to the factions, but in urgent situations, exceptions were allowed.

Dolan wanted to leave the Playroom as soon as possible, as little Celio was still waiting outside. However, Mia had stopped him. Apparently, she had something to say.

“I was going to let Magnus know of it today, but since this whole situation happened, I figured I’d tell you first. It wouldn’t make much of a difference, anyway.”

Dolan raised an eyebrow, prompting her to continue.

“I don’t know if you know this yet, but a marking was found on everyone injured at the assassination. A circle, surrounded by three petals.” In response to her words, a crayon in the corner of the room floated in midair and started to scribble on one of the walls. “Have you seen this before?”

After examining the drawing, Dolan’s eyes widened.

“Yes. On Treo.”

He had seen the same marking on his brother’s body during one of the priest’s examinations. Around the size of his fist, the marking was situated on the back of his shoulders. He didn’t pay it much attention at the time. Engravings were a hobby of his brother’s, so while the marking looked peculiar, it was just one of many others.

As members of the Zacriya family, these types of bodily alterations were strictly prohibited, so the engravings have always been a secret between the two of them. This was also why Dolan hadn’t mentioned it to others.

“Since I can access people’s dreams to an extent, Magnus had asked me to look into the matter. It took a while to prepare and a couple of trials and errors, but eventually, I was able to enter one of the victim’s dreams,” the pink-haired mage explained. “Once I got into their mental space, it was much easier for me to access their memory. And guess what I found.”

Her ruby eyes emitting a glow, Mia controlled the crayon to write something else on the wall. At its last stroke, the black crayon snapped in half.

“Dolan, have you heard of Nest?”