ALL NOVEL Chapter 28.2 – WHO Did You Say You Were?!
The room settled into a heavy silence after the alchemist—no, the Scholar With Three Brains—finished his story. The two of us returned to what we were doing, with me just shifting in my chair. I had come here looking for answers about my lifespan, and so far I had only learned about other stuff.
Important stuff, but still stuff unrelated. For example, that lover of his. I think I know her…
“Hey, boy,” before my mind could wander any further, he turned to me. His gaze met mine as his eyes spun into symbols, and he spoke again. “...7th December, Year 1807 of the Celestial Aetherion Calendar,” he stared at me with an eerie calm. “That is when your body will give up.”
I blinked, my heart skipping a beat. 7th December? Year 1807. Today was February 6th of the same year. That gave me… 10 months. 10 months until I’d collapse.
That was the date of my death.
I heaved a sigh. I was glad that it wasn’t tomorrow or next month of something so close. Some might argue a year wasn’t much anyway, but it would be manageable. Knowing the exact date felt like someone just handed me a ticking clock, but it was a good thing that it was after September. Classes at Waybound would start then, and increasing my lifespan would be easier if I was at the academy, this was what I’d been hoping for.
From the game, I knew a person in the academy who would be able to fix my problem in no time. I nodded slowly, feeling relieved. “Thank you for that. I was shitting bricks wondering when the date was.” I smiled and then, I hesitated. There was another thing that I needed to know. “And… what about my fate?”
The scholar chuckled softly, his eyes twinkling as if I’d just made a joke. I looked at him dryly. “Your fate?” He leaned forward. “Now, that… that is a very interesting question.”
I watched him with a frown, waiting for a proper answer. Instead of replying, he threw his head back and burst into laughter. The sound echoed through the tiny hut, filling it with its irritating sound.
“Seriously?” I pressed, somewhat impatient. “What about my fate?”
He laughed harder, so much that his shoulders shook. “That, my friend, is a secret.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “You can’t be serious…”
His grin widened as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms behind his head. “Oh, I’m very serious. If you want the truth, I have an offer. The same one. Hunt the Mistwraith Titan for me. Bring me its core, and I’ll spill all the juicy details,” he said with a sly smile.
I stared at him, unamused. “Not happening.” I wasn’t suicidal.
“Then no fate for you, boy,” he said, shrugging. “Take it or leave it.”
“Never mind, man,” I sighed and grumbled, pushing myself up from the rickety chair. “Looks like it’s morning now anyway. I should take my leave.” I glanced out the window, the light filtering through the mist outside, casting pale beams across the room.
The scholar looked at me and grinned. “Yeah, the sun’s up.”
I stood there for a moment, hesitating. There was something… I wanted to tell him. Something important. Something related to that lover of his.
In truth, it wasn’t just the scholar I knew from the game. I knew his girlfriend too. She wasn’t dead. Not exactly. Her human body had died, yes, but she had been resurrected… that was why her fated death was at a later date.
She had become a demon… and was now a part of the Demon King’s army. If I had to be more specific, she was one of the Four Demonic Generals.
…Should I tell him?
I maintained a composed expression, but I wanted to chew on my lips right now. I weighed the decision in my mind for a good few seconds. It was a tough call.
If I told him, it might break him even further. The man had been through enough, and this news could push him into deeper madness. But if I didn’t tell him, I’d be hiding something that could give him some form of closure. Even if that closure came in a twisted, monstrous form.
“Hey, uh…” I called as he turned to me.
In the end, I decided it wasn’t worth it. The risk was too great.
“...Thank you,” I said finally, offering a small nod. “I really appreciate the aid and-”
“Yeah, yeah, shut up for a moment, I am almost done here,” he cut me off as I closed my mouth. I watched in silence as he poured the potion from the cauldron into a small vial. It was an odd, ghastly liquid that looked like vomit. “There, done.”
“What potion is that, anyway?” I couldn’t help but ask. He’d been making it since I entered the hut, after all.
“Bane of the Wraith,” he said as he looked up at me. “It’d create a temporary bubble of safety around the drinker against the aggressive creatures that roam the mist. It can weaken or dissolve ethereal beings such as wraiths, ghosts, or spirits. It’s specifically useful in this goddamn place. Want it?” He reached out the vial to me.
I had a feeling that he wouldn’t have offered me it if I hadn’t asked. What a punk.
I accepted it and quickly turned toward the door in case he asked for payment. “Then I’ll see you some other time.”
The scholar raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Oh, you’re planning to visit me again?”
That made me pause. I smirked, glancing over my shoulder. “I will,” I said as I pocketed the vial, looking at the man who I had decided would be part of my Heavenly Demon Divine Cult in the near future. “I certainly will.”
With that, I stepped out into the mist, feeling the cold air wrapping around me like a shroud as I left the hut behind. Now, I just had to find my knights.
****
The door of the hut creaked softly as the scholar sat behind his cauldron, watching the figure of Iskandaar disappear into the swirling mist. “He just hid something from me…” the scholar wondered what that was about as the forest swallowed his visage, the dense fog curling around his form like eldritch tendrils.
For a moment, the scholar simply stood there, his expression unreadable, the remnants of his smile fading as silence overtook the hut.
As Iskandaar vanished completely into the fog, two lines of text hovered above the spot where he had stood. They lingered in the air, the words only visible to the man who had seen the lifespan of every being he had ever encountered.
- [7th December, Year 1807 of the Celestial Aetherion Calendar.]
He narrowed his eyes, looking at the number he had told the young man. The date was clear and unchangeable… What was he planning to do, even if he knew that? But that wasn't what had unsettled him.
He wasn’t bothered by the fact that the young man looked relieved that he only had 10 months left to live. No, there was something else.
His gaze shifted to the second line of text, the one he had deliberately kept hidden from Iskandaar.
- [Unable to See Fateful Death.]
That message, what was up with that? He had never seen such a thing before. Well, never, except for one other time.
The scholar had peered into the lives of countless men and women, kings and commoners alike, and he had always seen their deaths, fated or physical. It was a constant. A law of the universe, something unbreakable.
For the second time, he’d seen the unimaginable.
A chill of unknown origin ran down the scholar’s spine for the first time in decades. His hands trembled ever so slightly as he grinned. The only other time he had seen those same words—unable to see the fateful death—was that one time years ago.
When he had come face to face with one of the Seven Arcane Kings of the world.
The owners of primordial magic, earned from the Arcane Crowns, beings so powerful that even fate itself seemed hesitant to lay its hand upon them.
He walked out and gripped the doorframe, chuckling to himself. The memory of that encounter came rushing back, filling his mind with long-buried feelings of awe. Intelligence could only take him so far before a true powerhouse.
A powerhouse.
This young man was not that.
Who the hell was he then, with such little strength?
He felt a mixture of dread and excitement stir within himself. His thoughts about what the future might hold swirled like the mist that enveloped the forest.
Then again, it made sense. He was a Romani. That name explained everything.
“Well, well…” he muttered to himself as he stepped back inside his hut. “Looks like I’ve stumbled upon something far more interesting than I thought.”
He returned to the cauldron, the potion still bubbling faintly as he absently stirred it. His mind, however, was far from his alchemical work. It was on the boy who had just left, and the dark mysteries that clung to him like shadows.
He wondered when they’d meet again.
