章 28: Chapter 26: Communication is Key
Why was Chanak napping in a spotless kitchen?
Well, that was an obvious question, with an obvious answer. Judging by the stains on his knees and the fact that there was grime in his hair, the lanky, muscular man had clearly undertaken the sweeping and cleaning of the kitchen…all on his own. And was apparently so exhausted by his efforts that he'd collapsed onto the kitchen floor.
Fay walked up to him, trying to make sure he was fine. The examination she gave Chanak was a lot faster than the one she gave Baldric, most likely because she was coming to the same conclusion that I had.
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System Notification:
Chanak has collapsed after completing their assigned task.
It will take 1 Hour(s) for them to regain consciousness.
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"Fay, I think he'll be fine."
"Yes, it does seem like it. He seems exhausted, but nothing serious." She paused. "And now, Mr. Blanc, we need to have a conversation."
Something about the way she said the word "conversation" made me think it wouldn't be a fun one.
She squared up to me, and there was fire in her eyes. Many old folks and legends will talk about how the fury of a woman scorned is the most dangerous thing in the world. They'll warn you that making someone fall in love with you and then double crossing them is a mortal sin, the kind of thing that would result in a dangerous comeuppance when you least expect it. Those tales are written, most likely, by people who have never met a woman in their lives. The most dangerous thing in the world is standing between a doctor and their patient.
And in this case, Fay was clearly treating Chanak and Baldric, both of whom had walked out of bed and started doing household chores after I'd recruited them. I gulped, and hoped that Ellem was safely ensconced in her bedroom. If not…well, surely there was a village nearby where I could spend a few nights? Just…somewhere that Fay couldn't get to me.
"I promise, I don't actually know what's happening."
"Are you sure?" She clearly didn't believe me. "You wake up today morning, recruit two of my patients to work for Aastor, and now they're elbow deep in household chores. Are you sure you don't know what's happening? Because it seems awfully convenient for them to just decide to do these favors for you."
"I have…theories. That's really all. I didn't actually choose to do anything, or ask them to do anything!" I was beginning to panic a little bit. "Wouldn't you rather listen to my theories on what might be happening instead of just…flailing at me?"
I didn't mean for Business at Hand to kick in, but kick in it did. I saw the counter go up from the corner of my eye, and Fay had the same dazed look about her before she gathered herself and nodded. Crisis averted, but…I clearly needed to be more careful with my words. Business at Hand was a little bit like a genie that was always listening, and triggered as soon as they heard anything resembling a wish.
"Fine. Explain, and it had better be a good one."
Unfortunately, I didn't really have an explanation. Well, I had some possible theories, and together they could hopefully constitute an explanation of some kind. But I didn't have what one may have thought of as a fully fledged, well-thought out explanation for why two men who had nearly died less than 12 hours ago were suddenly compelled to-
Compelled to.
"I think…I think I know what kind of magic Kel does." I spoke slowly, testing each word, trying to get together the time to think it out. I didn't want to activate Self-Composed if I could help it, since the backlash from it was growing too close for comfort. So I was on my own, at least for the moment.
"Mind magic?" Fay's eyes widened, and her breathing tensed. My Intuition wasn't spectacularly high, but I didn't need it to know that this was important to her, for some reason or the other.
"Something like that, at least?" I took a quick look at my profile, trying to see if Kel's Spark type had updated. The last time I'd checked it, it had simply been ???.
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ISEKAI HERO V2.0 Beta by XXXXXX
Name: Blanc
Level: 3
Class: Butler to a Disgraced Archmage
Employer: Magus Emeritus Aastor VII
Title: Boy
Fame: "Umm, Who?"
Abilities:
As You Command (Lvl 15)
Business at Hand (Lvl 15)
Conversations at Midnight (Lvl 1)
Duty Calls (Lvl 1)
Everywhere, All At Once (Lvl 1)
Equipment:
None
Pets:
Kel, ????? Spark (Lvl 5)
Understaff:
Baldric the Buccaneer (Lvl 12)
Chanak (Lvl 7)
Ellem (Lvl 8)
Active Quests:
Daily Chores (Employer Assigned)
Completed Quests:
Day 1 Jitters (Employer Assigned)
Highway Robbery! No, Seriously! (Employer Assigned)
—————————————————————————————————————
Unfortunately, it was still completely blank. There was a new section though, Understaff. I opened it, to see roughly what I expected.
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Understaff Reporting to Blanc, Butler to A Disgraced Archmage
Baldric the Buccaneer
Lvl 12
Status: Asleep
Chanak
Lvl 7
Status: Asleep
Ellem
Lvl 8
Status: Alert
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First of all, I wasn't a huge fan of being called a Butler to a Disgraced Archmage as a matter of course. I had pride dammit, I was more than my job! Second of all, I could rest easy that Ellem was still alert and clearly not engaged in any tasks. At least Fay wouldn't bite my head off because of that.
"I'm not sure if she's doing mind magic, exactly." I swallowed nervously. "Actually, I'm not sure what she's doing. Riri is a Shadow Spark, right?"
"No, not quite." She smiled at my obvious surprise. If Riri, a creature made of pure shadow, wasn't a Shadow Spark, I wasn't a Legendary Hero. I mean, what else could he possibly be?
"Fay, please. I'm being serious.
"So am I. There's no such thing as a Shadow Spark. He's a Spark of Light." She adopted a professorial tone again. I had a funny feeling that I'd be listening to Professor Exposition's lectures a lot more in the near future, when Ellem and I had lessons with her. "Shadows are just…an absence. How could Riri possibly be a Spark of something that doesn't exist?"
"Ah, yes, of course." I nodded sagely. "Riri is a Spark of Magic, and you're a Pain of Semantics. Of course, why didn't I see it-OUCH!"
Fay had stepped over and smacked me on the head, and even though she dressed like a slender, aristocratic lady from the Victorian era, the Drakul hit like a truck. Well, okay, no, not like a truck. But she hit significantly harder than Aastor, and had managed to knock the wind out of me.
"Anyway, so Kel isn't doing mind magic, is that what you said, Blanc?" She stepped back and asked in a sweet, low voice, looking at me innocently and pretending that she hadn't just managed to make me lose my last few brain cells. "Then pray tell, what exactly is she doing?"
"I'm not sure. But I mean, it must be Kel right?"
Chirrup!
Ah, she had woken up! With excellent timing as well. I fished her out of my pocket, and held her up to Fay. She looked up at the Drakul, and promptly…jumped into the sack of grain. Well, as long as she was comfortable.
"Kel, did you, possibly, make Chanak and Baldric do chores for me?"
Chirrup!! Chirrup Chirp?
She was nodding. Well, it looked more like she was having a mini-seizure, since her floppy ears were waving up and down and completely out of sync with the motion of her neck, but she was clearly nodding to my question. So, Kel couldn't speak but it seemed like she was gaining a rudimentary understanding of language. I hazarded a look at Fay, who looked bewildered.
"Is she…answering your questions?"
"Yes. Does Riri not do that?" I sniffed. "You should try to get him to do that."
"He does but…" The Drakul looked equal parts concerned and annoyed. "You said you've only had Kel for days?"
"Yes."
At this, she just looked stumped. The black shadow that was Riri continued to curl around her arms, but the movement was becoming more jagged, more reckless. It wasn't a smooth, unbroken flow anymore.
"Blanc, it took years to get Riri to communicate with me. Years!" She looked genuinely upset, which I thought was unfair. I have a talking hedgehog, lady, and you have a talking, shapeshifting shadow. If there was a Spark lottery, I'd say you won.
"Still, it's not a big deal, right?"
"Not a big deal?" At this, Fay's anxiety seemed to turn to into bemused laughter. "Not a big deal? Blanc, there are precious few people who can communicate with their Sparks, and nobody I've known has done it in under a day."
At this, she started to pace around. "Under a day, I mean…it's unfathomable. Unfathomable. With the kind of learning that Kel has, I mean…"
I let her mutter to herself for a little bit, but when Fay showed no sign of stopping, explaining or making sense, I decided to talk to the only other entity in the room that seemed to want to engage in conversation with me.
"So, Kel, how did you make them follow orders, exactly?"
Ch-Chirup! Chirrup!
In fairness, I hadn't really expected an answer. Being limited to yes or no questions was a bit of a harsh restriction, but hey, maybe she'd learn to actually use words one of these days. Yes and No questions were already a significant improvement from the situation we'd been having, where I was just guessing at her thoughts. At least now she could give me real answers, and if I had enough time, I could likely ask her enough questions to get an explanation on any complex topic I wanted. I just…needed to ask the right questions.
"Could you…do it again?"
Chirp? Chirp Chirp?
Kel just seemed extremely confused, which was a shame. I'd been hoping that she could somehow try to get Ellem to the Kitchen, or maybe calm Fay down, or even just bring Aastor over. However, it seemed like she couldn't actually mind control people, or not on command. Shame that. It would have made Aastor's mission a lot easier.
Hah! There was something wildly convoluted about commanding my Pet to command others to follow through on things that Aastor had commanded me to do. It was turtles all the way down.
Fay, meanwhile, continued to pace back and forth across the Kitchen. She was mumbling to herself, and drawing in the air. Typical deranged scholar behavior, really, the kind of intelligence induced mental breakdown that happened when an old and experienced mage saw something that broke their worldview apart.
Well, it couldn't hurt to try and use magic again. After all, Kel had woken up, and seemed more or less ready to go. It was, of course, possible that Kel only needed to sleep while she was actively giving orders to people. Or perhaps she really had just been tuckered out. But still, now that she was up and ready to go, there was no harm in testing out her abilities again. And the slowly unraveling Drakul would make for an excellent target.
I felt the taut, imaginary string that connected Kel to the back of my head. In my mind, I was visualizing it as a thin, white string that was shaking. I made it larger, and thicker, sturdier. And then, through it, I visualized pushing images of a calm, rational Fay who was sitting down and engaging in conversation instead of nervously pacing back and forth. I felt the images dissipate as they went across the wire, and I saw Kel vibrating in the middle of the sack as little flecks of wheat started to fly off her body. She was concentrating extremely hard, poor thing!
And just as I thought I felt something-
Riri flew off Fay's arm, an arc of jagged black lightning that was screaming through the air, heading directly for Kel. In an instant, the sack of grain exploded and wheat went flying through the air, dusting the air in a fine mist, and preventing me from seeing anything. My ears, however, were filled with a pained noise.
Chirrup!! CHIRRRUP!!!! CHIRRUP!!!
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