Capítulo 44: Chapter 44 - Gifts and Dances
[Luz Leywin POV]
We were leaving City Square after that intense announcement. Me, Art, Elijah and Sylvie walking to the carriage where Reynolds and Vincent were already waiting for us. We entered it quietly.
"I can't believe it! This news was pretty intense. Anyway, do I ask the driver to go home, or do you want to make a stop somewhere else?" Rey said watching us.
"Uncle Vincent, how about we go see this scientist you mentioned earlier?" Arthur was talking and Vince seems to have remembered what he talked to us about this morning.
"Oh, I almost forgot... Could you drop us somewhere before we go to where my friend here asked?" Vince said looking towards the person driving the carriage, through a tiny window.
"Of course sir." The driver said and soon Vincent seemed to give him the address.
We watched the landscape for a while, seeing several stores and people, until something caught my attention, it seemed that we were currently passing through a street that had only things involving Artifacts and Elixirs, by the signs that were there. I noticed Elijah's gaze gleaming behind his glasses as he asked us to stop the carriage.
"I'll meet you guys later! I want to buy some things!" Elijah said quickly getting out of the carriage.
"Really? Do you have money?" Arthur asked confused.
"You guys spend too much in dungeons! I at least have the head to save!" Elijah said starting to run towards some stores, but before he entered, Sylvie seemed to get off my brother's head and to get our four-eyes.
"Did you ask her to go with him?" I asked looking at Art.
"He has to have protection, doesn't he?" He answered me and we laughed.
We soon arrived at the place designated by Vincent and left with him, the only one left in the carriage was our father, who waved and soon seemed to be taken to our house. That place seemed to be a single store, but it was quite big in length, which was very rare to see in that area of the city that was full of tall buildings (between 3 and 6 floors) glued to each other.
Me, Art and Vincent made our way to the unadorned front door. After a few firm knocks, an old man with a handlebar mustache and dressed as a butler appeared, not opening the door completely.
"Greetings. Master Gideon isn't— ah, hello Master Vincent, please come in." he greeted, motioning us inside. Judging by the stern expression the butler had a split second before realizing who the adult with us was. I'd have to guess that Gideon was the type of not welcoming a lot of guests.
As we stepped inside, a foul mixture of metal, herbs and rotting material bombarded our noses. While the exterior of the facility was hardly grandiose, the inside was even less appealing to look at. The whole place was a mess with tools scattered with no order, piles of discarded clothes and other miscellaneous items littered across the floor, and rather intriguing raw materials stacked high atop shelves. There were also microscopes and other tools from a light technologic type of world.
"This looks a lot like the last lab I had in another life.. I feel like I'm going to relate to this Gideon." I thought, with a small smile on my face.
"Himes! I told you not to let anyone— Oh, it's you, Vincent. I see you've come to bother me again." From the dim corner of a back room, a very short, hunched man made his way over.
Noticing that man well, I noticed that he had very messy hair, but not in the sense of being really messy, it was more like his own style, something like when you get a lightning bolt in the face. He gave the complete vibe of a genius inventor of those who never left the laboratory, for having a slightly dirty lab coat and goggles resting on his forehead.
"Really, it reminds a lot of your last reincarnation as a scientist, with the difference that you liked having longer bangs and at least you always wore a clean lab coat." Zalgnity commented mentally and I could only agree.
"Haha! As welcoming as ever, Gideon." Vincent shook his head, giving his acquaintance a helpless smile and handshake
"Bah! Don't even start! This past year, the Royal Families sent in over a dozen messengers asking for a way to start traversing the ocean to reach the new continent! I haven't had a chance for a decent sleep in months!" The cientist eccentric flailed his arms in disgust as he started pacing around.
"Is it really true that they found evidence of another continent, Gideon?" Vincent asked quietly, leaning closer to the inventor.
"Hoho! That, my lad, is actually a truth those snobby Royal Families are telling for once. I was the one to study the evidence! All I'll say is that the new continent has better artificers and perhaps even better mages than ours." His beady eyes disappeared as his wicked grin widened to reveal a set of yellow teeth with remnants of whatever he had eaten for his last meal.
"What makes you say that?" Vincent pushed, taking a seat on a stool besides Gideon.
Before the scientist could say anything, I ended up saying something. "It must be because there have been reports of strange artifacts attached to flying mana beasts. There was also a report of a new Dark Guild being created and making temporary camps within Dungeons, while using mana beasts as tools... If indeed these artifacts are interconnected with the other continent..."
At what I said, everyone there looked at me in shock. If we connected these two dots and the information that the inventor spoke, it created a theory that there were already invaders, and they were hiding in places where no one would ever go, deep down in Beast Gladers, but apparently, Vincent saw this as a theory.But I can't say the same about the other two there with us.
"Who are you, brat?! And how do you have this information?! Is Vincent by any chance cheating on his wife?" Gideon looked at me in shock, also looking at my brother, as if he'd only just noticed our presence.
"Don't joke about it, Tabitha would kill me if she heard this conversation, literally... Anyway they are Luz and Arthur Leywin, they are the children of a good friend of mine and they are living in my house, so they can be considered my nephews. They came here because they find interesting things like artifacts and inventions.. So I thought.. Why not?" Vincent said as Art and I bowed slightly.
"In answer to your question, Mr. Gideon, I know about this because I have had contact with the Bladeheart family, in this case a girl from that family. From her I heard a gossip involving some things that Kaspian Bladeheart, leader of the adventurer's guild, ended up finding. But like I said, they're just rumors... Or are they real by the way you react?" I said with a sigh.
"Well, I don't know anything about this Dark Guild! But the part about the artifacts with mana beasts is the evidence they gave me.. By the way... You say things that sounds nice for a brat, huh? How old are you guys?" Gideon asked, curious.
"We're between 11 and 13, we don't look like much because I'm the adopted one." I said as Arthur seemed to walk over to one of the tables with some blueprints and start doodling on them.
Gideon noticed that and went straight to my brother to complain. "Hey! What do you think you're doing?! This is no place to be sketching— oh... Oh?..." He looked very confused, Vincent approached my brother too to see what was being done, while I was leaning against the wall thinking about the whole situation.
"So... We've been invaded for a while now, huh?" I thought, speaking to Sirius as I felt Sylvia and Zalgnity's presence disappear.
"Yes, as you can see, Alacrya already looked like It was preparing for an invasion that would come as a huge surprise to the most influential people in Dicathen, if it weren't for you and the investigation you did in the Sunshine Maze dungeon." I heard my current voice answering me in my mind, but it was obviously easy to assume it was Sirius talking.
"So the other continent is called Alacrya? Interesting... What can you tell me about there? Or will it still wait until I get a white core or have a huge problem?" I questioned in my mind.
"I can at least clarify some things you saw at that time. Like the runes on the enemies' backs, for example, they are forms of magic. Unlike Dicathen, there the vast majority can use mana, but only because they use these techniques that involve inject a specific magic into the person... That is, while the mages of Dicathen are few, but can learn countless spells from their elements, the mages of the other continent are in an absurd amount, but they only know very specific spells. The most a mage who has a high education can have there is seven spells, in which they are very specialized." Sirius spoke with a long sigh, showing annoyance at something obvious.
"So while we are few, but full of tricks.. They are many and more specialized in specific things... I see, this balances the scales a bit if you look at it properly" I thought.
"Not if we remember that not every mage of Dicathen can be at an advanced stage of mana core." Sirius made me consider that small detail, which made me have my right palm resting on my cheek.
"At least, according to our investigation and what we know, they're still trapped inside Beast Gladers and haven't gotten out of there yet. Besides... I think our attack on the Sunshine Maze may have delayed their plans a bit, or made them work more slowly and carefully." I thought and my otherself agreed with that.
After that deep conversation with Sirius, I snapped back to reality and watched the scene in front of me with Gideon pulling that blueprint straight from my brother's hand. He looked interested, a curious smile on his face as he almost shoved the paper directly into her face.
"Yes! How did I not think of that before!? And there's this here too... It'll serve me better than my previous attempt at a solution... But... Wait a minute." Gideon said looking closely at the blueprint. "There seems to be something missing."
My brother soon took the blueprint back directly from the inventor's hands, with a smirk. "It's just that I didn't finish it on purpose, there are some details missing and I would love to include them, but only when our negotiations are finished."
"Are you really just a twelve-year-old?" Gideon's gaze became sharp but after a few seconds, he let out a helpless sigh. Even Vincent looked baffled by the turn of events but he handled it better since he knew what kind of person my brother was.
"Yup! Can you show me some of your most precious artifacts? Uncle Vincent told me you make some of the best!" Art smiled, tucking the parchment inside his robe pocket.
"Himes! Bring my lastest works!" Gideon barked. Soon after we started what I would put as... My brother breaking this scientist's mind.
First, Gideon showed a suitcase full of magic weapons, he even had wands, from the quality of them I would say that none of them could be sold in ordinary stores, only in ultra fancy auctions, but my brother refused. Afterwards, the inventor showed my brother a kind of gem, which according to him, was the most valuable on the continent and had the ability to store an absurd amount of mana for emergencies, if I were Arthur, I would have accepted it on my own. Because of the amount of mana I spend on my advanced spells, but since it was Arthur's business with Gideon, I couldn't intrude. Art also declined that offer.
The inventor let out a defeated sigh "Himes, can you bring me the pendants?" He asked, rubbing his temples.
"But Master, this was made so that—"
"I know!!.... Just bring it!" Gideon interrupted the baffled Himes that comes back holding a small case with an even more intricate lock on it.
"These are some of the products I made for the Royal Family of Sapin. They've been asking for life-protecting artifacts in case of any danger." He just shrugged his shoulder, any sense of confidence he once had nowhere in sight.
I went near them to look at this pendants, my brother picked up one of the two identical items so we could look more closer. The main jewel was a very soft and radiant pink color, carefully ornamented and decorated in a thin white-gold chain.
"I had some of the best designers work on the actual piece itself so it would be err... 'suitable' for the Royal Family." He clarified.
My brother willed a bit of mana into the pendant and I used my vision in essences to see more what was that. After a good look, we muttered in at the same time. "This is made from a phoenix wyrm."
"You two were able to figure that out?!" Gideon became even more intrigued as his eyes carefully studied us, trying to figure out exactly what more we were capable of.
"Well, I would assume that since you said that this item is protection related, and this is the mana beast that was used as a base... The function of these pendants is to create an extreme mana protection capsule for when the person wearing it feels threatened. I mean, Phoenix wyrms are known to turn to ash and teleport to safe places when threatened." I gave my guess.
"Boy, do you want to steal my job like the genius guy here or what?!?" Gideon glared at me and I just chuckled weakly.
"But yes. The function of these pendants is that, in moments of danger, the user is wrapped in a protective layer like a cocoon and then teleports to a place where the user considers himself safe." Gideon continued to speak, revealing that I was partially right on the item's function, I hadn't expected the "teleporting to a safe place" part to be included.
"How many times can the user use these pendant effects?" Art asked, still analyzing the item in his hand.
"I honestly don't know. The Glayder Family presented me with five of these beast core that they've kept for generations. However, they didn't know exactly what this type of mana core is capable of, they were studied enough to make sure there wasn't a beast will on them, but still, the value of just one of them is worth more than an S Class core. The first of the five failed, the second and third showed results, but they turned to ashes very quickly. These are the fourth and fifth, and according to previous tests, they work at least twice before turning to ash." He shifted his gaze from the pendants to my brother with hopeful eyes.
"These are for the Glayder Family, right? Is it really all right for me to take these when they provided the raw materials?" Art asked.
"Well, like I said, they don't know what exactly this type of beast core could do so if I just make a good replacement life-prederving artifact, I think it'll be fine... Of course, if you choose to trade your blueprints for something else, that'd be even better." he revealed another toothy grin.
"Haha! I'm not that nice, Mr.Gideon. I'll take these two pendants." My brother unrolled the blueprint and filled the rest of the key components that he had left out
"You are putting me in a though position, but I know that you're doing me a charity by giving me these blueprints." He studied the blueprint and I take a closer look at this to see what was.
"A steam engine... This is really the best thing he could do since the technology here isn't the best." I thought while looking at that project before going near my brother.
He turned back to us, his gaze not looking at us as if we were children, but more so an equal. "Where did you come up with this idea, though? What are you really planning, Arthur? Did you want to speed up the process that I was making?"
Art only laughed and headed out the door, the silent Vincent who was still bewildered by the turn of events, trailing behind us. "Like I said, Mr. Gideon, I'm not that nice of person. I only wanted to get my little sister a good birthday gift." At Arthur's response, I gave a strong facepalm, while I was planning on giving our sister a handcrafted item, he GOT A PROTECTIVE ARTIFACT MADE FROM A S CLASS CORE.
"Do you want to become her favorite brother or what, brat?" I said looking at Art, as I got into a carriage next to Vincent.
"Haha. What? You're at least making the gift you're going to give her. I, on the other hand, bought it~" he said with an amused look on his face as he got into the carriage with the box, having the two pendants, in his hand.
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A week had passed since that crazy situation Arthur had made in that scientist's lab, and there I was, dressed up in formal uniform, in the ballroom inside the Helstea Manor. There were several tables and a stage that matched the decorations, at a not so high height, there were orbs that served as ways to lightly illuminate the region, further accentuating the large chandelier in the center of the place. The atmosphere seemed serene as guests began pouring in through the front doors.
The formal uniforms of this world looked similar to texudos, except there were no ties. My brother and I both wore black texudos and little ribbons tied under the shirt's collars. We wanted these ribbons to be black, but our mother decided to go a light blue for Arthur and a dark cyan for me, to accentuate with our eyes color.
With those ribbons and our hair styled with some kind of paste it worked like a powerful hair gel. I could tell my brother was also feeling like we were fancy dogs dressed up for a talent show.
Since the ballroom was located in the opposite wing from our rooms, Ellie had no Idea that we were throwing her this party. She was under the assumption that the both of our families were going out to a fancy restaurant so she wss excitedly getting ready with our mother and Lilia, who came back for the occasion.
My niece, Sylvie, was sleeping inside my brother's room, since she was still getting used to the big change she underwent recently. She just stopping to resist going to sleep because we said to her that we would save her some leftover food.
"Welcome. Please come in." putting on a gentlemanly smile, we welcomed our sister's lady friends she met at school, a duty we were assigned by our mother.
Met with shy giggles and red faces, we kept a gentle smile on as more and more guests started trickling out of their carriages, accompanied by a driver and a chaperone. The attendees of Ellie's party consisted of her female friends and their chaperones, which were an older group of people, and either our parents' friends or Vincent and Tabitha's friends. By eight in the evening, most of the poeple on the list had arrived and Alice notified the maid that she and Ellie would be coming down shortly.
"I didn't expect you to dress so fancy, boys." We turned to see Gideon, who was dressed his way, in a clean brown lab coat and what looked like a new set of googles dangling from his neck.
"I guess we didn't expect you to be here either, Mr. Gideon." Arthur said, unwittingly giving the same kind of smile he did when he was in the inventor's lab.
"You know very well that I would try to see you again, don't you?" He said adjusting his coat a little.
"Anyway, using our sister's birthday for that? I really wouldn't admit that you play that low." I said as I walked a few steps into the place and used my hand to guide Gideon's gaze to a mini bar that was there.
"Bah! You know I have something to talk about with your brother, young man. Besides, Vincent made me discover that you study runes. I'd love to talk to you about it." Gideon said walking to the place I indicated and seemed to ask the clerk there for an alcoholic drink first thing.
"Geez, I hope he's strong with drink." I said right before I felt someone trying to hug me one of my arms, which made me confused and turned around.
"H-hi..." It was that girl with long black hair, with a style that only reminded me of the snow white story.
I patted her lightly and smiled, speaking softly. "What a nice surprise to see you, Kathy." I said while looking at the ballroom entrance, seeing that Curtis Glayder had also come to the party, he and my brother were talking for a while, until he walked in and saw his sister with me.
"Hello, Luz, how are you?" Curtis said as Kathyln released me and stood beside her brother, watching me in a way that made me uncomfortable, but I wouldn't ask her to stop, because I know it could be worse later.
"It's been going well actually, Curtis. After that 'thing' that happened, there wasn't much of a problem. But well, I didn't know you were coming, you weren't on the list." I said looking at my friend as I gave him a formal handshake, it looked like we got a few glances from some of my sister's friends.
"Well, our mom asked yours if we could come, and she said yes, we used those extra scrolls we gave you earlier, so it was a last minute thing." Curtis commented.
"Yes, I was very nervous when they asked me to choose an outfit at the last minute...." Kathyln said expressionlessly, but still looking at me and with her cheeks slightly pink in that extremely pale skin of hers. Her outfit was a black dress only with gloves of the same color that went up to her elbows, it was well expected of her, from what I know of her personality.
I nodded and took them to a more appropriate area, while I looked around, I saw Elijah and Arthur starting to talk, but before anything happened we were warned by a maid that our sister was already approaching, and she turned off the lights of the place. So I stayed still, with Curtis at my side and Kathy holding tight to my clothing in the shoulder area.
"...Mama, I thought we were going to go out for dinner? Where are we..." I listened to Ellie's voice entering the room.
"SURPRISE!" a synchronized chorus of voices exclaimed.
With the candelier sparkling on and an array of artifacts popping off in colorful light, my little sister's confused face turned from initial surprise to pure joy. Her eyes widened and cheeks blushed red as her gands instinctively went to cover her gaping mouth. She didn't have too long to indulge in her moment of astonishment as her school lady friends all ran up to her and gave her hugs, almost carrying her away along with Lilia.
"Good job welcoming all of the guests, my great boys." Our mother came up to us, gently patting our heads before some of her friends pulled her away to leave us wandering. I spotted Rey with Vince and some other importantly dressed figures, talking business and other various uniteresting topics.
Waiters walked around, handing out platters and cups of various foods and drinks. I was eating some sort of snack that I might have mistaken for shrimp for the taste, when a melodic tap in a glass started to get my attention. Arthur had the same reaction, he was next to me eating some sort of mini sandwich that could be totally eaten in two bites. Our father, a glass of wine in his hand, his cheeks slightly pink and his eyes very relaxed.
"Ahem! Before the party officially begins, I would like to thank you on behalf of my precious daughter for coming here tonight!" As Reynolds spoke, I spotted Ellie blushing in embarrassment as her friends giggled and clapped at this joyous occasion.
"Please start the music!" Rey signaled towards the back of the stage were five musicians stepped out with their instruments. There were two violins, one viola and one cello musician stepping out with a pianist behind them. Looks like the guy who created the piano almost four years ago was getting a lot of money by creating more of this.
"It would bring great joy to see my greatests sons and daughter have the first dance!" Our father raised his glass higher, his eyes narrowing into a tipsy grin as he requested something that could potentially be disastrous to this party. We turned to our mother, who bore a look stricken with panic, because neither her nor our father had ever given either of us dancing lessons.
I saw Ellie with her face petrified in horror, as she realized she could become a total embarrassment on her birthday. I touch in Art's shoulder to take his attention.
"Do you know how to dance?" I said, while using a quick sound barrier.
"Yes, I needed to dance in a lot of political parties, and you?" Art looked at me and after at our sister.
"Well, I can dance ballet, hiphop, waltz, samba.." I answered him sincerely.
"If the music allows, we'll waltz, if not, improvise, we'll change who is her dance partner during the song?" Art came up with the idea.
"Yes. How about we use mana to turn this shame she's feeling into a huge elegant situation?" I asked undoing the mana barrier and Art shook his head.
"If we're going to do this, let it be just you, I'll go natural without any mana." He spoke quietly and we started towards our little sister.
"Will you hornor us with your hands for a dance?" We said in unisom as we bowed slipping of our gloves and placing a hand out in front of us. There were a lot of giggles and squals from her friends.
Our sister, still strange at the turn of events, couldn't find the words, so she just nodded her head, placing her hands in the top of each of our hands. As soon the crowd formed around us, I was going a little far with the music becoming louder and filling the room. The music was slow and rhythmic, making it easy to follow along. Ellie's once panicked face gradually turned calmer as she realized she just needed to follow Arthur's guidance.. For now.
As Arthur danced with our sister, I danced around them in a kind of smooth ballet, still following the rhythm of the music, with a colorful trail forming behind me and making people impressed. As Arthur and Ellie began to move more openly within the space of our dance, Art seemed to whisper in our sister's ear and then sent her turning slightly towards me, I wasn't that far away so I picked her up, with one of her hands resting on her waist and the other holding it in her hand.
"Did he say I would use magic?~"I whispered to her.
"A-ahn?" she made a confused noise.
"Just relax, keep close to me with one hand on my waist~" I spoke very quietly and she did as I was told.
I activated a light wind spell, causing us to float ten centimeters from the ground. It looked like we took the breath away from the guests when they saw it. Because when I took a quick look at the audience, I saw some with their mouths slightly open. That made me giggle.
The song was nearing the end, as the first half was done between Art and Ellie. So I held her waist tight and we seemed to spin elegantly and smoothly through the air faster and faster, with the ends of my hair coloring and from my feet came snow and that colorful trail of aura. I even felt that the music started to become more 'icy' as if the musicians were getting inspired watching the dance, until we finished, with one of my arms holding Ellie in the back area and she arching her back, so that her face is almost upside down.
In time with the last notes of the song, we slowly returned to the floor as I carefully pulled her to her feet, Arthur, who was dancing solo around us, approached us and stood on Ellie's other side, with her giving her hands to both of us as we bowed slightly to the audience.
The applause and cheers of the audience, some of the more intoxicated adults even whistling, washed uo the soft panting of our sister while we were bowing.
"That was wonderful!"
"Truly splendid!"
"What a great performance!"
"Dance and use of elements, this was a elegant combination!"
Sounds of compliments and praises from all around us caused her smile to grow even wider as we soaked in the limelight.
"Brothers!" our sister couldn't hold in her excitement as she jumped into our arms, almost knocking us down in surprise. Her innocent and pure laughter rang contagiously as she flung her arms around Art's neck.
"Holy crap! That was great!" Elijah ran up to us, his narrow eyes gleaming in excitement underneath his glasses.
We gently place our sister down and we gave her a pat on the head. "Happy Birthday, Princess" Art said giving her a playful wink. "Happy Birthday, El." I said before our intoxicated father picked her up.
"Hahaha! My beautiful little princess and my amazing boys! What a great performance!" Reynolds must have drunk even more, as his cheeks were rosier. But that was short-lived, with him making painful noises as Alice pulled his ear.
"Do you understand that this could have been a disaster if the boys didn't know how to dance?" she whispered angrily.
"Don't worry.~~" He managed to wheeze out as Ellie, who was put back down, scurried off to her friends. Alice, still in a angry stage, dragged him by the earlobe back to where the adults were.
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[Eleanor Leywin POV]
"Wow, your brothers are incredibly handsome! I'm jealous!"
"I wish I had a brother like one of them."
"They really look so cool!"
The friends I'd made at school were all complimenting me and my brothers about the dance.
"Hehe! I told you they were great!" I couldn't help but smile with pride at being their only sister.
"Yeah, they're awesome! I bet you three practiced a LOT that dance! That Iooked SUPER HARD, especially that one who used magic, he created a floor of some green mana while dancing!!" My best friend, Nicole, was really excited.
"U-Umm yeah! But our teacher was really good so we got it down really fast!" I lied, looking down. I thought it would be weird for them to know that only they knew how to dance, not me, when it should be the other way around since I'm a lady and they only like to fight with dad.
My heart was still beating really fast from the dancing. It was really tiring but also really fun because Brother Art led me though it so well that I felt like a professional dancer, while Brother Lu made me hug him with all my strengh while we were in air.
"You're grinning really big, Ellie." Nicole smirked at me, elbowing me with her arm.
"Hehe! Let's go get some food!" I needed to look busy so some of the guys here wouldn't ask me to dance.
We went to an area that had some snacks and got some of them, we all stood there together as we watched some adults enter the dance floor, while others were in the same state as my father.
"Ellie, have you seen any of your brothers?" I turned around, seeing Lilia standing there approaching us, a pleasant smile on her face.
"Ooh! They must be near the dance floor or maybe..." I kept thinking until I noticed Brother Art talking to a boy while Brother Lu was talking to two kids with an adult next to them, that I felt I've seen those children before, but I couldn't remember.
"There!" I pointed to one and then the other.
"Okay, thanks, I hope the party is going well!" She said heading towards Brother Lu.
Status de energia semanal
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