章節 38: That's Just What I Needed

Earth Land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, Lupinus.

May 10, x776.

After their stomachs were sufficiently emptied, Alfonzo and Elicia quickly entered the castle ruins. Though they wanted nothing more than to return to the town, take a shower, and take a long nap, they decided to explore the ruins, just in case they were able to find anything of use.

Initially, when they searched the castle, they were unable to find anything. With Elicia's [Thread Detection] spell, the only thing she could find was debris and broken furniture. Even Alfonzo's Magic power sense turned up more of the same. However, Alfonzo continued to have a nagging suspicion that they were missing something.,

"Come on, Fonzie." Elicia whined in a tired tone. "I'm so tired. I wanna take a nap."

Elicia's tired tone did not surprise Alfonzo in the slightest. Like her, he was running low on magic power. And although they usually performed more high intensity workouts than their fight with the lycan, the mental exhaustion the fight brought with it was more than he expected.

"Just a few more minutes, Lici." Alfonzo said as he and Elicia walked down a corridor in the castle. "I can feel something down this way."

Though she pouted, Elicia did not object. Instead, she just held Alfonzo's hand and walked alongside him. Eventually, the duo reached a room with a pair of large, tattered doors. After pushing them open carefully, Alfonzo and Elicia arrived in a room that they could only guess used to be this castle's throne room.

As soon as they entered the room, the feeling Alfonzo was getting strengthened. And he immediately began walking toward the broken throne sitting at the back of the room. Climbing the stairs in front of the throne, he and Elicia stopped. While Elicia did not see anything out of the ordinary, Alfonzo could feel the presence of metal in and beneath the throne.

"I think there is a vault under the throne, Lici." Alfonzo said with a smile. "And from what I can sense, it has never been opened."

Hearing that, Elicia's tired eyes lit up with excitement.

"Can you open it?" Elicia asked. "I wonder what kind of treasures there are inside. I bet there will be some nice necklaces and rings in there. Ooh, Fonzie, do you think I'll be able to find some pretty earrings in there?"

While Elicia began daydreaming about the jewelry she might find, Alfonzo could only smile wryly.

'Just a second ago, she was dead tired and ready to leave.' Alfonzo thought as he examined the throne. 'But as soon as I mentioned a vault and she connected that with jewelry, she was instantly energized again. I swear, women are descended from dragons. They all love treasure and shiny stuff.'

A few moments later, Alfonzo placed his hands on the throne and ran some magic power through it. And to his surprise, it seemed to be made of an extremely dense, non-magic metal.

"Is this… adamantite?" Alfonzo asked in an amazed tone.

"Adamantite? You mean the strongest defensive metal in the world?" Elicia asked, equally as shocked.

"I think so." Alfonzo replied. "but until I can show it to Master Goldstein, I can't be completely sure."

Storing the information of the metal with his magic, Alfonzo discarded any thoughts about identifying the metal, for now. Instead, he focused on moving the throne, which seemed to be attached to the vault door. Although he was running low on magic power, simply moving metals with his magic did not require much. Even so, he almost experienced total magic power exhaustion by the time the throne was turned over on its side and the vault door was open.

*Sigh* Damn, I'm fucking exhausted." Alfonzo said while wiping beads of sweat from his forehead.

"Are you okay, Fonzie?" Elicia asked in a worried tone while rummaging through her back pack for a towel. "Do you want to go back? We can come here again tomorrow. We still have the hotel booked for tonight, after all."

Once Elicia found what she was looking for, she started wiping the sweat on Alfonzo's face.

"No, I'm fine." Alfonzo replied when Elicia was done wiping his face. "If we did that, we'd have to take a late train. It's better to look around while we're here."

Nodding in agreement, Elicia put the towel away and looked down to see into the vault. When she did, she was quite surprised. Instead of a staircase leading down into the ground, there was only a small hole with several, nine to be exact, clear orbs inside.

"*Sigh* What a waste." Elicia said with a pout. "There's no jewelry inside. There are only a few crystal balls. Did the ruler of this castle like fortune telling or something?"

"Crystal balls?" Alfonzo asked with obvious curiosity in his tone.

A moment later, Alfonzo looked down into the vault as well. And when he did, his eyes lit up like Elicia's had, when she thought she would find some jewelry. Though he was not a hundred percent sure, those "crystal balls" as Elicia put it might be exactly what he was hoping for.

Reaching down into the hole in the floor, Alfonzo carefully lifted one of the clear orbs, that fit comfortably in his two, eleven-year-old, hands, out of the vault. When he did, he examined it closely. Then, when he was satisfied with his examination, he pushed it toward Elicia.

"Lici, you still have some magic power left, right?" Alfonzo asked with a note of anticipation in his tone.

"Yeah, I do." Elicia replied, tilting her head cutely. "But why?"

"You don't have to use too much, please, but push a little of your magic power into this." Alfonzo said, pushing the clear orb even closer to Elicia.

Though she was thoroughly confused by what was going on, Elicia did as Alfonzo asked.

'I really need to start spending some time in the library.' Elicia thought as she placed her right palm on the orb in Alfonzo's hands. 'I'm getting tired of not knowing what Fonzie is talking about.'

Naturally, Elicia would never bring that thought into fruition, as she is easily distracted by anything to do with making clothing.

As Elicia's magic power entered the orb, it began to glow slightly. Meanwhile, Alfonzo' face lit up to a much greater degree.

"Okay, Lici, that's enough.

After that, Alfonzo pulled the orb back and carefully set it down on the floor next to him. A moment later, he took his backpack off his back and began pulling out the rations he had packed for the day and throwing them on the floor. Since their investigation only lasted the time it took to walk from the town to the castle, plus the time it took to fight the lycan, most of the rations they packed for the day were no longer necessary.

"Fonzie, what are you doing?" Elicia asked in shock.

"Lici, you do it, too." Alfonzo said, not even looking up at Elicia. "Keep something to eat on the way back to the town. But other than that, get rid of the rest of your rations. I need to take those lacrima back home with us."

"Lacrima?" Elicia asked, while tilting her head.

"Yeah, those crystal balls are rechargeable lacrima." Alfonzo said excitedly as he stuffed the lacrima he set down next to him into his backpack. "Those are the last part I needed to complete my project."

Following Alfonzo's instructions, Elicia began discarding the rations that were not necessary anymore. However, she was still curious what Alfonzo needed them for. She knew that he had been working on a project with Master Goldstein for the last few years, but he refused to tell her what it was. So, she could only speculate. Either way, she was happy for him, who had found what he was looking for.

After a few more minutes, all nine rechargeable lacrima were stored in their backpacks and they were ready to leave. So, they quickly made their way out of the castle and climbed the walls again to return to the road they used to get to the castle. However when they arrived, they found a pack of regular wolves feasting on the lycan's corpse.

"It's a good thing we packed that things head before we went inside." Alfonzo said after dry heaving at the sight of the lycan's corpse.

"Yeah, but we still have to fight off a pack of wolves. Elicia added with a pale face. "If we weren't running so low on magic power, we could probably scare them away with the pressure from flaring our magic power."

If it were not for the fact that they had already emptied their stomachs a while ago, they both would have probably thrown up at the sight of the chopped up lycan again.

"That's a good idea. We should wait here to recharge our magic power." Alfonzo said. "I really don't want to fight a pack of wolves right now."

"No, that's not necessary." Elicia said excitedly after having an epiphany. "I have enough magic power to get us out of here."

A moment later, Elicia took off her backpack and handed it to Alfonzo. Then, she pressed her back against his chest and tied them together with her threads.

"Okay, hold on tight." Elicia said with a smile.

"Hold on, I don't mind waiting for my magic to refill." Alfonzo said, clearly not liking Elicia's idea.

"Now, let's go!" Elicia shouted as she shot her threads at a tree in the distance while ignoring Alfonzo's objections.

"Lici, wait!" Alfonzo shouted just before Elicia retracted the threads.

A moment later, Alfonzo and Elicia were flying through the air, towards a tree on the side of the road they used to travel from the town.

Meanwhile, the wolves glanced up at the two flying children. A second later, however, they returned to feasting on the remains of the lycan, not bothered to chase down such small prey.

After a few more seconds, Alfonzo and Elicia were nearing the tree that Elicia had wrapped her threads around. Then, before they could collide with it, she cut the threads, causing them to fall toward the ground.

While Alfonzo was panicking, Elicia had a broad smile on her face as she created a large amount of thread and weaved it together at high-speed. When she was done, a large cushion was on the ground right where they would land.

*Boof!*

Sinking into the cushion, neither Alfonzo nor Elicia were hurt. Instead, Elicia hopped up immediately and exclaimed happily.

"Fonzie, let's go back to the castle and do it again!"

"Nope!" Alfonzo replied with a vigorous shake of his head. "I still feel nauseated from seeing the lycan. I'm in no mood to go thrill seeking right now."

As soon as Alfonzo mentioned the lycan, Elicia's enthusiastic expression disappeared, replaced by a pale face that looked as if it would vomit at any time.

"Fine, I get your point." Elicia said, the wind clearly taken out of her sails. "Plus, now that I think about it, I don't have enough magic power left to do that again."

"*Sigh* Come on, let's go back." Alfonzo said, extending his left hand for Elicia to hold.

Smiling at the gesture, Elicia happily grabbed Alfonzo's hand as they began walking toward the town. Eventually, the nausea they were feeling even went away. So, they ate the rations they left for the trip back. Plus, they even remembered to pick the herbs that they saw along the way. Then, after walking for about an hour and a half, Alfonzo and Elicia finally returned to the north gate of Lupinus.

"We're back." Alfonzo said in a fatigued tone.

"Yeah, today was crazy." Elicia said. "Never had so much happen on a mission before."

"Well, other than exploring that castle, this was no different than a monster subjugation quest." Alfonzo said with a smile.

"Yeah, I guess that's true." Elicia said while tilting her head. "But we did get to do some investigation, too. We were like Aria and Kinji!"

"Aria the Scarlet Ammo, huh?" Alfonzo mused.

"Hidan no Aria!" Elicia corrected.

"Same difference." Alfonzo replied with a shrug. "Anyway, let's go report to the mayor. After that I wanna go back to the hotel and take a shower."

"Yeah, I feel all sticky from the sweat." Elicia said with a mildly disgusted expression on her face. "It feels so gross."

"Do you wanna go back to the hotel first, instead?" Alfonzo asked.

Taking a few seconds to seriously consider Alfonzo's offer, Elicia eventually shook her head.

"No, we have to walk past town hall, anyway." Elicia said. "Since we're going that way, anyway, we might has well get it out of the way."

"Sounds good to me." Alfonzo said with a smile.

Like that, Alfonzo and Elicia returned to the mayor's office. They then explained what had happened and showed the lycan's head to Reno. Then, after getting a letter of completion and the reward for the quest, Reno handed them a bonus of another 450,000 Jewels for killing the lycan. They then bid Reno goodbye and returned to their hotel.

Upon returning to their room, Alfonzo and Elicia took showers in turn before falling asleep, and sleeping soundly until early the next morning.