Chapter 13
“UNBELIEVABLE…” Asval muttered under his breath, having watched the entirety of the battle play out.
Emella and Zef were speechless. Flicker watched as the demon’s magic dissipated.
Only Tact moved, sprinting across the rugged terrain with the Holy Knight in pursuit. Within moments, the members of Écarlate Carillon followed suit.
“Miss Mira, that was amazing! You’re truly amazing!” the boy called as he approached.
“Hrmm, I suppose I am.” Mira smirked as her eyes faded back to their normal state.
No vestige of her fight with the demon remained, and she was once again just a small girl whom most would underestimate. The tonal shift stunned the guild members for a moment before they too broke into smiles. All of them found their questions renewed as to who this girl was, and where she came from.
“I don’t know what to say but thank you, Mira. You’ve saved us all,” Emella said with a relieved smile.
“Yes, I don’t know what we would have done if we’d been on our own.”
“No thanks necessary. It was my fault you got caught up in all this.”
“So Mira,” Zephard interrupted, “is that why they jumped you all the way to C-Rank?”
Someone had to ask. It was a blunt question, but the situation called for nothing less.
“Hrmm, I suppose it won’t hurt to tell you,” she said, gesturing at the Holy Knight by Tact’s side. Then she paused for dramatic effect.
“You mean the secret behind your strength?” asked Emella hoping to hurry her along.
“Have you heard of Danblf? I’m his pupil. He’s…indisposed at the moment. So he’s tasked me with handling some business on his behalf.”
There it was, her cover story in a nutshell. Hopefully dropping the tidbit that she was related to the Nine Wise Men would allow her to handwave most other questions away if they got too pointed.
“Master Danblf’s pupil, huh? No wonder you’re so strong,” Emella said, surprisingly unfazed by Mira’s revelation.
“The One-Man Army…and you were trained by him.” Asval nodded as if this was all perfectly reasonable.
And to an extent, it was.
The battle they witnessed had been of an untold magnitude, and the stone around them was pitted and scarred as a testament to the power that had been unleashed. Anyone who could wield such power clearly could not be constrained by the boundaries of common sense. Her previous erratic behavior became far more reasonable now that they knew she was in league with such extraordinary personages as the Nine Wise Men.
“Master Danblf… A pupil of the Wise Man…” Flicker stood repeating her answer over and over.
She had witnessed Mira’s overwhelming power and had no doubt regarding her claim. In retrospect, this explained Mira’s nonchalant attitude toward mana usage. But as a mage, she knew that this was an unprecedented situation for another reason.
It was an established fact that none of the Nine Wise Men had ever taken an apprentice. The scholars who labored in the Linked Silver Towers were just researchers—while they might often encounter the Wise Men, they would never share the strong bond of a true pupil-master relationship. None had ever been truly mentored by one of the Elders. This was a universal truth. Even Luminaria had never taken an apprentice in all the years since she’d returned.
Flicker found herself torn. On one hand, Mira’s abilities could only be explained by her claim that she was Danblf’s pupil. On the other hand, a pupil of a Wise Man was unheard of.
Meanwhile, Zef’s hands flew in wild gestures as he gushed over the revelation. “Wow! Of course I know all about Danblf! That’s incredible, Mira!” Turning his gaze to the Holy Knight standing beside her, he marveled, “This is something really special!”
Truth be told, he knew very little. Zef had never cared for the legendary tales that other kids loved, and he’d never been a student of history either. But regardless of who her teacher was, she’d toppled the demon, and that was good enough for Zephard. End of story.
To Tact—born long after the Wise Men had vanished—Mira was a greater hero than her master had ever been. He stared at her with stars in his eyes.
Mira’s smirk faded to a nervous smile. She had expected more suspicion and questions to her claim and had been prepared to bluster her way through with bravado and calculated omissions of the truth. This was a bit anticlimactic, and she felt a little robbed.
With no challenges forthcoming, she calmed and sighed a small breath of relief, mumbling, “Hrmm, I didn’t expect them to believe that so easily.”
“Wait, it’s not true?!” Emella’s head snapped around as she overheard.
“What? No, it’s true! Why are you so close?” Mira spat out as she blushed and backed away. “I…I just figured that since no one has seen my master in thirty years, you all would have had more to say on the subject.”
“Good point.” Emella nodded in agreement before reaching out to gently stroke the white knight.
Then, to Mira’s chagrin, she began listing off rhetorical arguments against the claim.
“There are plenty of theories floating about regarding the whereabouts of the Wise Men. They’ve marched off into the demon realm, they killed each other during a spectacular falling out, they attained godhood and ascended to heaven, and so forth—but it’s all speculation. Most believe that they’ve sequestered themselves, hiding away from the mundane world and refusing any further contact with mere mortals.”
If she only knew how close to the truth she was, Mira thought as she tried to keep her face composed.
Emella concluded, “But it’s been thirty years since they vanished, so it’s not that surprising that a pupil has appeared.”
“And you know?” Asval broke in with a smile. “The way you fight is just like the stories my father used to tell me.”
“My father used to tell me those stories too!” chirped Tact.
“Me too,” Flicker said. “Once it was discovered I had the latent talents to be a mage, they told me stories of the Nine Wise Men over and over again.”
“Right?” Asval nodded. “I don’t think there’s anyone in this country who hasn’t heard all about those guys.”
“Stories? What stories?” Mira muttered as her eyebrows arched suspiciously. Hopefully, they were flattering.
“You haven’t heard the legend of King Solomon and the Nine Wise Men?!” Emella shouted in surprise, the loudest she’d been all day. When Mira nodded, she smiled and said, “Well, that won’t do.”
She launched into the tales. The stories were very popular throughout the Kingdom of Alcait regardless of gender or age, and nearly everyone knew them by heart. One of the stories, called The One-Man Army, focused on Danblf and told the tale of him summoning a thousand armor spirits in a single battle. But the most popular story about the Elder summoner told of when he’d been forced into close combat and how he had used both his summoning wizardry and immortal arts to carry the day.
Emella retold the tale with stars in her eyes—how his summons had flown through the air as Danblf controlled the ground.
Since the group had grown up with such stories, it was no wonder they immediately accepted Mira’s claims.
“I had no idea,” Mira muttered to herself while Tact sat next to her, enchanted by the story even though he had heard it hundreds of times before.
“And that’s just the beginning, Mira! Your master’s bravery doesn’t end there!” Emella pumped her fist in the air and got ready to tell another, when Flicker’s staff bopped her on the side of her head.
“That’s enough for the moment. I think it’s time to head back. There’s a lot to report.”
“R-right. Led’s do dat…” Emella said as she staggered back to her feet with tears in her eyes.
“Eh, that was probably my fault,” Mira said gently. “I suppose I should have stopped you at some point.”
“Don’t worry about it, Mira,” Flicker said with a wicked, satisfied grin as she approached her. “Emella was the one at fault!”
With panther-like reflexes, she scooped Mira into her arms. Shoving her face into Mira’s chest, Flicker began breathing heavily and rubbing her with her cheeks. For a mage, the strike was unbelievably agile and precise.
“What?!” howled Mira. “Put me down!”
A chilly breeze blew across the pair in the wake of a well-placed karate chop, and the beast dropped its prey. Flicker lay on the ground, clutching her shoulder, as Emella stood ready to deliver another blow.
It seemed the pair were well versed in halting each other’s outbursts.
“Sorry about that,” Emella said.
“She’d been keeping it together so well,” murmured Mira.
“I think as the adrenaline rush faded, the self-control went with it.”
“Seems like a chore to manage.”
They watched Flicker writhe on the ground, a smile on her face, whispering to herself, “Worth it. She was so soft!”
“Just part of who she is,” Asval grunted with a sigh.
“So Mira, you can use both summoning magic and immortal arts together just like Master Danblf?” said Emella. “That’s amazing.”
“Immortal arts, huh?” mused Zef, looking thoughtfully at his daggers. “Was that how you vanished? It was incredible.”
“That’s a pretty standard technique, actually,” Mira said flatly.
“It was too fast for me to follow at some points. Are you saying all Sages can move like that?”
“All pretty standard.”
“Didn’t you even run on air at one point? We’ve got a Sage in our guild, but I don’t think they can do that.”
“A skill called Air Step. Also pretty standard.”
The grandeur of the battle that they’d seen would be etched in their minds forever. She was happy to see that the opinion of the immortal arts had greatly risen among the members of Écarlate Carillon.
Then again, she was the pupil of one of the Wise Men who wielded the immortal arts and triumphed in a fated battle. A fated battle in which she overcame a demon. How could they not be mesmerized by what they’d seen?
Mira smirked, and then her eyes widened in shock.
“Wait…what?”
She’d been hoping to show off her summoning skills! Now it appeared that her Sage combat skills were getting all the accolades. She stared off into the distance and wondered where it had all gone wrong.
“I want to be an amazing mage just like you, Miss Mira!” Tact beamed at her, taking some of the bite out of her realization.
“Oho, do you, now? You want to be a summoner like me, do you? A fine decision!” Mira smiled happily as she patted him on the head.
“If you want to be a mage, first thing to do is check to see if you have the aptitude,” Flicker said. “I wonder if you’ll have the spark?”
“The aptitude?” Mira looked puzzled.
“Ah, you haven’t heard?”
“Hrmm, no. My master took me far from civilization for my training.” Mira amended her cover on the fly. “I’m not familiar with it.”
“I see…” Flicker said slowly, narrowing her eyes. “I suppose I can explain. Simply put, everyone has some level of magical power—some small, some large. That difference determines the level of spells they can cast, and it’s measured as a score of their magical aptitude. Only those with a sufficient magical aptitude are trained to become mages, since a low score would make the profession a poor career choice.”
Back in Ark Earth Online, players had the freedom to excel at any class they wanted, provided they put in the effort—anyone could be anything. But now, it seemed people no longer had that freedom of choice. Magical power was determined at birth.
“Magical aptitude, eh? Well, what about Tact here? Can he become a summoner?”
“There’s no way to tell until we check. They do examinations at the Mages’ Guild, so you could probably get one done when we get back to town.”
“Isn’t that convenient? Well, Tact, what do you think? Want to find out?”
“You’d do that for me, Miss Mira? Of course I want to know!”
“Well, then, let’s stop by when we get back.” Mira cast Tact a soft smile.
Flicker’s smile was much more rueful, wishing she were the object of Mira’s attention.
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