Chapter 198: The Last Key Found (Arthur’s POV)
Pulling Layla and Esna by their arms, I dragged them out of the arena before the spectators could recover from their shock.
Dealing with the students who would crowd me looking for answers, especially those press club members was tough.
As such, I did not even want to bother with it.
Originally, I planned to play along with that guy and even let the duel go on for about 20 – 30 minutes before ending him but Dad’s call thwarted those plans.
Last night, while I was chatting with Nicole, Dad called and said he wanted to see the results of my training today and I easily agreed.
I even suggested we sparred with each other to see how strong I’ve become, with dad limiting his strength of course.
Would not want him to accidentally kill me after all.
We have never had any proper Father-son spars so I took the opportunity to suggest one and he agreed. He also offhandedly mentioned that Lady Aurora was planning something similar for Layla and Esna.
Apparently, she had been training Layla for over a year now. That is good though, the stronger Layla gets, the better it is for me. I have intentions of including her and Nicole in my future plans.
Due to this, I told him to ask her if Nicole could join in and she agreed. As for Edward, he just came over to watch, not all of us but just Esna.
He seems to like her but she seems to have not even realized, and she calls me dense.
"Arthur."
"Hmm?"
Layla’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts and I turned to see her pointing at my hand that was holding hers.
"Oh..."
Letting go of her hand, I noticed that her hair seemed a bit unkempt today which is weird because she usually fusses about appearances a lot.
"What’s with this today?"
"Ah, Hahaha...I think I might have used the wrong product."
"Are you sure you’re okay today? We can postpone the training if you’re not feeling well."
"NO! Don’t do that."
Her sudden outburst caught Esna who asked about postponing and me by surprise. It was then I figured that she was definitely very nervous about it.
Sighing, I searched my inter-spatial ring for any rubber bands I could find and then used them to tie up her hair in a ponytail.
"Don’t be nervous, it’s not like she’s gonna kill you or something."
"You have no idea Arthur, Her Majesty is very Spartan."
"Ah, I agree Layla, I agree."
Esna nodded in affirmation with blank listless eyes, seeing the two like this, I got curious about what kind of training they usually went through.
I looked over to Edward who was chatting with Nicole instead of consoling the girl he likes and facepalmed. Walking over to him, I simply tapped his shoulder and pointed towards Esna who was shivering and holding her shoulders, probably remembering the events of a previous training session.
Fortunately, he seemed to get my hint and went over to cheer her up.
"So it’s true, huh?"
"Huh? What is?"
To Nicole’s sudden statement, I couldn’t help but ask. Her reply served to confirm my earlier thoughts that Esna was the only one who had not noticed his feelings.
"Edward likes her a lot, he was just asking me for suggestions on where to take her out to."
"You guys are quite close."
Nicole just nodded in affirmation. I seemed to have grown a bit taller due to the changes in my body so I could see atop her head just a bit.
Her normally straight hair was braided and then tied up in a single bun on top of her head today.
"Your hair looks nice."
"Thanks."
She showed a small smile and thanked me for the compliment, as I was about to speak once more, I noticed a glare coming from Layla’s direction.
**RING!
My phone, however, prevented me from asking about the reason for the sudden glare. In addition, hearing the sudden noisiness and the looks other students we passed were giving me, I guessed that the news of the duel might have already started spreading.
**RING!
"You guys go up to my room, Lute should be there so he’d open up, and I’d be right back after I take this."
After seeing them nod in affirmation, I pulled out my phone and dashed to the nearby restroom to take the call. I also locked the door behind me to prevent interruptions.
The caller ID showed it was Lewis, this was weird because he usually had Phil pass across any news to me.
"Hello."
[Gooday, My Lord.]
"Gooday to you Lewis, so what’s the problem?"
[Not a problem, my lord, but good news.]
"Huh?"
Good news? There was only one piece of good news I wanted now and it was...
[We found a law crystal with the law of time. Basic rank to high rank.]
"..."
His reply left me stunned. The requirements for the ’Third Magic’ were three things.
The Crystal realm’s ’rain of crystals’ will help find the first key.
The second key is to not be a deity.
The last key is to be a sub-cosmic.
I was obviously not a deity and apparently, I had been sub-cosmic since birth. If Lewis had really found the last key, then I could cast the ’Third Magic’ already.
Even more so when the crystal found was a crystal that contained the basic to high-rank laws. In that case, the chances of success were over 80%!
This also meant I could choose a maximum of 5 aspects to ’Accelerate’ with the spell. That was also my limit, I feel that if I tried to accelerate anything else, I’d be damaging my soul.
[My lord?]
"Huh? Oh, I was just lost in my thoughts. How long would it take for you to set everything up as I said?"
[The crystal was on Parmis 7, one of the uninhabited planets, since there are only three more, we have to move it to another completely uninhabited star system to set up the spell points.
This should take us about 5 weeks, tops.]
’Looks like I’m gonna have to use the drifters huh? Haven’t seen Larry since that event. I’d contact him now.’
"No problem then, begin work, get your cousins to help too, and make sure you clear the area out. Can’t have any random void beasts messing with my spell."
[Okay, my lord.]
With that, I cut the call and sighed. Lewis only began working for me because he needed protection from one of the Marquisates that he offended, but now it seems he has become truly loyal.
I even considered including him in my other plans.
’The giant godslayer huh? Has a nice ring to it.’
I then unlocked the door after using simple camouflage magic to change my hair and eye colour. Leaving the restroom, I returned to my room while passing a few press club members looking for me on the way.
One of them saw through my camouflage but by the time he realized, I had already entered the teleportation gate.
◇ ◇ ◇
When I got to my room, I disabled the camouflage magic the moment I saw Lute standing right beside the door with a blank look on his face.
"Are they in?"
He simply nodded in affirmation and opened the door for me. Seeing his distant attitude, I sighed and tapped him on the shoulder before entering the room.
Inside, Layla and Nicole were seated with dad, conversing over drinks while Edward and Esna were busy rummaging through some random box at the side of my bed.
’That was for junk right? What are they looking for there?’
I ignored them and walked up to dad who had noticed me and held his fists out.
"Yo."
Bumping fists with him, I sat down and poured a drink for myself before asking.
"Are we using the castle’s training arena?"
"Nope. We’d be going on a field trip."
While sipping my drink, I could not help but raise an eyebrow in question. However, Layla was the one who answered my unasked question.
"Instead of using a small area like that, we’re going to a different realm where we can go wild apparently.
Nicole and I have been trying to decide which realm to go to."
Dropping my glass, I immediately spoke out.
"Crystal realm."
"Huh?"
As expected, both Layla and Nicole, alongside dad showed questioning looks. However, Esna came up from behind and rested her chin above my head before asking.
"Did that Lewis guy find it?"
"Yep. So since y’all are not sure which realm to go to, let us go over there. I can also check it out afterwards, it’s a win-win."
Layla and Nicole were still confused for the most part, but they did not have any objections. Dad, however;
"Lewis? Is that the giant’s descendant your mother told me about?"
"Yep."
"Is he to be trusted?"
"He’s bound by a soul contract."
I replied as I poured another drink for myself. Holding up the bottle, I memorized the name while making a mental note to stock up on more of these drinks later.
"Okay then, I’d begin the preparations."
To dad’s reply, I simply gave a thumbs up while downing the rest of the drink in the bottle.
Layla did chide me for that but that is a story for another day.
