Arcanist In Another World-Chapter 96: Mr. Gray

The Hexsurge threads flashed along the wavering lines of void-tinged flames, pounding over them like beasts out looking for prey, the fleshy walls of Valens’s chest stinging in response. One by one, the ethereal threads tore apart the outside influence and cut short their desire to reach Valens’s chest cavity.

Since the battle was fought between forces of Void, the aftermath scarcely made a dent in Valens’s body save for the echoing remnants of pain. He came to himself with a wheezing breath as the Hexsurge threads vanished from his senses.

Void is too tricky. I need to get a better sense of this.

He was meaning to practice his new spell in the clinic as it would involve not only fixing the patients but also checking their souls to see if they were tainted by some outside force. He didn’t, however, think he would have to rely on this spell underneath a giant mansion to which he was invited as a guest.

“How was it?” Valens then muttered, looking around the cold walls. “Did you enjoy yourself watching me? Was that why you’ve gone through all that trouble with the clothes and the carriage?”

“Oh, it wasn’t trouble at all now that I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” that voice answered, echoing deep across the hall. The stone door to the side clicked gently open as the voice continued, “Do come inside. After all, we’re done with the formalities, aren’t we?”

Uh… You’re making it too easy. Now I don’t need another reason to hate your guts.

The earlier gash he got from one stubborn spear spoiled the fancy look he donned for the occasion, strips of silken cloth flapping against his bare chest as he turned toward the stone door. He held the Inferno at the ready as he stepped into the hall revealed beyond the door.

It looked like a library.

High shelves lined the walls, made from polished wood with a dark tinge to it, save for the wall facing the door, which was occupied by a grand, singular portrait of a man who was in the prime of his youth, its frame worn in what seemed like a long time.

The man in the portrait had shoulder-length hair, silken smooth, crisp gold without a single mark to it. His face… It was as though he was made out of ivory and rose leaves, painfully handsome, with finely curved scarlet lips and a pair of frank, blue eyes. Indeed, he was perhaps the most handsome man Valens had ever seen, but one who seemed selfish with the habit of indulging in every pleasure and virtually every sin.

And he looked every bit the same as the man who stood below it.

Your own portrait. Why am I not surprised?

“Wine?” the man said, his voice strangely youthful, as he gestured with a fair hand to the side table upon which stood a singular glass with a bottle full of wine beside it. “I had the servants prepare a bottle from my most prized collection for this spectacular night. It would be a shame if we leave that bottle unattended.”

“A shame, you say?” Valens scowled out into the back of the man. Even now, he refused to face him, instead indulging in the pleasure of staring at his own portrait. “On what ground do you suppose I should trust you after having been through your twisted welcoming present?”

“A mere test, nothing to make a fuss about.” The man shook his head. “When you seek answers, Mr. Kosthal, you should prepare to be confronted by a number of measures taken against you. You will find that not everything will be prepared and served to you on golden plates for your appreciation.”

“Which means that I’ve passed the test, then?” Valens looked around him. “If you don’t have any other measures waiting for me in this hall, that is.”

“Be at ease,” the man said. “I’ve got what I needed. It is now time for us to truly meet with each other, even if I’ve already heard certain things about you.”

He turned slowly, the tails of his jacket sweeping around him, and gave him a white-toothed smile before making his way to the table. He had his own glass in his hand, half-full, but topped it from the bottle, and as he sipped from it, he made sure Valens saw it all in clarity.

I suppose it would’ve been a touch pointless to give me a pointer or two only to poison me with such a simple trick.

“You’re the mysterious host,” Valens said, and accepted the glass given to him. He wasn’t in the mood to enjoy wine, but there was something about being surrounded by books that urged him to take a sip.

The taste was glorious.

“Nowadays, I prefer the simple moniker of Mr. Gray,” the man nodded. “It fits better with the recent changes that have happened in Melton, the shift in the lives of men and the aristocracy, and their ways. They call it being a gentleman here, though I’m afraid Melton still has a long way to reach the standards with which Caligians separate themselves from the shadows of the Broken Lands. Don’t you think it’s rather delightful?”

“Ignorantly pointless, to my thinking,” Valens shook his head. “If what you mean by separation is the act of playing the deaf against things which are undoubtedly real.”

“Oh, you’re being too pragmatic!” Mr. Gray laughed, his youthful face brightening. “There’s a difference between being ignorant by choice and being left alone in the dark for a purpose. I’d say the people of Melton are lucky they had a precedent in this matter. I remember a few centuries prior how things got heated in the Caligian Lands. They’re quite fond of their ways, if you don’t know, and that in turn makes them strong opposers against the matters that prove a threat to their freedom.”

Valens glanced at the man, looking as though he’d left the score of statues he’d used against him long behind, and was now enjoying himself in what he treated as a simple chat with wine to go beside it.

He said he remembers a matter from a few centuries ago, and that portrait… its frame seems quite old. I don’t think the gentleman before me is a twenty-something young man playing the trickster to make a day out of this evening. Something is not right here.

And that something had everything to do with the Resonance, since Valens couldn’t get a clear sense of the man’s presence. His frequencies didn’t exist. It was like facing those giant statues, but this one had fair skin and a fair way of speech, with a certain elegance to his movements.

“As much as I’d enjoy talking about the people of Melton and how they’re dealing with the times of change, I'd rather get to the bottom of… whatever this is,” Valens said. “Why would you invite an unknown man to your mansion, Mr. Gray? Why would you prepare such a welcome for him? Surely there has to be another reason than this gentlemanly farce of a conversation.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Mr. Gray paused, glancing at him with his blue eyes glinting and lips stretching in a tight smile. “Impatience,” he said, eyebrows arching. “Now that is something you would scarcely witness in the visage of a Surgemaster.”

What?

“You—”

“If beating around the bush is not to your taste, then I shall comply, Mr. Kosthal, and bring up the real reason why I went through the trouble of inviting you here, on this particular night,” Mr. Gray said, and sipped from his wine before continuing. “I have a terrible condition. A most grave sickness that I’m afraid I’ve brought upon myself by a deal with your predecessors, one that I thought would be the thing I truly needed. And yet, the passing of time showed me how naive I was at that time. Now, I know better, and I’m willing to change.”

“A sickness?” Valens frowned into his face, down at his fair hands and around his body. If anything, the man looked unnaturally healthy rather than being threatened by a grave sickness. That wasn’t the most worrying point, however. “A deal with my predecessors? I’m not sure if I’m following—”

“Hah!” Mr. Gray pointed a finger at him. “Look at who’s beating around the bush now! I believe your next words would be ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying, and I don’t know anything about these Surgemasters!’, eh? Then allow me to make it easier for you to admit. Do you remember a certain Necromancer who lost his life in a Rift around a month prior?”

“I—”

“One that has been killed in discretion by a small incursion around his brain. Oh, and there were signs that someone had meddled with the bonds between him and that of his Horde. A number of snapped threads, I believe I was told—and by none other than the most beautiful Nightwitch herself!”

Valens squinted his eyes at the man, as he clasped the wine glass tightly in his hand. The man’s frequencies might be silent, but the way he stared at him with those blue eyes sent a shiver down his spine.

Nightwitch… Who is she? I think I’ve heard about a witch from Lord Zahul back in that Rift, but I can’t remember all of it.

“She’s a dear friend of mine,” Mr. Gray said, sighing. “A stubborn, but a cherished friend. Not often you’d see her send one of her prized Necromancers to the Haven’s Reach. After all, she uses her lifeblood sculpting each one from their mortal bones. But this one, I’ve been told, turned out to be more stubborn than her. He refused to be governed by her strings and instead decided to stage a premature Rift into the Haven’s Reach, only to be met by the inevitable fate shared by all weaklings who think they have the means. Quite unfortunate, don’t you think?”

“I’m not sure if these things have any relevance to me,” Valens said. “You of all people should know that the Necromancer has been dealt with by the Duality Guild. You’re supporting them, are you not?”

“In my free time, yes,” Mr. Gray nodded. “Zodros has always been the detested son of the Blessed Father, and I’m more than happy to see his court flourish in the absence of the old Church. You see, Mr. Kosthal, I have been cursed with the impulse to feed every little crack I see in my perception, and not often do I make distinctions between them. I feed them all I can, which is why I invited you here just as I invited that young woman some weeks prior.”

“Young woman?” Valens’s eyes widened. “You mean… the Evercrest?”

“Oh? So you already know?”

It was Mr. Gray’s turn to be surprised, and seeing that expression on his face sent a wave of relief down Valens’s chest.

“I suppose I should’ve expected that. It was, after all, your kind who taught the shadows the Old Speech, so it only makes sense that you have the same capability. Tell me, what did the Weeping Horror tell you? Did it weep? Say that it missed its dear mother? That it believed it would be saved from the Spiritum once and for all? Such a poor soul, if only it knew there were worse curses in this world than being trapped in the same house you were born in.”

“It told me that the Evercrest has lied to it,” Valens said. The way the man kept smiling, the way he carried that air of nonchalance about him… It made him prickly all over his arms. “Tell me, who is she? What is she trying to do? What is the role of the Wretched Mother’s court in this matter? Why did they kill all those women?”

“Good questions!” Mr. Gray said, raising his glass. He downed it in one gulp, then turned toward one of the bookshelves, one hand propped under his chin. “I’ll answer one of your questions, but know that I’m bound to only one. As to which question I will answer… I should be the judge of that. Now, then, I believe a simple demonstration would be better in the context of your second question. Shall we?”

He picked the second question, and he picked it for a reason, didn’t he?

Valens watched as the man stepped near one of the shelves upon which was lined a row of thick tomes, leaned against each other like domino stones. A simple push from the other side would have the whole row crumble in no time.

Mr. Gray placed a finger on the first book on the shelf. It looked much cleaner than the others, and much newer as well, almost glinting under the torch lights.

“Quite the beauty, isn’t she?” Mr. Gray said, tapping that finger to the book. “Full of the vigor and ambition of youth, and yet trapped in this old shelf, yearning for more—for even a woman who carries the blood of an Ancient isn’t above the Trials of the System. She must then, as expected, prove herself. Do you know the true name of the Endless Mist?”

Valens stood still when Mr. Gray glanced at him as if in expectation.

“You don’t know. A pity,” the man said with a sad smile. “We called her the Mist of Chaos back in the Ancient Era, for Chaos was her name.”

Then he pushed that pristine book with the tip of his finger, and the whole shelf rattled as the books beside it began toppling down like a set of domino stones, a dozen of them thumping against each other, sending a cloud of dust around them.

This… Chaos? So she seeks to sow chaos among men, is it?

Slowly, the other books on the shelf fell prey to the chain started by one simple push. Dozens of them toppled down, and dozens more were at risk further along the far side of the giant shelf, but when the metaphoric destruction of the pieces reached the middle of the shelf, a singular book refused to budge even against dozens that had already crumbled before it.

“But an Ancient’s Trial is no simple thing,” Mr. Gray said, looking thoughtfully at the book that rebelled like a stubborn thorn. “Cause and effect, Mr. Kosthal. Even if you try to work a way around it, you will soon come to realize that the path has always been the same.”

Mr. Gray stepped forward, and with a deep look at that book, he pushed it with the tip of his finger, restarting the chain. One by one, the other books fell down. One by one, they got dragged into this endless loop.

Until another book refused to budge.

“You’re a thorn in her eye,” Mr. Gray said, smiling widely at the sight. “And you will be one as long as you exist. Your very presence is everywhere in this world. The lands have breathed your smell since the beginning of time, and slowly, they remember.”

“This…” Valens swallowed, heart thumping in his chest. Mr. Gray’s gaze lingered on him as though he were looking at an old tale, something that existed solely in the deep stretches of his mind, now revealed to him in flesh and blood. What was strange was that the man didn’t seem to know what to make of it.

“Her Trial against mine,” Valens then said, voice heavy. “I had my doubts. So this matter is truly related to the Evercrest Family’s line. Tell me who she is. I can’t let her put the whole city in danger—”

“I believe it is now my turn to ask the question. Before that, however, I’d like to make one thing clear,” Mr. Gray held a hand at him, then turned and gazed intently at his portrait. “I can’t help you. This matter is related to the Ancient Ones, and it was your kind that decided to reignite the flames of that lost era. I don’t care, nor want to hear the reasoning behind this decision. I just want one thing from you.”

“One thing?”

“A promise,” Mr. Gray nodded heavily as he looked up at his portrait. “You’re a lost sheep away from his flock, but you have the potential. If one day you can become a Herald, and learn the Soulsurge of your legacy, then promise me you will come here and destroy this portrait.”

Promise? You’ve done nothing for me, and yet you expect something that I don’t even have any idea about. How is that fair? Wait… He knows about me, and he said he’s met with this Evercrest woman before. He can easily let her know—if she doesn’t already know, that is. Not to say I already have enough enemies now that the Undead Legion is after me.

“I promise, as long as I’m presented with the details of the matter when it’s time,” Valens said, face taut with tension. “And if this is to be a deal, then I’d like to know who you are.”

“Me?” Mr. Gray smiled as he glanced at his portrait, and there in his smile was something heavy that settled right over Valens’s chest. “I’m the audience.”

……