The journey out of the forest had been exhausting to Kyran.
Just when he thought leaving would be easier with the array gone and Nolan leading the way, Kyran was thrown into a battle royal.
Since the array was destroyed, the other members of the Forbidden Magic Control Squad and the Tracking Team of the Royal Army, spread out to look for Kyran and their captains.
Nolan proved to be useless when it comes to direction. Everywhere he directed Kyran, they would face a two or three-man team of the Royal Army and Kyran had to deal with them.
Yes, just him. Because Nolan always hid as soon as they see the army. Kyran could only persevere and face them all one by one.
After almost two hours of non-stop fighting, finally, they were able to shake off the army’s pursuit.
Once they lost the army, Kyran took the lead in finding the exit. It took him almost an hour to locate a town.
Nolan boasted he could do better, but Kyran was too exhausted to argue and chose to ignore him.
“Wait,” Nolan stopped him when they neared the town’s entrance.
Kyran looked at him, “What?”
“What do you mean what? Are you too exhausted to forget you are wanted?” Nolan replied with a raised brow.
“Whose fault was it that I am like this,” Kyran stopped and retorted while pointing at his pitiful state.
And he did look pitiful.
He was still wearing bandages under his clothes, so after battling almost non-stop with the army in the forest, his clothes got damaged thus exposing them. He also had new cuts and some light bruises, thus making him look like he tried to crawl his way out of a grave.
Of course, Kyran was not really struggling when he fought the army. Even when they could use their magic, Kyran was able to deal with them easily. It was only because there were too many of them.
“Such a whiny kid. Can’t you appreciate my goodwill? You may have a good combat sense, but you lack real battle experience. When I say real, the real ‘kill or be killed’ kind, not those battle simulation you did at military school. Aren’t I a nice person to let you experience it?”
“I would rather you start teaching me about magic, and experience that,” Kyran replied in a deadpan tone.
“Tsk, tsk.” Nolan clucked while shaking his head. “So impatient. Anyway, let’s do something about your face first.”
Kyran frowned.
The black mist appeared in Nolan’s hand. He then lifted his hand and hovered it over Kyran’s face.
“What are you doing–?”
Kyran wanted to evade the black mist as it neared his face, but Nolan grabbed his shoulder and said, “Stay still. After all that we’ve been through you are still doubting me? Tsk, such an ungrateful kid.”
The black mist covered Kyran’s face. After a few seconds, it blended into his skin and even turned to the same color.
What Kyran did not know, was that as soon as the mist had settled on his skin, his face changed.
Kyran’s ‘new’ face had a serious case of acne, and his nose was a little large. Although his eye color and hairstyle remained the same, he looked like a different person.
Nolan nodded in satisfaction, “Another masterpiece.”
“What?”
Taking out a piece of broken mirror from under his cloak, Nolan gave it to Kyran and said, “You will be Nar, whenever you have that ‘face’. But remember, this magic’s effect will only be active if your within my 20 kilometers range. If you go beyond that then… you get the point right?”
Kyran took the mirror and looked at his reflection. He was shocked at how different he looked.
He knew about transformation magic. When he was at the military school, they studied how to spot it. But the transformation magic they learned was only applied on weapons, not humans.
“This is transformation magic, right?” he asked and looked at Nolan.
“Seems you’re not entirely clueless,” Nolan replied as he took out a folded black clothe from under his cloak. “Put this on, you seriously need to change clothes. People in town might think your a ghoul who crawled out of his grave.”
Kyran wanted to retort. But instead, he bit it back and just took the clothe from Nolan. It was a hooded coat and the size fit him perfectly that Kyran was surprised. He wondered if this was something that Nolan used to wear when he was ‘younger’.
How long ago was that?
“That used to be Cade’s,” Nolan told him. A hint of nostalgia was heard from his voice.
Kyran looked at him, “Father’s? How come you have it with you?”
“Duh, he gave it to me what else? That coat is a magic item. It was imbued with a certain magic and status resistance. Back when we were still learning magic and the f*cking old geezer brought us into a ruin for training, Cade got that from one of the treasure groves we found. But well, he outgrew it soon so he gave it to me.”
Kyran did not miss the somewhat annoyed yet with reverence endearment in Nolan’s voice when he mentioned the ‘old geezer’ and wondered if that person was their master.
“So you and father trained in ruins? Aren’t ruins the empire’s property? How did you guys enter?”
Nolan took back the mirror as Kyran wore the coat.
“Property my ass,” Nolan snorted. “The so-called ruins are treasure troves of Master Mages of ancient times. The Royal Family was just a greedy son of a bitch declaring its theirs.
Anyway, save your questions. We’ll talk more after finding an inn to stay. Seriously, I’m exhausted.” he added hastily when he saw Kyran was about to ask a follow up question.
This kid seriously had so many questions!
After hearing that Nolan was exhausted, Kyran felt cheated. But then he remembered, Nolan did use his magic to hide. And since he hid almost all the time, just how much energy did he consume to maintain it?
“Okay,” he agreed. He was exhausted too and had no intention of disagreeing with Nolan’s suggestion.
The two of them continued on their way into the town.
=========================
At the Royal Army’s basement.
After almost a day, Gael finally went out.
The two soldiers stationed at the entrance was different from the ones who received him yesterday. However, because both were wearing metal armor, the changed was not apparent. Besides, all these soldiers knew Gael would come here often and would stay for hours. Sometimes even days or a week.
Of course, these soldiers did not know what Gael does inside. They only knew that apart from Gael, there were six more important figures of the empire who could go inside from time to time.
Those people entered from different doors, but all soldiers guarding these entrances were a small trusted group and they were the only ones who knew about it.
They also did not ask questions.
“Grand Marshal,” the soldiers saluted.
“Hm,” Gael gave a nod to acknowledged the two.
The two soldiers closed the huge doors.
Gael left the basement right after and went straight to his office.
His visit to the room in the basement, had been fruitful thus he was in a good mood. At this time, his only concern was to know if there were any progress in Kyran Regis’ capture. Thus he decided to go to his office rather than go home to rest.
Gael knew it had only been a day so he really was not expecting much.
“Grand Marshal,” a female officer stationed at the entrance of his office, greeted him as soon as he arrived.
The woman was in her early twenties, with dark blue short hair and light green eyes, and she wore white and red uniform.
She did not have a badge on her vest but instead a golden ribbon outlined her coat sleeves. This symbolizes a personnel from the empire’s Combat Hall. She was not really part of the Royal Army but directly reports to the Royal Family.
People from the empire’s Combat Hall mostly did not have magic, so they worked as law enforcers in towns or in cities.
However, some promising talents whether they have magic or not could work at the Royal Army’s Combat Specialist Division or even as executive assistant to high ranking officials.
This was an obvious way of the empire’s Royal Family to keep tabs on the Royal Army’s officials.
“Ms. Fiona, are there any urgent matters that needed my attention?” Gael asked with a hint of courtesy in his voice.
“One came this morning from Major Jax of the 3rd Forbidden Magic Control Squad,” Fiona reported and immediately handed a rectangular magic device.
This was an encrypted reporting means by the Royal Army. Only those with the targeted magic encryption would be able to view its content apart from the one who did the encryption.
Of course, this report had to be checked by Fiona and already knew its content.
“I’ll look at it in my office, thank you.” Gael took the device and entered his office.
=========================
After entering the town and finding an inn to stay for the rest of the night, Kyran and Nolan huddled up in one of the rooms they took.
This room was Kyran’s.
At first, Kyran thought Nolan would take the room with two beds that the innkeeper had offered, but Nolan simply paid in full for two rooms. The innkeeper gave them two rooms across each other on the second floor of the inn. It was located at the far end of the hall, which both of them did not mind.
“Okay, it’s pretty late so I’m not going to teach you magic yet. Instead, I’ll answer some of your questions. If I find your questions too complicated to be explained in few minutes I’ll leave.”
Nolan half warned Kyran.
“I know,” Kyran replied with a sigh. He did have a lot to ask, but he was not unreasonable to ask questions that would take Nolan hours to answer.
“Good.”
“Then first,” Kyran paused and contemplated for a second.
What he really want to know was the status of his clan.
However, he knew Nolan did not have the answer. After all, it had only been a day and the Royal Army might have already controlled the spread of news.
Still, he wanted to at least have something he could hold on to.
“Can you tell me about my parents?” Kyran asked and looked at Nolan.
But Kyran was greeted with a blank expression of Nolan. He immediately stood up an was ready to leave.
“Wait, wait! You don’t have to tell me everything! I just want to understand their strength. I mean…” Kyran hastily said then stopped and sighed. “I just want to know their chances… against the army.”
When he parted with his mother last night, the battle had not even reached a critical point between the Regis and the army. Thus, Kyran had no idea who was winning or losing.
Nolan looked at him and heaved a sigh. He understood what Kyran’s worried about, so he did not act like an ass and sat down again.
“You just need to know that your parents and most of the Regis clan’s members are strong. To be honest, I think their position was far better than yours.”
“Really?”
Nolan was about to answer nonchalantly but after seeing Kyran’s hopeful look. Even with a new ‘face’, he could not help but feel sympathetic.
‘What’s wrong with me since earlier? This feeling is giving me goosebumps,’ Nolan complained with a sigh.
“Yes. I can at least affirm Cade’s strength, if he did not save me back then he would have even –,” he suddenly stopped and shook his head. “He is strong. Cade is.”
Kyran frowned. He wanted to know what Nolan was about to say regarding his father, but remembering how Nolan almost walked out, he did not pursue the topic.
At least not today.
“Okay. I’ll take your word then.”
“Of course you should. I never lie.”
“Right, right.” Kyran dismissed Nolan’s boasting and proceeded with his next question.
“Earlier, when you saw that woman from the army, you immediately knew she was the co-creator. How did you know?”