Thief of Time

Despite the sweltering heat, Claud sat on his bum docilely, nodding and making notes as Lily lectured on about cooking and ingredients. She had even begun to delve into ingredient seeking in the wild, which she apparently started doing as a teenager. Claud’s own experience as a teenager was far more…muted, to put it mildly.

When coupled with some short stories of how she went into Julan Forest to hunt wild animals and beasts, Claud had a feeling that this unassuming Lily had far more depths than her usual lack of an expression hinted at. However, the master thief had enough run-ins with sayings like ‘still water runs deep’ and ‘the smallest Moon is the brightest’, so he wouldn’t be surprised if she turned out to be a seasoned hand at fights or something.

Wiping a bead of sweat of his nose, Claud sniffed the air hungrily. The stew was coming along nicely, to the point that even the lecturing Lily was already getting distracted from her own teachings.

“Should we take a break for a moment?” Claud asked.

“Definitely! Oh, I mean, uh. Yes. Of course we should.” Lily cleared her throat. “Other than Risti, this is a first for me, teaching someone these things. No one seems to appreciate them much to be that interested.”

“And the men just act interested to hit on you?” Claud ventured.

“Well, at least someone’s actually aware of these issues,” Lily replied, a nonchalant expression on her face.

“Don’t worry. I really found your lecture useful. You won’t waste your effort on me,” Claud replied. “Wilderness survival is dependent on food. Starve, and…”

“Well, we just need to get storage artefacts, and we’ll be set. It’s just that they’re quite rare. There are three aspects — minimisation, spatial control and time-freezing.”

“Gotta force them to work together,” Claud mused out loud. “I don’t know the theory, but is that possible?”

“That’s pretty much how it works. Most storage artefacts tend to be compound ones,” said Lily. “But either of these skills are very rare. Anyone with either a storage skill or a time-freezing skill would be in great demand by all sorts of occupations and nobles.”

“Hmm.” Claud let out a small sigh, and wondered if he should move on to plunder the houses of mana-users. Nobles had lots of lifestones, true, but the famous mana-users were acknowledged to be filthy rich too, with artefacts taking up a significantly larger proportion of their wealth. As a cleaner of vice, it was Claud’s responsibility to clean up some of their filthy riches in secret — kind deeds should be kept under wraps, after all.

He hadn’t dared to do that before, since he was not a mana-user. However, now that he found out how mana could be infused into skills, and had gained control over mana as a whole, Claud felt that tangling with famous bi-folders and one-folders was relatively doable.

Besides, after spending quite a few days with the ladies in the Moon Lords, Claud had a feeling that mana-users were very…blasé when it came to security. Their inherent sense of superiority, coupled with the fear many held towards these superhumans, meant that there were few who actually dared to eye their homes and publicise any successful act of burglary.

It was as if they thought themselves immortal or something.

“One gold for your thoughts,” Lily said.

“Oh, I was just thinking about people who might have storage artefacts,” Claud replied. “Most of the songs and stories I hear don’t really talk about these things, though.”

“Well, it is hard to tell whether a folder called on their soul-bound weapon or used a storage artefact,” Lily replied. “Remember Farah? She summoned her greatsword from the inn, since it was too bulky to carry around while walking.”

Claud didn’t quite understand what she was getting at, so he conveyed his confusion by pulling a leaf out of Crown’s book and tilted his head.

“Basically, storytellers and bards can’t tell the difference between soul-bound weapons and storage artefacts,” Lily clarified.

“Ah. Most of them talked about soul-bound weapons too, now that I think about it,” Claud replied. “Still, what’s a soul-bound weapon?”

“When your mana superimposition reaches 1.8, your mana nexus” —she indicated her heart— “becomes dense enough to act as an anchor for your spirit or soul. By severing part of your soul and attaching it to your weapon, you can summon it by calling upon your mana nexus.”

“How does that even work?” Claud asked.

“I only know the theory,” Lily replied. “Would you understand it if I told you that it was the fifth convenience of a mana-user?”

A moon lit up in Claud’s head. “Now that makes more sense.”

“Should have went with that explanation from the start,” Lily muttered. Taking a sip from the bubbling pot of stew, she pried apart the dried meat and nodded to herself.

“Lunch’s done?” Claud asked.

“Yeah. Just let me get some utensils out of the backpack.”

Claud got up from the ground, and then began to lay out traps. There weren’t going to be any dangers from wildlife when cooking, since both of them were mana-users. The true dangers came from humans — to be exact, from assassins. Eating was a time when one’s guard was lowered, and while normally assassinations don’t happen in eating establishments, the same couldn’t be said for outdoors.

After all, a makeshift camp where cooking was going on would be a figurative oasis in the hostile wilderness. People were bound to let their guard down, unless they were overly paranoid or cautious.

Claud’s high-profile actions were deliberate, a message for any would-be assassins that he was on guard. In fact, to say that he was laying down traps was inaccurate. Rather, he was reinforcing the perimeter, creating highly-visible active defences that would make any self-respecting assassin think twice.

“That’s quite excessive,” Lily noted.

Claud, who was in the middle of scattering some caltrops, looked up. “Nothing can be called excessive when it comes to self-preservation. To survive, good men have turned into monsters. I’m trying to make it so that we don’t need to consider the ‘to survive’ bit, thereby avoiding the fate of being a monster.”

“…It’s a blessing to travel with you, I guess.” She paused.

“You can thank me by cooking more food. Although I do want to try my hand at outdoor cooking too, so…” Claud rubbed his nose. “Well, I’ll shamelessly freeload off you for now.”

“Go ahead.”

Claud activated some of the defensive artefacts he’d just brought, and then manipulated them to protect their current area, leaving only a small gap for ventilation. There was no telling if some monstrous archer dropped by and decided to kill them on a sick whim, so…

As a plus point, it also trapped the smell of the fragrant stew. Other than making his surroundings smell nice, it also meant that wildlife was less likely to drop by.

After wondering what Dia would think about if she saw how the artefacts he brought were used in this way, he turned his eager eyes to Lily, who was now serving food. It was a rather novel feeling to eat cooked food out in the wild; other than the rare occasions in which he ate within a large convoy, Claud rarely did something this extravagant.

“So excited. How cute.” Lily chuckled, and then filled two bowls with the stew. “Well? What are you waiting for? Dig in!”

A rustling sound entered his ears as he picked up a spoon, and Claud turned to regard the newcomers. Four people, who looked like they were a fair hand at a fight, were standing right outside their layered defences and traps.

For some reason, all of them looked like quadruplets, in a manner that made Claud think about Isolde and the others. The hair colour was the same, their clothes were all too similar…all these made Claud think about the first time he came across Lily and the other Princess Dia fans.

Both sides looked at each other in silence.

Eventually, Claud began to speak. “Need anything from us?”

The blue-haired man at the front snorted. “Hand over some of that stew.”

Claud eyed the fellow and took a few steps back to whisper in Lily’s ear. “That guy’s arrogance makes him either a noble, a scion of some huge family or a mana-user. Do you know who he is?”

“He looks familiar,” Lily replied. “I think I saw him before.”

“Someone important, then. Do you want to handle this, or should I?” Claud asked.

“You’re the professional.”

Claud grunted. “Well, looks like we might have to share, then. Take out some bowls, preferably bowls you won’t mind missing.”

“I hope they don’t mind wooden bowls, then.”

After passing four bowls over to the hungry-looking group, Claud hung around for a moment. “What are you guys doing here in this wilderness?”

The rude guy looked up, but before he could reply, a more mellow-looking person said, “We’re heading to Julan. For some official business. Thank you for the food.”

“No problem.” Claud rubbed his nose, and then returned to Lily, who was enjoying her soup blissfully. “So, what kind of official business would have four important people heading over to Julan?”

“Beats me. Maybe some news about the Julan family’s shady business leaked out?” Lily filled her bowl up again, an action Claud emulated a few seconds later.

“Maybe.” Claud eyed them as they continued to drink from their bowls slowly. “We’ll probably find out soon.”