Thief of Time

“Indeed, your account matches the statement released by Lesser Half.” First Lady Cecily turned a set of freezing eyes onto Lily, and then to Claud. “I am intrigued. Did you two know about the specific circumstances beforehand, or did you two venture it out of pure confidence?”

“Confidence,” Lily replied. “We’re hexa-folders.”

“What a convenient statement,” the First Lady noted. “So, if there comes a time you two are caught trespassing in Grandis’ bedroom, is it also going to be confidence too?”

“Probably?” Lily guessed. “I mean, we could be septa-folders by then. Or even octa-folders.”

“In that case, Grandis, you better be careful.” The First Lady smiled, and Claud felt the temperature drop again. Her icy-blue dress was only slightly warmer than her every action.

Was she the gender-flipped version of the Frozen Emperor?

That thought, which had come from nowhere, wasn’t a fun one to entertain, so he promptly suppressed that sentiment. However, if she was really a mirrored form of an extreme iteration of Claud himself, it would explain why he was both intimidated and afraid of her.

After all, the Frozen Emperor represented a Claud that had completely changed due to a reality that would never be acceptable.

“I’ll take note of that,” Emperor Grandis replied. “Still, you raise a good point. Either you two are lucky, or you two already knew what was going on. It is hard to say which is the correct answer. Still, you two knew Lesser Half. That’s also another point worth paying attention to. Saran, that fool. Acting so high and mighty all the time…he should have stayed.”

“He is as constant as a glacier. I see no issue.”

“...Hmph.”

The temperature dropped again as the First Lady raised an eyebrow at the Emperor, and Claud shivered. The cold, when coupled when the overwhelming fatigue that ate away at him all the time, wasn’t doing him favours at all. A hollowed lifeforce did a variety of different things, and…

Well, that Distortion was already cold enough.

“Can you rein in that frigid chill for a while?” Lily asked, holding Claud’s hand at the same time. “My husband is particularly susceptible to a lot of ailments right now, and he’s trembling from the cold.”

“You heard the host, First Lady Cecily. You should really tune that cold down.”

“I apologise,” the First Lady replied, “but this cold is not something I can control easily. It’s…something created due to an accident. However, if it’s that problematic, I will take my leave first.”

She nodded once and strode out of the shophouse, and Claud let out a sigh. “Okay, the chill’s weakened…what’s with that chill anyway? I mean, if it’s an artefact, she could just drop it or something. Why bring it here?”

“Maybe it’s a weird passive skill,” Lily suggested.

“That’s probably the reason, yes.” Emperor Grandis folded his arms. “Now, then, I think it is time for me to take my leave. My servants will send an invitation to a banquet on the morrow. Be there.”

That last sentence was phrased as a command, which meant that the two of them weren’t probably going to get out of the annoying event. Indeed, the Emperor simply strode out of the shophouse without waiting for their reply, and the door closed with an awful finality.

“Bah.”

“Yeah. Bah.” Lily patted his head. “Maybe you can cite weakness or something. I’ll cover you.”

“And let those wolves swarm you? I think not. We go together.” Claud sat down on the chair. “Anyway, what’s the situation outside?”

He pulled out the RECON artefact from under the counter, which depicted multiple pictures at once. While there were none that were targeted at the exterior of the shophouse directly, there were a few little beads — or drones, as the manual called them — that displayed the general area around the shop.

“Okay, so the two of them came in a carriage together,” Lily muttered. “Do you think they have a thing for each other?”

“No, I think not. Besides, she’s too freezing. The first person that becomes her partner has to be someone made from fire or something,” Claud replied. “I think some water froze from her presence alone, you know.”

He breathed out, and mist formed in front of him.

“Maybe it’s some condition of hers. I cannot imagine that she likes to live like this too,” Lily muttered. “Maybe we can get something warm for her?”

“We could, I suppose…but you seem quite concerned about the First Lady, for some reason.” Claud thought for a moment. “I mean, I don’t see you worrying about Supreme Saran’s brashness or something.”

“Uh…how do I put it?” Lily tilted her head. “She kinda feels…not familiar, I suppose, but I can see someone I know in her.”

“…That person isn’t me, is she?”

“Not exactly,” Lily replied. “I guess? I don’t know how to put it myself, but she seems a bit lonely from all that. Maybe she reminds me of you, by a little bit. Or there’s something in me that makes me want to help her. I don’t know either.”

“Alright, there’s no need to look that sad. We’ll help her…but how would we help her?” Claud asked.

“Maybe get something nice and warm for her, for starters. Or some equipment that increases the ambient temperature around her!”

“Those two shouldn’t be all that expensive, I suppose.” Claud grinned. “Let’s go shopping tomorrow, then. I think we also need to stock up on more artefacts. Now that we know what the interior of a Distortion might be like, we’ll need to get some storage equipment, lots of food, artefacts that do a variety of stuff…we can get some heat-creating artefacts while we’re at it.”

He paused. “Still, would it be insensitive for us to give her such an item?”

“I told her about it, so it wouldn’t be insensitive if I gave something like that to her…probably.” Lily made a face. “Still, she must have tried to suppress this chill or whatever, right? Hmm…”

“Well, I suppose it’ll at least mean something…”

Claud glanced at the RECON once more. The area around his shophouse was normally not visible at first glance, but there was actually something special that made his shophouse stand out…and it was the sea of people that were crowding around the place.

Indeed, in the hour or two that the three bigshots had spent at his little shop, the people crowding around his shop had grown. Since most of them were nobles, what exactly transpired out there was the sudden blooming of what seemed like huge umbrellas that had enough space for a chair, a table and some drinks…

“So, this is what nobles do when they’re waiting for bigshots to leave a place,” Claud quipped.

Lily glanced at the indescribable sea of umbrellas, before shaking her head. “Why are they still here? Did I not hang up the ‘closed’ sign?”

“Beats me.”

“This damned field of mushrooms.” Lily hugged her knees. “Now what?”

“Good question. Can we just leave them hanging? I’m sure they’ll disperse after a while,” Claud replied. “After all, if we didn’t go out to receive the bigshots, we sure as heck aren’t going to receive these small fries.”

“Small fries, you say…”

“Let’s just start the barriers up or something,” Claud replied, before touching the various artefacts that had been used earlier. “Everyone else outside can go take a hike.”

“Nasty.” Lily paused. “Still, it feels like we’re going to be doing little for the next few months or so, right?”

“Other than a bunch of banquets, probably.” Claud pulled a face. “Well, it’s nice that we don’t have to do anything. We have enough money, we have a good cover story, and I really just want to laze around and do absolutely nothing else for a long time to come.”

Lily nodded. “That was our wish when we decided to stay here, right?”

“Exactly. The others embroil themselves in random troubles every so often. I bet they’re up to something problematic again,” Claud replied. “I’ll just rest and recuperate here, thank you very much. What did they last say on the Trading Board again?”

“Something about returning to the Lustre Dukedom with Dia, I think.” Lily thought for a moment. “There are so many opportunities for trouble there that I’m not even going to think too hard about it. Maybe the princess didn’t return despite the retraction of her arrest warrant, and everyone has to go look for her. Or maybe someone captured the princess, and her bodyguard needs to save her.”

“Ooh. Lots of possibilities there…well, Risti and Schwarz are there, though. Between the two of them, everything is going to be fine,” Claud replied. “Probably.”

“Can you sound a bit more confident?” Lily asked. “I mean, you know everyone. And they’re all competent at their jobs.”

“You see, I also have the feeling that they’re quite competent at stirring up trouble, so…”

“…I can’t quite deny that for some reason.”