Thief of Time

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The Nihal Senate and its Senators met everyday to discuss policies, but with the First Lady out of the picture right now, most of the policies discussed dealt with issues that were most pertinent to a Claud that hadn’t created a mana circuit yet. The main issues for today’s agenda were mostly about soaring food prices, due to bad weather and low crop yields.

“Food, huh.” Claud looked at the bag of pastries and snacks in his hand, which was being steadily depleted by his other one. “Uh. Well, I don’t really see the problem here, though. The streets are teeming with food.”

“Maybe it’s in a peripheral area or something.” Lily looked around the place, and Claud followed suit, his left hand feeding food into his mouth mechanically.

For some reason, there was absolutely no problem with allowing normal people inside to witness the proceedings of the Nihal Senate. Sure, what they were discussing now was probably mundane stuff that would be made known to the public eventually, but this was definitely an egregious breach of security in Claud’s eyes.

According to Lily, the morning court at Grandia was definitely not open to civilians, which made much more sense than whatever Nihal was doing. Yet, despite this utter lack of security, there had never been an actual successful attempt on a Senator’s life…

He mulled on this impossible singularity for a moment, and then decided to chuck it out of his mind.

“It’s a bit boring, all things considered,” Claud muttered. “I can see why these guys are paid so much and given so many privileges. The ability to sit there and to seriously debate about things that won’t affect them much is quite impressive. After all, what’s the point? It’s not like increased food prices would affect them at all.”

“So, they’re being paid to be who they can never be,” Lily replied. “Why not just get the people who would be affected inside, then?”

Lily shrugged, and then answered her own question. “I suppose it’s because anyone who steps inside here wouldn’t be affected by these everyday things either.”

“Sounds right to me,” Claud replied. “Definitely something that needs to be paid well, or else.”

“It’s hard to say, though. What I just mentioned was assuming everything was absolutely perfect, but what if someone had connections to shops and trades that were affected by whatever motion the Senate wants to deal with?” Lily asked. “There’s a possibility of corruption there.”

Claud nodded. “Yes, that’s true. I suppose it’s a balancing act, though. I hear that the salary of the Senators update the quickest. They get a review or something every year.”

“While the income of nobles in Grandis are directly linked to their personal financial performance after paying taxes to the Emperor. What a contrast.” Lily folded her arms. “Which one do you think is a better method? The Grandis Empire, or the Nihal Senate?”

“That’s a good question…” Claud looked at the Senators. “But the only reason why all these guys are so successful is due to the monopoly of force, right? The senators and the nobles are usually one of the strongest combatants. Even if the people were dissatisfied, I don’t think they can really take up arms to deal with the mana-users who can slaughter them with absurd ease.”

“True. I definitely wouldn’t have dared to say no to Emperor Grandis until I entered the ranks of a hexa-folder too,” Lily agreed.

“Right?”

The two of them watched on for a few more minutes as Senators squabbled with each other on what foods to subsidise and whatever, before Lily yawned.

“Tired?”

“Food coma.” Lily rubbed her tummy. “Nothing much to look at here, and all this droning has a very dangerous hypnotic effect. At this rate, I’ll fall asleep.”

“Let’s go, then.” Claud paused. “Should we grab more food on the way to the ancient battlefield?”

“You didn’t happen to devour the entire bag, did you?” Lily asked, eyeing him suspiciously. Claud, whose hands just happened to touch the remaining three pieces of flatbread, tried to whistle innocently, and Lily poked his cheeks. “Figured. Ah well. Let’s go get some more meat this time. Give me the bread. I’m hungry!”

“We’re always hungry.”

Lily helped Claud up, and the two of them moved off. He couldn’t help but note once again that Lily was deliberately slowing down to keep pace with his sluggish movement, and his heart warmed slightly. It was the little things that counted, and she had done a lot of little things for him.

Maybe she didn’t realise that, considering the conversation they had this morning, but he wanted to change that.

“Thanks,” Claud uttered.

“For?” Lily tilted her head. “I don’t think I did anything…”

“You’re slowing yourself down deliberately to not make me think about my own infirmity,” Claud replied.

“I’ve been doing that for a long time, though,” Lily replied, a grin on her face. “You’re the kind who simply notes down things in silence, so what made you acknowledge them today? Was it the conversation?”

Claud looked at her, stunned, and then chuckled. “Well, I suppose you are my soulmate for a reason. Yeah. It was the conversation you had earlier. I just wanted you to know that you did a lot of things for me, even if you didn’t notice them yourself. That’s just it. I want to protect you because I want to. And you’re doing the same for me because you want to, right? There’s no obligation or anything.”

He smiled at her. “But I don’t want you to feel guilty or anything. There’s no reason. And…I wanted to let you know that I appreciate you and everything you’ve done for me. They might seem small to you, but they mean the world to me.”

Lily turned away from him, and her left hand, which was holding on to his right now, tightened slightly.

For a moment, Claud wondered if he should speak here, but…there were times when actions were just better than words. Reaching out slowly, he pulled her close and held her tight for a few seconds.

The rise and fall of his chest seemed to completely synchronise with hers at that moment, and the world around him seemed to vanish entirely.

After a minute or two, Lily’s other hand covered his own, and a gentle voice spoke. “That means…a lot to me too, you know.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry I took this long.” Claud rested his head against hers. “Shall we, then?”

“Let’s go.” Lily paused. “But let’s go get some food first anyway.”

Claud laughed, and then separated from her slightly. “Let’s.”

After buying a bag full of popcorn chicken from a vendor happy to close down for the day, Claud looked up at the sky and said, “So, we’re going to go into an ancient battlefield, where the Goddess of Hope was struck down by the Black God, with fried chicken in our hands.”

“When you say it like that, there’s definitely something wrong…” Lily paused. “But it’s fine. It’s not like we’re in a museum where everything is carefully curated, right?”

Claud chuckled for a few seconds, before letting the humour drain out of his face. “We’ll need to be careful. I’ve gone through the records of Schwarz and the others when they visited another ancient battlefield some time ago. There seems to be some threats here and there, and while they don’t pose much of a danger to us, we can’t be careless.”

“Of course.” Lily fished out some fried chicken with mana. “And every ancient battlefield is unique too. We’ve done this so many times already…is the customary speech really necessary?”

“What do you think?”

“As expected of my little Claud!” Lily pulled out more chicken. “Now, say ah…”

After stuffing his face full twice, Claud stopped Lily from depleting their stock of finger food. It was addictive, but they really needed to make a move on first. It wouldn’t be too late to ask for some feeding while they were flying towards the ancient battlefield...

“Ready?” Claud asked.

“Yeah.” Lily rubbed her hands. “We haven’t really absorbed prana yet. As a mid-ranked folder progressing on to our seventh mana circuit, this feels really odd.”

Claud nodded once. “Yeah. It’s really odd.”

A thought flashed through his mind in that instant, and his face twisted slightly. It wasn’t a nice thought at all, and as he gazed at the five grand skies, the sudden thought that had wormed into his brain seemed to grow stronger.

“What’s wrong?” Lily asked.

“Actually…” Claud frowned. “The prana…we shouldn’t absorb prana. I don’t know why I suddenly thought this way, but I get a feeling that we definitely shouldn’t absorb prana. I…”

He took a deep breath. “For one, I don’t recall seeing or hearing about prana jades as the Frozen Emperor. Which is odd, considering that in that vision, I was probably the strongest human in the world. It does not make sense for Rimestar to not use it. Unless…”

“It never existed in the first place,” Lily muttered. “And the only reason why it existed now…maybe the Hollow God or your previous iteration? You know, you should try to recall more of that memory. I don’t think I can do much with your barebones description of your Second Tutorial.”

“If only I can do that...” Claud felt his brows furrow. “We should go investigate this.”

“Let’s move, then.”