Meeting up with the Lord who put him up to his current task took some effort as they were both hiding their identities. Still, they had their ways.
Finding out that the location they were supposed to meet up was the same one from his first encounter, Lucas felt like rolling his eyes. Arriving at the place, he quickly was seated in front of his, in a certain sense, current employer.
"Welcome Lucas. I assume you come bearing good news? For your information, I delayed the Duke's decision as promised, so I hope you will uphold your end of the deal?", Lucas didn't bother verifying the information, as it mattered little to him.
"Of course. I've found the method to bring him back. I just need the right environment to do so. And he will not be available for a couple of weeks."
Lord Alastor stared so fiercely at him, Lucas couldn't even see him blink. "So, after this, your disguises will have to be given back. Have you truly found a way?"
"Of course, what annoys me is that you would've been able to find it as well."
Lucas didn't care if he was looking down on his end of the bargain. After all, Lord Alastor still had to set up a meeting with the Guardian of Space. Downplaying his own work wasn't a good idea, yet he did so without hesitation.
"Yes, if I was willing to spend a few months of my time I would be able to figure out something similar."
"So why haven't you?"
"You think I don't have anything better to do?", the lord's face displayed a genuine lack of caring, "Unlike some people, I actually have a job and responsibilities to follow up on. If I want to experiment on something, I mostly hire other mages to do it for me. You're the first who was willing to work for free. Does that explain it enough?"
Lucas didn't feel embarrassed or put in his place, in fact, he still felt a bit suspicious about it all. But he didn't have the wiggle room to question him further.
"Fine, just try to cover for his disappearance for a while, and I'll need an artifact that can keep someone from blacking out. When he's reawakened, you'll know."
"Good. Don't worry about the alibi, my son isn't exactly the most beloved."
"He's your son?"
"Did I not say so in the beginning? I raised two children from when they were little. Alastor had the biggest potential, so I gave him my name. The other was a lost cause, so his name mattered little."
"You didn't mind raising someone else's child?"
"Why do you think I would care? I've lived too long to be jealous or hold some kind of spite against my friend. The Duke may be cold to many, but he has a good heart underneath. All he wants is a worthy successor. So he'll get one."
Lucas first had a hard time understanding why someone would care for another's child, but if there weren't people willing to take on such a task, he wouldn't even be alive in the first place.
Nodding slightly, they went over a few more details before Lucas set off to complete his task once and for all.
Tricking Akraptor was easy, he had been doing it for months. Part of Lucas was great at acting, while the other had to perform a character not too dissimilar to his personality, making it a tad easier. He knew Akraptor inside out, quite literally. From all his encounters in different persona's, the man had a group of fake friends that all stemmed from the same person.
Even so, both parts of Lucas were glad to have this mission almost behind them. During these weeks that turned into months, Lucas didn't have that much time to work on his personal projects as he was focused on fixing Akraptor's core.
Luckily, experimenting with the cores of others for such a long time made him develop certain techniques that could harm the core easily. Not that he had to fight often, he didn't participate in a single battle using magic. There was a slight fear he might've forgotten how to fight, but part of Lucas shrugged it off.
Reaching the final phase of his project, he would have to capture Akraptor, sedate him, place the pieces into his core, have his mana stay around the core for more than a week and then awaken him. All without revealing his identity, having Akraptor conscious and willing to proceed with the procedure.
That last part was the biggest roadblock since the man had little motivation and willpower. Training with part of Lucas made him stronger and more resilient, but he wasn't better than a thug in the alleyways.
Making sure he would be awake through it all would be a hard to accomplish feat. His herbs only did so much. Hence his request to the lord. With it, Akraptor would surely suffer a lot more, but if it resulted in the goal he needed to achieve, Lucas would do so in a heartbeat.
---
Akraptor felt that life was finally tired of bullying him. After losing his powers, everyone started to abandon him. Even his own father had tossed him aside. Now, living off the welfare of his family, he was able to get by, but nothing he wanted was ever achieved. All he had was his family name that formed a constant reminder of his failure.
Taking on jobs never went well, since he just didn't have the necessary discipline or knowledge to consistently do the right thing. He was a failure of a man, a product of an environment that didn't look his way.
Fate had turned her back to him, yet lately, she started to ogle him once more. After meeting a few new friends, he started to think about his life more positively. Training with Osaragi boosted his mood and while minimal, did bring some benefits to his appearance.
Seeing the bright side of things more often, he started to work on himself. Studying a few basic subjects, he was trying to get an administrative position in a nearby library. While working for him was often a pain, he learned to be consistent due to his friends that kept pushing him to continue his training.
For once, if someone asked Akraptor how he was doing, he wouldn't have brushed it off, but replied with a somewhat optimistic answer. Even now, he was on a joyous walk to his friend's place.
Almost skipping down the road, he was suddenly ambushed by a few thugs. With his training he expected to take them all down like a superhero, yet the moment he threw the first punch he felt a kick in his sides and a fist planted on his face. He didn't stand a chance as muscle mass meant little if he didn't know how to fight.
Beaten to a pulp, he was dragged away, looked like fate started to get bored of his behavior once more.
Akraptor woke up not long after. The moment he opened his eyes, he felt the cool touch of iron against his wrist. His body was tied down, even his own head was strapped to the wooden table underneath him with a belt.
"Hmm, what else did they bring in?", a creepy voice echoed through the room. It was then that Akraptor noticed the dark room he was in. The ceiling was made of stone, making him think he was somewhere underground.
He wanted to scream, but a dry piece of cloth was propped inside his mouth. Trying to push it out with his tongue, a gnarly hand pressed it back down. The sudden appearance caught him off guard as his body tried to flinch but couldn't due to the constraints.
"Don't bother, you'll need something to bite on anyway. Let's see here," Akraptor felt a wave of willpower rush through him. Despite not being a mage anymore, he had some experience with magic. He could tell this wasn't a beginner mage purely by the weight the willpower brought with it.
"Hmm? A cracked core? You were a mage once? How surprising, it looks like those goons finally picked up something interesting."
The face of the man came slightly into the light. It looked like an elder demon, yet filled with enough energy to twist his image into a monstrous one. Feeling his cold hands touch his bare skin, Akraptor realized he was completely naked. His eyes darted around the room, avoiding eye contact but constantly glancing in the man's direction.
"You know, you're quite lucky. I've been working on cores for some time now, fixing yours should be an interesting experience."
While the man smiled, Akraptor felt sweat roll down his forehead.
What followed was an extremely painful procedure where Akraptor screamed his lungs out. He would've blacked out were it not for an artifact placed on his chest. His screams were muffled, but still very audible as he felt mana destroy parts of his abdomen.
Hours had passed, perhaps even longer, but Akraptor was starting to wish for death to embrace him as the torture only continued. Blood flowed from his stomach onto the table before splatting on the ground.
Losing track of time, all Akraptor could do was take relief in the few moments where the pain was minimal. His core was being toyed with, a tool to experiment on. He knew very well how dangerous mages were, but experiencing it himself, he wished for all of them to disappear.
Suddenly, the artifact on his chest was removed, and Akraptor instantly fell unconscious.
'How weak.'
'Well, I didn't bother using the herbs that should lessen the pain since he would stay awake anyway. The core is fixed. Now we just need to wait a bit before pushing our mana into him.'
While torturing Akraptor with his procedure, Lucas felt nothing for the man. Despite them knowing each other in different disguises, he only saw the demon as a means to an end. Even if they hung out and partied, trained together or even shared their stories about love, all of it was just an act to take another step on the path.
After time passed, Lucas was able to fix Akraptor's core, much to his dismay, it didn't go through painlessly. Making his restraints loose on his reawakening, Lucas left him in the basement of a house he received from the lord.
To Lucas, it didn't matter whether or not he escaped. His mission was successful, it was time to cash in on his deal. He was ready to leave him behind long ago but couldn't. Now it was time to truly move forward.
---
Meeting the lord didn't take long after he received the message from Lucas. Meeting in their usual spot, he had a large grin on his face. "You actually did it. I was surprised to hear rumors of my son running around town completely nude, but finding him with mana in his body was more than enough to wash away the shame. As a fellow mage who's too busy to experiment, can you tell me how you did it? I want to hear it all."
Lucas didn't see the point in explaining it all to him, but if he wanted to get his reward, he saw no problem in entertaining the man.
"Well, the first step was just to understand what the state of his core is. It wasn't hard to befriend him, he's got a little pride, but behind it there's nothing. An inferiority complex perhaps, but that's about it. It's not hard to play to his emotions and trick him. He didn't even know it was all an act. It wouldn't surprise me if he would seek me out after all this, I'm quite good at pretending to be friends.
After getting close to him, I just had to wait for a moment when he was asleep to check it and devised my plan around it."
"I'm aware you're smart, even this task, which would seem impossible to some mages, you completed in mere months. How?"
"Well, you get the most data from field practice," Lucas spoke calmly, undeterred, about the hundreds of low ranking mages that had to suffer for his compilation of data. There was life in his eyes, he hadn't abandoned his emotions, furthest from the truth. He had simply lost something else, something he just didn't have the time to mourn.
Lord Alastor smiled deeply, "Hahaha! Yes, you're a true mage. You would make for a great company. Are you interested in joining me and the Duke sometime?"
Lucas instantly waved it off, "No thanks, I don't like dealing with mages myself. I'm more interested in my reward. Don't make me betray a friend for nothing," entertaining him even more, Lucas almost seemed to be speaking the truth, as if he truly became buddies with his son.
Despite the harsh decline and the frown on his face, Lord Alastor's smile only widened, "Yes, a true mage through and through. Only a fool would walk into a dragon's nest. So you experimented enough to figure out how to fix it, and then put it into practice."
"Yes. Also, I left a spare set of clothing in that house and left to give him some room to scour the house for clues and items. If he used his powers even slightly, he wouldn't have to run into the street naked, but with a mission to hunt down a certain dangerous mage by the name of Venion to take revenge."
Lord Alastor's joy wasn't a front, for once, he felt genuine happiness from talking to this man. He was a human, a being despised in Demon culture, but Lord Alastor couldn't understand why the hatred was present. 'For all intelligent beings are monsters on their own.'
"You should know my boy's a fool that barely knew how to use his powers in the first place. Well, I'm glad you were able to trick him so well, that made it easier for us. Thank you for taking the time to get him so far, we'll take it from here. We'll finally be able to teach him again."
"Great. Then we can move on to the next topic, correct?"
Lord Alastor shook his head slightly, "Take this medal. Go to the castle and move to the tower at the most eastern point. There, you'll be able to meet the man you wanted to see. With this medal, he'll have to listen to one request of yours, but nothing more, unless you can convince him, of course."
Lucas thanked the man and quickly left the building. One of Lord Alastor's butlers entered the office where the meeting took place. The Lord nodded once before the skin of the butler started to twist and turn. Eventually, his shape changed enough to form that of his old friend.
"Wipe that smile from your face. Nothing has changed yet, and time is starting to tick."
"Oh please, he's a fun little boy, you should talk to him once in a while. Besides, we got enough to light the flame."
"I hope you speak the truth," the man looked back at the exit, "He didn't look that fun."
"Hahaha, a conversation on equal ground is all you need. He's a true mage, it's been a while since someone like that appeared."
"Don't even, there's tons of mages out there, plenty who are way stronger and smarter than him. You're like my son, I don't know what kind of magic he cast, but people seem to like him somehow."
"It's not magic, I have a very high resistance against illusions and charms thanks to my wife. No, that boy is incredible in his own way. I've had my men do their investigation. Do you want to guess how many mages he used for his experiments?"
"A few dozen or so?", the Duke had plenty of experience himself, and knew that with a limited population, a lot of data could be gathered. If he were to do it himself, he wouldn't need more than 10.
"364 mages were killed, all taken from the capital under your nose. And did you notice anything?"
"I didn't receive any reports," he lowered the corners of his mouth ever so slightly.
"That's correct," a big evil smile appeared on Lord Alastor's face. "The boy was careful enough to pick the miscreants of your capital and leave behind evidence for their departure to a different Duke's territory. He erased any traces he might've left, were my men not actively following him, even we would've missed some."
The Duke paused for a moment, to experiment on so many people without leaving a trace in his own capital which was controlled by plenty of forces was something even he had to be impressed by. Especially since the Undead became a lot more active, even the Guardians were on patrol every now and then. Yet not a word of this came to light.
'He kept his sanity and determination while experimenting on living beings while making sure to not harm his own current and future goals.'
"He's a good mage. But nothing special," the Duke said after taking a pause.
"Please remember that the boy is barely a tenth of our lifespan and has already tricked you twice, counting now, brought Asta to heights we never expected and beaten Alastor with his own wits. What were you doing when you were his age? Fucking a bunch of women to prove dominance?"
The Duke shook his head as he tried to force a smile down. "Don't bring up my embarrassing past just to tease me, you old bag of bones. I'm not the one who got lost in his own subspace trying to make it bigger."
Lord Alastor smiled as they reminisced about the past, one where they didn't have to manipulate entire populations for their own goals or force people to fight each other so they could achieve something.
A time where they could be themselves without worry. They were simpler times for simpler men, now, those figures wouldn't cut it, and they were more than aware of that. The world needed them to be who they were now, not just for their own survival, but for the continued existence of all of Sabaoth.