Waver stood in the middle of the main street and soaked in the atmosphere. Fuyuki was… a nice city.
The stench coming off the Thames River was gone, while the sky was bathed in a beautiful blue instead of the sickly gray he was accustomed to. Even the people were more welcoming.
At least he hoped so, as he could not for the life of him understand what they talked about to him.
He really should've studied the language, or gotten someone from the language department to engrave it in his mind.
'Stupid, stupid, stupid!' he belittled himself while looking for a place to stay.
The young magus knew he couldn't stress it enough, but his foresight was in the dumpster. How could such a genius as himself make such elementary mistakes?
Fortunately, he was, in the end, a magus, and so it took only one person speaking a little English and some probing with spells for him to finally reach his destination.
The destination being, for some reason, this man's house. Waver knew that suggesting with magecraft that he was the man's distant relative was risky, but he had never even thought about living in Glen's house.
But it saved him the hotel money he desperately needed, so whatever.
Glen's wife, Martha, was as easy to hypnotize as he was himself, probably because of their longing to meet their family. It took Waver little to no effort to squeeze out of them every piece of information he would need to play the role of a relative, and he even got a room to himself in their house.
It wasn't anything special, the older couple didn't seem wealthy in any way, but it was free, and so the young magus didn't object. There was a bed, a desk, and even a TV that he could easily connect to his familiars for the ease of spying.
He snapped his fingers in realization. He forgot about familiars. It was good that he left for Fuyuki a week before the war, or he wouldn't have had time to prepare the tools.
The magus spent the rest of the day creating a temporary magical workshop in his temporary room.
It took him three whole days to finally be ready with everything.
Six familiars: four on standby, two in the field. The familiars themselves were not a problem for the young magus, as he was a student of the evocation department. The harder part was connecting their vision with the TV the couple provided for him. The task that seemed very easy at first, of course it would, he aced the theoretical exam and knew the circles by heart, ended up being arduous and quite prone to failure, with the smallest loss of concentration ending up in failure. And because Waver was so sure the task would be easy, he did not create a familiar network, something he actually was quite good at, beforehand, a mistake which resulted in the need to connect each familiar with the TV individually.
Not that the young genius would ever admit to his mistake, not even if Professor El-Melloi were questioning him.
Speaking of his professor, the man was probably fuming in his office right now, sending letters to the House of Damas. That stupid old man! That should teach him a well-deserved lesson! Never underestimate your students!
Proud of himself, the young genius left the house and took a stroll through the city. It was nearing nighttime, yet the streets bustled with people and activities. The restaurants were open, the vendors shouting at the people and inviting them for a meal, the smells of noodles and spices permeating through the air. It's been a short time living here, yet the magus could say he liked this city a lot.
Lost in thought, the young genius wandered off and away from the bustling onto the less frequented streets. The shop lights were turned off here, as well as the lights of the residential buildings. It was the, almost tranquil, silence that shook him out of the trance-like state. There, before him, stood a bridge. A massive construction of steel and concrete, connecting the two halves of the city together.
It was poetic in a way, the bridge of course. The stillness of the metal giant, during the day probably full of activity, the cars driving through like the blood cells in a vein. Now it was quiet. Not a car in sight. The steel construction sat there, alone, as if forgotten. Such a strong bond between two places, yet no one used it in the moment; no one remembered it.
Waver stood still, observing the massive red vein, thinking about what would happen to the city in an event in which the bridge would collapse.
The young magus even thought to himself for a second that the war could cause its collapse, but quickly shook off the absurd idea. Like a secret war like that would end in such a catastrophe.
Exactly. The war.
The genius, because of the tranquil and welcoming atmosphere of the city, almost forgot about his purpose in leaving the house in the first place. He was in dire need of quicksilver and a nice little leyline to draw from for the summoning ritual.
A short walk into the forest later and Waver found the second thing he was looking for: the leyline, and the access to its power was unrestricted there, which meant an easy and uneventful summoning. And judging by his command seal, the servant he will inevitably summon was or will be a member of the Catholic Church.
The young magus caressed the red batteries of raw magical energy with a wishful sigh.
'Well, it's time to sleep anyway. Let's see who I'll win the war with tomorrow.'
And with that singular thought raising his humor significantly, with a small, proud smile on his face, Waver made his way back to the house of the Mackenzies to, probably, start his next day with a smile on his face.