"This is the card of my guild, if you want to join it just look for it in Raiver Village."
It was night and, receiving the card from the man in front of him, Kael stored it and said goodbye to the man. He had already received several guild cards, with this being the last one.
"I already said goodbye to Arvanys and Dorian, those two have potential so I hope to see both again sometime."
Since he would use Kael's disguise again during the holidays and maybe meet them there, entering a forest he decided to return quickly because tomorrow's class would be early. He had managed to leave the academy thanks to the swap with the clone, being able to stay in class, and as long as he got close enough to the academy he could swap again.
Summoning his clone, he made it shrink to the size of a firefly and sent it away. It was something very difficult to do because it required total and absolute concentration while sending mana to them over a great distance.
"Crimson Eyes, activate ability."
His eyes regained the normal glow of the Crimson Eyes and he could see the distance his clone reached. Since the mission had been in three cities, it hadn't taken so long to arrive.
"It took five minutes for it to get to my room and I'm almost out of mana because of that."
Swapping with the clone, he appeared inside the bathroom and immediately turned it off, already unable to maintain it with mana, even though the clone had received an extra minute of duration since his improvement in the ability.
Removing the disguise, his eyes turned golden again. Looking in the mirror, he saw his black hair, which he had dyed in case his disguise was torn in battles, but luckily no one had managed to do that.
"I guess it's today..."
Turning his back, he saw the Fire Cancer mark shining a little, a sign that today would be the day he suffered its pain. So he immediately washed his hair to remove the dye that had magical attributes. This magical dye had been made by Giulio's family with their color and painting magic, which gave it durability and difficulty to remove unless the one who painted wanted it gone.
'This magical dye really is the best of all.'
[That family must earn a lot of money.]
'The word "a lot" is too little for them, his family is one of the three richest in Sanos.'
With his hair back to normal, he removed the blue necklace. That necklace was the same as his ring that boosted his fire abilities, but instead of fire it boosted water magic abilities. Of course, it had the same problem as his ring and its restrictions.
"It took me seven attempts to make it..."
[Blame your luck for that.]
He had made it before taking the mercenary test and almost arrived late. At least he managed to create some new water spells, having done several tests during the mission, which was dangerous because if it had exploded in his face, Kael's persona would have been ruined.
'My back is starting to burn, system, could you please store the necklace and give me back my ring?'
[Alright, but remember I will only do this with these two objects and nothing else.]
'Yes, I know, stop being annoying.'
He had made a personal deal with the system about storing objects because he had already noticed that the food he cooked always disappeared. He asked if it could be done with objects, and of course restrictions were placed on it.
'You're a picky system.'
[You can keep talking, but I won't change.]
Leaving the room, he saw Angela with Yumeha, who was very nervous. It seemed he had almost been caught. Angela came every day when a new month began to see if his Fire Cancer activated, so that's why she must have come. Luckily, he had told Yumeha that he would leave the academy for personal training and left her taking care of the room.
"I told you he was in the bathroom, Lady Angela."
"...Alright, how do you feel, Enrico?"
"It's today, so it's quite possible that I'll faint at any moment."
Yumeha seemed confused, so Enrico remembered that now that she slept in his room it was better for her to know about his illness. Sighing in exhaustion for what was about to happen, he prepared to explain, but before he could start, his body began to feel the pain of the cancer.
'This is going to be troublesome.'
Blood began to flow, and Yumeha ran to his side with teary, worried eyes. Angela immediately covered him with violet, beginning to treat him while Enrico endured the pain. This pain didn't even compare to the one from last month.
'Damn, Yumeha is going to be worried.'
Fainting, he saw himself wrapped in a void, sleeping peacefully. Beneath him, a dark hand tried to grab his back but for some reason couldn't. It seemed the distance between them was infinite, and worse, that distance kept growing.
'How troublesome.'
The hand transformed into a panther and sat with a sarcastic face. It seemed that at most it could only assume that form if Saul allowed it, because that void would never let it. Anyway, with so many friends being made, one day he would lose control from having them killed by someone.
'After all, the difficulty of this world seems to be increasing with time. The only problem is that it'll be bad for me too.'
"You...still need...time to be...perfect...like...Nartheis."
Hearing the weak transmission from that Ranvil's egg, it approached and lay beside it. Just as she had said, he was becoming a Nartheis, but it would be something like level Zara 1 so far.
'But it will be different when I take this body, with your level increasing mine will also increase.'
"And then...exterminate it..."
Tapping his finger on the egg's shell, the panther made an annoyed face at the words of that Ranvil. Lying down to sleep, it looked up, seeing his body floating.
'I would never do that because we are one, and without the other we are nothing.'
That's right, they could never separate. Until the day they died, they would remain one, because they were the only ones who understood each other.