Mage academy 4 a litrpg.., p.27
Mage Academy 4: A LitRPG Magic Academy Light Novel, page 27
"Honor among thieves, an all that," Margot snorted.
"Indeed." Janna sighed then nodded. "Well, then, we have another mystery. Let's hope that this one can be solved a bit faster, eh?"
Auto save - [Savefile: Information]
Health: 100%
Mana: 100%
Quest: Find the Green Eyes
Location: Western Woods
Inventory: Essential Supplies, Basic Armor, Iron Sword, Sword of the Wasp, Aquamarine Sword, Frostbite Sword
Skills: Monster Summoner (Lv. 37), Flame Combat (Lv. 2), Wind Combat (Lv. 5)
Relationships: Friendly with Janna, Friendly with Margot
Time of Day: 12:34 p.m.
Moving Pieces
Danny, Margot, and Janna returned to the Academy feeling dismayed and frustrated.
Danny and Margot slipped back in through one of the side entrances, avoiding the main entrance where several mages stood guard on the stairs.
Tensions had not eased during their excursion, and Danny didn't expect them to drop anytime soon.
He returned to his dorm room and turned his mind to the mystery of the Green Eyes.
What could that mean? Indeed… What could that possibly mean?
Despite his best efforts, no answers came to him.
As days turned into weeks and then into two full months, that fact remained constant.
Winter's brutal assault gave way to a warm and lush spring, but Danny still felt a deep cold within his heart.
He wandered from class to class and went through his training sessions, but nothing made him feel truly alive.
He wasn't depressed, necessarily—just confused. No, annoyed.
He understood the basics: the Red Fangs had been killed by Deepcorp to keep them from revealing something key about Obadiah.
The only question was, what? What were Deepcorp so scared of?
Danny didn't know, but he was eager to find out.
One Friday, the smell of roasted deer filled the air as Danny, Nicodemus, and Zechariah sat around the small table in their family home.
Danny picked at his food, and Nicodemus nodded to him.
"So, Danny, I heard that you leveled up again! That puts you at what… Level 38?"
Danny shook his head. "Thirty-nine…. Master Barrydew's been working with me pretty aggressively."
"Really? What about?" Nicodemus frowned. "Something important?"
"Just trying to help me get the last of my achievements before the end of the year." Danny shook his head. "We've been hitting all sorts of different dungeons. I just managed to get the Weapons Expert Achievement by using a weapon that isn't my standard form of attack to kill at least… I think it was two hundred monsters, or something."
Danny shrugged. "I also managed to get an Epic Shot Achievement when I hit a stalactite with a cave crow and made it fall on a troll. Killed the thing instantly."
"Nice." Nicodemus held out his fist which Danny bumped. "If you think it's hard this year, just wait until next year. To graduate, you have to have at least thirty total achievements, twenty of them have to be at least Rank II, and ten of them have to be Rank III. You pretty much spend the whole year just accumulating them."
Danny grimaced. "Sounds like a lot."
"It's intended to get you out into the field," Zechariah commented. "The idea is that you've spent all this time in the classroom, you need a year where, instead of classes, your focus will entirely be on translating it into action."
"I suppose so." Danny frowned and tapped his fork on the plate then looked up. "And you're sure that Green Eyes don't mean anything to you?"
Zechariah laughed. "You still haven't forgotten about that?"
"You know I can't." Danny sighed. "He's still out there, our enemies are still scared that he'll come back, and…"
He shrugged. "I can't help but think that if we could somehow get him back, we could bleed off some of the tension between the mages and the Corp."
"Ahh, people have been trying to do that for years!" Nicodemus waved his hand. "As long as the Corp has existed, the mages and the corp have been at each other's throats. Don't worry your head about it."
Danny crossed his arms tightly, and Nicodemus shrugged.
"Green eyes… Are there any dungeons in the city with green eyed monsters?" Nicodemus asked.
"A handful. I've checked them all," Danny answered. "The first one I thought about was a crypt dungeon that Tess and I did, but there was nothing there."
"What about cats?" Nicodemus pressed. "Cats all have green eyes."
Zechariah held up a finger. "That's not technically true."
"Some of them do. Enough that it's a stereotype that the Red Rang might have been referencing."
Danny nodded. "Already crossed our minds. I've been to every single cat statue, cat carving, cat dungeon… I even checked with a few widowed millionaires who are known to have a lot of cats. Nothing across the board."
"Then I'm at a loss," Nicodemus said. "Unless it could be an idol in a temple or something. If you had one that had emeralds for eyes, maybe?"
"Once again, I checked that. There's only one temple dungeon anywhere close to the city, and it was empty."
Danny sighed. "I don't know. I've covered every angle I can think of. It must have been a reference that only the gang knew. Maybe one of their friends had green eyes or something, and had an apartment somewhere."
"Beats me," Zechariah said. "Look, I know it's hard, but the Crawler hasn't been seen in months. Nicodemus can't feel his presence in the city. I don't think there's still any reason to press this."
Danny grimaced then paused and looked up at Nicodemus, feeling an odd flash of hope.
"What?" Nicodemus crossed his arms. "I don't like that look."
"Something you just said." Danny snapped his fingers. "Green-eyed monster?"
Nicodemus nodded. "Yeah. There are actually very few monsters with green eyes. Darker eyes help them absorb more light in the dungeons, so most have black or-"
"It's also a saying. A reference to jealousy." Danny paused. "Right?"
"Right." Nicodemus frowned. "I'm not sure I follow. Look in jealousy? That doesn't make much sense."
"Maybe not, but then again, maybe so." Danny climbed to his feet. "I've got to run."
"You haven't eaten yet!" Nicodemus protested.
Danny paused, stabbed a fork into his steak, and started eating it on his way out the door.
Both his father and Nicodemus hollered at him to be more polite, but he didn't care.
There was something swirling in the back of his mind, and he wasn't going to stop until he had checked it out.
It took him about twenty minutes to arrive at Janna's Precinct.
She looked up at him in surprise as he walked in and scooted her chair back.
"Yes?"
"Do you have a list of all the members of the Imperial Family who have houses outside of the Imperial Palace?" Danny asked excitedly.
Janna frowned but nodded slowly. "Yes. The Imperial Family is very small, but one or two of them have small estates out in the city. They use them as bases when they want to observe the population. Some of them pretend to be civilians at times, they think it's funny. Why?"
"There are a few things that are all clicking together." Danny sat down across from her and folded his hands. "Green Eyes. Jealousy. Right?"
"Okay." Janna leaned forward. "You think that one of the members of the Imperial Family might be behind something?"
"Not exactly." Danny held up a finger. "Starting with that fact, though, I've seen up close and personal just how much Radiance's uncle hates the fact that he's locked out of the line of succession in the Silver Family Estate. He's jealous beyond belief, and I have to imagine that the family of the single most powerful man in the Empire probably feels more or less the same thing."
"Probably." Janna frowned. "So what's the part that I'm missing?"
"Master Barrydew and I found the crossbows hidden in a vault inside the home of a wealthy billionaire from the east," Danny explained. "The property management company was being run by criminals who profited off the homes that they controlled."
"You think they might be behind something?" Janna was still confused.
"No. I'm wondering if the Red Fangs might have had a hand in a company that managed one of the members of the Imperial Family." Danny folded his hands together. "Maybe one of them had a job there, and thus had access to the property."
"I see." Janna leaned back in her chair. "It's a long shot."
"It's been months. I'm willing to take any shot that I have." Danny shrugged. "Can you just check?"
"Let me see." Janna sighed and turned toward a filing cabinet.
She opened up a few drawers, and spent a moment flipping through files.
Finally, she nodded and pulled out one of them. "Here we go. The houses owned by the Imperial Family… Most of them are just managed by members of the Imperial Staff, but…"
She tapped on the page. "One of them, right here, is managed by the DiamondStar Management Maid Service."
She paused. "Why would you want to hire out of house, I wonder?"
"Because you're paranoid and don't trust the members of the Imperial Staff?" Danny posited.
"Very possibly." Janna confirmed. "Well, I have the identities of the Red Fangs. I'll head down there tonight, and see if their descriptions match up with any workers who suddenly went missing."
She paused. "If that is the case, the connection with the Imperial Family might also explain the trust that the… That our enemies happened to have in them. If it was more than simply knowing about them, and an actual connection."
"Send a messenger if you find anything." Danny requested, even knowing that he had very little authority to do so.
"I'll choose to alert you if I think it prudent." Janna stood up, her eyes sharp, but a smile rested on her face. "For your sake, and really for a whole lot more than that… I hope you're right."
Exactly two hours later, Danny and Janna approached a small building, not all that far from the Academy.
To Danny's surprise, it was actually located on the same little square with the fountain where he had initially met Nicodemus.
The whole place was surrounded by apartment buildings, all of which looked more or less like the normal people you'd meet on the street.
The stars twinkled down overhead as they approached one of them, and Janna placed her hand on her sword.
"And you're sure this is the place?" Danny asked.
"Mm-hmm," Janna confirmed. "It was just like you suspected. The management company employed three of the Red Fangs, and they were apparently known to be very good workers. This place here…"
She gestured at the building. "Is inhabited by selected homeless people that are given a chance to live rent-free. The owner is the cousin of the Emperor, on his mother's side."
"Interesting." Danny raised an eyebrow. "A real philanthropist."
"Not really." Janna opened up the front door. "He just wants to make sure that the people closest to him are the ones who need him. None of them would betray him since, if they did, they'd be back on the street."
"I guess that's one way of looking at it." Danny frowned as they walked into the lobby.
A few guards there straightened up, but Janna waved her Imperial badge. "Just a routine check."
They nodded and relaxed, and she and Danny started through the building.
One of the guards followed behind anyway, keeping a close eye on the two of them, though he didn't move to stop them.
Janna frowned and tapped her chin.
"Now… Those three had access to only a few of the rooms. Two of them on the upper floors, and one of them… Here."
She pulled out a key and unlocked Room 131. "Let's see what we find."
They pushed through the door where they found a small apartment that was largely immaculate.
The furniture was in place, there were dishes on the counter, and overall it looked clean yet inhabited.
Janna nodded as the two of them walked in, and the guard stepped up and peered in the door.
"You have a search warrant?" he asked.
"I don't need one." Janna turned and flashed a small piece of paper. "When investigating the death of an Ascended Mage, or Corp soldier ranked Commander or higher, I have jurisdiction to check any house in my precinct, even if that be the Imperial Palace itself."
She paused, and nodded to Danny. "They said that this room has been cleaned out and ordered three times since the Red Fangs died. It was the same person who did it each time."
"The mysterious member who escaped, and who happens to not be one of the people we recognize?" Danny asked.
"That's my guess. I've got people looking for him now." Janna frowned as they walked into the bedroom, once again followed by the guard.
She frowned then slowly tapped her toe against the bed. "You see this?"
Danny looked down. There were a few scrape marks on the floor where the bed had apparently been pushed aside once or twice.
It didn't look regular, like it was accustomed to being pushed around, and in fact, there were several buff marks nearby that suggested that whoever had done it had subsequently tried to clean it up.
"What?" the guard asked. "If you know something, you're duty-bound to-"
Janna lifted a foot and planted it against the bed frame, then pushed as hard as she could.
It rattled to the side, exposing a hole cut into the floorboards.
Loose dirt and rocks showed through the hole, and Danny grimaced.
"What is the meaning of this?" the guard snapped. "We'll need to-"
"No need to get too excited." Janna bent down and slowly picked up something from amidst the stones.
She turned to the guard, and held up what could be identified, after a moment, as a finger bone.
"I think we just found the remains of Obadiah Flamekeeper."
Auto save - [Savefile: Information]
Health: 100%
Mana: 100%
Quest: Locate the final member of the Red Fang.
Location: Lazy Fountain Apartments
Inventory: Essential Supplies, Basic Armor, Iron Sword, Sword of the Wasp, Aquamarine Sword, Frostbite Sword
Skills: Monster Summoner (Lv. 39), Flame Combat (Lv. 2), Wind Combat (Lv. 5)
Relationships: Friendly with Janna, Family Bond with Nicodemus, Family Bond with Zechariah, Ascended Fire Mage
Time of Day: 11:14 p.m.
Calm
"So, you found his body." Nicodemus frowned as he leaned against the wall of their home. "You're sure it's him?"
"Sure enough," Danny said. "All the facts line up. Janna is having it moved to the precinct for the forensics unit to examine, but at this point, that's mostly just formality."
"I hope it comes out right. It'll be a lot of closure," Zechariah said. "Did they find the surviving member of the gang?"
"Yes, they did," Danny confirmed. "It was actually pretty easy. Janna just had to contact the company he worked for, and they gave her his schedule. She went down to the next place he was scheduled to clean, picked him up, and… They're processing him now."
"Excellent work." Zechariah smiled. "Then I guess that's all a good thing! We can put it to rest now."
"Maybe." Danny turned to Nicodemus. "I was wondering… Though…"
Nicodemus frowned. "I know that look. You've got some sort of plan you're chewing on, and I don't think I'm going to like it."
"I was just thinking…" Danny paused. "How hard would it be to connect Obadiah's soul and his body again?"
"From what I know of black magic, it's not possible," Nicodemus answered.
"Right, but from what you knew, the body should have been entirely destroyed," Danny pressed. "The thing is, it wasn't. They did something different, or they did something wrong."
"I don't know, Danny," Nicodemus said. "Sounds a lot like necromancy."
"But we're not trying to bring him back from the dead. Just trying to stick his body and his soul back together," Danny protested. "I mean, come on. We yanked Anne and Barbara apart. Surely we can stick Obadiah back together."
"We?" Nicodemus asked.
Danny held up his hands. "You're the most powerful monster summoner I know."
"That's not saying much," Nicodemus countered.
"I just don't know that I can do it myself," Danny said. "Look, I would if I could, but… You know as well as I do that we're walking into untested territory. We found his body. Now, either he's still out there somewhere, in which case I truly believe it's worth trying to stick his back together, or he's faded away, in which case, what does it hurt to try to find him?"
Danny held up his hands. "Please, I'm not asking for much. The whole point of my training is that monster summoning isn't an exact science. We won't know if it can be done or not until we… Until we try."
Nicodemus glanced at Zechariah who simply shrugged.
"Don't look at me. I'm not a summoner." He sighed then rubbed the back of his neck. "That said, if you think it might work, I'm game to give it a shot. I liked Obadiah, and like you said, it wouldn't be necromancy. I think it's worth giving it a whirl."
Nicodemus groaned then nodded. "Alright. I'll come."
"Why the hesitation?" Danny asked as they started walking toward the door.
"Multiple reasons," Nicodemus answered. "First off, if we do this, I'm going to be seen by the corp. Unless you really think that Janna is going to let you just walk off with the remains, she's going to come with you, and that means that I'll be there. My cover will be blown."
Danny paused, and he felt his stomach lurch.
"Not that I think it's not worth it. I'm merely considering what my options will be in the aftermath." Nicodemus sighed and clapped his hands. "Well, why don't you head down to the precinct and grab Janna, the remains, and whoever else might want to come along? Meet me at the southern gates of the city.'
"The southern gates?" Danny asked.
"I might just know where he is," Nicodemus said casually.
"I thought you said you couldn't feel him anymore," Danny muttered.
"I said that I couldn't feel him in the city. That's true," Nicodemus answered, and walked out the door. "Now get to it."
