Chapter 113: Sidestory 5: Alfred Nobel

Auratic

Dressed in her self made anachronistic lounge suit still immaculately white that had become synonymous with her, trudging through the ashes beset on all sides by the seething green hell unleashed by her lady, Alfred was inspecting the aftermath for survivors with potential. She had little faith that any of the humans on the outside had the potential to spot her, the literal walls of flame and the smokescreen provided further obstruction. Rather it was a quick and dirty form of checking if there was any human with the capabilities to see through the stealth of the Araneae. Both the divine’s gifts and void's boons trickled down to them through the kindred tie that bound them all together. This meant that only certain fractions of the power wielded by Alicia was shared to her kindred. In essence, at the current situation, Alfred wasn’t as proficient at concealing herself as her mistress was. And even then, ‘disappointingly’ there didn’t seem to be any human to spot her intrusion to the battlefield. She was hoping to capture anyone who could detect their presence. That ability of that degree meant potential, potential that could then be made to serve her mistress. But none passed that criteria.

Still there was more to do. The mage corps deployed by the Empire was small in size but rich in talent that if possible should be recruited, or so her lady judged. The flames, perhaps, obeying their master’s will, had spared the worst from the sorcerers instead burning in a circle around them. Alpha was more convinced by the fact that most of the sorcerers’ had survived a direct attack from her mistress. Teetering on the edge of life that is, but still, survived by having made the decision to pool all their power to a defensive barrier. Now if her lady opted for a more direct assault, there wouldn’t even be ashes left to look through no matter how many of them put up their life to maintain the ward. The mages that stood closer to the front were disfigured by the fire beyond recognition and mangled by the superheated shrapnel that shot out from the explosion. They were alive, for what it was worth. The fire cauterized most of their wounds, they wouldn’t die of bleeding. But disease and infection would claim their lives. It would be more merciful to kill them outright than to let them suffer from the agonizing end ahead of them. Her lady was kind, sometimes too kind for her own good, Alfred was not, she would be the whip to her kindness. The ‘potions’ concocted by Priest could prolong their life long enough for her to drag them back to Paxton where they could be ‘treated’ by her newer experimental formulas.

Sprawled on the ground a scrawny decrepit body caught her interest. Kicking it to the side revealed it to be an elderly sorceress. Her usual unimpressed expression that always wore an equable smile, took on a tint ridiculing.

‘So an old hag was using her magic to maintain an illusion that she was still in her young and perky self, hah! To waste your time clinging onto your fleeting youth only to squander it with a hollow imitation.’

The aged witch must have been using some sort of illusory magic to hide her true form. It was a common goal for humans delving into magic to make their first achievement achieving eternal youth, immortality or failing those at least prolonging their life to have time for studying the endless depths of the arcane.

‘The saying goes, with age, comes wisdom… A shame that intellect doesn’t come with wisdom as a package. I would dub you a fool, but that would be an insult to the fools of the world, if they even realized that they were being insulted. Milady has no use for fools, let alone someone hopeless as this.’ Alfred uncaringly stepped over her body, stomping on her barely humanoid face crushing the last bit of life left in her. No one would know this is how the ‘youngest’ prodigy to be recruited into the Empire’s fourth mage corps perished.

An indignant voice asked of her. It was a man, most likely a higher ranking wizard leading others bare on his feet.

‘One of the languages in use within the Empire I presume…?’

The person was a capable researcher and a magical instructor. Many of the magi around him were his current or one time protégés. After combing this much from his memories through Cold Reader, Alfred decided to recruit him for the potential use. Whether he was willing or not, but first she needed to tame his temper unfit for servitude.

The man had made the mistake that Alfred was someone from their homeland, just because she spoke their tongue. He realized this error as soon as she started walking towards him, spouting nonsense.

Twining fires quickly rose from the cracked earth below chaining her in place. It was a spell used for holding down an elemental spirit. An overkill for the average person. But he felt something… dangerous about this… eccentric woman in front of him and used it without hesitation. He expected her to try to avoid or even protect herself, through magic or not but she didn’t act. Rather it felt as if her eyes were tracking where the binding flames would come from. He thought he was hiding it by using the crevices of the ground as cover. He thought that he got the drop on her, but no, she let it happen. Her hollowly amicable smile still plastered on her face, unchanging. In the next few moments, she simply continued her stride towards him, breaking the fiery bonds chaining her without any effort.

He held open his left palm, from which a stream of fire flowed out towards her, engulfing her completely. Still, he could barely make out that she was making her way towards him. As what little energy remained in him dwindled down and the stream of flames died out to a fizzle, through the soot and smoke Alpha was standing but a step away from him untouched by the flames. Even now she wore her innocuous smile, not a single muscle had changed from before but now it seemed to strike fear deep into his heart.

She took the stammering mutterings of disbelief as a yes and walked up to him. Whoever she was, it was clear that in the current situation that he couldn’t even scratch her clothing let alone have a fighting chance against her. He was petrified about what might happen to him now. Already unsteady on his feet, he felt as if he would collapse at any moment as he saw her hand reaching out to his neck. He could feel his heart seizing.

Or so he believed, she was patting down his singed and disheveled robe. Straightening up his clothing, neatening it.

Baffled, he could only say: “I don’t know.” all the while some unrelenting feeling of unease crawled through his body, like something crawling under his skin.

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Some sinister force was coiling around every part of his being  and by the time he noticed it, it was far too late to resist.

He could feel an eldritch presence from behind his eyes, seeing the world through him, wearing his skin as a puppet of flesh, one of body and two of spirits. Its incomprehensible and profane thoughts incubating at the back of his conscious mind. His arms and legs no longer felt his own, numb and unresponsive. A prisoner locked caged in his own body and mind.

Just as a taste, Alfred slowly loosened the grip of the spell holding over him. And he finally collapsed onto his knees.

⟨ Call of the Void ⟩

The freedom returned to his limbs, but at a heavy cost. Hope and motivation seemed to escape him, his mind had become awash with lingering dark thoughts about his own death. Myriads of possibilities, how much every one of them would hurt, how long would it hurt for. There was an inexplicable… craving to act out these self-destructive thoughts. It felt as if he was being pulled into a sinking mire… No matter how much he fought to pull himself out of this, the stronger it seemed to pull him down, a part of him perhaps craved to act out these… fantasies. Were these the wants of the malevolent presence hiding behind his eyes wishing his doom, or was it of his own, kept contained under the lock and key of rationality. He could no longer make that distinction anymore. While lost in this seemingly intractable abyss of hopelessness, a clear and vibrant voice pierced through the darkness of his mind as though the golden rays of morning banished the night, and brought him back to lucidity.

Her smile, hollow and indifferent as it always has been, now seemed like the only real warmth he felt in forever.

She tossed a vial of blood red fluid onto him before continuing on.

As she went on with her search one girl staggered to raise herself. Unable to stand, she only managed to sit up from the ground. She seemed to be in a daze, staring at the blazing fires enchanted. Even as the grogginess faded away her look of entrancement never disappeared. Her left eye had been crushed by flying debris with no hope of recovery, her legs and their muscles were shredded open. Numerous other scratches and bruises dotted her body. She should have been in unbearable pain yet it appeared as if it was a mere distraction to the grandeur in front of her.

Within mankind there were… abnormal individuals, those who were different from the others and among these abnormal individuals there were outliers, psychopaths, sociopaths, the mentally deranged, the mad and the insane. She was one of these outliers, with dangerously obsessive lust for magic. Or so Alfred learned through Cold Reader.

‘This one’s special… This fixation of hers can be molded into something else… like devotion to the mistress… She ought to be brought to her grace directly.’

She slowly turned to face Alpha half in a daze. And after a significant pause she strung together a question.

Vibrancy twinkled in her eyes, as the fires of ambition ignited in her. Before she could contest, Alpha had already wrapped her legs in silk, drenched in the potions made by Paxton.

In time she did learn the first ordinal’s name… and the title she came to be known for… Alfred Nobel, the Patron of Prodigies.

Auratic

Update: It is now tomorrow 4pm. I remembered what I was supposed to add here. The Call of the Void is a more aggressive version of the real phenomenon of the same name. Not much study has been done about it, not ones that I can find anyway. Except here unlike our world, Call of the void is very real and very much so capable of steering someone into danger, and there's little the victims can do to prevent their suicidal ideation and the consequent action they make towards it.

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