Chapter 78: 78 – Departure

It wouldn’t have been much of an issue at all, were this a normal journal - he could’ve just flipped through until he reached a part actually interesting to him. But, being encoded, Makhus couldn’t help but decode it linearly to ensure he didn’t miss out on anything. Hours passed, and the alchemist continued decoding the journal bit by bit, watching over his glassware and checking in on Sigmund every once in a while. Zelsys returned from her errand run at some point, apparently having decided to spend the rest of the morning training in the backyard. 

Once the soup was ready and he brought a portion to Sigmund, the historian struggled onto his feet and made his way to join the three of them in the kitchen just so he wouldn’t have to be alone for a little while. 

“It’s fine, I can bear the pain,” he rebuffed concerned questions, sipping down his fourth glass of Liquid Vigor. A quite substantial portion of his skin was covered in charred patterns that resembled the glowing veins of a dying ember, though his face was untouched. It was largely his extremities that were most affected, his hands having completely blackened halfway up the elbows, from which point further black lines spread up his arms and even onto his chest. 

His legs were less affected, with the blackening having stopped a quarter of the way up his thighs. His chest was also partly covered in charring, though it was just a circular, radiating mark over his stomach. Beyond these rather visible signs, Sigmund also had many small first-degree burns, relegated entirely to the portions of his skin which remained uncharred.

Bizarrely, it didn’t seem like the visible changes to skin colour had any functional effect beyond greatly increased heat resistance - Sigmund had held his hand over one of the stove’s burners for a solid twenty seconds before he noticed any actual temperature increase. 

Most importantly of all - he hadn’t had a single seizure since the strange ritual. “It’s still there, but I don’t feel any tension anymore,” he remarked. “I’m certain my ah… Metabolic Rubedo, was it? I’m sure my condition will manifest in a different way, but I’m not eager to seek out danger just to see what happens.”

“You’d just snap in half at a light breeze,” Zel chuckled, pointing out his gaunt figure. Even his own clothes hung off him in a comical way, as he was now- like all his body fat had been burned off, leaving a freakishly thin frame of muscle shrink-wrapped in dehydrated two-tone skin.

Makhus had expected Zelsys to question him as to when the Azoth extract would be ready, but… She didn’t. She didn’t even bring it up. She did, however, bring up that, “Me and Zef will be leaving for a couple days tomorrow.”

“Beast-slaying contract?” Makhus asked, already expecting the answer. He didn’t expect the details of the answer, though.

“Uh-huh,” she offhandedly affirmed. “Some locust-men have holed up in an inactive Dungeon so we’re to play exterminator.”

“An inactive dungeon?” he asked, only slightly concerned. An active Dungeon Core hadn’t breached containment since long before he was born, and he’d been on an exploratory mission to a dormant one that had been forced open. There were still beasts there, beasts that could kill a normal person easily, but… Neither Zel nor Zef were normal people. Even Makhus wasn’t a normal person. 

He wasn’t concerned by locust-men either - without a queen, they were no more dangerous than regular bandits, and with a queen, they would’ve overrun the valley by now. The risk of death or severe injury was very present, that much was true, but the war had taught him to live with the assumption of survival, he had seen all too many soldiers die paralyzed by fear for their lives. 

The remainder of the day was… Impressively uneventful. Sigmund continued stocking the front end of the store as part of his effort towards recovery, Zel and Zef wiled the day away in a combination of training, lounging about, and shameless displays of mutual affection, whilst Makhus continued his work down in the lab.

At one point when he came upstairs to check on Sig and make sure everything was alright, he saw the two women out in the backyard practicing Fog-breathing. He even asked Zelsys to teach him Fog-breathing and she agreed, but upon realizing it would be a full day’s effort, he decided he would actively commit to the effort once he didn’t have an unstable Azoth extraction to watch over.

Until then, just practicing the breathing method that Zel described would have to be enough.

---

The four of them ate breakfast together the next day, Zel and Zef said a brief and largely jovial goodbye, and they departed for Willowdale’s northern gate. They heard Strolvath’s thunderous voice and deft instrumental echoing through the streets long before they saw the gate. He was waiting for them. He was playing an aggressive, dance-like rhythm, one known in certain lands as flamenco guitar.

He wasn’t singing any particular lyrics as much as he was using his own voice as part of the instrumental, hollering out a melody to perfectly underline his strumming. Even without lyrics, though, his voice conveyed a great deal of emotion, a great deal of passion for whatever his wordless song was about. When they finally rounded the corner that brought him into direct line of sight, they saw that he was leant against the wall of a building, surrounded by a small group of people actively listening to him. When he saw the two women approaching, he quickly transitioned to a climactic crescendo to end the performance and quietly gave the audience his thanks.

By the time they actually reached him, the audience had largely dispersed, and the few stragglers went their separate ways when the trio quickly made their way through the northern gate. The guards not only didn’t try to stop them, they entirely refused to acknowledge their passage, only letting them pass and shutting the door behind them the moment they passed. The road to the north was paved with ancient stones, tracks carved into it by the perpetual coming and going of carriages and motorized vehicles alike.

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