“It was really close this time,” Ewan said, resting on the captain’s chair, the bandages on his chest reddening when he moved, and he groaned. “Luckily, the enemy’s forte was dark element.”
“This time again,” Nana grumbled on the side, her arms crossed as she glared at him.
Ewan coughed and cleared his throat. “Yes, this time again,” he said. “This fight exposed a lot of our weaknesses. Before we do anything, let’s try to fix all that.”
“I don’t care about the banquet,” Nana said with a cute curve in her brows, her nostrils flared. “I want a healing type rune now.”
“I wasn’t able to defend you, sir…,” Lance said, staring at the floor, his eyes lost and bloodshot. Kidd lowered his head too, clutching his fist, while Walyn patted his back.
“It wasn’t anyone’s fault, no one could’ve defended me in that situation. He knew the weakness of my Varos, that shadow used something to create a surge in Ice-Anima,” Ewan said. “I need more practice to control it below its critical temperature. I also need to hurry up with the element baths, I need the Elementalist subtype at Step-1.”
“We’ll start gathering the blood on a large scale,” Stefan said. “I also need to work on the targeting mechanism, I was a useless weight out there.”
“We’ll look for a non-element targeting spell like my
“I’ll also learn spells,” Kidd said. “I could only defend against that fire guy; I would’ve even lost if not for Sae’sa.”
“Don’t become an average all-rounder, just get better at what you do best, train more with Willy and Lance,” Ewan said. “Overall, we just needed to be more powerful. I’m good at spells, but that man destroyed them with a single cast. We also need better reflexive awareness. When the shadow attacked me, I could do nothing but rely on my passive defense even when my instinct rang an alarm. And for better mobility and flexibility with our positioning, I have a new spell in mind, I’ll start working on it from now on.”
“We need a dedicated healer, Iris will be out in your Elementalist state,” Nana said. “I want a healing rune.”
“Yes, we’ll start looking for one,” Ewan said with a stiff smile; she was a hornet’s nest right now, he didn’t dare poke her too hard. “But we still need to go to the banquet, we need the Enclave’s guild for information on that too. We also need better artifacts, that’s your specialty, you decide how to proceed.”
“We’ll need better materials, what I’ve left from dad’s collection is running low now, it won't be enough,” Nana said, taking out her diary with burnt edges and a pen with a chewed cap, and scrawled from one end to another—Ewan succeeded in distracting her. “I have an idea for your Spellbook, I’ll try to turn it into a supporting artifact. Pure defense for Lance, I’ll switch the armor for a stronger and durable metal. I’ll work on something like your overcoat for Kidd, for better agility and stealth, and maybe modify the dagger. And an amplifier for soul spells for Stefan…but his lantern already does that…” She scratched her head with the pen. “Spell stability…spirit recovery…stealth…defense…” she murmured and scratched the words one after another.
“If you can build something to enhance my Ryvia, that’ll be better for me,” Stefan said.
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“You can use my
“Ryvia it is.” She wrote and circled it in her diary. “Your Spellbook is made of a strong material, it should be class-A Infinity Hide if I’m right, it can handle multiple runes.”
“Can I keep the dagger, Sae’sa?” Kidd asked.
“It’ll still be the same, I’ll just add some applications to make it better,” Nana said.
“What about you?” Ewan asked her.
“Runecube is enough for now, I’ll create another when I get another rune,” she said. “I might link them together for boosted support.”
“If I had just protected our loot, we could’ve gained a lot, we could’ve bought all the materials with that…,” Lance said.
“It was an inevitable situation,” Ewan said. “We were checkmated here, we were humbled, that’s all, let’s learn from it and move on.”
“Did you know who the shadow was, Boss?” Kidd asked.
“It was Shadowfarer,” he said. “Nana and I met him before.”
“From that hall of history?” Nana said. “Why would he…”
“Either the Seroyotes want me dead, an unlikely scenario, or he moved on his own,” Ewan said. “The whole merchant ship farce was probably his doing, to lure us in, and we did his bidding. I do have some guesses as to why, but they are just that for now.”
“He doesn’t want you to undo the curse on the Seroyotes…,” Nana muttered.
Ewan sighed. “I can't undo it anyway, I just skirted the curse, but yeah, we got involved in family drama. Regardless of his reasons though, the only conclusion for us is that we need to eliminate him.”
“The peak for Frost’s rite is on that island, if he causes trouble or they all turn hostile, it might be a problem,” Stefan said.
“I already noted all the details, so even if we lose access to that, it’ll only be a matter of finding another peak with Millennium Ice and creating the exact same conditions, his rite won't have any problem,” Ewan said. “Let’s prepare for the banquet now, we need to decide on what congratulatory gift we’ll give the Seigneur. And one more thing, we will meet our enemies there, and you will be provoked, but do not let your impulses make any decision. Unless necessary, we’re not antagonizing the Enclave.”