Read Novel Full Chapter 22: Enclosed
Chapter 22: Enclosed
"No. Fucking. Way."
Those were the only words that the local resident wizard of the town had to say to me when we went for a visit.
"Didn't I tell you? It was bound to end like that."
While someone else might be rejoicing in their own opinion coming out on top, Ayda didn't belong to this kind of people. Instead of flaunting how she was right, she took my hand and gave it a light squeeze in a futile attempt to improve my mood.
"That was just the first and the most straightforward option. The failure right now doesn't mean the failure overall. This kind of situation… people from my hometown have a special saying for it. To win the battle but to lose a war…"
Only when I said it did I realise that this saying actually was about the exact opposite situation. Or rather, an exactly opposite situation that would appear only if I found a way to fulfil the first bit of my mission.
"I think I get the meaning behind it… But don't forget. So far we did the easy part, we lost the first battle. We have yet to achieve any victory in the broader sense."
Seeing how I was unwilling to let this defeat get to my head, Ayda scolded me lightly. But during all this time, her hand didn't move away from my fingers.
"And why are you so pessimistic? Why are we having problems with getting someone to help me in the first place? Do you want to tell that wizards do not accept apprentices?"
While I knew that there was no bad intent behind what Ayda said, I couldn't help but get angry when hearing it. For me, it sounded as plain defeatism.
"It's not like they are not accepting new people in their ranks…"
At this point, I finally noticed it. An expression of uneasiness on Adya's face. And at the same moment, a strangely dangerous guess appeared in my head.
"Then the reason why you are sure no one will accept me is…"
Probing a bit further, I was initially going to carve the answer out of this girl's soul if necessary, but seeing how genuinely worried she was, all my anger vanished in a single instant. If not for the fact that I was sure that she didn't play with my feelings there, I would take this sudden change of my emotions for a very bad coin.
"Let's sit somewhere peaceful."
Instead of answering, Ayda only tightened her grip on my hand before pulling me with her. Seeing the constant worry in her eyes I couldn't help but get worried just as much. While she was most likely worried about how I would react to her answer, I couldn't help but worry about what that answer would be.
Only after a few moments did Ayda finally change her direction, pulling me into some kind of park. As I passed by the frame made out of vines decorated with flowers alone, I couldn't help but feel quite ignorantish. Even though it was my third medievalistic world that I have visited so far, only now did I bother to realise that it looked way different from what I expected.
From the very simplest and most basic aspects, there were no faeces lying out in the open and turning the air into the foul stench. Contrary to what one might imagine about medieval times like the period currently occurring in this world, the city was surprisingly clean. With aqueducts surrounding it like some kind of strange wall and connecting to quite a lot of buildings all around, it seemed that at least the sanitisation of this palace was good.
But all the doubts that I had about the living terms of this period disappeared when I saw the immense beauty of this park. Thinking about this, back when I was in school, there was a lot of pieces of art, be it literature, paintings or even music, that often brought back the theme of spending the leisure time in parks.
From a modern standpoint, I always thought that it was some kind of misleading sentence, something of which the true meaning was already lost in the ages, just like people from the future might fail to understand the meaning of going to Netflick and chill with someone's better half.
Yet, just a single step inside this wonder of a nature unbecoming of the age without that much of civilisation was enough to cast all those ignorant thoughts aside.
In one moment, I was overwhelmed with a sweet aura of different flowers, plants and hedges, turning this otherwise bland city into what looked like a painting of some modernist artist. Wherever I looked, the flowers were sown in a specific order, turning them into small paintings growing directly from the ground one would walk on.
"This will be a good place."
Finally finding what she was looking for, Ayda pulled me a little more forward before forcing me down on a random bench made out of a fallen trunk of the tree. Sitting beside me right away, she cupped her hands on her lap before opening her mouth…
Yet no sound came from it.
"You see… In this place, wizards… They are really against the idea of practising any other kind of magic. While several years ago it was just a distrust towards the users of other magic, for several reasons that might or might not involve the highest echelon of both the wizards and the witches… They enclosed their organisation for any foreigners. Unless a wizard picks you himself, you will never be able to discover your talent unless…"
Suddenly stopping her words, Ayda looked to the side as if she was unwilling to look me in the face while explaining the rest.
"... unless you join their academy. They filter out all the spies and untalented weeds there, and after just a few months, they help you to awaken and become a student of one of their fully-fledged wizards."
Still looking at the girl with a curious expression plastered on my face, I waited for her to reveal what was making her feel so bad for the last few moments. But to my surprise, when Ayda didn't add a single world even after a prolonged period of time, I had no choice but to acknowledge that for some reason, she considered what she just said to be something that could negatively influence how I looked at her.
Only after seriously thinking about it for a long while did I understand what she was worried about.
"Hey… Like… Are you serious?"
Starting off with a slightly annoyed voice - I couldn't help it. I just wanted to bully her way too much - I clapped my hand against my thigh, hoping for this sharp and unexpected sound to shake the girl awake from her daze.
'W-wha-what?"
With her entire body starting to shake, this damned girl instantly melted my entire heart, stopping me from bullying her any further. Seeing her scared like that didn't bring me any join or benefit. It only made a strange pain appear in my soul.
"Did you seriously thought that I would be angry because of something so silly? Didn't you say that it would take a few months before they would accept me? We both know that I have nowhere near as much time that I could spare to finish my mission. And that means…"
Turning to the side, I moved my hand up and held Ayda's cheek with my fingers. Turning her head to make the girl face me directly, I lowered myself over her head a bit before stopping right before the girl's lips and whispering lightly in her face.
"So what, we are back to the kidnapping idea, are we not?"