3 bar menu

Chapter 73

“This isn’t your place. This is clearly an abandoned subspace of some random immortal.” Erika didn’t seem to take his words seriously, immediately rolling her eyes.

He didn’t hold back looking at her up and down, even if he did come here with another girl on his arm. She was still working her way down the stairs, so he took the opportunity to examine Erika to the point where her lips tightened and her cheeks flushed with anger. He wore a smug smile as he did so, and only when she looked like she couldn’t handle his ogling any longer did he speak.

“You said it yourself. This place was abandoned. In that case, the next person to claim it owns it.” He responded while smirking. “I happened to claim this place for my father, Lord Maxwell.”

She frowned, looking a bit less certain. “Lord Maxwell? I’m not familiar with him… “

“He is Lord of the Voltania Province, an equal to Lord Nikola.” His eyes still held some questions, but she let out a sound of surprise when he mentioned the Lord of the Audra Lightning Province, causing his smile to deepen. “My father made me memorize the insignia of every major emblem in the Ramphart Region, that’s how I know where you’re from.”

He pointed to her blouse, where she had a broach that had an insignia of a faceless golden man holding a lightning bolt. I noticed that the prince was wearing a similar broach, but his contained three bolts of lightning striking a bird in the center.

“I see…” Erika seemed to take in his broach too. “Well, that would mean we are neighbors. In that case, we should all be cordial with each other. You seem to be coming, while we were just leaving.”

“I noticed… I opened this gateway in an unstable space using considerable resources of my own.” The noble responded. “It can only be used once more before it collapses. You wouldn’t be trying to strand us here, would you?”

Erika gasped at the accusation, glancing my way before shaking her head. “We had no idea! You see, we have been trapped here ourselves by accident, waiting for the gate to open up once again. We mistook your gate as a coincidence.”

“Is that so?” He asked.

“They were going to strand us?” The door opened, revealing the woman who had been clinging to him.

She was a bit sweaty and out of breath, showing she had likely been running since she was out of sight to reach us in that short time.

“It’s not true!” Erika cried out. “We didn’t know anyone else was here.”

“Hmph… ignorance is no excuse.” The girl crossed her arms as she moved to the noble’s side. “You could have seriously harmed us because you were inattentive.”

I had intended to leave them, but it seems they didn’t believe such a situation had arisen. That was convenient for me. They seemed to be completely ignoring me compared to Erika. Was this because I didn’t contain the expected mana of a paragon?

“I apologize for our mistake…” Erika bit her lip. “But, my friend and I are trapped here. When you leave, can you take us with you? It’s the best way we can go home.”

When she said that last line, she gave me a look. She was trying to tell me that she hadn’t come up with any other ideas and that I needed to play along with her if we wanted to escape. I still wasn’t knowledgeable enough about a lot of things, so I didn’t want to act rashly. Although I felt Erika was naïve, she was still more worldly than me and not completely unintelligent. I decided to defer to her at the moment.

On the other side of the box, Tyler didn’t seem to share Erika’s blind optimism. All of his efforts were in getting them to Stormberg and locating someone who could rescue her from her prison. Although he looked cool and collected to Mara, my other self could tell he was panicked and desperate. Since it was just the three of them, he forced Mara to abandon the cart and he similarly abandoned their carriage, causing them to make incredible time. They would be arriving in Stormberg by the day after tomorrow, or so I was informed.

Of course, my other self told Mara to abandon the cart. She wouldn’t have left it otherwise. I wasn’t supposed to be there, and it’d be strange she’d abandon the box with me in it let alone make it to the city alone and alive. After they were an adequate distance away, I stored the cart and the carriage in my expansive inventory and continued to follow them in hiding.

The space did seem to have no limit. Perhaps, more interestingly, I was able to access the inventory the same as my other self. We were able to successfully transfer items back and forth from this world to that one and vice versa by storing things in the inventory and then pulling them out. I hypothesized that this would be a way to return Mara home, but I didn’t see a way to do it while explaining ourselves, and I would also have to sacrifice myself and by extension everything I had seen on this side, which would be regrettable.

“You’re asking for a favor?” The noble raised an eyebrow, looking amused while stroking his chin. “I did say that this was a costly endeavor. If I were to bring you back, this trip would need to be worth it.”

“Ah… all I found were books.” She glanced my way. “Did you find anything, Spirit?”

I shook my head. I wasn’t lying. Just about everything of value had been overlooked by me. I didn’t even have the eyes for value here.

“Books?” The noble’s expression grew interested, although he already knew she had books from the ones left on the ground so he was probably feigning interest a bit. “Those can be quite valuable if you have the right ones.”

“What can you find in a book?” The girl seemed to catch his interest and grew jealous, grabbing his arm and pushing her chest against him as if to mark him as her own.

“Books?” He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you can find all kinds of things in books. Ancient lost alchemic recipes, complex runic formations, complex and forgotten techniques, lost inheritances…”

He looked at Erika, his expression a bit more predatory. He wasn’t the only one. The boy standing next to him also licked his lips, almost like he believed Erika had all of those things on her person at that moment.

“I only took a couple of books. They’re mostly historical.” Erika defended. “I didn’t discover any lost inheritances. The recipes, formations, and techniques are all untouched in the library. If you’d like to look, I can take you.”

His eyes flickered to her ring again. “Are you saying that is all you have? That won’t do. I did spend a lot to open this doorway. If you want me to ensure a journey back for you, you’ll need to pay more than that.”

Erika took a step back, touching her ring that she noticed him looking at for the first time. “I don’t have anything else in here. This just contains a few traveling supplies.”

I was a bit surprised by her words. I knew that she had taken several of the books from the library and stored them in her ring. That must mean that these were valuable books she wasn’t willing to give up on. I had expected her to hand over the ring and let him have everything. I suspected that wouldn’t be enough and he’d press for more, but it was her actions that surprised me, not his. It was clear that the noble didn’t believe her either way.

“Give me over your ring. I’ll consider that proper compensation.” He held out his hand as he approached her.

As he took another step forward, the other boy seemed to start moving to the side. The girl stayed back, a smug expression on her face as she watched her would-be rival set upon by the two other men. They were still pretty much ignoring me. It felt strange to have so little of a presence that I was practically invisible to these people. I glanced around until my eyes landed on a particularly complete skeleton. I then reached down and picked it up.

“I can’t!” She cried out, looking desperate.

“I knew it.” He grinned. “You’ve been here longer but you missed so much. That means you were focused on the library. You had to have found something worth it. You’ll now give it to me!”

“Oi!” I called out, causing everyone to look my way.

In my arms was the skeleton I picked up. The girl was the closest to me, and the skeleton appeared to gross her out, causing her to take a step away.

“What are-” He began.

“Go fetch.” I tossed the skeleton through the portal.

As soon as the skeleton entered, the portal’s energy started to spin wildly.

“Y-you…” He cried out. “That portal has already destabilized. It’s no longer safe. If we go now, we could die from spatial storms on the way!”

“You can either go or be trapped here with us.”

“If I die, my father will be alerted to who killed me.” He declared angrily.

“Then he’ll be notified you died by spatial storms.” I responded confidently, although I was winging it. “Tick tock… the portal will only be open for another ten seconds.”

The noble froze for a second, seriously contemplating. “You’ll be stuck here too!”

“I’d rather be stuck here alone than stuck here with you. However, if you want to live and die in this place, be my guest.”

I was expecting him to panic and race for the portal, so I was surprised when a malevolent expression appeared on his face.

“You all want me gone… that library must be worth it!” He looked at the girl. “Go, get my father! He’ll be able to reopen the portal. Tell them it’ll be more than worth his time!”

“B-but… you said we could die…” She asked uncertainly.

“If you don’t go, then we all die! At least my father will be able to figure out what happened with your corpse.”

“You…”

Before she could say anything else, he suddenly lifted his hand, and she was thrown back, grunting like she had just been struck. She looked at him with shock before her body flew into the portal. That seemed to be all it could take, as the portal collapsed a moment later. I let out a sigh. This guy was far more ruthless than I had thought.