The Lone Wanderer

"Percy… seat… all day…" Micky said.

"Sit." Nesha corrected him.

"Sit."

Bored as she had been over the last couple of weeks, the girl had volunteered to teach Micky how to speak. By now, the crow's vocabulary had expanded greatly. Even his ability to vocalize much of it had grown shockingly well. The bird still struggled to form complete sentences, but he was learning faster than a human toddler would.

"Yeah, Percy is sitting all day, brewing elixirs for you freeloaders!" the young man quipped in an irritated tone after overhearing them.

Following the creation of his latest clone, the trio had paused their journey, camping at a spot outside the Camelot province. Had they kept walking, they would have certainly reached their destination by now, though Percy had his reasons for delaying.

He wanted to spend some time brewing a few weeks ahead, just in case he didn't get the chance later. Having spent about three weeks waiting for his clone to return, he had already brewed enough elixirs to last them for the next two months.

"Hey, it's not like we're lazing around." Nesha argued back. "We keep watch and gather food for you too."

"No. Micky keeps watch and gathers food. You just chat with him for a few minutes whenever he returns."

"Well, I cook..." the girl shrugged, but didn't say much else.

At least Percy had shaved a few more seconds off Crystallization again. By now, he only needed a little under eight minutes for each crystal. If only he'd been this fast back when they started selling the Aurora Dew, they would have made so much more money…

He sighed. Drawing another sliver of mana out of his core, he was about to resume his work, when a silver blur caught his attention, flying in the horizon at an insane speed. What's more, it seemed to be heading right towards him!

But the young man didn't panic, already knowing what it was.

'Took you long enough...'

A moment later, the wisp slammed into his stomach, lodging itself inside the hole in his soul. Then, a flood of memories flashed through his mind. An insidious vine strangling him, a trek through a black jungle, a finely crafted blade, a bitter reunion, a guilty conscience, a master of the forge, a forsaken village, a bloody feast…

There wasn't much there, as Percy's clone had only spent a couple of days in Takeo's body. Most of the elapsed time had been spent searching for a host. However, what the clone did bring back was valuable. And he'd already promised to keep it all close to heart.

'Torui village, huh?'

The tragic fate of the small village made him shudder. This was his first encounter with an infestation, and it was far more scarring than he could have ever imagined. Robbing an entire world of its mana, dooming all its denizens to short, difficult lives? Forcing people to kill each other to delay their own deaths? Draining their very will to live, crippling them?

'And one could just as easily pop up right here, on Remior…' he thought grimly.

Percy didn't know too much about these cosmic cancers, but he did know they could appear pretty much anywhere life dwelled, with next to no warning. While that hadn't happened to his world yet – as far as he knew – it didn't mean it couldn't.

'But it won't be the same. We have gods here. They'll take care of it…'

The young man's feelings on the topic were mixed. He certainly had his differences with the Divine Order – heck, he was currently on the run from them – but he couldn't help feeling reassured knowing that should the sky fall, somebody was there to hold it up. That said, relying on those pompous assholes definitely irked him.

'All the more reason to get stronger.'

"Is your clone finally back?" Nesha asked, noticing the commotion.

Percy had already brought her up to speed on his secrets. He'd even offered to teach her Circulation, though she hadn't given him a direct answer yet. His guess was that she wasn't looking forward to years of intense workouts.

"Yes." he said. "Tomorrow, we're finally entering the province."

"Finally… Food…" Micky cawed excitedly.

Spoiled after stuffing his face full of Orange cores over the last few years, the crow hadn't enjoyed living off Red vermin during the past month. Especially since his needs had grown greatly following his advancement. The only decent meal he'd eaten recently was the bandit group.

Percy smiled.

"Just a few more days buddy."

***

Percy and Nesha walked along the paved road, looking at the post ahead. Three men stood watch, all dressed in fine silken clothes, decorated with yellow insignias. They depicted a human mouth sporting a set of strangely elongated canines.

"Members of House Tantalus…" he muttered, warning his companion.

While the enemy family had deployed most of their forces to exert pressure on the western side of the province, it wasn't like they had completely abandoned their own territories. Going through a rudimentary check at the border was only to be expected.

"How do we handle this?" Nesha asked.

"They have no clue I'm from House Avalon, nor that we came from the Alchemists' Guild. It's already been weeks since Hermes' announcement. Just act like a commoner and let me do the talking." he said, getting a nod back.

Nearing the trio, he noticed something that gave him pause, however. One of the guards was extremely pale, his eyes drooping and his features sickly. He was hunched over and appeared to be having a tough time just standing there.

'Fuck. He has the bloodline.' Percy realized.

Through his correspondence with Elaine over the past year, he had come to learn a lot more about the conflict between the two Houses. Apparently, the founder of House Tantalus was originally a member of House Avalon! In fact, he was Percy's great-great-great-granduncle or something!

Centuries ago, that person was born with a mutated strain of the Clone bloodline, called Drain. Its effect was similar, but it essentially worked in reverse. Rather than forming living clones out of life mana, it instead allowed its users to break living tissue into life mana. Had this been all it did, the Drain bloodline would have certainly been a powerful asset for House Avalon. With it, Percy's family might have grown even more powerful by now. Sadly, this wasn't meant to be, as the Drain bloodline was blighted.

Blighted bloodlines were those that had mutated severe detrimental side-effects, plaguing their owners more than blessing them.

In this case, those with the Drain bloodline constantly needed to use it, as their bodies rapidly broke down in the absence of life mana. Worse still, the Drain bloodline wasn't bundled with the life affinity – unlike its predecessor – which meant its owners had no way around their curse. From there, it was easy to see how the originator of the bloodline had ended up at odds with the rest of his family, driving him to leave and start a rival House nearby. And the two sides had been enemies ever since, their conflict partly driven by hatred and partly by disputes over territory.

But there was more.

The one thing the owners of the blighted bloodline wanted more than anything else, was to lift their curse, creating a brighter tomorrow for their descendants. And what better way to fix the Drain bloodline, than to mate with members of House Avalon who had the Clone bloodline?

If they got lucky, the detrimental side-effects would disappear, or maybe they could even get the life affinity bundled to their own strain, letting them solve their issue indirectly. Consequently, it was common practice for members of House Tantalus to kidnap those with the Clone bloodline, subjecting them to… unspeakable things.

"Change of plans." he told his companion while also speaking through his bond. "Micky, start flying towards us. Nesha, be ready to defend yourself."

Taking a deep breath, he began accumulating mana into his channels, knowing the situation had a high probability of devolving into violence. Originally, he'd thought the guards wouldn't have had much reason to suspect him – which was still the case. However, that wouldn't matter. Would the sickly noble think twice before killing a couple of commoners to alleviate his symptoms?

'Not going to risk it.'

Preparing his boosting art, he inched closer to the trio, as the latter finally took notice of him.

"Halt." one of them yelled. "What's your business in the Camelot province?"

"I'm a blacksmith by trade. This is my wife. We're originally from Riah town in the Sentin province, but the situation there has been a little chaotic lately. We figured we'd try our luck elsewhere." Percy spoke his rehearsed lies.

The guard nodded, gesturing at them to keep walking, though Percy didn't miss the sickly guy eyeing them with greed, practically salivating.

'Yeah. Fat chance he's planning to let us go.'

Taking another breath, he finally pushed Circulation past the point of no return, as a bird's shadow brushed over him, blotting out the sun, accompanied by a shrill cry.

'Mom. Dad. This one is for you.'