Chapter 288 - News from Afar (1/2)
Merlin didn't know why he was roped into helping his student out with the farm and the kitchen renovations. He grumbled all night but Zero continued to ignore them. Merlin felt wronged. With Truen, he was scolded by Freya for putting too many unrealistic expectations on his student. Why was it that Zero took his 'unrealistic expectations' with so much ease? Were they perhaps not unrealistic after all?
A crack in the air space made Merlin drop his work. The sudden movement startled Zero beside him.
”What's wrong?”
Merlin growled. ”Somebody's infiltrating Arabesque through the air space instead of the portal...”
That surprised Zero. Who would have thought that there were other means of transportation coming to the City of Night? Merlin seemed very confident in his security as well. The portal was the only way Zero was taught to access the sub-plane. Was there actually other ways?
Zero followed after the magician and ran out of the tower. Merlin even forgot his hat and looked furious. From the lobby, they could hear spells being fired. The golem guard must be fighting the intruder who was holding up rather well against the advanced golem. Merlin growled and stormed out of the door with Zero running behind him.
The door burst open with a strong blast of wind magic. The vein at Merlin's temple was a dark shade of purple, threatening to burst. Zero worried about his teacher's health. This amount of rage couldn't be good for anyone's heart!
”Swift!” Merlin yelled and Zero looked into the night sky with difficulty. There was too much wind going around but the teenager was sure that he knew that name from somewhere.
A peal of shrill laughter and familiar feminine voice made something click. It's her!
Merlin commanded his golem guard to stop attacking and the obedient golem went back to guarding the door in a standby position, ready to attack the intruder if she attempted something else.
Zero smiled. He'd never seen this person face to face before but he knew her rather well.
”Swift!” he called out. ”What are you doing here?”
The harpie cooed and swooped down to hug Zero with her huge purple wings. The teenager spluttered when his mouth got filled with feathers. Merlin only glared at the harpie from the side. He didn't really like the universal librarian. She always found ways to get under his skin. Merlin would never forgive her for cutting off his beard that one time she tried to escape after invading Arabesque. Too ashamed to meet people and not willing to wait a few centuries for his beard to grow out, the wizard was forced to invent a tonic for rapid beard growth. Swift laughed at that so heard when she learnt about it five years later. Talks might have died down after so many years but the humiliation Merlin felt never disappeared.
The bespectacled harpie grinned. Her lime green hair swayed with the now gentle wind. Swift looked at Zero and nodded thoughtfully.
”You've grown prettier.”
Zero blushed at the comment. The tip of his ears became completely red and Zero tried to bury his face away somewhere, making the harpie laugh loudly at his actions.
”I'm just kidding, don't run!” she grinned and chased after Zero before he made it to the tower. The golem guard hummed ominously and Swift became slightly nervous. She didn't want to battle that guard again. It was tough dodging the projectiles.
”What do you want?” Merlin growled, having enough of the disturbance.
Swift assumed a more professional image and bowed. ”Sorry for the intrusion but I bring important news for Zero. Gaia found some clues about Nel's last location. Shittomi also sent me a letter about her investigations when she could not reach Zero. However, she isn't in her territory at the moment so I'm here to pass the message on her behalf. It's rather confidential so I'd need to borrow Zero for a while.”
Zero looked at Merlin and the golem guard. ”It's alright, Merlin can know. Maybe we should move this discussion to the tower?”
Vulnerable to Zero's pleading look, Merlin relented with a heavy sigh. ”Only this time. We're going to the library.”
Zero quickly led Swift through the security while Merlin restrained the golem guard. Swift was amused when Zero started dancing on the floor tiles before her. Merlin didn't say anything and the harpie soon understood what that odd ritual was for. Leave it to Merlin to come up with the weirdest ideas.
The library was messy beyond belief. Zero didn't have the opportunity of visiting it often but he clearly remembered helping Merlin to clean it up two days ago according to the time on the communicator. How did it become even messier than it was before? Ignoring it for now, Zero cleared up a pile of books from the chairs so that they could sit and talk. There wasn't any tea to be served in the library so Zero apologised for the lack of hospitality while Merlin simply looked as if he wanted to throw the harpie out of the window.
”What brings you here?” Zero asked at last.
Swift sighed. ”Let's start with the thing I heard from Gaia. We found traces of Nel's activities a dimension on the Energy Plane called Whiskeria. It's a rather old trail so Nel might have travelled away by now. There's no real rush to investigate it either because the dimension has been reduced to ruin.”
Merlin raised a brow. ”Whiskeria? Isn't that the planet of Furries? What happened to them?”
Swift sighed. ”They were wiped out by the Humanoids. To be honest, they weren't a match for Humanoids. The Furries were always fighting among themselves and the inter-breeding became too serious. The future generations were weaker because of that but they stubbornly refused to change their ways so it was inevitable.”
Zero frowned. ”Was Nel there to help?”
The librarian looked surprised. ”How did you know?”
Merlin also gave Zero a questioning look. Then he remembered that Swift didn't know about Zero's special identity and wore his default annoyed expression. The librarian only knew that Zero was on a mission to find all the Divine Entities and recover them. She must think that Zero was going to be a hero of some sort to finally clean up Solo's mess. However, the wizard knew better. Zero must have learnt a few things about the Divine Entities he created after recovering some of his memories.