The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 197 – Truthseeker

Orin struggled to keep a straight face as he watched his elders – wise Violet cores who had been doing this for even longer than him, fumble their way around their cauldrons. They all understood – even better than him – that deattuning the elixirs twice in a row wouldn’t give them the result they wanted.

Still, Deimos simply refused to hear it. Upon learning that Rainbow Grass was involved in the recipe, he had pressured the alchemists to incorporate it by force, hoping against all odds it would work. And technically, he wasn’t wrong. After all, Rainbow Grass was the key to brewing the Aurora Dew. That said, they were all just missing one important step in-between.

‘Lord Paracelsus has a pure affinity too… if only he knew…’ he smiled bitterly.

At Violet, the veteran alchemist wouldn’t even need any practice to condense the crystals. It would only take him a few seconds. Hell, he had probably done it many times by accident over the centuries – he just hadn’t considered the crystals’ potential applications in alchemy – not unlike everyone else on Remior. Orin was confident they would all be pulling their hairs out a couple decades from now, as soon as they learned the solution had been right under their noses all along.

‘Assuming they don’t find Percy before then...’

The boy had no idea just how lucky he had gotten. Orin too. Had this been a few years back, when the Veritas House was still active, the Divine Root would have already brought one of their truth-seekers to interrogate the alchemists. Had that happened, Orin would have inadvertently spilled the beans by now, dooming everyone involved.

It wasn’t like their Truthseeker bloodline was the only one of its type to exist, but no other variant was nearly as accurate… as… absolute as theirs. Even the runner-up, the Truthreader bloodline that House Asclepius had – and from which the former had been derived – wasn’t remotely as good. Any experienced mage could trick it rather easily. Its best use was to sniff out lies from ignorant peasants who didn’t know any better.

Orin was counting his lucky stars that somebody had decided to eliminate the House at some point. Nobody knew exactly what had motivated the extermination, but the most logical guess was that somebody high up didn’t want such a dangerous bloodline to even exist. Perhaps the leader of some Great House had done something damning. Something they didn’t want ever brought to light.

And, as luck would have it, Percy had even taken the lone survivor – that Nesha girl – out with him. It was the only reason Orin’s head was attached to his shoulders right now.

‘It’s probably for the best anyway…’ he sighed, diving back to his work.

Initially, he had felt guilty over his deal with Percy. What if these twenty years ended up costing Remior everything in the end? Could Orin really carry such a heavy responsibility on his shoulders?

But after seeing Hermes and Deimos’s conduct over the past two years, he had slowly come around. People like them might be the very shield that protects Remior from their enemies, but they certainly didn’t have everyone’s wellbeing at the forefront of their minds either.

By now, Orin was convinced that publicizing the recipe would hurt the majority of people. Right now, there was only enough elixir for Orange-borns and above – in other words, around 40% of the population. What would happen if half of it was wasted during the conversion to Aurora Dew, and the recipients of the new elixir suddenly required three times as much per day?

It was simple math – less than 7% of the population would get Aurora Dew! It wouldn’t even be enough for all the Yellow-borns, let alone the Orange-borns!

Even worse, the unlucky fraction of Yellow-borns wouldn’t accept getting downgraded to the diluted elixirs. The most likely outcome was that they would outlaw the very act of diluting or drinking an elixir for Red-borns and Orange-borns, starving the rest of the population completely. And it still wouldn’t be enough.

Everything considered, 92% of the population would likely remain stuck at the grade they were born at their whole lives. Somebody like Orin would never even reach Yellow, let alone Blue. In fact, all these people would become entirely inconsequential, as they wouldn’t even be useful as cannon fodder in wars anymore, meaning they might end up treated worse than livestock.

It wasn’t all gloom and doom, of course.

Remior would get more gods eventually. When that happened, they would probably elevate the world’s standing, leading to everyone’s quality of life improving. But how many tens of thousands of years would it take for that to happen? How many millions of people would suffer until then?

If the Divine Order truly cared about the common folk, perhaps there were ways to mitigate the problem. For example, they could enforce a law that ensured everyone got access to at least the diluted elixirs. Or another one that had a smaller number of Yellow-borns compete for Aurora Dew based on their merits.

‘Yeah, as if.’ he chuckled. These people, frankly, didn’t give a shit.

Soon, the veteran alchemists called the session off for the day. It was already getting late, and everyone was tired. Deimos protested, of course. In his eyes, every idle second was a second wasted. But the elders shut his complaints down with some scathing words. Divine Root or not, there was apparently a limit to how much shit they were willing to take from a Blue.

On the way home, Orin couldn’t help but revisit his plan for disseminating the recipe when the time came. Obviously, he couldn’t just come out and say he had been sitting on it for twenty years. That would be the quickest way to get himself skinned alive.

‘Either I write it down and leave it somewhere anonymously, or I pretend I rediscovered it on my own by accident.’

Neither option was completely risk-free. If somebody found out he was lying, he’d be screwed. Then again, there wasn’t much point in stressing over this right now. He had plenty of time to make up his mind. Besides, if Percy got caught, or otherwise leaked the recipe on his own by then, it would absolve Orin of the responsibility.

Shrugging, he was about to go to sleep, when he heard somebody knocking on the door. Naturally, his mind instantly went to all sorts of dark places, though he still walked up to his house’s entrance. Opening, he was relieved that it wasn’t a Guild official, nor a member of the Divine Root standing there. Instead, it was a plump man in orange robes.

“How may I help you?” Orin asked, still raising an eyebrow at the unexpected visit.

“Sir, I’m sorry to disturb you this late. You don’t know me, but I’m Freddy – one of Percy’s friends.”

“Freddy? Ah!” Orin’s expression eased, putting two and two together. “I have heard of you, actually! Percy didn’t have that many friends after all.” he chuckled.

“You mean, he mentioned me?”

“Of course! You’re the one he bought those Honey Rolls from every night, right?” Orin asked, getting a nod back. “So, what brings you here?”

Freddy’s expression soured at the sound of that. He looked down at his feet for a moment, before gazing back at Orin.

“Sir, I don’t know if you are aware, but Percy has been missing for a long time. Nearly two years, in fact. It’s really strange. He almost never skipped a day visiting my stand for ages. Then, he suddenly disappears, never to be seen again. I’ve spoken to lots of people since then. I’ve even scoured the first and second levels of the hunting grounds on my own, but I haven’t found any traces of him.”

Orin remained silent for a second. He still had no idea how Percy and Nesha had even escaped from the settlement – assuming that they had, of course – but it wasn’t hard to guess why Percy hadn’t told Freddy anything. He clearly didn’t want to get his buddy involved in his mess.

Misunderstanding his silence for confusion, Freddy spoke again.

“Sir, after exhausting all other avenues, I came to ask you if you have any idea what might have happened to Percy. You were his alchemy mentor, weren’t you?”

“I haven’t seen the boy in years.” Orin muttered. “I assumed he just locked himself in a room, working, as he often did. Is he really missing?”

Freddy nodded, before voicing another request.

“I apologize in advance for my rudeness, sir, but could you please look for him on the third level? That idiot always did reckless things like that. I would have gone myself, but I can’t survive out there on my own…”

Orin couldn’t help but clench his fist. He wanted to tell this youngster the truth. But it was better for everyone involved if he remained in the dark. Even better, he had to get him to stop poking around, before anybody caught wind of Percy’s connection to him, or the suspicious circumstances of his disappearance.

“Young man… I suggest you forget about it.” he said drily. “People go missing on the Fungal Spire all the time. Especially those who bite more than they can chew on a regular basis. Like Percy.”

“But sir, I–”

Orin raised his hand to stop him.

“I said, forget it. I liked the boy. He was smart and hard-working. But two years are a long time. If he really went missing that long ago, chances are that he’s dead. If he thought it was a good idea to go hunting on the third level, I doubt there will be any trace of him left.”

Next, he closed the door, not giving Freddy the chance to utter another word. He walked back to his room, taking his robes off. Brushing his hand over a rune, he switched the light off, before resting on his bed.

At the same time, he couldn’t stop thinking about his student and the colossal mess he had brought upon everyone. The Divine Root aside, those old coots would slap the boy to death if they knew it was his fault they were forced to break their backs trying to reproduce this recipe.

‘Percy… whatever it is you’re doing out there, I hope you’re making the most of this opportunity you’ve carved out for yourself…’