We arrived and saw Raishin arguing with the two men.


    “Raishin Torai, you''re under arrest for causing trouble on multiple occasions, we also have reason to believe you were responsible for vaporizing the area on the northwest side of the village near the Umbra mountain range.” And how would you guys know that? It is not like you guys were there!


    “So, you admit to this act!” It wasn''t me! It was a PB!


    “You''re not making any sense young man.” The second man said. “What is a PB anyways?” Ha! I''ll educate you guys, you see when a boar mommy and a pheasant daddy really love each other… Ok, this isn''t going anywhere, gentlemen can I help you?


    “You’re Agnis Hourai, the blacksmith kid, right?” I would prefer it if you didn''t call me a kid but that is correct.


    “You’re not under arrest but we want to question you for a moment, it seemed you were the last person who interacted with Charlize Jubo before she got mortally wounded.” Whud, that monster got wounded?


    “You’re not under suspicion, Agnis because you can only use water magic and her injuries were inflicted by earth magic more importantly the poison branch of earth magic.” He looked at Gregory, “You’re not under suspicion either Gregory but we would like to hear what you know about this since you''re one of the few knowledgeable earth users here in the town.” Wait why are they not suspected but I am!


    “Well in the one and a half years these two got harassed eh I mean contacted by Charlize they never hurt her, not even a scratch. I''m sure that they can and if they wanted to, they would''ve done so already so we trust that they would be innocent. You however never fail to make life tougher for your fellow villagers.” Hmm, we can go with you but Raishin is innocent.


    “I''m sorry, Agnis but we can''t take your word for it we need a proper investigation.” I activated my Elgards eyes and cast a powerful illusion. It falls in the same branch but it''s more of a powerful suggestion forcing a reality or idea onto my target. I said he is innocent.


    “Oh ok. We will continue our investigation elsewhere then.” The men were about to leave. “Can you two meet up at the town hall in about an hour? Are you ok Agnis?” I was clutching my eye because these types of techniques were really overpowered and thus put a real strain on my eyes.


    I''m ok, we will meet you guys in an hour. The men left and Raishin checked if his fried pheasant stash was intact.


    Nobody is interested in your food stash Raishin. Are you alright? Your eye is bleeding. Yoo, thank you for saving me, Agnis.


    It''s nothing, is it ok if I rest while you guys make dinner? I''ll make an extra big portion for you! As I rested and Gregory and Raishin started to prepare dinner, Ted came and sat next to me.


    I know you mean well but maybe you should go easy on using your eyes so much. If I remember correctly practice and experience will make those things go smoother in the future but we need them the most when we''re in rough battles. We can''t have you drain your stamina or temporarily disable your eyes due to trivial things.


    I know, we just can''t use a lot of unexpected incidents in these 5 days when we will prepare and finalize our escape. If he gets locked up who knows for how long or what we would need to do to get him out. I just want you to not exhaust yourself and also rely on us a bit more. Each of us has things that were good at but that doesn''t mean we should carry those burdens alone.


    Look at you not using puns and acting like a big brother, are you ill? I said as I smacked him on the back.


    Ha, eye did not see that one coming, if you can joke, I assume your eyes feel better now. Don''t lose sight of our goal. And you were doing so well without going without the puns…


    I mean it though, don''t try to do too much by yourself. I will take it to heart. Ted got up and started helping with making dinner. He scolded Raishin for using only fried pheasant for dinner.


    I''m telling you we need other things to eat besides fried pheasant! Like greens and potatoes! Oh no! I think I would prefer fried pheasant stand-alone! Join us at the potato side!


    Nooo! Dinner was delicious and lively. I successfully shirked my potatoes to Gregory when Ted wasn''t looking. We had a secret pact. I would funnel all the potato resources to Gregory. I would pretend to not want them and Gregory pretended to do his best to get me to eat potatoes. In exchange, I slowly returned the insane amount of shadow liquid vodka I confiscated from Gregory in our early years. I''m not exaggerating it probably ranges in the quadruple digits of litres. He had a serious addiction to liquid shadow vodka when he was young. He always found a way to get a huge amount of vodka from his brother in some way or another. Don''t ask me where they all get it from, and to be honest, I''m not really interested. The vodka tastes alright, I can drink it even though I know I shouldn''t. I mainly use it to deal with smell-based attacks and lighting them on fire. I could also make bombs with it. Hmm, I guess I will put that on the long list of things I can and maybe should do. I put some food aside to bring home and we cleaned up. I wanted to head home first but I was supposed to be at the town hall in 10 minutes.


    Hmm, we might be a bit late. It should be fine, were not suspected of anything. We walk towards the town hall and it was not crowded but some people were standing in front of the town hall. I saw the troll with her makeup on, she was crying and it looked like the makeup was melting but it held on. There was Cecilia and her daughter, old man Paul was there too and about 20 more townspeople.


    “Ah, there you guys are!” One of the men, that we met earlier, said. We’re sorry we’re late.


    “We want to as you some questions is that fine?” With all these people here?


    “If that''s a problem we can also go inside.” Said the other man. I''m just going to call them wannabe cops 1 and 2.


    Nah, it''s fine. Wannabe cop 2 stepped forward and started asking us some questions.


    “About what time did you two last see Charlize Jubo?” Hmm, the last time I saw her was about 22:53 the day before yesterday when she captured us and we escaped. That was the time I last saw her before we eventually escaped. The townspeople started to talk.


    “Wait you guys got caught? Who bet on them getting caught on the day before yesterday?!” The townspeople were starting to make a lot of noise and trying to figure out who would''ve won the bet.


    “Did you see any signs of poisoning or Charlize acting weird at that point?” Acting weird? Are you kidding me?!


    “Ok maybe that wasn''t the correct question”, the wannabe cop 2 said while scratching his face. “Did you notice any lesions signs of poisoning or behavior that you guys wouldn''t associate with her uhm regular obsessed behavior?” Gregory looked at me. I shook my head. Not that I could tell.


    “Did you see Charlize today right Agnis?” Wannabe cop 1 asked me. Yes, Raishin and I had a run-in with her earlier today at around noon.


    “None of you two have an affinity for earth magic, correct?” Correct.


    “Did you observe anyone close by that could have poisoned her or did you see any signs of her being poisoned or acting differently than you are used to?” She didn''t seem any different than she normally acts.


    “Do you know what happened to her after you escaped?” I don''t, I created some fog and dashed out there.


    “Oh, so that weird fog on the town square was your doing.” Sorry if it was an inconvenience.


    “Oh, don''t be! It seems your fog saved her life!” What?


    “We don''t know the specifics but after the fog lifted, we saw her in a heavily poisoned state the moisture of your fog seemed to have pulled quite the amount of poison magic out of her she was found about 2 hours after your described encounter and that is when the fog lifted.” Did you by any chance create the fog using frost magic? Gregory asked me telepathically.


    Hmm yeah, I forgot to use regular ice, I hoped the fog wouldn''t stick around forever but seems it didn''t.


    “Hmm, so we have a mystery here. Something attacked her in the fog and badly poisoned her.” May I ask where you found her? I can''t imagine someone as strong as her going down without a fight.


    “Sure”, wannabe cop 2 replied and started to walk towards the centre of the town square.


    “She was found near that manhole over there” as wannabe cop 1 pointed at the manhole. The area was taped off and some townspeople were looking around the about 20 m2 that was taped off. There were some remains from our battle-like places where wind blades cut into the pavement and stuff. “You see there were no traces of earth magic found anywhere.”


    Hey, do you think? Yeah. A townsperson tried to lift the manhole but I froze it.


    “What the?” The surprised towns person said. Most of you guys might not know this but I''m quite sensitive to magical energy. Recently Agnis and I discovered that something seems to be amiss in the sewers.


    “We need to investigate this then! Is it the electronium system? Is it faulty? Did anyone have toilets running over?” Nono, it''s nothing like that. The magical density seems to have a high concentration It could easily negatively affect anyone unaware of it.


    Gregory rummaged in his bag and took out some of his alchemical devices. Look this is a test I did 2 days ago; it shows that the magic energy down there is heavily shifting towards earth and fire. There is a high possibility that the heightened earth in the magic caused the poisoning in Charlize. I will have to get a blood sample and tap some of her magical energy to confirm though.


    “Ugh, I feel useless,” wannabe cop 2 said while throwing his hat on the ground. “We''ve been investigating this for half a day and these brats find the cause immediately.”


    “I''m just curious. “Wannabe cop 1 asked: “How did you guys find out about this?” Well, that is simple, we periodically use the sewer system to escape from Cecilia and Charlize. Everyone looked shocked and then looked at us in pity. Cecilia also looked shocked and seemed to be quite embarrassed.


    “You guys go through a lot I see.” Wannabe cop 1 said to us with a look of sympathizing with us.


    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    “Wait then how come you guys don''t have this poisoning if you escape through the sewers?” Troll asked. Well, that is simple, it is because we are overpowered!


    “I beg your pardon?” Don''t listen to him. I made sure to have something that can prevent us from getting affected too much by the state down there, but I never thought it would get this bad.


    “I see”, the wannabe cop said with a pensive look. “Do you guys have any idea what is causing it?” Nope! Not a clue. We lied.


    “Look Randy we can continue our investigation and be useful!” Wannabe cop 1 said towards wannabe cop 2 whose name is apparently Randy.


    “Ooh, let''s get to it then!” Randy said invigorated. “Wait didn''t you promise your wife you would fix her wardrobe?”


    “Oh shit! Ok, let''s investigate first things tomorrow! Can you share some of those potions that protect you from the magic in there?” I looked at Gregory because I knew he worded it so vague. After all, he was talking about his shadow cloak. Also, we tailed beasts have a natural resistance to elevated magic density. It is nothing special but it''s better than humans and races that are native to the main dimension, for lack of better words.


    He didn''t mean a potion it is a skill where he has to ferry out any earth imbalance that the high magic density introduces to us. It''s not something he can just give to you. I felt bad for lying to the townspeople but we couldn''t let them down there, they would get badly poisoned or even worse corrupted, it would not exactly be like zombies but it would have a similar chain of events as a zombie attack if multiple people got corrupted. When they scratch or bit you, they pour corrupted mana inside you which as you can guess corrupts your mana and becomes one of them. It is reversible as far as I know and the effect of corruption can vary depending on which element is dominant in the corruption but that''s not important now.


    It is important that anyone stays away from the sewers, I will try to find a way to solve it and if I or Pietro can''t solve it, we will need to contact specialists from Jubra city. So, bear with it for a bit. The sewer functions seem to be intact so nobody needs to go down there.


    “Hmm if our second-best alchemist in town says that I suppose we just have to wait.” Wannabe cop 2 said dejectedly. “Is an alchemist even supposed to do all this stuff? You''re like also kind of our doctor as well” I only know what I''ve learned from Pietro, if his methods deviate from the norm that means mine will too.


    “That makes sense. Anyways thanks for helping us out. We will spread the word to stay away from the sewers.” Gregory and I went to my house for me to drop off food.


    I''m going to stay the night at Gregory’s place.


    “Thanks for the food Agnis!” Philip said happily.


    “If you spit this food out, I’ll have you apologize to Agnis!”


    “It is fine! There is no way I will manage to not eat my food for 3 days straight!” Philip and Hera started to argue about food again so I say goodbye and walked with Gregory to his house. We were going to practice some shadow clone techniques and also talk a bit more about what we encountered in the cave. Gregory managed to get the hang of shadow clones after about half an hour. The technique originated from the three-tailed beasts anyways and shadow manipulation is their forte so that wasn''t surprising. After getting coached by Gregory for about 2 hours I got the basics down. It wasn''t as great as Gregory’s shadow clones but at least they didn''t have any defects. Gregory rated them 44/100 which was enough for me. For now. I also translated the golemancy magic I found in the dungeon and gave it to Gregory.


    <hr>


    We woke up early. There were a lot of things to do today. Gregory retreated to his lab to make a lot of potions. Yesterday he more or less mastered the shadow clone technique. He could make 2 convincing shadow clones while I could only make 1 which wasn''t convincing for people that knew me well. I''m sure these clones wouldn''t work on Charlize. I wonder if she is recovering well from the magic poisoning. Anyways while Gregory is putting his shadow clones to use to make potions for our investigations today, I look through some alchemy books that Pietro owns. I''m a bit interested in it because the instructions I found to make relic magic weapons had some materials that needed alchemy. I probably won''t be able to master it but some knowledge might be useful so I don''t have to harass Gregory for every small thing. I found an interesting book talking about a red tincture or philosopher stone. There were a lot of names for them but since I''m not great at names those two were the only ones that stuck to my memory.


    It seemed to be either a red liquid or a stone. This book didn''t seem to be able to make up its mind. I guess it depends on the name that''s used for it. The manufacturing of it has been lost in time and a lot of alchemists tried to recreate it. It seems that when used in the crafting of magic weapons they can get a will of their own. It also seemed to have been used in ancient times to make golems and automata besides the regular function of granting eternal life or stabilizing it. Hmm, interesting. It reminded me of the golem manufacturing floor in the Corund temple. I don''t remember seeing a red stone or red liquid there besides rubies. Was it not ancient enough? Then I remember seeing a red liquid. Could it be? Nah, that would''ve been too convenient, or maybe not since I vaporized it. It talked about the Magnum Opus of how to create it. It had four steps: Nigredo, Albedo, Citrinitas and Rubedo. There were a lot of details that I didn''t understand. I was looking through the process of Nigredo to see if I could understand any of it when Gregory called for me.


    I''m almost done but I need southern gale flower extract, do you have any in your dimensional pocket? I went through the catalogue I held in my mental archive. You would think I would forget what I put in there! But I well… I do but that is why whenever I dump something in it or take it out, I mentally edit this. Well, most of the time one of my tails does that but since I can''t use them a lot lately, I have to do it myself. I found the item Gregory needed. How many do you need?


    I need 5 flowers. Gregory held up his hand spreading out 5 fingers to indicate ''5''.


    I took them out and handed them to Gregory. Anything else you need?


    Don''t think so. What is the state of the herb and catalyst inventory you have stored? Do we need to make another trip to restock? It seems fine for now most of it is halfway used. Gregory and I occasionally went out to gather herbs and different ingredients for anything Gregory might ever need for his alchemic concoctions. I also took the chance to just take anything that looks useful for blacksmithing or in general in it. It has been quite useful but it was also important to keep track of when it was time to restock. I let Gregory continue and I inspected the weapons I had. I only had failed swords left and a lot of daggers and wires. Also had potato peeler 2.0 and my 2 old daggers. I would only use potato peeler 2.0 when it was really necessary. I will try to make do with the 3 failed swords I have left and the dagger and wires. I needed to improve Raishin and Ted’s weapons but I would start on those after our investigation or tomorrow. I also need to find out how I''m going to make a hammer for Gregory in such a short amount of time.


    I started to try and come up with ideas of how to deal with the pink tree and how I can improve on using leyline energy. I decided to just jam a stick into a block of sapphire and call it a day, the hammer will be hard pretty, heavy, and expensive, pretty much all a hammer needs right? I got up to head off to the workshop before I forgot this genius idea. If Gregory didn''t like the shape of it, he could just change it with earth magic. I told Gregory that I was heading off but he was too absorbed in making his concoctions and probably didn''t hear me. After I got to the front door, I wanted to scan the area. Charlize was injured but you could never be too cautious. That was my plan but the moment I opened the door and wanted to scan the area I saw Cecilia in front of the door.


    Oh no! I tried to slam the door but Cecilia stopped the door from closing.


    “Wait! I''m not here to kidnap you guys! Please hear me out!” Gregory isn''t home and neither am I!


    “Well, if you''re here, you''re not home indeed.” Cecilia said still preventing me from closing the door. Shit, I didn''t think this one through.


    Watcha want? I said while glaring through the small door gap.


    “I came to apologize for Charlize and my actions.” What actions? I have no idea what you''re talking about! I said as I tried to close the door again.


    “I mean from chasing you guys down and all. We didn''t realize that we were putting you guys through something as bad as hiding in the sewers. Well maybe that is not entirely true but we believed what we were doing was the best for you and our daughters. But after seeing how badly the energy in the sewers hurt Charlize and hearing how you guys must keep escaping through the sewers, I realized we were in the wrong.”


    What''s going on? Oh, shit its Cecilia! Agnis close the door! I tried but I think she is here to apologize to us.


    Oh.


    “As I just told Agnis, I came to apologize for Charlize and me chasing you two around and having to force you to escape through the sewers. After hearing your story and judging by how badly Charlize was hurt from the magic poisoning, I felt that what we did was wrong and I came to apologize.” Hmm, will you give up trying to marry us off on your daughters?


    “Hmm, we will not, sorry, but we will stop using forceful methods, I will talk to Charlize about this when she wakes up.” I guess if we won''t get chased around that''s good enough for me, right Greg? Sounds good enough, apology accepted.


    “If there is anything you guys need just ask me, I might not look like it but I was a high-ranked adventurer in my days, and I''m quite capable and have good connections.”


    We’ll try to avoid you as much as possible but if we really need something we will hold you to it.


    “I guess that response was to be expected, I hope we can gradually grow to become friends.” Charlize left. I guess we don''t have to worry about that anymore. I guess I''m heading off to the workshop since I got a great idea for your hammer.


    Oh, is it finally going to happen? I will get my hammer? Yup look forward to it! I said as I ran off to the blacksmith workshop.


    <hr>


    “Oh, look who we have here!” I looked at where the voice came from and I saw a chunky guy with 6 people walking behind him.” And who are you?


    “You''re kidding, right? We met yesterday I’m Dunkey!” Who?


    “Ha, I see my appearance was so shocking that you drew a blank.” Said the chunky guy while making a ridiculous pose while discharging some blue sparks.


    “I see your friend isn''t around today.” Yeah, he''s hunting pheasants.


    “What a savage!” One of his friends said.


    “He sounds poor to have to hunt for food!” Another of his friends said. They all started to laugh mockingly.


    “So Agnis here is the thing.” Another friend of the chunky guy said while walking next to me and putting his arm over me. “You kind of embarrassed us yesterday”. I did? Oh, I''m so sorry! Ok bye, I''m busy! I said while I got rid of the guy''s arm which was leaning on me and walked away in the opposite direction. A light blue thunderbolt struck the wall next to me.


    “Yah, about that we’re not letting you off easily, you got lucky last time by summoning a troll but I don''t see it now.” They started surrounding me. So, you''re going to bully me 1 vs. 3? I don''t see how that makes any sense.


    “Ha is he blind?” another friend of Chunky said while laughing.


    “Where do you see 3 people? We’re with 7 here, 8 including you!” Chunky said with a confident smile. Oh, so you can count! I vaguely remembered someone who looked like you who couldn''t spell his name so I wanted to make sure, but you''re definitely a different person, not the one I encountered earlier this week. Donkey looked like he got upset. Donkey? Where have I heard that name before?


    “Okay, I''m sure he''s messing with us Dunkey, Let''s smoke him!” You guys look about 14 years old I don''t think it is legal to smoke at this age. I seemed to have pissed off all of the friends of Donkey. They started to rush at me with various types of magic. A fire punch, seems lukewarm, I caught it with my hand coated in water. What? An earth kick, looks slow, I evaded it. A wind blade flew at me, looks dull, I parried it with a failed blade I pulled out of my coat. A friend rushed at me having enhanced his body with lightning, I tripped him and made him crash into someone else who was attempting something but his magic activation was slow so his cast got interrupted by someone crashing into him.


    “What is this guy?” Clunky was looking at how his friends got tripped up and got even angrier. “Move away! I''m going to toast him with my blue lightning.” You know that shouting will give me time to evade it right?


    “Ha, evade lightning? You make me laugh!” Cranky was charging up his lightning magic. The magic circle that appeared seemed impressive but it was quite slow. I evaded more of his friends while keeping an eye on Chutkey ehh the chunky guy who leads these delinquents, can''t these parents give their kids easier names to remember? Most of the magic I encounter has the magic circle only appear for about 1 or 2 seconds at most before activating but this guy was already charging for about 20 seconds. At this point, it would''ve been faster for him to physically draw the magic circle since it would be faster and wouldn''t get taxed in power.


    Magic circles can be drawn manually and this will take time but it will cast whatever magic it belongs to at full power, but nobody has time to do that in an actual battle so there are ways to speed it up. Unaspected magic or how it''s mostly called: household magic. Gets used to draw the magic circles. Now there is one problem, using magic to make a magic circle drops the power of whatever magic wants to get cast. It''s about a 40% reduction in firepower and effects but it gets used because it is fast. If a way could be found to draw magic circles with something that is not magic it could be cast at full power but it doesn''t seem like a faster or better alternative exists, yet. If I master leyline energy I could probably do that and it will also help against my nausea problem since no magic of my own will be used in such circles only magic of the environment. But if it takes more than 40 seconds to cast magic from a magic circle made by household magic then I don''t see the advantage of what Funky is doing. Anyway seems he''s done charging. Let''s see how impressive his blue lightning really is. It seemed to be light-blue lightning so it was not even the stronger version of blue lightning. He fired it off. It wasn''t slow it was as fast as lightning gets but I dodged it.


    “How did you dodge that?” Punky seemed a bit tired and upset that I dodged. If you think I''m just going to stand here and take a lightning attack you''re wrong! But I will reward you for your effort. Since it wasn''t much magic, I needed to deal with these delinquents I could do this without my tails. I made a motion and activated my own lightning magic. In 2 seconds, it went from yellow to purple. “What? Purple lightning?!”


    Hasta la vista noobs! As I zapped and fried all of them. Feeling like a burden fell off me I headed towards the workshop. I can insult my friends and that''s fine because I don''t mean it but I won''t have any mercy on others that insult my friends. I arrived home and readied up to make Gregory’s hammer.