Chapter 87: Willowbrook Town Defense
A comfortable silence lingered in the room until a knock at the door broke it. Lena's voice came from the other side. "I've prepared supper, if you'd like to join us."
The trio followed Lena downstairs to the dining table, where her two children, Caleb and Emma, were already seated alongside a rough-looking man with a long beard, who appeared to be in his forties or fifties. Lena introduced him as her husband, Edgar, who had just returned from his guard duties.
After they took their seats, Lena served the warm and appetizing meal to everyone. The family and the trio enjoyed the food together, but the parents remained cautious. They spoke little, their silence born out of fear of offending the Academy students, whom they assumed to be nobles tasked with ensuring their safety. They didn't want to risk saying anything inappropriate.
The children, on the other hand, were far less reserved. Despite their parents' warnings to be polite, their youthful energy led them to chat freely with everyone. Surprisingly during this meal the one who was the most talkative in the trio was Amelia.
Normally, Amelia wasn't particularly talkative or cheerful. However, in the company of Mikael, whose demeanor was cold and indifferent, and Lyra, who tended to keep to herself and had an introverted personality, the usually calm and composed Amelia suddenly seemed like the liveliest one at the table.
Once the meal concluded, the group returned to their room. Mikael resumed studying layered arrays, Amelia continued meditating, and Lyra buried herself in her book. However, this time, occasional conversations broke the silence.
As time passed, Mikael began to grasp the concepts of layered arrays and decided to put them into practice. From his storage ring, he retrieved a runic inscriber, a bottle of low-rank magical ink, and a core-shaped object to serve as the array's battery. His actions immediately caught the attention of Amelia and Lyra, who paused to observe him.
Mikael used a thin aura thread to pierce the floor and create a small hole. "Won't this damage the floor?" Amelia asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I'll repair it with a spell afterward. This is just for practice, so I'll remove the array when I'm done," he assured her.
"Okay," she replied before falling silent, watching him work.
Mikael carefully inscribed runes onto the core with the runic inscriber and magical ink. His movements were precise and fluid, exuding the confidence of a skilled craftsman. In a little over a minute, he finished the core and placed it in the hole. Next, he began inscribing runes directly onto the floor in a complex pattern. This process was much slower, as Mikael paused frequently to calculate and adjust his work, showcasing the difficulty of creating a layered array.