Chapter 178: The Bounty
"That's exactly it. The goblins may well have completed this through genetic engineering. His body was clearly different from an ordinary goblin's, able to hold magical energy — though he obviously had no idea how to actually use it, working purely on instinct. I wonder if Solomon's mages will manage to catch him," Evan said.
Jessica let out a sigh. "Yesterday, we had Grawvor showing us around. And now this happens today. Nothing ever goes the way you expect."
Back at the villa, Jenny greeted them at once. "Teachers, did you get to see the headmaster of Solomon Academy?"
"We did. Though something's happened, and there's nothing left for us to do here now. We may well leave today," Jessica said.
"Teacher, what happened?"
Jessica gave her a brief account. Jenny gasped. "So this whole time, that goblin was alive inside the egg — for ten thousand years? How old would that even make him?"
"It's not quite that simple," Evan said. "His life was essentially suspended — ten thousand years would have passed for him like a single night's sleep. If Solomon hadn't dug him up, he'd probably still be slumbering in there now, eventually burning through whatever life he had left. If anything, we might have done something genuinely foolish, feeding him magical energy and giving him the chance to wake at all."
Jessica nodded. "That may well be it. I wonder how Grawvor's holding up — whether he can weather this at all."
Evan understood what she meant, though he held out little real hope for Grawvor's survival. If a goblin could preserve his own soul through self-destruction under conditions like that, it spoke to a soul of considerable strength — Evan himself couldn't say with confidence he'd manage to steer his own soul's fate through his body's destruction under similar circumstances.
After lunch, Simhak finally arrived — not alone, but with a small retinue in tow. Dorine stood off to one side, properly composed. Simhak greeted Evan with a smile. "We meant to invite you here for a proper exchange of magical knowledge, and instead this happened. My apologies."
Evan returned the smile. "Simply being invited here was an honor in itself, and setting foot in your academy's half-plane made the whole trip worthwhile regardless. Might I ask — has Grawvor been recovered?"
"Not yet. We did find a student's body, the skin flayed from his face. We believe he's already left the half-plane. Word from people in the town outside suggests someone resembling Grawvor passed through and out of the settlement — his whereabouts now unknown." Simhak kept his smile in place, though something cold glinted behind his eyes — not amusement at all, but something closer to a chill.
Evan understood the weight this carried for him and offered some comfort. "He's a single man now, wearing Grawvor's name — he's made an enemy of everyone. Nothing good will come of it for him. And besides, one man alone stands little chance against an organized effort. He'll fall into someone's hands eventually."
"You're not wrong there. I've already ordered Solomon's finest to hunt him down, and notified both Hollingburton and the Church as well. A goblin, however he's disguised in human skin — goblins have long since faded from this world, surviving only in remote corners, burrowing underground. He'll be disappointed, in the end. Such a shame," Simhak said with a long sigh.
Evan understood exactly what that last "such a shame" meant — Simhak mourning a lost opportunity. Had they captured the goblin, they might have drawn out an enormous wealth of ancient technological knowledge. Now he'd slipped away, and whether he lived or died, whether he'd ever fall into their hands at all, remained entirely uncertain.
"We're grateful for your hospitality during our stay at Solomon. Since there's nothing more to be done here, we should take our leave," Evan said.
Simhak understood exactly what Evan meant — that he intended to go, and more to the point, that he'd surely inform Hollingburton of this secret the moment he left, setting them loose to hunt Grawvor themselves. It left a sour taste in his mouth, though on reflection, there was little he could do about it. This goblin's strength already exceeded his own; he had no fear of pursuit from Solomon. And forcing Evan's group to stay longer would only sow ill feeling between Hollingburton and Solomon for nothing.
With that thought, he said with a smile, "Very well, I won't keep you any longer. Safe travels. I need to pay a visit to the Mirage Academy myself. Take care."
Dorine led the three of them out of the half-plane.
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"Which way should we head?" Jessica asked.
Evan gave a mysterious smile. "Let's clear the town first."
The three of them hailed a carriage. Inside, Evan pulled out a vial containing the goblin's blood — kept unclotted with an anticoagulant, a sodium citrate solution he'd added himself.
He drew out a single drop with a dropper and turned to Jessica. "I didn't bring a crystal ball. Did you? Without one, the result won't come out nearly as clean."
Jessica pulled a crystal ball from her ring and handed it over. Evan let the drop of blood fall onto its surface, drew out his wand, and began an incantation, pointing at the ball. Light flared instantly across its surface, the drop of blood lifting free and dissolving into a haze of crimson mist, the whole scene turning blood-red.
The image within shifted rapidly. All three of them watched the crystal ball intently as it resolved into a figure heading northwest — straight toward Holy Eton, seat of the Norma Empire. Evan's brow furrowed. Tracking the man meant heading straight into Holy Eton itself, and he hesitated.
"He's heading toward Eton. Should we follow?" Jessica hesitated too — she understood Grawvor's true strength well enough now, and neither she nor Evan stood much chance against him as things stood.
"We follow. But first, send word to our delegation in Norma and request their help," Evan said, working it through before landing on his decision. Whatever else could be said of their quarry, at his peak he'd rivaled a legendary mage, perhaps surpassed one, and he'd done it without any costly array to draw on. There might be real insight to glean from him about the secrets of reaching legendary rank — worth a measure of risk to pursue.
"Understood. I'll see to it," Jessica said, leaning out to direct the driver northwest along the main road, toward Roness, a small city some miles off. The driver acknowledged, and Jessica pulled out a sheet of parchment, the quill dipping itself in ink and beginning to write across the page on its own.
Once finished, she pressed her seal to the letter, rolled it up, and murmured an incantation. A burst of flame appeared out of nothing, resolving into a phoenix, which snatched up the letter in its talons. Jessica spoke a word, a black portal opened in the air, and the phoenix vanished into it, the portal closing behind it.
With that done, Jessica said, "Grawvor won't take the main road — he'll stick to the back paths. We're on the main road, so we should be faster than him. But will he actually pass through Roness at all?"
"Probably not," Evan said. "Not long after seizing that body, he's already exposed to Solomon's attention. If I were him, I wouldn't linger anywhere near Roness."
"Then why are we still headed there?" Jenny asked, puzzled.
"We're already traveling in the same general direction he is. No reason to abandon a perfectly good carriage and walk on foot just to match his pace," Evan said with a smile.
"So what do we do once we reach Roness?" Jenny asked again.
"We'll see when we get there. We're hardly the only ones tracking him — if anything, we're probably the weakest party in the chase. We'll play it by ear," Evan said with a smile.
The carriage reached Roness as evening drew near, and Evan paid the driver.
Roness was a modest city, built along a mountainside, home to only a few tens of thousands. It hadn't started as a city at all — originally just a single castle, around which people had gradually gathered, until markets, chapels, and other trappings of settlement followed. Its proximity to Solomon Academy had made magical merchants the city's dominant class over time, and plenty of vendors dealt in magical goods and materials here. Some mages had even set up training programs, forming informal schools of sorts, teaching minor magic to students with poor talent or none at all — a fair amount of it closer to stage magic than the real thing. Most of these teachers were mages who'd long since given up hope of advancing further, or old mages who'd seen the world's harsher edges and simply wanted somewhere quiet to settle.
Once the practice caught on, the city had flourished. None of these schools carried the formal name of an academy, but plenty had operated for years all the same, drawing even a few thieves into their ranks — most of whom ended up as little more than magic apprentices in the end, only a handful ever advancing further, limited by their own resources and the thinness of what these schools could actually pass down.
Among ordinary folk, though, this city's reputation somehow outshone even Hollingburton's or Solomon's own. Jessica explained the local customs to Jenny as they walked, and Jenny exclaimed, "I know this place! My brother's mentioned it — people call it the City of Magic and Knights."
Evan laughed at that. "A monkey king in a mountain with no tigers. Though to be fair, they haven't accomplished nothing — at the very least, they've spread magical education widely. No wonder Lexanny's overall magical standard ranks among the highest on the continent. Not just Solomon's doing — this place deserves real credit for it too."
Talking as they went, they made their way into the city, already alive with hidden currents beneath the surface. On a nearby wall, they spotted a notice — clearly posted that very day, a wanted bounty.
Evan stepped closer to read it — a bounty on Grawvor, laid out in careful detail, complete with his likeness, though it made no mention of the goblin possession at all, focusing instead on his physical description. Anyone with information was to report it to Solomon Academy for a reward of two hundred gold coins. Capture or kill him outright, and the reward climbed to a thousand.
Evan shook his head, scanning the crowd around them. Solomon hadn't played entirely fair here — no mention of the man's magical tier, no mention of the goblin possessing him at all. Anyone in this crowd who spotted him and decided to take him on alone, rather than simply reporting him, was signing their own death warrant more likely than not.
Xiaoshuang piped up. "Solomon's being awfully stingy — only a thousand gold?"
Evan, aware she understood the full situation, said quickly, "A thousand's nothing to scoff at, Xiaoshuang. Don't stir things up here."
Just then, a man with a sword at his hip noticed Evan, then caught sight of Xiaoshuang, greed flickering in his eyes. "How much for the fairy? I'll buy her!"