Chapter 33: He Who Sees All
"D-Dariel?" Durania was as red as a tomato.
[Mission completed. Instead of stealing kisses you steal hugs? 😒]
"I'm sorry," I told Durania, ignoring the System's notification.
Durania tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her gaze directed anywhere but my eyes.
"No problem. It was just very... sudden."
"I should go now, Lady Durania. I hope I helped, and I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable."
Durania said goodbye with a smile and a nod.
She walked away with her back straight. Her violet Empero no longer trembled.
[Choose your reward:]
[A) → +10 Empero experience]
[B) → +5 general charisma]
[C) → A mystery item —suspense sounds—. What could it be? 😲]
You know what? Give me the damn mystery box, I told the Harem System.
[😮]
[Special item unlocked: Color Extractor Ring. By tapping an object twice with the ring finger, you will obtain a bit of its color.]
And how is that useful to me?
[It's a se-cret. You have to figure it out yourself. 🤭]
Rolling my eyes, I sighed.
Had I put my integrity with Lianza on the line just so you could give me useless things?
[It's everything but useless, Romeo. I'll leave it with you. 🤐]
Great. More mysteries, as if I wasn't already up to my neck.
Deciding to head deep along the rainbow river to clear my head from the situation, I needed to think about what to tell Lianza as an excuse for what happened with Durania. I needed to think better about how to handle the situation with Layda; any mistake I made, I was sure she wouldn't forgive. And above all, I needed to find a way to cancel the upcoming wedding.
If Lianza married Ardwyn, he would break her heart into a thousand pieces when he discovered his true love was Layda... and he would abandon her for it.
Preventing that from happening was essential. At all costs.
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽ ☆ ☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
I walked along the river path for a long time.
Turning around: perfect. Mayorka was no longer visible.
Now I was truly alone.
Sitting on the grass, the dampness soaked through my pants. The rainbow river flowed before me. Changing colors. Red. Blue. Green. Yellow. Orange. Violet. Indigo.
The river stones formed the seven colors of the rainbow, scattered along the path that led to the sea. I immediately wondered what could have caused this phenomenon.
Another mystery.
Lying on my back, I closed my eyes.
The sound of the water was hypnotic. Constant. Without beginning or end. Closing my eyes and breathing deeply, I could pretend it was just me, that I wasn't part of an academy full of arrogant nobles who saw me as a pet with those disdainful looks. That I didn't have an Empero I couldn't use. That I didn't have to save the woman I loved from a marriage that would destroy her.
I could pretend I was just a man sitting by a river.
A sound broke the beautiful silence that had cost me so much to obtain. Someone singing. Badly.
My eyes opened.
A man was lying on the opposite bank. Face up. Barefoot. Feet in the water. Messy gray hair over the grass. Eyes closed. A insignia on his collar: a paintbrush crossed by a sword.
I swallowed hard.
It was the symbol of House Garialys.
One of the seven most powerful houses in The Throne of Ashes and Thorns. Though almost nothing was known about it.
I hadn't seen him arrive. He was there, as if he had existed before the river.
His white Empero emanated from him in slow waves, like an octopus with endless tentacles moving around him. It covered a perimeter of about ten meters.
His head turned toward me.
One of his tentacles brushed my skin.
"Well. It's not so common to stumble upon a conceptual Empero of the artistic type."
What had he just said? How could he know that with just a touch? But what was more important: who the hell was this guy?
"How did you know?"
"It tastes like color."
Tastes like color? I had never heard of anything like that. But if this man could taste someone's Empero type with a simple touch, then his ability was something out of the ordinary.
"That makes no sense."
The man shrugged and stood up.
"It makes sense to me," he said, approaching me. His eyes looked everywhere but at me, as if he were lost in the middle of a forest at midnight.
But the rest of his body reacted normally.
His white Empero expanded another meter. His tentacles surrounded me completely.
"Your Empero is afraid," he said. "Why do you treat it so poorly?"
"Afraid?"
"Trembling. Unstable. Like a newborn animal that doesn't know how to use its legs."
Although he was on the other side of the river, he walked toward me.
He walked over the water as if it were solid ground.
Was he doing something similar to what Professor Duralianne did with her heels? What he was doing required far more skill.
"May I know the name of the owner of the Fearful Empero?"
"Dariel Elcronne."
"Elcronne." He repeated the surname as if chewing it. "Low birth, a house whose only achievement has been being bodyguards to the D'Tariel. An Empero awakened recently... They must treat you very badly at Mayorka."
"How do you know all that?"
He waved a hand to brush it off.
"Your Empero told me. Young Emperos are very noisy." He scratched his chin, now a meter away from me. "They call me Theren, and my name is also Theren."
He smiled. His white eyes still didn't see me.
Theren? The only Theren I knew was a Bookforger who was only mentioned in the original web novel.
"Pleasure," I said.
"You're not. Your Empero tells me you're exhausted. You have ink on the sole of your shoe." He scratched his chin again. "Rainbow ink. Where did you get it? It's illegal..." Opening my mouth to answer, Theren raised a hand. "No, let me guess: Vauxol?"
"Yes."
"Vauxol doesn't know how to teach. No wonder he only teaches history, the incompetent." He let out a sound I assumed was a laugh. "He only knows how to play. Did he lock you in his cage?"
"Yes."
"Did he use the portal riddle on you?"
"Yes."
"And you survived both. Do you know those are tests conducted by House Garialys?"
Shaking my head, I listened.
"Tell me how you survived."
"The first was with a bar to prevent the cage from shrinking, and the second... I ran out of Empero and used my blood to activate the seal."
Theren raised his eyebrows. His eyes were white. Completely white. Devoid of iris or pupil.
But, for the first time, they looked at me.
"You did all that with a newly awakened Empero? You should be dead," he said. "Interesting..."
Then he sat on the riverbank, just as he was when I first saw him. He leaned back on the grass. Feet in the water again.
"The river is singing to me nicely today," he said. "Sit. But don't talk. I'm conversing with the river."
Sitting a few meters from him, I stayed silent.
The rainbow river flowed between us. In silence.
"Did you know I'm the official professor of Mayorka?" Theren said suddenly. "I hope the newcomer, Duralianne, isn't pushing them too hard."
Duralianne had mentioned she was the substitute professor. So this weird guy was the professor chosen by the Empero Council to teach Empero classes?
"How did they choose you if you don't even spend time at Mayorka?"
"Simple. Because there is no one more capable than me in matters of Empero. Only I can hear it."
Theren turned toward me.
"Tell me, Dariel Elcronne, do you want me to help you with your conceptual Empero?"
"What do you want in return?" I replied immediately. If I had learned anything from nobles, it was that they did nothing for free.
"The value of each class varies. For now, I just want your company."
Nodding, I accepted.
"You're blind, aren't you?" I said, feeling like an idiot for not having realized earlier.
"From birth."
"And how can you be so aware of everything around you?"
"How about I answer that question in our first class?"
Standing up, I knew it was time to return to Lianza.
"When will our first class be?" I asked before saying goodbye.
"Come only when you see a rainbow. I'll be at the end of it."
Theren was an extremely weird guy..., but in him perhaps lay the secret to mastering my Empero.