Episode-721
Chapter : 1421
"Yes. Why do you carry it? You are rich. You are powerful. You could just... stop. You could go to your estate, close the gates, and live a life of luxury. Why do you fight so hard? Why do you let people attack you?"
Lloyd looked at his reflection in the dark water of the pond. Why did he fight? Was it for survival? Yes. Was it for revenge against Firefly? Yes. But there was more.
"Because I know what happens if I don't," Lloyd said softly. His voice lost its humor. "I know what happens when good people do nothing. The weeds grow. The walls crumble. And the monsters come out of the dark."
He picked up a pebble and skipped it across the water. One, two, three skips.
"I have seen a world where no one fought," Lloyd said, thinking of the bleak corporate dystopia of his past life's history books, and the ruins of this world's history. "It wasn't pretty. I have the power to stop the monsters, Airin. If I have the power, I have the responsibility. It's a curse, really. The curse of competence."
"You sound like a guardian," Airin said. "Like the stone gargoyles on the roof. Watching. Protecting. Even when the pigeons poop on them."
Lloyd burst out laughing. It was loud and startling in the quiet garden. "Yes! Exactly! I am a gargoyle covered in metaphorical pigeon poop. That is the best description of my life I have ever heard."
Airin smiled, pleased that she had made him laugh. "I am glad I could clarify your existential crisis."
"You have a gift, Airin," Lloyd said, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye. "You see things clearly. Don't lose that. The Academy... this world... it tries to make things complicated. It tries to make you choose sides. Don't let them. Stay simple. Bake your bread."
"I will," she promised. "And you... try to put the backpack down sometimes. even gargoyles need to rest their wings."
"I'll try," Lloyd said. "But no promises. The pigeons are relentless."
They reached the edge of the garden, near the student dormitories. The walk was over. The bubble of peace was popping.
"Thank you, Professor," Airin said, turning to him. "For the walk. And for not being a scary wizard."
"Thank you, Airin," Lloyd replied. "For the company. And for not asking me about the Princess."
"Goodnight, Lloyd," she said. She used his name. It was a breach of protocol, but it felt right.
"Goodnight, Airin."
He watched her walk up the steps to the dorm. She paused at the door, waved once, and disappeared inside.
Lloyd stood there for a moment in the darkness. He felt lighter. The exhaustion was still there, but the crushing weight of isolation had lifted just a fraction. He had a friend. Not a political ally. Not a complicated lover. Just a friend who wanted to bake bread.
It was a small thing. A fragile thing. But in a war of shadows and curses, it felt like the most real thing he had found in a long time.
He turned and headed back to his tower. The work was waiting. The curse was waiting. But he walked a little faster, his step a little lighter, humming a tune he hadn't thought of in eighty years.
The next morning, the sun rose over the Academy training grounds, illuminating a scene of organized chaos. It was "Practical Combat Application Day" for the first-year students. This meant a lot of teenagers were waving sharp sticks and shouting bad Latin at wooden dummies.
Lloyd stood on the sidelines, holding a mug of coffee and looking unimpressed. He was supervising the "Misfit" class, along with a few other instructors.
"Remember!" Lloyd shouted across the field. "The dummy cannot feel pain! You cannot intimidate it! Stop making scary faces at the wood!"
A boy near the front stopped growling at his target and looked sheepish. "Sorry, Professor. I thought it would help my morale."
"Morale is internal," Lloyd lectured. "Accuracy is external. Hit the target, then make faces."
The training dummies were standard-issue magical constructs. They were made of enchanted oak, articulated with brass joints, and powered by a simple mana core. They were programmed to block, parry, and occasionally whack a student with a padded stick if they dropped their guard. They were annoying, but harmless. Usually.
Chapter : 1422
Lloyd watched Airin practicing her defensive wards. She was good. Her shields were solid and efficient. Next to her, a student named Jace was trying to set his dummy on fire.
"Jace," Lloyd called out. "Fire is for the advanced class. Stick to kinetic bolts."
"But fire is cool!" Jace argued.
"Burn units are not cool," Lloyd countered. "Kinetic bolts. Now."
Lloyd took a sip of coffee. It was a peaceful morning. Boring, even. He liked boring.
Suddenly, a strange sound cut through the noise of the practice. It was a low, discordant hum, like a bee trapped in a jar.
Vmmmmmmm.
Lloyd frowned. He lowered his mug. "What is that?"
He scanned the field. The sound was coming from the far end, where a student named Kael (not the assassin, just a kid with unfortunate naming) was sparring with a dummy.
Kael was a nervous kid with a weak wind spirit. He was casting small gusts of air at the dummy. The dummy was supposed to sway and reset.
But this dummy wasn't swaying. It was twitching.
Its wooden head jerked to the side violently. Its brass joints ground together with a sound like screaming metal. The red paint painted on its "face" seemed to darken.
"Stop!" Lloyd shouted, his instincts flaring. "Kael, back away!"
Kael froze. "Professor?"
The dummy didn't wait. It didn't follow its programming. It didn't wait for an attack. It lunged.
It moved with a speed that shouldn't be possible for wood and gears. It brought its padded club down not in a sparring tap, but in a killing arc aimed directly at Kael's skull.
"Down!" Lloyd roared.
He dropped his coffee. He didn't use magic; he used physics. He sprinted, kicked off a bench, and tackled Kael. They hit the grass rolling just as the club smashed into the ground where Kael's head had been a second ago.
CRACK.
The earth splintered. The club shattered from the force of the impact.
"What the hell?" Kael squeaked from under Lloyd.
Lloyd scrambled up, pulling Kael behind him. "Everyone back! Clear the field!"
The dummy jerked upright. Its movements were wrong. They were jagged, unnatural. It turned its head toward Lloyd. The painted eyes seemed to be looking at him.
"Target," the dummy rasped. It didn't have a voice box. The wood itself was vibrating to make the sound.
"Okay," Lloyd said, dusting off his coat. "That's new. Since when do the training dummies talk?"
Another instructor, a Fire Mage named Professor Horg, ran over. "Malfunction! It must be a mana surge! I'll disable it!"
Horg raised his wand. "Fireball!"
A ball of flame struck the dummy in the chest. Usually, this would char the wood and deactivate the core.
The dummy didn't fall. It absorbed the fire. The flames swirled around its wooden torso and turned... black.
"It ate the fire?" Horg gasped. "That is not standard protocol!"
The dummy shrieked. It leaped at Horg.
"Oh, for the love of..." Lloyd grumbled.
He moved. He didn't use his spirits—too flashy, too many witnesses. He used his [Steel Blood].
He manifested a thin, invisible wire of steel from his finger. He whipped it out, wrapping it around the dummy's ankles mid-air. He yanked back.
The dummy crashed face-first into the dirt. But it didn't stop. It clawed at the ground, dragging itself toward the students with terrifying determination.
"It's not a glitch," Lloyd realized, watching the black energy pulse under the wood grain. "It's a possession."
"Someone get me an axe!" Lloyd shouted. "Or a very large beaver!"
He tightened the wire, pinning the dummy's legs together. The construct thrashed, its wooden limbs snapping and reforming. It was trying to break its own bones to get free.
"Students, run!" Lloyd ordered. "To the tower! Go!"
The field cleared in seconds. Only Lloyd and a few pale-faced instructors remained.
"We need to destroy the core," Lloyd said. "It's in the chest."
He approached the thrashing machine. He needed to be precise. He needed to end this before it exploded or infected the other dummies.
He formed a steel spike in his hand. "Sorry, Pinocchio. No strings on you."
He drove the spike down into the center of the dummy's back.
The spike pierced the wood with a sickening crunch. Lloyd twisted it, hunting for the mana core. He felt the crystal shatter.
The dummy convulsed once, violently, and then went still. The black flames that had wreathed it dissipated into smoke.
Silence fell over the training field.