Preparations to depart

Dia flipped through the newspaper, nibbling on an apple at the same time. It was a habit she had picked up after some time, because nibbling on cakes while relaxing was not what she would exactly call healthy. Apples, which had been vigorously promoted by Schwarz and Claud both, was therefore her main pastime snacks…unfortunately.

"Anything interesting on today's news?" Schwarz asked, his eyes drifting through a stack of reports. Dia had glanced through them earlier, and they were all about new arrivals to Licencia in recent days.

"The self-organised manhunt for Tot is still going on," Dia replied. "Uh, eggs are at a premium. As well as meat."

"We're already lucky, compared to Istrel and some of the smaller territories," Farah, who was working on a table next to Schwarz, raised her head and replied. "Food prices are soaring, since everyone's stockpiling them. In fact, families that have a mana-user are throwing everything they have in buying food, because of that ominous announcement a week ago."

"That great Dark thing." Dia looked at the top left of her vision, which had an hourglass stuck to it. Once the sand in the top half ran out, the great Dark would descend and whatnot. That said, she was a bit tired about automatically thinking about that Moondamned thing whenever everyone talked about the future.

This year was going to be a hectic one.

"Yeah." Farah grimaced. "All non-perishables are now ten times their original price, while small skirmishes have broken out in the Istrel capital, since the duke's direct vassals fight over food, water and lifestones. Fortunately, we're already rationing food to everyone in Licencia, but still…"

Her voice trailed off.

"Well, at least Claud has it under control," said Risti. "For now, anyway. I didn't expect him to step up and organise the riff-raff, though."

Dia knew what she was talking about. Merely the introduction of rationing measures had gotten the poor quite worried. They knew that the administration was rationing food to prevent the rich from hoarding and reselling, but the heart and the mind were two separate organs.

On the bright side, however, Claud had seen success in marshalling those worried people into patrolling the city. Now, other than a half-depleted standing army, the city also had quite the large militia, paid in bread, some meat and salt.

City security had increased, as a result.

However, the stress on the worried Claud had doubled, since he now had to control the small mob under him. The poor guy wanted to help the anxious crowds to release their worry in a controlled way, instead of rioting and beating up the rich and the strong, but…

"Better that than an all-out riot," Schwarz replied. "But he didn't really need to dump the actual work on me, right? Gosh. He's just teaching everyone to patrol the streets, but I'm the one handling the logistics."

He muttered under his breath for another minute, and then looked up. "Right, speaking of logistics…have the two of you packed your things yet? You've already delayed your departure long enough, so…"

"No worries. My territory's already handling the little issues. I just need to show my face during the ceremony ten days later." Farah paused. "And the two of us have already packed our stuff. We leave at night."

"At night?"

"Claud's suggestion. Don't ask me why," said Dia.

"Oh. Okay. At night, then. Hmm. Might as well cook up a nice feast," said Schwarz.

"Aren't you a bit too trusting of Claud?" Farah asked. "The moment you heard that it was his instruction, you immediately agreed. Is there something about him that we don't know? Is he, for instance, a top strategist of Emperor Grandis who fled to Licencia after being attacked?"

"Moons, stop. What kind of rubbish backstory are you giving him? Claud's as old as you guys." Schwarz rolled his eyes. "He's just really paranoid. Lots of plans. You should check on him when he's working next time. You'll be surprised."

"Is that all?" Farah asked, her brows furrowed. "But it doesn't quite make sense for you to place that much trust in him."

"You'll eventually understand," said Schwarz. "This is a good place for him to show his skills. Sure, he has a very twisted personality and is very excessive, but trust me. You'll never come to much harm if you follow his words."

"Just what kind of shared history do you two have?" Farah pressed on.

"Not my place to say," Schwarz replied. "And he's probably not going to share it that easily either. But well, you could make your own plans too. Claud believes in many ideals, but free will's one of them. He's not going to blame you…but if anything happens, he'll have that 'I told you so' expression on his face."

That last bit was spoken with some vehemence, and Dia covered her mouth. Clearly, Schwarz had been on the receiving end of that expression more than once, for him to look this disgruntled when talking about it.

"You sound very experienced in that regard," Farah noted, and Dia turned away for a few seconds to hide her grin. "Why? Happened to you before, eh? Hmm. More than once, then. Oh. Quite a few times."

"Stop reading my expressions," said Schwarz.

"I rarely see you lose control over your face," Farah replied, chuckling. "Right, guys? You usually have that stoic, gentle expression, but now it's a tomato. It's like some rare weather phenomenon."

"Stop likening me to a hurricane or something," Schwarz replied. "Sheesh."

Everyone laughed, and then returned to their work. Dia, however, couldn't help but note that Farah hadn't said anything about refuting Claud's suggestion, which could only mean that she was going to obey his words.

"What's that I hear?"

A black-haired man strode into the room, and Dia jumped. She had forgotten about Holy Son Nero after Schwarz placed him in an unused room. The poor guy had entered a catatonic state after drinking, and hadn't woken up for two days. However, since mana-users were fairly hardy, no one had paid much attention to him…or rather, Dia had forgotten about his existence entirely.

By the surprised expressions on everyone's faces, they too had probably forgotten about Holy Son Nero too.

"What's wrong, guys?" Nero asked cheerily, the sorrow that ravaged him a few days back completely gone. "Is there something wrong with me?"

"N-no," Schwarz forced out. "Nothing's wrong. Right, are you feeling good? You might be hungry, but if I were you, I'll drink a bit of water and eat only a bit of bread."

The Holy Son tilted his head. "Well, I do feel very hungry, but why do I need to limit my intake?"

"Unless you feel like getting a stomach ache, you'll be better off listening to my words." Schwarz got up and headed into the kitchen, returning a few seconds later with a small piece of bread. "Here, take it. Nibble it slowly. You should feel better within fifteen minutes."

He pulled out a small bottle. "After that, drink this and wait for lunch, got it?"

"What are you, my mother?" Nero muttered, but he took the bread anyway. Nibbling on it like a little squirrel, he walked over to Dia and pointed at the newspaper. "Can I have it?"

"Sure, go ahead."

"Thanks."

Passing him the newspaper, Dia took the chance to leave the room too. She had packed most of her items, but Claud had nagged at the two of them to prepare more things before leaving. Now that she had nothing to do, his words sounded quite sensible, so Dia reluctantly decided to stock up on some equipment.

Heading over to a small shed outside, she pulled the dull door open, and then ducked under the sign that said 'Under Construction'. Walking down a hallway that led to a brown wall, she turned at the third door on her right, and opened the dull door.

A faint glow entered her eyes as Dia stepped into Moon Mansion's artefact storage room.

There was now a common pool of generally useful artefacts in Moon Mansion, artefacts that the six of them could take and contribute to. It went without saying that the paranoid fellow was the one who donated the most, although his contributions were rather…suspect.

"I did take a look at this before," Dia muttered to herself, "but why are there so many flawed artefacts here? Did Claud seriously dump all his trash here?"

It was still useful trash, though. Most of them were artefacts that could only be used once every day, but they still had useful effects. Dia, who didn't have that many artefacts to begin with, could only look through the descriptions attached on them slowly. There were multiple lifestyle artefacts, but these numbers paled in comparison to the one-use-per-day barrier artefacts here.

"So many barrier-type artefacts." Dia picked up a small crescent stone. "How many normal artefacts does he have, then?"

The artefacts that had been separated by their functions and annotated fastidiously didn't reply, but she already knew the answer long ago.