Encounter

Walking through the city, Merlin was getting some stares from the common folk as they were whispering to each other and making sure to stay out of his way, seeing his clothing and features, reminding them of the mysterious royal house, House Caliban, that they have so frequently heard of.

Seeing this, Merlin merely shook his head as he thought, 'These people, they're too afraid to even be in the same location as a noble. From what I heard of Sebastian's telling, the class discrimination between Noble and Commoners are very frequent, practically becoming a part of the Kingdom itself. Such nonsense, but inevitable.'

From where Merlin started his walk, he walked through the centre of town where the market square was. Many people were currently going through their work, running around to finish errands, or just mingling with one another.

All of this interested Merlin as he never really got to interact with commoners before, only being surrounded by Nobles who were overly arrogant, trying to obtain the favour of the heir to a royal house.

His attention was drawn towards a stall that was selling trinkets and some form of jewellery on the side. With a smile, he approached the stall and was about to greet the owner, but was too slow as the stall owner quickly reacted.

Bowing his head down extremely low, the man stuttered and tried his best to keep his composure as he said, "M-My lord. W-Welcome to my s-stall. I am not w-worthy to be graced by one such as you, but if you w-were to find anything of value in my stall, please feel free to tell me, and I would happily gift it to you."

Merlin stayed silent for a moment, before shaking his head with a wry smile and left the stall, leaving the man confused, worried, and also relieved at the same time.

'People are even too afraid to talk to me. No wonder the Nobles would get servants to purchase goods on their behalf. Well, either that or they find it too 'below' themselves, to perform such tasks.' Merlin thought, walking into an alleyway. Once he made sure no one was watching him, he snapped his fingers.

Instantly, his hair colour changed to brown as it was wrapped into a high ponytail. His robes turned into Mana petals, as a new set of commoner clothing which the common people wore replaced them, with his shirt being a green colour and brown pants.

"This should be better," Merlin said, also changing his eye colour to brown. Exiting from the alleyway, Merlin stood still for a moment in his new appearance. This time, no one paid much attention to him, ignoring him or just giving a curious glance towards someone who's merely standing there staring at the people around him.

Merlin smiled and went back towards the same stall owner he approached before.

"Ah! Welcome, sir! Please, do take a look at my goods. These were crafted by me and engraved by my very own wife who is a skilled tinkerer!" The man said, adopting a much more friendly and amicable smile as compared to earlier when Merlin was in his true appearance. Since he was afraid of looking at Merlin in the eyes, he didn't pay attention to his previous facial features. Only remembering his unique hair.

Nodding his head, he browsed through the little trinkets that were atop the wooden stall. On them were various broaches, lockets, bracelets, and earrings.

Looking over them, Merlin picked up a locket that had the head of a lion engraved onto a silver pendant. Looking over the rest of the items, he spotted a bracelet that had a lion's mane pattern that ran along with its bronze metal. He then picked up a silver bracelet that had the head of an eagle joined in the middle.

"How much for these 3?" Merlin asked.

The man enthusiastically said, "150 Yuls, however, since you bought 3 of them, I'll give you a discounted price of 125!"

Merlin nodded his head and dropped a sack of coins containing exactly 125 Yuls. Satisfied, Merlin pocketed the trinkets and would do a bit of 'tinkering' on them later before he gifted these out to his friends.

"Mereo is probably out in the wild again fighting some beast. Fuego should be trying to convince Ms Theresa to help improve his magic even more. Nozel would be doing going through his lessons on his royal duties at his age." Merlin muttered as he walked through the streets and was looking through the various shops, trying to see what would arouse his interests.

He continued like so for a few more hours, eating food at inns, having some drinks that he was not familiar with, and going through the various shops that were selling magical items. So far, none of them caught his interest as he could always just make some, especially when they were of a much worse quality to him. He even spotted some blatant mimics of his own artefacts which he sold in the past.

"I should try making some items that aren't merely consistent or merely shapes, maybe various objects. Then I can gift them to people to experiment with." Merlin said to himself with a smile, while his three friends experienced a chill all at the same time.

Continuing on his exploration, Merlin's attention was brought towards a scuffle where 2 men were currently fighting one another in front of a tavern.

"You stole my damn money from right under my nose, you thief!" A man with a large build and a crooked nose said as he opened his Grimoire to prepare for an attack.

"You know that I won that money fair and square! Don't even try to twist my words!" The man with a shorter stature shouted back as he also took out his Grimoire.

"Oh my, seems like things are getting heated here," Merlin said with interest, wanting to see how these two would fight.

However, just as they were getting ready to cast their spells, someone interrupted them.

"Chrono stasis."

Suddenly, the two men were surrounded inside of a transparent blue sphere with a ring that had Roman numerals inscribed on it. A man in his twenties with short messy blond hair and purple eyes stepped out of the crowd.

"You two are currently restrained in a time loop, however, you are still able to hear what I have to say. You will both cease your fighting immediately or be taken in for further punishment in accordance with the crime of disturbing public peace and the use of Grimoires to injure another." The man addressed the two, who were still stuck in the exact same position they were in before they were restrained.

"Interesting. A time-based restraining spell." Merlin said as he studied the two blue spheres, activating his Mana eyes.

"Wow, it's a Magic Knight."

"Yeah, and he's a part of the Grey Deer squad!"

The man wore the Grey Deer's white squad robe over his longer grey robe.

Deactivating his spell, the two men fell back onto the ground, looking a lot more pacified than before as they grumbled and left the area reluctantly.

With that, the man left the area as he rode on his broom and into the sky. Sighing to himself, the man said, "Well, that's a situation resolved. I just wish the captain would assign me to missions where I can see some more interesting magic. Maybe I should have waited for those two to fight first, and catch glimpses of the magic they have."

"Now now, that would be irresponsible of a Magic Knight." Merlin's voice rang out next to the man, causing him to be surprised as he turned to the side, only to see a man with brown hair and brown eyes floating in the air next to him.

"Ah, my appearance, almost forgot about that," Merlin said, snapping his finger and transforming back to his real appearance with his hair turning to a rainbow colour once more.

The man's eyes turned into stars as he said, "You can use transformation magic! Not just that, but I could sense quite a very strong presence of Mana when you switched back! You're also floating! What kind of magic are you using to do that? Space? Air Manipulation? You're so young as well! You don't even have a Grimoire yet and you can already float in the sky and use transformation magic!"

Merlin raised his hand, "Calm down, no need to be overly excited. I can explain it to you, but could you move back a bit?" Merlin said as the man was practically in his face.

"Ah, my apologies. Wait, your hair… Ah! You must be Merlin Caliban! M-My sorry for not greeting you properly!" Julius exclaimed and was about to bow when Merlin merely just waved his hand.

"Don't, those sort of greetings just tire me. Besides, I'm more interested in the sort of magic that you can perform. So, tell me your name, since you already know of mine." Merlin said as he floated around Julius in circles, observing him with his violet glowing eyes.

"I'm Julius of house Novachrono. It's my pleasure to get to meet someone of your stature, m'lord Merlin Caliban." Julius said.

Merlin merely sighed and floated his body sideways, saying, "No need to be so overly polite, no one's around except for us two, so you can drop the formalities. So, Julius, do you mind me calling you Julius? I'll call you that anyway, tell me, just what is the deal with your Grimoire?"

"My Grimoire? Wait, don't tell me you can see it." Julius asked, surprised.

"Of course, it's just up there," Merlin said, pointing forward, which was up for him as he was lying parallel to the ground, laying sideways in the air. Above him was a large paper bundle wrapped in a circle. Its size wasn't overly large, but under Merlin's observation, the size and number of pages are only going to increase in the foreseeable future.

"How can you see it? Only to those that I want to show would my Grimoire appear. Is it also a part of your magic?! Eye magic?! Visual empowerment?! No, Space Distortion?!" Julius exclaimed, getting closer to Merlin again, who in turn just floated away.

"Let's just say I have some special eyes." Merlin put his hands behind his back, channelling mana and creating a little orb similar to Julius's Chrono Stasis, except music smaller and incomplete. Julius himself was completely oblivious, trying to figure out what Merlin's magic was.

"Well, Julius, it's been nice meeting you but I have some other things to attend to," Merlin said, snapping his finger and transforming back to his disguised appearance. "We'll meet again in the future, it was fun talking to you, Julius. Do come visit sometime."

With that, Merlin's body disappeared instantly, with scores of flower petals spreading through the air, being carried by a breeze. There was no sign that spatial magic was used. Julius only stared at the empty space for a moment before shaking his head and smiling, thinking to himself just how interesting the heir and current head of House Caliban was.

'Although I heard some gossip from the other Nobles about how much of a genius Merlin Caliban was, seeing him in person, it seems the truth is a lot more exaggerated than the stories. What an interesting person.' Julius thought, flying off to patrol once more.

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Authors Notes:

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