The next school day , Ikuta was faced with a fire dragon child " Uhhh Pyra right ? " Pyra's eyes sparkle brightly " Yup I wanna see how strong you really are "
Ikuta turned to Druk , wondering if he was somehow related " She's a distant relative " " She's transferred on Monday , so she didn't see you " Nisse said.
" Yeah so I waited and now you have to show me " Ikuta raised his hands " Morning teacher , Pyra wants me to use magic " the teacher reads Ikuta's face that was asking for help " You can only do that during magic practice " ' thank you teacher '
Ikuta went to his own corner since his magic was rare , so magic practice was just free time for him " Druk shoot lightning " Druk did as Ezio asked and Ikuta froze the surrounding area .
" And then some dark mana " the darkness spread through the area of effect like ink clearing the light while showing off Druk's lightning .
Nisse and Amber took a photo of the productions while Ezio threw his wind through it " Cool " they watched the lightning mana move according to the wind " That looks fun " Pyra watched them amazed and asked " Can you show more ? "
Ikuta was troubled since he did asked the first teacher to defend him only to end up pushing the deadline even further than the morning " uhh " Ikuta looked at his friends who were just as confused about how to refuse .
" Pyra , Ikuta doesn't know much dark magic , he can use a dark flame and manifest it and see in the dark but there is nothing else he can do "
' thank you Druk ' " Then what is the biggest dark flame you can summon ? " Ikuta wondered if Pyra even knew what that is " No if Ikuta does that he could burn the surroundings " Ezio said " No it doesn't , I saw him pull out a sword from it through TV "
They all stopped to think back to what sword she meant and remembered the sword he was hugging like it was his teddy bear " So that's what it does ? " Nisse asked .
" I only found out while I was testing it with two dark flames " ' if I used one it goes directly to the midnight mansion ' " that's right then make one really big one "
Ikuta wondered if he should do something like that " No " " Why !? " " Cause I don't wanna " " Come on it's not like anyone could get hurt " Pyra said and Ikuta gave her the console " Here I made this with my magic " he left Pyra and continued practicing magic .
" Ikuta , what is this ? " Pyra with newfound curiosity asked " It's something I made " " can I have it ? " Ikuta nabbed it back " no but you can make your own " " Ohhh really ? " Ikuta nodded " I'll give the instructions to you tomorrow "
" It's a deal " Ikuta said " Thank you so much " Pyra said " How did you enchant it ? " " With a computer " " can you tell me more ? " Amber watched Ikuta chat with Pyra about how he got the coding magic and even mentioned that you need to ensure that it works well or else it would explode .
" Hmm no wonder it's like an old game " " So can you give it back ? " Pyra gives the console back and Ikuta pockets it " By the way what kind of school did you come from ? " " A really big school but that doesn't matter if a hero like you isn't there "
Ikuta wondered what the big school actually looked like and Pyra explained it to him " It's near the shore for any sea beastfolks like sharks , whales , dolphins , orcas and a lot of others too " Ikuta imagined what they look like .
" I've only seen them on the internet " " Well our school just has plenty of them it's rare because the sea beastfolks who usually stay inside the sea " Ikuta remembers how the sea was always scary to most land dwellers but with the sea beastfolks it became more like it was space that was scary .
Of course , he knew about the other worlds that are also present which made it more terrifying but there was one thing that was most terrifying , his father who qualifies as the most hidden forbidden knowledge .
The magic practice continued until it was time " Would you like to come to my house Pyra ? " Amber asked " Oh sure " the six friends walked while Ikuta looked at the sky remembering that the duchess's body was there and thought ' would I be able to use the giants to remove the soul-denying power in you ? "
He couldn't get an answer as the duchess had never gotten much information about his father but he could at least try ' The problem is I need to do it secretly ' he remembered what the duchess's body looked like and decided .
' I'll just have to try ' the visit to Amber's house comprised talking about blacksmithing and the dangers of the ore Ikuta used to forge his blade " So now you made the blade carry knowledge ? "
Ikuta nodded " I plan to add more so I can make it a spell sword , the sword used to carry anti magic but I exhausted that already so now both black and white magic are on it "
" How would you even link that ? " Ikuta shrugged his shoulders " I don't know yet " Amber's older brother Rost was stunned to hear how Ikuta has that kind of optimism " Well I'm sure it's gonna be hard since I have no idea about enchanting "
" You mean like the one that Ikuta has on his retro game console ? " Pyra asked , Rost remembers that Amber did mention that Ikuta has a magical item that works like a game but is still able to do magic .
" Really ? " Pyra nodded and Ikuta showed the console " I had to use runes but now that I have Niflheim's runes it's gonna look very different " Rost remembered that the company had patented the book of runes and bought Niflheim as a property and how Ikuta was the one who enchanted the beacons to preserve the portal and kept Niflheim's frost from leaking .
" Oh yeah did you already make it ? " Ezio asked " Not yet plus I might take a while so you'll have to wait for it " ' I also have that the duchess wakes up '
...
Ikuta goes home and burns Pandora's box to the moon where he sent a tiny voodoo doll to control " Petra is there anyone beside the ice with ice giants ? " " Not at all why ? " " Nothing I'm just looking forward to going there " Ikuta opens a portal to Niflheim and locates the body of the duchess .
The doll raised the box with the portal pointing to a random ice giant and sent the duchess's soul to the doll . The box takes the power denying the duchess's self and into the ice giant .
The duchess falls on the doll and looks around the moon she is hit with the memories of what happened to her inside the mannequin and remembers the threat that had prevented her resurrection as well as Ikuta who inherited her affinity .
The doll turned to the body using the seeing dark spell . She quickly obtains her own body and sensed the lack of air . She quickly burned her body appearing at the midnight mansion " Haaaa " she felt relieved and reached to find her wand remembering that it was with Ikuta .
She sensed the soul connection still intact and used it to talk to Ikuta ' Hello Ikuta ? " ' You're okay ? " ' Yeah I am although I didn't think that Pandora's box was capable of saving me considering the length of my life "
' So are you still going to help me ? " She recalls the memories and agreed ' Sure I'll have to rely on you then as for the wand that's in your hands you should keep it close "
' okay " Ikuta felt glad to have a close ally like the duchess . He knew her well enough to trust her and she knew that Ikuta had been living with his father for a long time with awareness yet pretended to be ignorant ' Looks like I gained a very unlikely ally '
' I already know your name so you should name about mine too , call me Harkness " ' that's the same name as the family ' Ikuta thought and felt his affinity ' You should keep your affinity too unless the denier takes notice , I'll make my own , shouldn't be too hard "
Ikuta was called by Claire for dinner and went down only for Darkness to remember Claire's face " mother ? " She couldn't believe it and watched Claire serve food to Ikuta .
' Wait why is mother here ? " ' you mean Claire ? " Darkness remembers all the memories involving Claire and compared it to the mother she knew who died in a war .
' yes she was supposed to have died and went missing " Harkness remembers the memories of his father creating a set of people while her soul was with Ikuta's soul ' So that's how it is " Ikuta was confused what Harkness means ' haha looks like we are siblings who lived on different times "
Ikuta thinks about it and how he knew that Claire was a corpse controlled by his father ' That sounds correct " Harkness calms down while Ikuta eats dinner .
' to think it would be like this our parent made us so how did you know about the denier ? " Ikuta looked at the news with his father in the corner of his vision .
' when I was born the nurse that carried me , was dad controlling a puppet he is probably using your puppet spells " ' did he not have it before ? " ' no he never did because he mentioned he could only control a few vessels at a time until you invented that puppet spell "
Ikuta explained how much time there was between Harkness's encounter with the denier which resulted in something similar to her death and Ikuta's birth .
' he said that after you failed to withstand his power he started to fix the world with the puppets he was making . Which is why he has so much influence everywhere "
' interesting and you have been aware of him since your birth " ' yep , I tried my best to get stronger because I knew he was the reason for so many legends to end "
Harkness recalls the term legends but there were too many who were deemed as legends but the knowledge of Ikuta who only referenced one book helped her understand who the legends created by the denier are .
As well as the verse Ikuta told Ryela ' So there are that many " seven legends before Ikuta and six before her ' What's your plan then ? " ' get stronger I don't know what dad has planned for me so I want to keep getting stronger so I can be prepared for anything in the future "
Harkness remembers how Ikuta had made Cithrel gather the abyss ore so that the same soul-denying power could be removed from the defender ' what do you plan to do with the ore that the high elf is using to remove the denier's power from the defender ? " ' I'm not sure but it might be useful in the future "
Harkness thinks of how she could work around society ' I heard your father is looking for a tutor do you think he may get me ? " ' No but I could try to make it happen , but can you change your face ? He might realise it " ' no problem I will ensure that , this way we can stay close to each other " 'Thanks Harkness "
...
Ikuta took at least a week to read through the runes while Harkness took that time to make an identity and finally at Sunday . Nidhogg , Vedrfolnir and Ratatoskr as well as Yukina stayed at Ikuta's room after Claire tells them to not reveal themselves to Ikuta's tutor .
" Hello my name is Melania are you Ikuta ? " Druk was surprised to see the beautiful pale woman wearing black all over her body " Uhm Ikuta someone is looking for you " " It's my tutor " " So does that mean we're leaving ? " Ezio asked " Yeah I'll see you tomorrow "
Ikuta waved at his two friends and now he gave the umbrella to Harkness " My wand has deteriorated but because it's like that we can switch it mother wouldn't notice a thing that way " Ikuta was not used to having a sibling who was very old and who called his father mother .
" As for the midnight mansion I won't have any problem retrieving some items from it however the artifacts in this house important " " Which one are ? " " Mostly the urn it would be very helpful for your black magic but the problem is it's stuck here so you'll have to look at a different location "
" Why do I need to look ? " " There was a cult who benefited from the remains of a god it's why black magic is so sinister because it required someone to kill a divinity or at least make them suffer " Harkness shows a memory of hers fighting a cultist who used a goddess's tears to dissolve anything it falls on .
" Moreover if you injure a divinity you could use their blood for greater black magic spells " Harkness showed the horror of the deities being tortured to supply greater black mana to execute black magic " So why is it important ? " Harkness looks at the urns .
" Someone could take it while you destroyed the cult if you were to open this even once you would leak a bit of black mana which will attract those enemies "
Ikuta looks at the water on the vases that meant to trick Ikuta into thinking they were fermenting " This is made of white mana " " holy water to be precise , white magic was prominent when gods were alive since one could obtain plenty from the Aesirs and the Olympian gods celebrations also white magic does prevent some molds if you control it "
Ikuta remembered what Vedrfolnir had told him and understood how white magic lost the former holy magic name " So right now there are even more black magic cultist ? "
Harkness nods " The problem is they are good at hiding they might be at the black market and looking down on inferior cults like the one you destroyed . but they are definitely actively hunting people down with potent black magic "
Ikuta remembers the assassin who tried to kill him wondering about what Petra said about the assassin " This is weird why would they aim for the young master ? " she said discussing it with the adventurers ,
He looks at another urn " I think my dad might've already bought me trouble " Harkness looks at the Urn to see that one of them was just normal water and that a little bit of very potent black mana was leaking out " Maybe that assassin from that time was aiming for me because I had some of the black mana in that sword "
He knew that the sword was capable of absorbing mana " But at that time I didn't fix the knowledge on the blade " Harkness also thinks about the assassin " Now that you mention it unlike the hourglass which you concealed black mana that sword had none of that , moreover black mana from a god can stick much better to anything "
" I only thought it would be nice to bring it so I could read the black magic " they turned to the one urn watching the holy water turn to normal water " Looks like you will need this umbrella then let's just pretend you learned how to enchant it as today's lesson "
Ikuta grabbed Harkness's original Umbrella while she carried the replica she made " Also try to keep that sword with you at all time " Ikuta nodded " you be careful too " They finished their tutoring session pretending that Ikuta was learning how to enchant .
" Now be careful with the cultist alright ? " Ikuta nodded , Ikuta opened his bedroom door " Young master is your tutor gone ? " Nidhogg asked " Yep I finished the lesson really quick and look " he showed the umbrella while Nidhogg left the room to do her job " she said an umbrella is the best tool for dark magic because it covers the sunlight "
" It does make a big shadow " " that's what she told me too " Ikuta looked at his sword and hourglass which had the black mana that was leaking out the ones that he saw at the urn ' this is a problem ' he can't tell anyone or else he would be found by his father .
Claire and Louis came home and went to the shelf where all the treasures were stored " Ugh that smells " Claire said " There must've been molds growing in this good thing it hasn't turned that bad yet " " we still gotta throw it " Ikuta watched Claire bring some crates and used them to carry the urns .
" What happened ? " " They grew bad molds on them you won't be getting any fermented stuff for a while " Louis said " We're gonna send it to the dump the vase is also ruined " " How do they get rid of the trash ? " " A company does it , of course , they get paid for disposing of the trash "
Ikuta wonders if his father plans to do anything about god's ashes ' he did make the abyss but why does he need to throw the remains out ' " perfect timing , with this I'll be able to fish out the cults "
Ikuta tells this to Harkness who thinks about how it would go ' you'll definitely have to be careful about black magic maybe search about the history " ' the library is open so I could use that " Ikuta took advantage of his upgraded access to read the history of black magic .
"Black magic reached a peak after Ragnarok , the corpses of many gods were found everywhere after the battlefield , some worshippers decided to burn them in a sacred flame but some took it and extracted black magic from their corpse"
"A god wasn't just able to die that easily but it doesn't mean that leaving a god in their corpse won't make them suffer" Ikuta continues to read more noting the gods' corpses that were found and listed but what happened to them was unknown .
Meanwhile , Cithrel is taking care of the defender's body while Harkness passes through dark flames . Cithrel took notice and grabbed a sword to point at her " Who are you ? " " Ikuta's friend " Cithrel was surprised to hear that " I'm sorry about the defender but I want to confirm one thing "
Cithrel puts herself between Harkness and the dragon " You think I'm just gonna let you ? " ' she must be the one behind that boy ' " It's nothing that's meant to harm the defender whatever power he is being held down was the same power that held me down too except it's much heavier "
Cithrel weakened her defenses wondering if Harkness was able to free the defender " so would you let me try reading his memories ? " Cithrel moved aside to let Harkness do what she wished . Harkness used dark magic to see the defender's memories but only found one " it's as I believed "
" What is it ? " Cithrel believed there was hope only for Harkness to simply say " so we're brothers and sisters " " What ? " Harkness turns to Cithrel " Sorry about your loss but I do have a way to remove what he is suffering but right now that boy isn't here " Cithrel couldn't believe how she misunderstood Ikuta's position .
" That boy mentioned that the power is associated with forbidden knowledge can you tell me that ? " Harkness looked at Cithrel and shook her head " Obviously not it's forbidden knowledge , it is best that I keep it from you for your sake but at least I know a few more things "
' more specifically about what my birth was about but that boy had the most interactions with mother so I can't conclude it that way after all my memories with mother were just too real and genuine ' Harkness turns to Cithrel " Don't worry I'll be able to release him soon "
She turns to some ores feeling the denier's power in them ' I'm not sure what he'll need them for ' Harkness decided to leave them be since she knew that Ikuta already understood how to use the dark flame .
...
Ikuta closes the book hearing that he has to go home ' That was a lot to take in ' he read so much about it even reading about the different corpses that were found that didn't emit the negative emotions needed for black magic but emitted hope .
' they are like me ' but because of the church's doctrine about self-sacrifice nobody touched the corpses of gods that emitted hope who were left inside coffins . He goes back home wondering who will he be facing ' the lich maybe ? '
He isn't sure but what is certain is that the greater the soul the greater the mana that can be used for black and white magic ' so much to worry about ' he comes home and opens a box of juice to pour and drink " Ikuta someone gifted you this " Nidhogg carried a fancy looking box and Ikuta checked what it was " Pandora's box ? "
Ikuta was surprised and used the dark eye to see that the Pandora's box his father was still there " Claire ? " Claire turns carrying a towel and a mop " what is it ? "
" Someone sent me a Pandora's box " Claire takes the fancy-looking box " It's not full it's just meant to carry black and white mana at the same time so it's not like it has anything it seems like it's a united gift of the church and the black tower . "
Ikuta sighed with relief knowing his father wasn't involved " They even have a letter for you it's an increase in your access to that library " " oh thanks " Ikuta looked at Pandora's box that had more details of how they were distributed ' only those who can use both black and white magic is given this tool '
' I mean I already have the sword but I could at least use this to hide the fact that I have the hourglass ' he goes up and asks Vedrfolnir " You want to stuff this hourglass into this box ? "
Ikuta nodded " I did show you my ability to change my form but I'm not sure if you can use it on that box or the hourglass "
Vedrfolnir checks the box " however it is a much stable box for storing black and white mana but that hourglass of yours holds souls and extracts them for you so how about you just carry them both at the same time ? You can hide the capability of that hourglass "
Ikuta wonders about the idea and uses dark magic to hide the hourglass and watches the pandora replica become filled with black and white mana " It worked "
" Great job Young master now all you have to do is learn how you can hide it from me there are many who have better eyes like mine allow me to teach you how to do that "
" I do have to do that " " Then allow me to spend the night teaching you " Vedrfolnir patiently teaches Ikuta how to use the spell while Ikuta was worried about the urn of gods .
...
The ashes of gods were being transported people took them to a dungeon that could digest whatever it was given . Harkness sat on top of the truck reading a copy of the book of legends .
' the core , the title given to a dungeon that stood out from the rest many had called other ancient dungeons but the mystery of this core's disappearance is the real problem '
The garbage disposers took the organic waste bringing them to one location ' Ikuta this location is weird whoever is disposing the garbage is sending them to a dungeon " Ikuta checks that the dungeon was a private property of the garbage company but had no connections with his father's .
' why would dad do that ' the garbage where first organized and only the ashes of gods were poured out . The new garbage disposers flinched in disgust upon hearing and taking a short whiff of all the trash falling into a pit .
" What is down there anyways ? " " A giant Mimic , it used to be a slime but it evolved into a mimic now we are just feeding it " " Wouldn't it get too big ? " " Don't worry about that we have some damage controls here to handle it "
Some people in hazmat suits made to keep the stench out carried flamethrowers " Everyone in good position ? " " Yessir !! " " Don't shoot each other now " everyone pointed their flamethrowers toward the pit where they threw organic garbage in .
The inorganic waste was separated to be cleaned " These pots are really good " someone took a whiff of the urn " Uuuugh that is pungent , we got to clean this with plenty of water and soap "
They got the urns cleaned while the Mimic who had been eating trash couldn't help but hate those who threw garbage at them and burned them , a reasonable kind of hate , they drove that emotion to desire to kill them , but the management was too good at using their ability to grow and dispose .
Charred parts of their bodies were removed to be used as fuel while it only received pain .
It couldn't sense the incoming danger as years of eating degraded materials have eroded most of its cognitive functions . Now the ashes of gods on the top of the pile were buried by more trash and sunk deeper into the pit the Mimic was called .
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