Warlock Apprentice

As Angor looked at the woman mixed with two opposite personalities up and down, Keely also gave Angor an irritated glare.

Did she just hiss at me? Angor thought.

Kanter noticed Keely’s reaction and sighed. “Forgive her. She’s been through some unpleasant events during her childhood—”

“Professor!” Keely interrupted the old man, clearly discontent.

“Okay okay, I’ll not say it. Just so you know, you have to deal with the problems sooner or later.”

Even though Kanter was her teacher, Angor was surprised to see Keely bold enough to yell at a renowned wizard like this.

More surprisingly, Kanter actually gave up!

Angor wondered if Keely was Kanter’s family. Otherwise, the woman did a really poor job at learning proper manners.

Next, Kanter took the initiative to introduce Angor to his student; Angor nodded toward Keely politely.

Keely kept her head lowered in silence.

Kanter gave Angor an apologetic smile and began to introduce Keely instead.

She was 16, the same age as Angor. Keely entered the wizarding world a lot earlier. She had been training for 7 years and was now a level-2 Elementalist apprentice who majored in fire elements. Her talent allowed her to wield a very special flame called Inferno.

Keely kept her cold look as if she really wanted to stop her teacher from revealing her background.

Kanter’s plan was to ask the kids to befriend each other. However, Sunders would never agree if Keely acted too terribly, so the old man simply used his might as a wizard to prevent Keely from doing anything.

Sunders chuckled and shook his head.

“She’s a little unmanageable. Please don’t blame her, old friend.” Kanter sent a voice transmission to Sunders.

“It doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t be asking me anyway.”

They both knew what the meeting was all about. Kanter looked at Angor next.

Angor had been keeping his expression neutral. He didn’t really care about Keely’s improper attitude. He couldn’t judge whether Keely’s character was good or bad as of now. However, he still disliked how Keely openly disregarded her demeanor when visiting Sunders’ personal residence.

“She witnessed the death of her parents at Rambo Island. Since then, she became reclusive and would not speak to anyone apart from me. I tried looking for a cure from many wizards and nothing worked well. Then I took her to ‘Miniature Creator’.”

Since Keely didn’t want anyone to talk about her story, Kanter used a sound transmission to talk with Sunders and Angor both.

“‘Miniature Creator’ Dumartin Bayer?” Sunders asked.

“That’s him.”

Angor heard about this name before. Dumartin was a wizard of Brute Cavern who was best known for his cruel experiments during which he extracted people’s brains. The questing hall always placed Dumartin’s quests on the top of the list because they were very rewarding, yet no one dared to accept them—people had no use of reward when they no longer had brains.

“Dumartin did a test on her brain and found abnormal presynaptic membranes near her cerebral cortex, which might be the reason for her condition. She could no longer control herself.” Kanter shook his head in sadness. “According to Dumartin, this brain disease cannot be removed by mental treatment. She had to step out of her own shadow somehow.

“But… you see, she regards anyone but me as enemies and outsiders.”

Angor slowly nodded. It sounded something like autism. Kanter already did a good job as a teacher since Keely at least knew how to fear powerful wizards. Typical autism victims would disregard this as well.

His negative ideas about Keely lifted just a little.

“Keely Lordran Lilith…” Sunders muttered. “Fifty years ago, you introduced another of your student to Flora. Her name was ‘Lordran’ if I remember right. Was she Keely’s family?”

Kanter looked down and nodded. “Yes. That was Heidi Lordran, Keely’s mother. Ten years ago, she and her husband, Cheri, were murdered by Flunza at Rambo Island. Young Keely was there.”

“‘God of Seas’ Flunza? I’m afraid the young lady will have a difficult time seeking revenge.” Sunders didn’t seem interested in Keely’s past experience at all.

Flunza was a “truth finder” wizard from Song of the Deep. He rarely stepped onto dry land to show his power, but people believed that his talent for manipulating water was among the best of the best.

“Song of the Deep, yes…” Kanter repeated that name. Lilith’s Clan had many powerful fighters, but that was far from enough for them to go against Song of the Deep.

Kanter removed his woeful expression and looked at Angor with a smile. “Keely isn’t born like this, Angor. She’s a very kind girl. I hope you understand.”

Angor had no idea what the whole matter had to do with him, but he still nodded, just to be polite.

Since Keely wasn’t invited to their private talk, she soon noticed what was going on—especially when Angor’s mana ripples were clear to observe—and gave Angor an angry glare again.

Kanter put a hand on Keely’s hair. “Angor is a brilliant alchemist, and I’m discussing something with him. Don’t take it wrong.”

Keely looked at the floor again, causing the room to become awkwardly silent.

Sunders didn’t intend to join their talk, and Angor didn’t know what to say either. It was Kanter who was responsible to break the embarrassment again. “You’ll enter the purification garden, right?”

Angor knew something strange was going to happen during the event, but he didn’t know the details. However, since Sunders personally came here and told him that a great destiny was waiting within the garden, he decided to go.

“Yes, sir.” He nodded.

“Good. So will Keely. I hope you two can watch each other’s back.”

By this, Kanter mostly meant to ask Keely to look after Angor. He believed Angor mainly studied alchemy without paying much effort to sharpen his strength, while Keely was 100% an attacker who was good at burning things up. Naturally, Keely was better at combat.

Keely moaned in protest.

Kanter quickly sent her a voice transmission.

“Angor already agreed to help me make something. I paid him in advance. You don’t want to see this poor old man have his order wasted because Angor goes dead too soon, em?”

Keely gazed at Kanter to see if her professor was telling the truth.

Kanter asked Angor to show them the gift from earlier. Angor didn’t know what was going on, but he still complied.

Keely looked at the two boxes and finally nodded. “Fine. I’ll keep him alive in the garden.”

Wait. Angor felt at a loss again. Shouldn’t it be “look after each other”?

Kanter was pleased with Keely’s answer. She always kept her promise once she said something. Kanter hoped that Angor would slowly become fond of Keely after the teamwork.

Sunders didn’t forget to tease his student. “Well, I’ll be happy to see you come back alive under someone’s protection.”

Angor only gave his dear professor a meaningful glance.

“That’s settled then. It’s getting late; we’ll not occupy more of your time,” said Kanter after he received several more glares from Keely who wanted to leave badly. “We’re staying at Lilith’s place for now. Feel free to drop by,” Kanter said to Angor.

Angor nodded again; he then watched the strange pair flying away in the rain.

Again, Keely’s bright dance shoes and her kitten created a romantic scene under the gloomy sky.

Beautiful, yet distant.

…

It was just past midnight. Apart from the patrolling Rune Monitors, the entire Floating Mech City had gone quiet.

A bright fire beam suddenly swept past the starry sky and landed inside a garden in the suburban area.

Sunders was preparing plans for examining Angor’s Nightmare Domain and soul condition later. Also, he wanted to look into the secret art Angor learned from Isabelle.

He suddenly looked up at the window in his room.

…

Angor was now having a pleasant rest on his bed. When inside Bogula’s base, he was always too stressed to sleep. Now that he no longer had to worry about his safety, he decided to relax as much as he could.

Before going to sleep, however, he was going to check the two boxes he obtained from Kanter.