2072 Someone You Loved (Part 2)

He had to split his time between the battlefield, the city of Valeron where he had to regularly meet the Royals and share with them another piece of knowledge every time they delivered their promises, and social events.

Thrud had conquered Belius, but the victory had come with a heavy price. Not a single soul lived there and the very storm that had allowed her to conquer the city had also turned it into shambles after Berion had detonated the protective arrays.

To make matters worse, Milea had exploited the opportunity to expand the borders of the Empire and had positioned the bulk of her forces along the mountain range of the Kellar region.

With most of her Divine Beasts still locked in the regeneration chamber of the Golden Griffon and no defensive mechanism left in Belius, the Mad Queen was forced to temporarily relieve the pressure on the internal borders of the Kingdom.

Also, the Royals had been true to their word and had already issued a full pardon for Lith, Tista, Kamila, and all of his relatives and friends. It was overkill, but the King wanted to make sure that nothing would later pop up and mess with his plans.

As for Lith's social life, everyone wanted to meet the fabled Supreme Magus.

  Especially his friends who mocked him to no end, calling him either the Supreme Miser or the Miser Magus.

Lith rejected all the invitations from the nobles who had ignored him until he had been crowned Magus and who just wanted to suck up to him, but there were still a lot of places he had to be.

Marth had demanded him to attend a second smaller ceremony at the White Griffon. He wanted to parade his Magus alumnus to the other Headmasters, have Lith give an inspirational speech to the students, and have him meet his old Professors and schoolmates.

"Who would have ever thought that an obnoxious runt of commoner origins would be the first and probably the only student of mine to become a Magus?" Professor Khavos Rudd, Lith's teacher of dimensional magic said after one drink too many.

"I understood that I had been wrong all my life when those damn rankings for your fourth year came out, but damn, life surely loved to rub it in my face. First of your class, then the youngest Great Mage of your generation, and then the youngest Archmage. 

"Now you've become a Magus… No, I'm sorry, the Supreme Magus before your twenties. I wish it was Friya Ernas, instead. At least it would have been a fellow dimensional mage."

"Thanks for your kind words." Lith's voice oozed with ill-concealed sarcasm.

"Gods, cut me some slack." Rudd sighed like a broken-hearted man. "When you get old, there are some words that become harder to say. Like apologies. I'm sorry for treating you badly when you were a student."

'Too little and too late.' Lith thought.

"Apologies accepted." He actually said, not wanting to ruin the moment for Marth and not caring enough about Rudd to argue with him about the past.

"Ignore that old fossil and follow me." Lyca Wanemyre, his Forgemastering Professor, dragged Lith to a table that she had filled with blueprints of complex weapons.

"Are you sure you want to show this to me?" He could see the full schematics of the runes and the power cores. One second in his eyes was a lifetime in Solus' memory.

"Don't worry, I've got the clearance for this. Besides, even in the off chance your memory is a prodigy as you are, there's not much you can do without a list of the ingredients." She replied with a cute smile.

'Fuck me sideways, she's right! Without the perfect sequence of pseudo cores, the whole thing would just explode in my face.' Lith replied.

"I just wanted your input as a Magus and a Divine Beast. The problem with new weapons is that they need to be tested and I can't exactly go to a Dragon and ask them if they can kindly allow me to try and beat the crap out of them."

"Do you want me to be your test subject?" Lith said in amazement.

"You could test your equipment and I could test mine. It's a fair trade." She shrugged. "Besides, you are not just helping me. You are helping the whole Kingdom as its Supreme Magus." She said in an overly dramatic voice.

"Consider all these powerful new runes and the way to arrange them as your payment if it makes your decision easier. On top of that, I'll gladly answer whatever question you have for me. It will be just like the old times." She said with a huge smile that took one second to turn into a bitter expression.

"Except that you are already married and I'm still single. What the heck is wrong with me? Why does nobody love me?" She hugged him, starting to sob uncontrollably.

"For starters, I think you should cut down on alcohol." Lith patted her back, holding Wanemyre for a couple of seconds before the sobbing turned into snoring. "First Rudd and now this? Duke, what the heck have you done?"

After the ceremony, the Headmaster had asked Lith to drop the honorifics and go on a first-name basis. Archmages like Marth were considered the kings of the magical community, but Magi were living gods.

"I think someone may have spiked the drinks with Red Dragon to help you loosen up." Marth checked the cocktails with his spells but everything was fine.

"You have a bottle of Red Dragon?" Lith asked in amazement.

"Well, yeah. Anything else is as good as water to you. What kind of a host do you think I am?" The Headmaster shrugged.

"Did you put the stopper back after pouring my drink?"

Marth turned around, discovering that the vapors of the liquor were free to spread through the room, causing an epidemic of drunken highs. People laughed or cried for no reason, some had become overly honest and told things that they should have kept to themselves.

Others were making out with complete strangers or became violent at the slightest provocation.

"What do you say if we show them how it's done, handsome?" Zinya tugged at Vastor's arm with one hand and unbuttoned her shirt with the other. Her pupils were dilated and her voice a slur.

The moment she was about to reveal her black lace bra and the generous bosom it held, Vastor used his professor ring to Warp them both in his apartments. A quick detoxification spell put her to sleep while he prayed to the gods that no one had witnessed the scene or at least they wouldn't remember the morning after.

"What the heck happened?" Lith asked while Kamila still blocked his sight with her hand.

"It seems that Zinya reacts to alcohol the same way I do." Kamila sighed. "Luckily for me, the armor Grandma made for me blocks even poisonous gas or I'd have made a fool of myself as well."

"Are you telling me that getting drunk also makes you-"

"It lowers my inhibitions, yes. Why do you think I was always careful with wine back when we were still dating?" She completed the phrase for him.

"I was about to say horny, but that works too. Care for a sip?" Lith offered her his drink spiked with Red Phoenix.