Chapter 24: An Invitation I Couldn’t Refuse (Magic Castle Bonus)

Chapter 24. An Invitation I Couldn’t Refuse (Magic Castle Bonus)

Morning came quietly.

I opened my eyes to sunlight leaking through the curtains and an empty space beside me.

My hand immediately moved across the mattress.

Empty.

I frowned.

Then my palm pressed against the sheets.

Warm.

Ah.

She had only just gotten up.

Probably escaped before I woke because she was still embarrassed about last night.

A smile tugged at my lips.

I remained there for another few seconds, staring at the ceiling.

That might have been the best sleep I’d ever had.

No nightmares or waking every few hours because my body hurt.

And, compared to my previous life, no falling asleep facedown on research papers before waking with equations imprinted across my cheek.

Just warmth.

Quiet.

Someone beside me.

I could get used to that.

Dangerously easily.

Unfortunately, lying around wasn’t an option.

There were things I needed to do.

I dragged myself out of bed.

The bathroom came first.

Because once again, I was a civilized magus.

Not some playboy bard wandering between taverns, waking up smelling like gods only knew what happened the previous night.

I paused.

Sniffed myself.

...

Well.

I smelled suspiciously like one.

"Bath." Definitely bath.

Warm water helped loosen the remaining stiffness in my body. Ten minutes later, I stepped out considerably more respectable.

This time, I actually put effort into my appearance.

Dark fitted trousers.

A clean white shirt beneath a black coat with subtle silver embroidery.

Nothing ridiculously formal.

But nice.

Date nice.

I stood before the mirror and adjusted the collar.

The man staring back looked unfairly good.

Honestly, Rey.

What exactly had you been doing with this face for years?

Five wives.

Zero proper dates.

Criminal negligence.

I grabbed the Ironback Behemoth core from the drawer before leaving.

Two servants approached from the opposite direction. The moment they saw me, both stopped. Then bowed deeply. "Good morning, my lord."

"Morning."

They stiffened slightly.

Apparently, Rey returning greetings was still suspicious behavior.

I walked past them, then stopped.

"Oh. Breakfast."

Both immediately turned.

"Yes, my lord?"

"Add honey-glazed riverfish and moonberry pancakes for Lady Ariel."

Ariel’s favorites.

That memory surfaced surprisingly easily.

Interesting.

Rey remembered. He simply hadn’t done much with the information lately. "And..." I glanced back toward my chamber. "The bedsheets are slightly stained. Change them."

Silence.

Absolute silence.

One servant’s eyes widened.

The other’s face went blank with the heroic determination of someone refusing to understand anything about her employer’s private life.

Both women shivered. "Yes, my lord."

I continued walking.

Behind me, I could practically feel the gossip preparing to achieve sentience.

Not my problem.

My study waited.

I entered, shut the door, and immediately headed toward Rey’s shelves.

Now.

Storage artifact.

I knew he had one.

The memory was somewhere in this increasingly irritating ocean of half-integrated information.

My fingers passed over boxes.

Artifacts.

Sealed scrolls.

Three rings that apparently did entirely different things.

Then... There.

A plain dark-silver ring rested inside a small enchanted case.

I picked it up.

Mana responded instantly.

[Artifact recognized.]

[Dimensional Storage Ring]

[Grade: High]

[Bound Owner: Rey Valen]

[Spatial Storage: Active]

[Living organisms cannot be stored.]

"Nice."

I slipped it onto my finger. The fit adjusted automatically.

[You have equipped the Dimensional Storage Ring.]

I picked up the behemoth core.

Focused.

Tossed it upward.

The core vanished.

A spatial ripple swallowed it before it could fall.

[You got a Behemoth Core X1]

That was going to make my life significantly easier.

I was about to investigate what Rey already had inside the ring when someone knocked.

"Come in," I said.

The door opened.

Mira entered.

Perfect posture.

Calm expression.

She bowed. "My lord."

A document was placed on my desk.

"The report from last night’s incident. Everything is included."

I took it. "Did you send the message?"

"Yes, my lord."

I skimmed the report.

Interesting.

Mira hadn’t merely observed me. She had been slowly poisoning me as well. Nothing lethal, just small doses mixed into my drinks, designed to cause dizziness, mental fatigue, poor concentration, and weaker emotional control.

Subtle.

Then I reached the authorization section.

My eyes narrowed.

Elia wasn’t the only one behind this.

The Light Temple had sanctioned the operation.

Their reasoning was painfully simple.

Rey Valen had been corrupted by the Dark Lord.

Therefore, sooner or later, Rey Valen had to die.

I smiled. "Great." Apparently, being cursed was now a capital offense.

Mira reached into her uniform again. "Also, my lord... these arrived this morning."

Two envelopes.

One immediately caught my attention.

Royal seal.

I took them.

"This one came directly from the palace," Mira explained. "The second was delivered shortly afterward."

I nodded. "You may leave."

She bowed. "Yes, my lord."

The door closed.

I leaned back in my chair and opened the royal invitation first.

Heavy paper.

Gold trim.

Official seal.

Formal language.

King Aldric Valcrest’s birthday.

One week from today.

A royal banquet would be held at the palace.

As one of the Five Heroes and Royal Magus, I was naturally expected to attend.

Nothing surprising.

Then something smaller slipped from between the pages.

A separate piece of paper.

Not official stationery.

Just a short handwritten note.

My eyes moved across it.

The king knew my condition had worsened.

If I wasn’t feeling well enough to attend, I could decline.

No penalty. No offense taken. Rest. Recover.

My fingers stopped.

Aldric Valcrest.

History remembered him relatively well. Not perfectly. Nobody survived history perfectly.

But he was generally described as a good king.

Pragmatic.

Intelligent.

Sometimes ruthless when necessary.

And after Rey Valen died...

He built Rey’s tomb.

Official records claimed the structure existed for his madness containment.

To ensure whatever corruption remained within Rey’s corpse could never escape.

Reasonable explanation.

Except...

I’d been inside that tomb.

Thousands of years later.

Personally.

Research expedition number thirty-seven.

I had spent eleven days underground studying its magical architecture.

And I could say with absolute certainty, that tomb wasn’t merely containment.

Not even close.

The materials were too expensive.

The burial chamber too carefully preserved.

The defensive formations protected the corpse from intruders as much as they protected the outside world from whatever remained inside.

There had been ceremonial inscriptions.

Royal funerary architecture.

Honors.

Things nobody would waste on a monster they simply wanted sealed away.

At the time, I’d found that strange.

Now?

I looked at Aldric’s handwritten note again.

He had wanted Rey Valen buried properly.

Whatever happened between them later...

The king had still believed Rey deserved dignity in death.

I placed the royal invitation aside.

Then opened the second envelope.

The handwriting was elegant.

Elia.

My eyes narrowed slightly.

Her message began warmly.

She asked how I was feeling.

Said she hoped my condition had improved.

Then came the banquet.

She hoped I would attend.

Apparently everyone missed me.

My eyebrow rose. ’Everyone?’

How touching.

She mentioned that the Five Heroes hadn’t gathered properly in some time and that King Aldric’s birthday would be a good opportunity.

Then came the line I had been expecting.

If anything happened to me during the banquet, she would be there.

She could examine me.

Help stabilize the curse.

Make sure I was safe.

Ah... The healer.

The concerned old companion.

Perfectly reasonable and kind.

Especially after my loyal little spy had just informed her that Rey Valen was deteriorating rapidly.

I continued reading.

At the bottom, Elia apologized.

She was sorry she hadn’t visited lately.

She knew she should have come.

She hoped I understood that she was busy.

I stared at those words for several seconds.

Then leaned back.

The chair creaked.

A slow smile appeared on my face.

Not warm.

Not particularly sane-looking either.

So. The king invited me while explicitly giving me permission to stay away.

Elia invited me while very gently encouraging me to appear.

Interesting difference.

Maybe innocent.

Maybe not.

But after last night, I wasn’t particularly inclined to believe in coincidences.

I tapped the invitation against the desk.

Once.

Twice.

A banquet in one week.

The king.

Elia.

Darius.

Probably Raven.

Garr.

Nobles.

Temple officials.

Potentially half the people currently whispering that Rey Valen was becoming a monster.

And apparently they wanted to see me.

My smile widened.

Well.

It would be rude to disappoint them.

Especially when they were expecting a sick, unstable, half-broken Mad Magus desperately clinging to whatever remained of his sanity.

I looked down at Elia’s letter. "Heh."

Poor Elia.

She wanted to check on the curse.

How thoughtful.

I placed her invitation beside the king’s.

Then rested my chin against one hand.

One week.

Plenty of time.

I tapped one finger against the desk before glancing toward the royal invitation again. "I suppose I need to get King Aldric a good gift too."

A birthday banquet without a gift would be rude.

Showing up after months of isolation, rumors of insanity, forbidden magic, and worsening curses without bringing anything would be even worse.

Hopefully, I could find something interesting at the market.

Something suitable for a king.

Rare wine?

Artifact?

Ancient collectible?

Absolutely not a book.

Giving someone a book because I liked books was precisely the kind of social mistake old Evan would’ve made.

I could already imagine it.

’Happy birthday, Your Majesty. Here are four hundred pages concerning the migration patterns of extinct Void Leviathans.’

Wonderful.

Very thoughtful.

I stood. "But before that..."

My gaze shifted toward the potion shelves.

Rows upon rows of bottles stared back at me.

Some high-grade.

Some rare enough that ordinary magi would probably commit crimes just to own one.

My smile slowly returned.

"I need to make some forbidden potions first."

Just in case.

Last night’s battle had taught me something important.

Forbidden Energy was powerful.

Very powerful.

But power meant absolutely nothing if I exhausted the resource halfway through a serious fight.

The Forbidden Mana Elixir had solved that problem rather beautifully.

Which raised another question.

Why stop there?

I walked toward the shelves.

My fingers trailed across the bottles.

Healing potion.

What happened if corrupted?

Stamina restoration?

Purification?

What about antidotes?

Could I create something that consumed poison and converted it into Forbidden Energy?

Could a healing potion be modified specifically to repair damage caused by corrupted mana?

Could I make an emergency elixir capable of temporarily stabilizing the curse if Curse Conversion became overwhelmed?

My pulse quickened.

Ah.

That familiar feeling.

Research.

I pulled several bottles from the shelves and arranged them across my worktable.

My fingers twitched. I knew myself.

One experiment would become three.

Three would become seventeen.

Then Ariel would find me twelve hours later surrounded by empty bottles, handwritten equations, and whatever magical catastrophe I’d accidentally invented.

I selected only four potions. "Four."

A reasonable number.

Responsible.

Mature.

My smile widened as black-violet energy gathered around my fingers. "Five."

...

"Five is still reasonable."

[Arcana Injection activated.]

The first potion trembled.

Dark veins crawled through the liquid.

I leaned closer, eyes gleaming.

Gods help my five wives.

They had married a researcher.