I've Got A Mana Processor In A Magic World-Chapter 58: The Gloaming Era

"I know you’re not from this world," Veronica stated, making Zephyr’s eye twitch slightly.

"What do you mean?!" Zephyr barked, putting on an act of confusion and anger.

Madam Veronica merely rolled her eyes, not deigning to humor him. She simply continued with her earlier statement, "What? Do you think a spatial tremor like the one that brought you here would not be felt by anyone?"

"Be thankful I was the one who picked up the traces and not someone else." She snapped, "Your present situation would not have been this rosy."

"So you want me to thank you?!" Zephyr snapped back, stifled by the woman’s know-it-all and fully-in-control attitude.

She scoffed, "Yes. You should be thanking me. I had to cover the messy trail you and your partner left behind while bumbling around."

Zephyr stilled. She knew about Smiling Devil! How long had she been watching them?!

"You’ve been watching me." Zephyr stated, matter-of-factly.

She dismissed the glowing spell model in the air, exposing herself to Zephyr without a care as she walked to the chair by the small desk near the covered window.

"I’ve been watching you and your partner," she corrected as she sat comfortably and crossed her legs.

"Don’t trust that fellow by the way. He’s way stronger than you are, and—"

"I don’t take orders from you." Zephyr cut her off.

She chuckled lightly, looking Zephyr up and down. "When was the last time someone this weak spoke this way to me?"

"Frederick, you had better take over, else I might just stuff his mouth and whisk him away against his will." She bent to look at the corner of the room behind Zephyr’s figure.

"Like hell you will—" Zephyr boiled in anger.

"Calm down. Both of you." Frederick said, appearing from the other corner the same way Veronica had, startling Zephyr. Even with his enhanced senses he didn’t pick up a trace of the man at all.

"He. The kid’s shocked. What? You think you could sense a trace of me if I didn’t want you to?"

"We’ve been here the whole time, watching you fumble with broken spell models like you’re on to something—"

"Enough, Veronica!" Frederick cautioned.

Zephyr clenched his jaws as a feeling of being powerless washed over him. "...Whatever you want to offer me, I’m not buying," he said to Frederick. He didn’t think he could talk straight while looking at Madam Veronica, whose effortlessly haughty attitude rubbed him the wrong way down to his bones. He’d thought Jet was the peak of haughtiness, but she’d just shown him that was child’s play.

"I’m not open to any ideas or offers, I’m not listening to anything you say, I’m not doing anything for you, I don’t want anything from you... I just want to be." Zephyr seethed. "Just let me be." He pleaded to Frederick, staring him in the eye.

The man sighed softly with a hint of pity in his eyes, "Unfortunately, we can’t. The wheel is already in motion, the pot has been stirred... and you’ve already been thrown right into the thick of it whether you like it or not."

"We’re simply here to make you realize the depth of it—"

"I don’t care to know the depth of it!" Zephyr cut him off. "With or without me, whatever will happen will still happen. So leave me out of it. I won’t be in anyone’s way. I’m content with living in a small village in some remote area of the world just studying runes and analyzing spell models. That doesn’t hurt anybody does it?" He rambled.

Frederick held his hands up in surrender to pacify Zephyr, "Yes. That doesn’t hurt anybody, you have a valid point. But at least you should know what you’re getting into when you say that."

"I’m sure you know who I am— Rita’s father. I heard you saved her dignity during one of her usual escapades. Though she didn’t want me to find out, I still heard about it. You saved her from those bandits when you could’ve just walked past. Now that I know more about you, I appreciate the action even more. You took a risk despite your identity, and I won’t forget that. I always pay back every gesture in equal fashion." Frederick explained. "And that’s why my conscience can never be free if I watch you run about without grasping the whole situation clearly. Just let me explain, and you can do with the information as you wish." He finished, waiting in silence for Zephyr’s response.

Zephyr’s face wavered through a range of emotions as he considered the man’s words. He knew he should be logical about this, but everything pointed to the fact that whatever was going to come out of this wouldn’t please him. And he was going to end up doing something he didn’t want to just because he had to. He’d done that once with the compulsory military service and look where that got him...

Zephyr sighed, "Alright..."

"Hmph." A small scoff came from behind him, prompting him to turn back.

"Does she have to be here?" Zephyr asked Frederick as he pointed at Veronica.

"Unfortunately, she does." Frederick quickly said to prevent Veronica from retorting.

"Tch." Zephyr hissed, turning to face Fredrick solely. "Alright. I’m all ears, tell me what I should know that I don’t." He folded his arms.

"Okay. Well you’re gonna need some context to fully understand, so I’m gonna get into that first." Frederick said.

"According to the leaked records of the Ashworth Royal Sanctum, it all started during the Gloaming Era. At that time, our world was still what we now know as a Tier 9 world," he started.

"Back then, we were more beast than human. Unenlightened, weak—the highest power in our world was equivalent to a tier three mage of the present day, and even that was considered extremely powerful. That changed after the arrival of some people. People from your world—otherworlders— though we didn’t know them as such back then."

"They were different from us. Human—Fully human. Without any beast-like physical qualities. And extremely powerful. They wielded magic inherently and with more versatility than we could with our pitiful basic spells models back then—if those could even qualify as spell models." He lamented, shaking his head.

"The people idolized them and their strength, but they were more focused on finding a way to leave than they were about our affairs. But eventually that changed when they found there was no way back to their home world. The next few years after that was characterized by a swift and decisive upheaval of royal families and world powers. Within three years, they had full control of our world. And then they revealed some things that saved us." He paused for dramatic effect.

"Unknown to us, our world was entering into a convergence— the thin, evenly-spread origin that enabled our meager access to magic was trying to converge onto one singular planet among the many scattered Tier 9 worlds in our cluster. Apparently, the people from your world that arrived here were scholars, pioneers for discovering new worlds, and they knew a lot about how universes of various energy levels functioned. So they decided that since they couldn’t find their way back home, they were going to do everything in their power to ensure their offsprings did. And the first step towards that was preparing our world for the convergence," Frederick explained.

"Against their code of conduct to never breed with natives of any world besides theirs, they did. Though they segregated the offspring of the union a step lower than the purebloods they birthed among themselves." He said with a twitch of his eye. "Still, the offsprings were strong— on a different scale than any of the natural natives. They were trained vigorously for years in preparation for the convergence. And when the convergence finally came... they were ready."

With a solemn look on his face, he quoted an excerpt from the publicly available section of the Ashworth Royal Records. "...And on that day, every heart trembled, every ear heard, every being felt to the depth of their very soul, the voice of the world."

Zephyr watched in silence as Frederick closed his eyes solemnly for a while before opening them again and chuckling lightly. "Sorry, I just like to imagine how that must have been."

"We’ll find out soon enough..." Veronica said with a surprisingly solemn tone.

Frederick nodded then continued as Zephyr looked between them, an idea of where they were headed with this beginning to form in his head...