The Guardians' Throne - The First Magic Swordsman

Chapter 368 - True Fear

            After selling a few things and getting acquainted with some merchants, Zaos also sold their goats. It was a pain to look after so many animals when Zaos wanted to focus only on Milliendra and on a city of that size. He obviously will be able to buy all the food she needs.

            Once that was done, he looked for an inn, a quiet one since the noise would probably make Milliendra wake up at night and cry. While inns that didn't have taverns below were rare, Zaos found one being run by an old couple. The place was quite nice, and they welcomed such a young couple that had such a cute child. Still, they frowned when Zaos asked for two separate beds.

            After unpacking their things, Zaos sighed in relief as he sat on the bed. His butt had been asking for a comfy place since they had left the ship, after all. In any case, Zaos noticed that the sun was already set through the window of their room. However, the city's inhabitants still were working… with those magic torches. It seemed they could keep going for quite a while…

"You can rest now, you know," Zaos said to Aleni, who was standing in the corner of the room. "You have good senses, and I can feel presence hundreds of meters away from us. We can relax a little."

            Aleni ignored Zaos since she never relaxed, not even when she slept. Zaos shrugged and then grabbed the basket where Milliendra was and put her in his arms. For a while, he showed her some weird faces and noises, and she laughed. She finally began to laugh a few days ago, and Zaos felt all his exhaustion leaving his soul while looking at such a cute little angel. The fact that Zaos's left arm was getting numb more often and for longer periods didn't make him feel scared of hugging Milliendra.

"What now?" Aleni asked.

"We are fine money-wise, and we still have some magic weapons to sell," Zaos replied. "So, we focus on gathering more intel and studying everything that might help Milliendra."

            Aleni couldn't help Zaos with his research, and gathering intel was one of her specialties, so her role was obvious. So, she quickly disappeared. Zaos sighed when he felt her presence moving away. They have been working together for three months, but it was hard to become friends with such a workaholic…

Milliendra

Health: 02/02

Mana: 106/106

Stamina: 02/02

Strength: 01

Magic: 53

Endurance: 01

Resistance: 53

Focus: 01

"You never stop getting strong, do you?" Zaos asked. "At this rate, before you can even become ten, you will have more mana than me."

            In those past three months, Zaos tried many things to stop Milliendra's ability to steal mana, but nothing worked. Thick gloves, clothes… he even tried to see if he would be fine in holding her by using a magic tool. However, his body and the magic tool also lost their mana. Fortunately, she couldn't drain the mana of everything around her without a certain level of contact. Otherwise, keeping that power a secret would be nearly impossible.

            After a while, the old woman that Zaos talked with early knocked on the door and brought Zaos some soup and milk. Once again, she frowned since she didn't find Aleni, and she didn't see her leaving as well, but Zaos managed to give a proper excuse. After helping Milliendra with her milk and having his own dinner, Zaos resumed his research.

            While Zaos was trying to find a way to recharge a magic stone, he also looked in the magic book for a spell that could help him with that. Strangely enough, he didn't find anything. That was weird… Using mana to use healing magic was basically converting mana into health and transmitting to someone else. So, why couldn't he just transmit his mana directly? Since Milliendra could drain mana, then transmitting by will should be possible…

            Since there wasn't a spell that could help Zaos with that, he wouldn't be able to learn one… he could try to create it, but who knows how much time he will have to spend for that to succeed. He had to do it by controlling mana directly, and that wasn't something impossible for him since he already could strengthen spells by himself.

            Unfortunately, Zaos failed at trying numerous things. He considered himself to be a pretty decent mage. However, he still couldn't do something as simple as transmitting his mana to others or to an object without activating a spell…

"Oh, well… at least this shows that I have room for improvement," Zaos shrugged.

            While moving around non-stop wasn't good for a toddler, staying inside a room day in and day out wasn't good either. So, whenever possible, Zaos would walk around the city while carrying Milliendra. It wasn't unusual to see newborn kids and their parents moving around, but it was rare to find their fathers carried them. Not to mention, Zaos stood out even more since Aleni didn't like the idea of moving around in the open without hiding her presence for no reason. In that world, it was common to find single moms since men die in wars all the time, but finding single dads wasn't…

            Although Zaos didn't make much progress with the magic stones, he finally learned a new spell: Evil Eyes. He also had a pleasant surprise alongside that.

Congratulations! Your Illusionism has reached level 01.

"Hmm… there isn't a category like this one in the books in the Sairus Kingdom," Zaos frowned.

            While Zaos couldn't control the illusion, by using that spell, he could make the target see all kinds of things. However, it varied from person to person since it was a spell that played with the target's fears.. On the day Zaos learned the skill, he used a slightly stronger version of a drunk man that was causing problems at the inn. In the end, he fainted, and the next day he woke up saying that he had dreamt of a giant woman crushing his balls with her legs… that was quite the specific fear…