Ch220-Dearly Beloved(1/2)

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Ch220-Dearly Beloved

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The biggest bottleneck was Anastasia’s invulnerability.

There wasn’t always a magical solution for every problem, but most problems had a couple of angles from which they could be approached.

Take the emperor for example.

An extremely powerful man, who Sylver will most likely fight at some point.

His first option was to run.

Tuck his tail between his legs, and run away from the fight, until the dragon is freed. Sylver could teleport back to Arda, he could dig down, he could find a fae creature and haggle his way into its safe realm, Sylver was an expert when it came to running away from opponents he didn’t have a chance against.

His second option was to stay and fight.

Not a great option, but the good thing about the living, is that they could be killed. It just might take a while, and Sylver might have to ask Lola to send him help, and he might cripple himself in the process, but Sylver had faced worse odds before.

Sure, he didn’t win against those odds, but he put up a good enough fight. And even if winning against the emperor wasn’t on the table, he could always talk his way out of it. Or buy himself some time, at the very least.

The best option was not to interact with the emperor at all. Kill him without letting him see Sylver's face.

Keep the girl away from him, long enough for the mountains to finish falling over, get Edmund from the dragon, and then leave. 

The plan was perfect in its simplicity.

Except Owl knew Sylver had the girl, assuming he knew what was inside the “package” of course. 

So, when he discovered that Sylver didn’t have her, he was either going to deal with Sylver himself, or he was going to tell the emperor since the emperor is the one who’s supposed to be impregnating this woman.

Anastasia’s story was fairly short. She went to sleep, woke up in complete darkness, heard a knocking, knocked back, and then a pale-faced man pulled her out of her slime-filled box.

Except 3 years had passed between the moment she disappeared from her bedroom and was pulled out by Sylver. During that time her younger brother had taken it upon himself to find her and ended up becoming an adventurer of sorts.

His search eventually led him to Arda, where he met a very friendly barkeep, called Faust. The brother got drunk, told Faust the whole story, and Faust offered to help him look for the girl. He introduced the brother to the Cats, and the Cord, but as far as Faust heard, neither group managed to find the girl.

He also never heard from the brother again, and currently didn’t know where he was, or even if he was still alive.

But the past wasn’t important.

The girl was here now, the how didn’t matter. Demons, fae, considering Aurick might be a [Hero], it wasn’t out of the question he used magic that Sylver would consider “impossible.”

It was one of the main reasons Sylver always did his best to keep away from them.

Either they had some kind of ridiculous magic, or they just happened to stumble onto an artifact that just so happened to be perfect for them. Suspending Anastasia in time would be nothing to a [Hero].

Not to mention, considering that she was invulnerable, it was possible she just didn’t feel the passage of time. Or maybe the slime inside was actively trying to hurt her, and because it was attacking every accessible inch of her, her own magic kept her “asleep” for 3 years.

The how didn’t matter.

Even if Sylver could recreate the box, and the seal, and hid her in the last place anyone would think to look, it would still be too risky. They found her once, they can find her again.

Admittedly, they had to summon a demon to find her, but now they knew what she looked like, and where her family lives. Her being impervious to magic would make any sort of clairvoyancy pointless, but Sylver had the feeling Owl wasn’t the kind of man to not have a backup plan.

He’d go as far as to say he already made a copy of the red sphere Sylver had in his robe. Since the sphere wasn’t impervious to magic.

So, hiding the girl was out.

Any place Sylver could hide her, they could get her back from. Even if he threw her into space, it wouldn’t be that hard to bring her back. The only difficult bit would be breaking through the atmosphere, moving around in a vacuum using magic was child’s play to a mage.

They’d have to fight through all the monsters swimming around up there, but the ones near Eira weren’t that big of a threat.

And aside from the risk of Anastasia being found and returned, Sylver plain and simple didn’t want to subject her to the horrors of space.

It was worse than being trapped underwater. At least when you’re at the bottom of the sea, you’re not going anywhere. Eventually, someone will dive down to get you.

But outer space?

If you don’t land on something, you just keep going and going.

Forever.

With no hope of ever coming back to Eira.

Sylver had only done that once. Against a wizard that somehow managed to create a magical loop that made it impossible for him to die. Sylver grabbed him, and threw himself, and the wizard, high into the sky, and then kept going.

Then Sylver killed himself, and woke up in a new body, back inside the Ibis, while that wizard was never heard from again. It was much later that Sylver realized the true awfulness of what he had done to that poor man.

Sylver couldn’t even remember why they were fighting, only that he didn’t have any alternatives.

Another reason Sylver didn’t want to put Anastasia through this, was that he did have a much easier way to solve this particular problem.

And apparently, Anastasia had arrived at the same conclusion Sylver had. 

As did Faust. 

Even Ria had realized the obvious solution.

It’s just that none of them liked it.

And now that Sylver had brought himself into the present to listen to the conversation, he realized Faust hadn’t spoken for a while, and both he and Anastasia were staring at Sylver.

“I want to talk to my family,” Anastasia repeated before Sylver had a chance to find the right words.

There was something about her eyes. Sylver’s perception of her had been heavily skewed due to her lack of fear, but this didn’t feel like simple boldness.

“Would you not prefer to discuss the elephant in the room first?” Sylver offered.

It wasn’t just that she wasn’t panicking, it was that she was looking at the situation from a completely emotionless point of view. As if it was happening to someone who wasn’t her.

She’s weighing her options… Sylver realized as the door behind him opened, and a shade carrying a terrified crow in his hands walked in. Sylver was very gentle as he placed the small creature onto the table and kept it in place with a small piece of [Necrotic Mutilation].

“It might take a while,” Sylver said, as the bird stopped struggling entirely, and moved its head to stare at Sylver.

“Apparently not. Chrys, meet Anastasia Da’Munio. Anastasia, this is Chrys,” Sylver said, as Anastasia nodded at the raven with the glowing eye, and the raven did the same to her.

“Has anyone died since I was gone?” Anastasia asked.

The glow in the raven’s eye disappeared, as the bird went back to being scared shitless.

“She’s asking someone, give her a minute,” Sylver guessed.

“Do you have any relatives?” Anastasia asked. 

She was looking at Faust, so Sylver just lowered his head and went back to staring at the small raven.

“Syl and a friend back home are the closest thing I have to a family. Oh, I’m loosely related to Martimer De’Leon, but only in name. I met him once, but we didn’t really talk,” Faust answered.

“Where do you plan to be in 10 years?” Anastasia asked.

“I’m not sure. I have a…  I’m cursed and Syl’s helping me remove it. Until that’s gone, I’m going to be staying in Arda, or wherever he wants me to be,” Faust explained.

“Even though you already have a whole sect to your name here?” Anastasia asked with a raised eyebrow.

Sylver tried to stroke the back of the raven’s neck, but apparently, that only further scared it.

Faust turned to look at Sylver, who answered without looking up from the bird.

“It isn’t going to be safe to be here soon. Once we’re done, we’re going back to Arda,” Sylver said, as Anastasia sat up a bit straighter in the bed she was sitting in.

“Do you work for him, or is it more of a partnership?” Anastasia asked.

“I mean… We’re experts in our respective fields. If Syl says to jump, I trust that he knows that jumping is the right move at that moment in time, and I’ll jump. And vice versa if it’s something cultivation-related, he trusts that I know what I’m talking about,” Faust explained, as Sylver nodded along.

“I see,” Anastasia said.

“Everyone. Is. Alive. Oliver. Da. Munio. Was. Last. Seen. 5. Months. Ago. Near. Kereki,” the raven squawked out.

The one Chrys had used earlier had sounded better.

“Who’s the current Duke of Varsun?” Anastasia asked as the light in the raven’s eye flicked for a couple of seconds.

“Elmira. Da. Munio,” the Chrys raven answered.

Anastasia was still perfectly calm and relaxed, but there was a half-second of hesitation before she asked the question.

“Have I been declared dead?” Anastasia asked. There was a pause.

“Missing,” Chrys said, as Anastasia breathed out a faint sigh of relief.

“Alright… That’s all I wanted to know, thank you,” Anastasia said, as the raven stared at her for a while longer, and then turned its head to look at Sylver. 

He nodded at the bird, and as the light disappeared from its eye handed it to a shade behind him, who left the room.

Anastasia cleared her throat before she spoke.

“Just so I understand correctly, you’re not the ones that kidnapped me, right?” Anastasia asked.

Sylver lifted the small red orb he had been fondling since he got it and placed it down on the table.

“They used this to find you. I helped them make it. I didn’t know who they were looking for, or why, I only knew conventional methods of tracking had been tried, and failed,” Sylver explained, as he rolled the small orb with the tiny boat compass inside underneath his palm.

“What about the emperor ancestry business? How are you involved?” Anastasia asked.

Sylver cocked his head to the side as he tried to get a read on her. He wasn’t used to looking at a person using only his eyes, and from her tone, Anastasia had training to prevent people from figuring out what exactly she was thinking by analyzing her body language.

“The people who want to prevent it are holding my brother hostage. If the child is born, they won’t give him to me. There’s a time limit. I don’t know how long, but every minute the emperor doesn’t have his hands on you, the closer I get to having my brother back,” Sylver explained.

“I see… Katia spoke to me about you,” Anastasia said.

Sylver kept quiet as he tried to remember who Anastasia was talking about.

“What did she say?” Sylver asked. It seemed like a safe question.

“She said you’re very reasonable. And that you’re willing to go to great lengths to get what you want,” Anastasia said.

Katia… Katia…

Katia, right… the noble girl with the teleportation mage fiancé. She helped me convince Novva to try to get out of Tuli one more time.

Anastasia turned towards Faust.

“I want you to marry me,” Anastasia said.

Faust, understandably, didn’t say anything and just stared at her.

“Those are my terms. I realize neither of you are at fault for this situation, but if you want me to cooperate, so to speak, this is what I want,” Anastasia said.

Sylver leaned back in his seat, as he suddenly felt a lot more comfortable with the woman.

“How about-”

“Can we talk outside Syl?” Faust interrupted, as he stood up from his seat and already had one foot out of the door by the time he was done talking. 

Sylver followed behind him and left 2 shades to guard the door. He had one of the decoy shades take its robe off and placed it on the table in the room Anastasia was in.