"Whichever country makes it impossible for anyone to go back and verify anything about me."
"Noble or commoner? Any specific profession you want listed?"
"Merchant."
He glanced at the old woman, nodded once, and disappeared into the back.
While my identity was being put together, Veyra and I made our way to the adventurer guild to begin the registration process.
"You know I cannot fight," I said as we walked. "Is there a physical test involved?"
"My recommendation bypasses that. But do not die before you finish healing me."
"I am not going there to fight monsters. You will be with me the whole time."
"I know. But why do you actually want to go?"
"I have my reasons."
We entered the guild and approached the reception desk. I told the girl there I wanted to register. Her name was Maria. She walked me through the full process, explained the perks, and laid out the rank structure clearly. Adventurers climbed from F up through E, D, C, B, A, and finally S. Entry into a labyrinth or dungeon required at minimum a D rank.
Veyra returned from a brief meeting with the vice guildmaster and confirmed with Maria that she was sponsoring my registration and had already cleared it upstairs. The paperwork moved quickly after that. I filled in the details, then sat through a mana measurement test. The result came back average. On paper I was completely unremarkable. No attention, no questions. That was exactly what I needed. I had also asked Veyra to handle the sponsorship in a way that kept my name from surfacing anywhere prominent.
Maria informed me I would receive the guild card once I provided proof of citizenship from any recognized location, or paid a two gold coin fee to keep my identity undisclosed.
I chose the first option and headed back to Cinder and Relic. The identity should have been ready by now.
After paying two gold coins I collected the documents.
As we were leaving, the old man struck both of us across the head with his cane. I had no idea why. What I did know was that the woman in the inner room was extraordinarily beautiful and her voice was something I wanted to hear again. I made a note of the shop name. Vintage goods. I would come back.
[HIGH LEVEL MENTAL MAGIC DETECTED. NEUTRALIZING EFFECT.]
That explained the daylight operation. They had no fear of being caught because anyone who walked out of that shop walked out with a different memory of what they had seen.
"Veyra, how do you know those two old people?"
She looked at me blankly. "What are you talking about? They are a young couple. They run an antique shop."
"Do you know anyone who could help me forge an identity?"
"Yes, but you already have a forged identity. Why would you need another one made?"
The old man was skilled enough to selectively modify specific memories without disturbing anything around them. The faces I had seen were likely fabricated. The system had probably not flagged it as a threat because it posed no danger to me directly.
The princess's treatment had also stalled. I was still fifteen bond points short of the next grimoire. I could not use the same method I had used on Veyra. The princess carried a significantly larger mana pool, and without the grimoire the risk of losing control of the flow mid-procedure was too high. I would not attempt it unprepared.
The emissary from the capital was arriving tomorrow. That was my next move.
–-_—
I went down to the underground cells.
"Well, Joseph. The plan collapsed entirely. Including the part where you tried to kill Eivara by using me."
The color left his face.
"She told me everything," I continued. "Your grandfather's book. Its contents. Where it is."
"Tell me the location." His voice was calm. Controlled. He was not taking the bait, which meant either he was confident the prince would come for him now that I had released Valthor, or he simply had nothing left to spend on rage.
"Here is the thing, Joseph. You will not be alive long enough to go looking for it."
"Empty threats. If you intended to kill me you would have done it the first day."
We will see how long that holds.
I had Seivyn activate all three bracelets so I could work with them freely. I slid one onto Joseph's ankle, then poured the concoction over it before he could understand what was happening. It was done in seconds.
"What did you do?" The calm was gone now.
"The same thing you did to your own sister."
"I will die. Remove it. Please. I will give you anything."
"I do not know how to remove it. And I do not trust that you would give me the correct method even if I asked."
I left him still shouting and moved on to the actual reason I had come down here. The pastor. His information network was the real asset, and I needed to understand how it functioned from the inside.
Without saying anything I put the bracelet on him first. It would make the conversation significantly more efficient.
"If you do not want to end up like your colleague over there, do not lie and do not make me ask twice."
"I have already told you everything I know."
"Not this. I want to know exactly how the network operates. Every layer of it."
"I would rather die."
I activated the binding and extracted everything he had. Then I poured the concoction over his bracelet as well.
Fifteen days. The emissary would arrive tomorrow and reach the capital within four. Both of them would die in the capital's cells, and my hands would be clean of it.
The hooded man was the one I had not resolved. He had said nothing under any pressure and I had no documented evidence of what he had done. My instincts said he was not harmless. My conscience said I could not act on instinct alone. I settled on a compromise. I put the bracelet on him, activated the binding, and left the rest to circumstance.