TBATE - Havaca Rises

Chapter 24 -Secrets Revealed

Exiting the capsule in Zestier, Alea was the only one to greet me. "Young Lord, I am Alea Triscan and I'll be escorting you and your guards to the castle. Wait, where are your guards?" she asked.

"I left them with Gideon back in Vildoral so that he doesn't do or say anything stupid."

"Oh, well in that case follow me Young Lord," she chirped.

"Hey, Alea, you don't have to call me that"

"Oh? How about 'little bro', then?" she asked playfully.

"I'm cool with that, I've always wanted an elder sister," I said with an innocent smile.

"No, no that was a joke, Young Lord," she panicked.

"Aw, big sis if Ms. Merial hears about this, she would be very upset," I teased as the young elf's face became frozen in fear as it was well known amongst the elves of my closeness to the Eralith's.

"Okay, okay you can call me elder sister," she said with a sad smile. I guess whatever happened to her younger brother in the original timeline still happened to the poor fellow. Operation 'distract the elf so she would forget the past' or Operation 'DESSWFP' for short, is a go!

"Say, big sis, I'm at the cusp of light orange and I can't sense your mana core. You must be at least solid yellow and the way water and earth mana moves in sync around you, you must be a deviant," I stated my observations.

"*giggles* I'm much stronger than you think lil bro, but I must say I impressed being able to tell I'm a deviant from the way mana moves around. That is something that even experienced mages have trouble with. By the way, how did you get to the solid orange stage already?"

"Blood, sweat, and tears," I said with a serious expression.

Alea deadpanned at me as we both eventually broke into laughter, then she said, "lies, I call lies."

"Yeah, your right... I never once cried," I said as the elf glared at me.

"Fine keep it to yourself then, not like I care," she said side glancing to see if I would spill the beans.

"You really thought that I would fall for that?" I asked feeling a tiny bit insulted.

"It worked on Princess Tessia," she pouted.

"Tess is a playful, honest child who takes most things at face value," I said.

"You say that as if it were a bad thing."

"As of now while she is protected within these walls, it's not. But out there, things could go very wrong should she fall to simple provocations, honey-coated words, and the like."

"My little brother sounds so grown up, yet he is only 11," she faked cry.

"12, I am 12 soon to be 13. And I'm also the owner of currently the most popular and fastest-growing business within the three kingdoms," I bragged.

"Arthur!!" *oof* a young voice screamed as I was engulfed into a tight hug.

"I missed you too, Tess," I said while returning her hug. Breaking off our hug I greeted Mr. and Ms. Eralith, Gramps, Rinia, and Aya. After we took our seats, Tess begged me to tell of my Adventurer days. In my opinion, I felt like I came about as boastful since all the stories I've told don't have me getting injured, or even struggling to defeat a beast. Although Tess tried to scold me for drinking at such a young age; I retorted that she was just jealous that I was allowed to drink alcohol and she wasn't, which made the young elf blush in embarrassment. Of course, Aya being Aya just had to tease us, but thankfully Alea had our backs and asked about that guy she saw her with the other day. Huh, I thought Aya didn't like serious relationships. "Hey, Gramps, what time does the pet and bond store usually close?"

"You have two and a half hours, why? And speaking of bonds where is young Sylvie?" Virion asked.

"You'll see and she in the Beast Glades hunting," I said as I teleported back to Tekkadan's HQ where I have been secretly raising the infant griffons until it was time to give Tess and Ellie. Picking up the sister griffon I teleported back to the group of flabbergasted elves.

"D-did you just teleport?" Rinia asked.

"Yup."

"But you're just human, there is no way you can just use that without any repercussions!" Rinia exclaimed.

"Am, Elder Rinia, what do you mean by using that?" I asked.

"*cough cough* Nothing child, I seem to have mistaken your mana for something else in my shock," Rinia tried to cover up.

"Anyways... Tess, this is for you," I said as I handed her the griffon. The young elf's eyes lit up with excitement as she and the yet-to-be-named griffon's eyes also glowed, signaling the formation of their contract. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," she repeated as she hugged me once more.

"Arthur, are you sure this fine, you could sell this beast for a fortune," Merial said.

"It's fine, I much rather Tess have someone to always guard her than another pouch of gold," I said subtly flexing my wealth. "Tess, go grab your coat and we'll head to the bond supply store to get treats and training equipment for..."

"Anila," she said.

"Child of the wind, good name Tess," I praised as Tess beamed in pride.

"Oh, Art, I know what you're doing. You want to talk to them alone, so you're sending me for my coat but it won't work. Thanks to the wind breathing technique you taught I could go to my room and back in less than 20 seconds," she boasted. It was impressive considering her age and the size of the castle.

"Dang, you caught me. Tell you what, make it back in 15 seconds and we'll stop for ice cream on the way back," I said and without a second to waste Tess darted off.

[Static void] Rinia only.

"How much do you know? And don't play any games with me," I warned.

"I only know that Dicathen will lose but Virion and some other elders will find an abandon tunnel system which I plan on preparing crops and other necessities to survive," Rinia stated.

"I see... Rinia, for the longest time I blamed you for not telling us everything you knew, but then I thought about the effects that aether has on the body and then I truly understood just how limited you were. Aether is too potent for normal human bodies to handle so much so that the body would reject aether causing the tearing of muscles and the rupturing of blood vessels. Not only that but diviner techniques also eat away at the user's lifeforce. After the war, you took the blame for the fall of Dicathen, and even on your last legs, you were still trying to find the best outcomes. Rinia, as General and second in command of all Dicathen's forces I sincerely thank you for your contributions to the safety of our continent," I said in a deep bow while bringing in the rest of the table into the static void in time so that they heard me thanking Rinia.

Noticing the world was now monochrome and still, they all shot up all took defensive stances, frantically looking around for any possible clues. "Calm down, this is Static Void. I've fully separated us from the flow of space and time," I said nonchalantly.

"Arthur is this some sort of prank," Alduin asked.

"This is no prank, this is his innate stage of his beast will," Virion said as everyone look at me for an explanation.

"Yes, but actually no. But this is not important," I said as I threw my old lance ring that Grey had returned to me to Virion. The old elf scanned the ring before he imbued mana into the ring. His eyes bugled out of their sockets as Virion became a stuttering mess, "H-H-How?" was all he managed to get out before passing the ring over to Alduin who did the same.

"Lil bro, how do you have a lance ring?" Alea asked.

"The day I assimilated Sylvia's will my future self visited me and shared some of his memories and left behind some gifts," I said. "He left with one piece of advice, 'end it before it begins.' Since then, every Saturday morning a new memory will come to me. It took a while to sort through and to be honest, I'm not even sure if I should be telling you all right now but even with my current fame there is only so much, I can do."

"Arthur, what happens in the future?" Merial asked cautiously.

"Take your seats, we're in for quite the ride," I said pulling out a few bottles of the Dwarves' strongest liquor.