Chapter 51: A frightened boy

Ugh... my head hurts." Arcos groaned while holding his head, feeling a little unwell. He was feeling dizzy, but he did not understand why it was the case.

He did not remember anything that had happened to him once he went inside the capsule. His memories were hazy but he at least knew that something had happened to him while he was there.

They did things to him, to his body, that he was completely unaware of. But the dizziness was killing him... he simply couldn’t understand what was happening to him.

"Here, drink this." Sammy handed him a glass filled with what seemed like a red thin juice.

It didn’t have a smell or taste, but there was a thin consistency. It almost seemed like water so he didn’t think much about it and drank the whole thing in one go.

If they wanted to kill him, they would have done so a while ago. But they were taking their sweet time, so they would at least not poison him right after squeezing his data from him.

"Hmm... I feel better. What is this?" His headache almost seemed to have disappeared in a matter of moments.

Not only was it pretty strange, he liked how he was feeling right after drinking it. His body felt lighter, his mind seemed to have gotten faster.

He felt as if he could use twice as many magical techniques now. He couldn’t believe it himself just how effective that thing was.

"Oh that? That’s our Thyme’s diluted blood. Pretty effective, isn’t it?" She answered with a smile, sending shivers down the prince’s spine.

He was drinking the blood of a mythical creature, a natural elixir that’s technically compatible with his body. Of course it had a good effect on his body.

"Oh... can I have-."

"You’ll die if you have even a fraction more than what you had. In fact, you cannot have this for the rest of the month if you want to function properly." Sammy spoke sternly, her voice almost intimidating.

She wasn’t beating around the bush. She was extremely serious right now.

He had known better not to test her anger, but as he looked into her deep eyes, he couldn’t really find any traces of anger.

"Please? I won’t use it, I promise." He tried his luck, hands trembling, heart racing.

He had just learned a lesson: the things that they say and the things that are in fact the truth aren’t really all that visible.

He had learned that these people weren’t just nice adults that wanted him to do good and learn new things from them, they were also the people who wanted him to develop by himself.

He may have read a lot, learned a lot, and known a lot of things, but compared to the people that he had known all his life, his sisters and mothers and father, they were different.

They weren’t good people, so they’ll lie to him. They are going to do their best to trick him, to manipulate him, to make him think about what they wanted, not what he was supposed to.

Maybe this was a trick as well, he didn’t know. But he still asked. And, looking him up and down, as if allowing herself to be played by this little boy, she nodded.

"End of the month, you hear me?" She handed him a small bottle of a fluid that was of the same color.

It had the same features. He even tasted it and felt the same electricity throughout his body that he had felt a while ago.

But for some reason, he did not want to believe this woman.

"Oops." He let the glass bottle go and made a completely innocent, completely harmless expression. He was surprised, perhaps. But more than that, he wanted to know if this thing was even real or not.

"Nice try, baby boy." Sammy still simply smiled at him as she walked away from the boy who watched a simple glass bottle jump up after hitting the floor.

The bottle went back to his hand on its own as if it could tell where he was.

"Huh?" He tested it a few times as well. Walked away from the bottle after leaving it somewhere and watched as it found him back.

Strangely enough, he couldn’t even open the bottle when he got it.

"Oh they’re thorough." When Arcos finally checked the glass bottle more closely, he found a net of over fifty enchantments somehow clustered around a single thing.

In fact, saying that the entire bottle was a spell in itself wouldn’t be wrong either.

He even tried to dissect the spells, try and retrace them to see if he could find any openings within them, but the effect turned out to be futile.

The thing was too complicated, both individually and collectively.

They harmonized each other and complimented them further. It was his first time seeing such a complex spell structure.

This bottle... intrigued him.

"He seems invested." By the time he was standing before the rest of them and the envelope on the table, his entire focus was centered on the bottle.

It was so small... and yet so fascinating. Just how much did these people know to make something like this, he wondered.

"Arcos, you can play with the bottle all you want later. First, look at this. You must know what this is, yes?"

He was too invested in the thing so Beth had to hit his head to bring him back to the present.

That little bottle will be a good training toy but that wasn’t important. He needed to focus right now.

"Hmm... oh. Oh? OH! The Ragnarok invitation!"

It was a famous item. Even the Mayn royal family held a <B> ranking on their own.

It might not seem that high but, there were only three <S> categories aside from the <A>, <B>, and <C> categories.

Few powers in the world were ranked to begin with. If a single royal family had the rank of <B> on their own, then they surely possessed enough influence to turn the tides of the world’s fate.

They might not have the power to add or subtract something from the world with their will alone but even among the other nations of the world, they were a step higher from those who did not have a Ragnarok ranking.

"You’re invited! Wow!" He didn’t think much about them at first but when he came here, he thought these people already had a high rank.

Just seeing how much they had, they were well enough to possess at least an <S> rank.

However, this letter stated otherwise.

Also, if the letter was here right now then it means they would have to leave soon as the representatives of the organization.

"It’s a rule that only the top executives can go, right?" Arcos asked, taking a step back, their eyes on him heavy.

The way they were looking at him was obvious. They were going to take him with them.

He was just a boy and a god had already targeted him and yet they wanted him to bring in a nest infested with those damned creatures.

"This is bad... just bad." Arcos shivered when their eyes answered for him. "I don’t even know anything!"

He knew the rank testing they do was brutal. Worse, he had read their own records of how the previous Red Mage and Knight commander of their army perished after heavy injuries they sustained in those tests.

He knew he wasn’t strong enough to go against any of their knights, or the red mage, much less these people.

And they wanted him to go with them?

"Wait, are there really just the four of you? There’s no personal limit, you know?" Of course they know it, but that still doesn’t change anything.

"You’ll be fine... I guess." Sammy said to him, softly.

She knew he’d be alive at the very least. They wouldn’t force someone to join any factions.

In the first place, he was so valuable many of the gods would fight over him and at the end, the ones with the authority would be them, the Parliament.

He belonged to them, it was a formal contract recognized by the laws themselves.

They had already made him sign the oath. So, he was bound to them.

But that still doesn’t mean he would come out of there with his limbs intact.

"We will prepare you, ok? We have three whole days-."

"Three days? THREE DAYS?!" He screamed at the top of his lungs, eyes bloodshot, cold sweat running down his back.

It was frustrating. And unfair.

He thought he would be safe if he was with them at the very least. That he wouldn’t be used as a tool at least by those fate forsaken gods!

But they were doing this to him...

"In the first place, aren’t your family there too, Miss Elizabeth!? Won’t it be a problem for you as well?"

He had known it from the moment he saw her pink hair, the distinct hair color only one family has in this entire world.

The family that has always operated the organization known as Ragnarok.

"Arcos..." he was hyperventilating.

It seemed like he was having a panic attack.

He was a child with the head of a scholar. But then again, he was a child.

"Haaa."

Andrew knew he would have to handle this one by himself.

So, he looked at the boy for a long moment, and... took out his red dagger.