Three days later, Alcede’s assistant approached Sidis during his midday meal with Lyse. The silver-haired prince had been spending more time with his beloved and less time investigating the black stones since the ritual at the villa. He was sitting right next to her as they ate, but he stood up to receive the letter the assistant handed him. He then dismissed the servants and workers in the room before breaking the seal. Whatever message was contained therein, it put a wrinkle in the prince’s brow and stunned him to silence.
“Has there been some kind of problem, Sidis?” Lyse asked after waiting for him to finish reading.
“We’re being summoned to the villa immediately—by His Majesty, no less. I think we both know what that means.” Something had undoubtedly happened involving the Light of Origin. Sidis summarily burned the letter and threw on his cloak. “Let’s go.”
The couple then departed for the villa. Soldiers and knights were dotted about along the way, both inside the palace proper and out in the courtyard, on standby for the next monster attack. They’d been occurring without warning lately as frequently as once every other day—often in time with the aberrations, but also at erratic intervals in addition to that. As Lyse and Sidis neared the villa, however, the number of guards dwindled considerably. A great many of them were still sickened with Light poisoning.
“Come to think of it, I heard that Lady Kirstin can no longer get this close to the Light,” commented Lyse. The duchess had been born with barely enough mana to enter the villa normally, but the aberrations with the Light had changed that.
“Yes, I hear she’s refraining from approaching the Light at all to avoid growing doggy ears,” Sidis replied. In truth, Kirstin could have worn a piece of black stone to protect her from the Light’s effects. When Alcede had spoken of how proximity to it could cause even nobles to sprout a second set of ears, Duke Lasuarl had intently stared at the top of his wife’s head—perhaps hoping to see it for himself.
When Sidis and Lyse finally reached the villa, they were met by Alcede and Egbert.
“Finally made it, have you?” the emperor chided, arms crossed, as the couple entered.
Sidis bowed in greeting. “Apologies for our tardiness. We came as soon as we received the letter...”
“Oh, I see. So it’s Alcede’s fault.”
“My instructions were to deliver the message at an opportune moment so as to prevent drawing too much attention, but I see now that that may have lacked a sense of urgency,” Alcede responded, shrugging off Egbert’s remark.
“Should we have been discreet? If you’d said so, we would have sneaked our way here instead. Will it be a problem?” Sidis had assumed the letter to be of great import and accordingly made straight for the villa.
“No, it’s fine as long as no one saw me come. I brought a special guest with me, you see,” Alcede announced, pointing down an unlit corridor at a faint, rather gloomy-looking figure—Seren.
“Whoa! I didn’t know you were there,” exclaimed Sidis.
“I didn’t notice him at all either...” murmured Lyse.
“Ha ha ha... I suppose I’m even more invisible today,” joked Seren.
Alcede chuckled, while Egbert sighed.
“Perhaps it’s just as well, given what you saw your clone do earlier...” he lamented.
“Huh? What did you see?” Lyse wondered aloud. She knew that Seren, too, had a clone at the villa, but she was hard-pressed to think of anything outrageous his clone might be doing. Everything paled in comparison to seeing her own clone giving Sidis a ride on her shoulders.
“Oh...” Sidis, however, seemed to have an idea as he looked at Seren with pity in his eyes.
Meanwhile, Lyse was still stumped.
Seren began mumbling in explanation, “Well, there were dogs here...but they turned into people...and my clone was still embracing one of them...while they were all...”
“Long story short,” Alcede cut in, “all of His Majesty’s clones transform too when he reverts to his usual self, no? Well, Seren here got to see his clone snuggling up with a cute doggy one minute...and His Majesty in the flesh the next. Not only that—”
“Ngaaaaah! Please! No more!” screamed Seren as he crumpled to the ground. Lyse now understood his pain and would’ve interrupted Alcede if he hadn’t.
The steely-nerved Egbert, on the other hand, didn’t look bothered at all. “I mean, I’ve already seen his clone petting me in dog form, and it’s not as if he were directly touching me. I suppose I can spare one of thirty clones.” After giving the situation some thought and realizing that only one of his many clones had been victimized, Egbert had already accepted it for what it was.
“Er... So, why have we brought Seren here today?” asked Sidis.
Alcede, all smiles, replied, “Oh, you know. We’ve already unraveled the mystery of the Light’s formulae, so we now ought to understand why it’s acting up despite everything.”
“And what of this meeting?” Sidis failed to understand why everyone had been brought together.
“Well, we need to inspect what’s underground, Sidis. I don’t have enough mana to get close enough, so get digging.”
“Wait, what?!” Sidis yelped.
Alcede hushed the prince as he dragged him by the hand toward one of the villa’s many rooms. It was devoid of carpeting and furniture alike, but what it did have was a large hole in its stone floor. The hole was about an arm’s length deep and had hit the raw earth below. A pile of soil was sitting next to it. The culprits, a pair of shovels, were leaning against the wall nearby.
“That’s as far as I got, but I’m sure you can do much better, old friend,” Alcede declared.
“I mean, probably. But how far do I need to go?” Sidis asked.
“Until we strike gold.”
“And what is this metaphorical gold?”
“There should be black stone beneath the Light of Origin.”
“Come again?!” Lyse unwittingly blurted. She was under the impression that the black stone was the very antithesis of the Light. “What makes you think you’ll find it there?”
“As I said earlier, we’ve now deciphered the spell circle of the Light. Karl and I both agree that it would take immense mana to sustain. That got us wondering what powers it, as this area used to be a barren patch of dirt before the Light. But after hearing what Sidis said, it finally hit me,” the duke explained. “First off, we know there were monsters here before the Light was constructed. And now we know that the black stones spawn monsters. Throw in the fact that Seren can use the stones to create a simulacrum of the Light, and it all makes sense. That’s how I arrived at that conclusion.”
“I see. So the black stones fuel the Light. There must be a large deposit beneath it, then,” Sidis surmised after hearing Alcede’s logic.
“Right you are. Supposing everything we just reviewed is true, there must be a good load of the stuff around here,” the duke agreed with a nod. “And when you stop to think about it, isn’t it strange that the capital of the Razanate Empire is located right here? Not only is this a drainage basin, but there aren’t any geographical features that make it a good location to settle. They even had to redirect a river to this place to sustain life here.”
“Our first task is to test our hypothesis. So, if you would please, Sidis,” Egbert requested, as magically excavating himself would be difficult this close to the Light.
“Your wish is my command,” Sidis readily agreed. He had, after all, pledged his undying loyalty to the emperor.