After a quick bow, the prince cast a spell to bore into the ground. Earth kicked up around the opening of the hole, and Lyse busied herself with shoveling it onto the mound that Alcede had created earlier. When Seren lent a hand as well, Alcede decided to use his magic to help too. The only thing he accomplished, however, was scattering the dirt all across the room, for which Egbert admonished him. But before long...
“Here we go.”
Sidis hopped down into the hole he’d dug and disappeared from sight. The others rushed over and saw only the silvery glint of his hair at the bottom of the hole that was about as deep as a well.
“Is anything down there?” Egbert bellowed, his voice echoing down the shaft.
“It’s too dark to tell, but there seems to be a cavity,” Sidis replied as he cast a spell to illuminate his surroundings. It revealed that he was standing atop some kind of white crystallization.
“Is that...” Lyse peeped down the hole and wondered aloud, “Is that the same white stone that surrounds the Light?”
“I’d wager,” answered Egbert. “Let’s go down ourselves.”
The emperor thus helped Lyse down while the duke helped Seren, and the four of them joined Sidis below ground. The walls surrounding them were covered with white crystal like frost upon windows on a cold morning, helping scatter Sidis’s magical light all around. It was arguably brighter down here than it was up above.
“It’s like a winter wonderland!” Alcede remarked in astonishment as he took in the sight. “Though I have to say it’s closer quarters down here than I expected.”
“Really?” Lyse asked. The cavity stretched farther than any of them could see—well beyond the bounds of Sidis’s magic, meaning it extended for over a hundred meters.
“Well, the Light of Origin has been active for hundreds of years. I would have thought it’s consumed far more stone than this cavern could possibly hold... Hmm, perhaps it’s very efficient?” Alcede crossed his arms and pondered the matter.
Sidis turned to him and said, “Maybe it’s regularly refreshed with supplementary mana.”
“What do you mean?” the duke inquired.
“The Light gets plenty of free food, so to say. The monsters fly straight into it.”
Alcede clapped his hands together excitedly. “Oh, that makes a great deal of sense. But since the monsters spawn from the black stones, I wonder if they’re as energy-dense...”
“Indeed. What if the Light isn’t getting enough mana to sustain it?”
“If that’s the case, then all we have to do is fill this hole back up with black stones,” deduced Egbert.
“I considered that, and that’s precisely why I invited Seren here,” Alcede said as he walked over to the young man in question and patted him on the shoulder. “Sorry to foist this on you, but do you think you could lend us your help?”
Seren possessed the ability to generate black stone, which was what Alcede was hoping to tap into. Seren looked less than confident as he agreed to the job, however. “I can try, but I need a catalyst of sorts.”
“Like what? If it’s stone you need, then we have plenty of it. We need to do something about all this white stone around here anyway.”
“No, not that,” he confessed hesitantly. “I need to feel sad.”
“Ah...” Lyse and Sidis remarked in unison as they remembered their last encounter with Seren’s power. If that needed to happen again, it raised an important question.
“Sorry, Seren, but might I ask how we’re to accomplish that?” she inquired as the other three men took a step back to form a circle. “I’m not sure what exactly we should say to upset you, much less how we should say it in order to keep your power under control.”
“Lyse has a point,” Sidis agreed. “I’m thinking the rest of you should get above ground before we start. I’ll stay behind to rescue him if anything goes wrong.”
“In that case, shall we make preparations? Would you two like a little snack or a late-night meal for later?” The task at hand would take quite some time, so Alcede was concerned about provisions for Sidis and Seren.
“Water will suffice,” the prince answered curtly.
“I think we’d best do this under the cover of night. Sidis, stop Seren once you have enough black stone. Then we’ll observe what happens during the next aberration,” Egbert ordered. “Take the rest of the day off since you’ll be burning the midnight oil.”
“Now, the question of how to conjure a negative state of mind still remains,” Alcede continued. “Could we use that against him? Now that he’s a changed man who feels indebted to us, I think it’d hit him quite hard.”
Lyse could read between the lines. “We mustn’t, Your Grace. I’m doubtful we could pull him back if we send him into that kind of spiral.”
Indeed, Alcede was suggesting that the group guilt-trip Seren for his past life as the intruder who’d nabbed Sidis and indirectly caused Qatora’s death. Even if Seren had been indoctrinated to believe he’d done the right thing a century ago, he was an entirely different person now. Berating him for what had happened was too cruel.
“You’re right. It wouldn’t be good to get Seren stuck in that headspace,” Egbert said, rejecting the proposal.
Alcede, however, had another plan up his sleeve. “Then how about this? I remember Seren feeling rather poorly about himself when the topic of romance came up. Perhaps we could try that angle?”
The emperor was much more receptive to this idea. “Yes, Sidis should have no problem gushing about his love.”
“I don’t mean to gush or anything of the sort...” Sidis looked absolutely shocked after being blindsided by the request.
Lyse looked at Egbert and Alcede, unable to do anything else but smile awkwardly.
That night, the weeping and wailing of a grown man echoed throughout the villa. Though Seren was deep underground, his voice carried up through the shaft and into the room above where Lyse, Alcede, and Egbert were chatting while they awaited the results.
“Ugh. I’m getting depressed just listening to him,” moaned Alcede. Luckily, he had a basket full of cookies to comfort him and began shoveling a handful into his mouth.
“It pains even my heart,” muttered Egbert, drowning his sorrows—and hopefully Seren’s voice—with a bottle of liquor.
It was all Lyse could do to force a chuckle.
“I knew it the moment I held her hand when we met again. She was the woman for me. You too, Seren, should be able to find yourself somebody to love this century,” came Sidis’s voice, also echoing up from the hole.
“There’s only fifty years left... No, I’ve got another fifty years to go!”
“But, I mean, if you can’t find anyone, then that’s that,” Sidis replied, twisting the knife.
“Nooooo! Don’t say that!” Seren screamed.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to learn to socialize like a normal person before anything else. You’re going to find yourself in serious trouble since you only know how to get along with animals.”
“What are you saying?”
“Well, I guess you’ll be fine as long as your partner can transform into a dog. I mean, just look at how well your clone gets along with His Majesty.”
“No, it’s not like that! I like human women—although being able to transform would be a big plus!”
“Maybe you could ask a court lady really nicely. Candidly, it’s not true that only the imperial family can cast the transformation magic. We just didn’t want to deal with the hassle of other people using it.”
“I’m dooooomed!”
Sidis didn’t stop at bragging about his fiancée. He took the extra step of shattering any confidence that Seren had left.
“It’s frightening how naturally this seems to come to him. Doesn’t that make Sidis worse than me?” asked Alcede, to which Egbert nodded.
Lyse neither confirmed nor denied it. It was still all she could do to force a laugh.