“Are you sure you need all this?” Viktor asked, breathing heavily. The wooden crate he was carrying once again attempted to tear itself free from his grip.

  “Absolutely,” Alycia replied as she adjusted her own stack of boxes. “Everything here is important. You know that.”

  Viktor grunted. He struggled to bance the crate as he moved forward, his arms burning with the strain and his legs trembling as if they might buckle at any moment. If he had been in his original body, this would have been nothing, but the nonexistent muscles of a scrawny boy were obviously not cut out for this sort of ordeal.

  “Do your best! Do your best!” Alycia sang over her shoulder, her two long, fluffy pigtails bouncing up and down merrily as she walked past him. “These are the st ones,” she said, dropping her load. Then, casually, she settled down onto the floor, rested her chin on her palms, and looked at him with gleeful amusement.

  He frowned. “Are you not going to help?”

  “No,” she replied, her mischievous smile widening like a crescent moon. “Watching you suffer is way more fun.”

  Ugh.

  It was hard to believe this was the same woman who, just five days ago, had offered her awkward apologies to Noi’ri and Lucian. It was even harder to reconcile this giggling gremlin with the hollow-eyed wreck that had once tried to kill herself in the bathtub. Yet, here she was, sitting in front of him, wearing an obnoxious grin that reminded him of a certain mermaid.

  Gritting his teeth, Viktor pushed himself forward. With great effort, he finally made it to where the rest of the boxes and crates were gathered, and let his load crash to the ground with a satisfying thud. Well, maybe a little too satisfying.

  He half-expected the woman to make a fuss, giving him a lecture about handling the fragile contents with care. Instead, she strolled over and patted his head.

  “Good job, good job.”

  Ugh. He would rather have her yell at him than get this kind of “praise.”

  As he wiped the sweat from his forehead, she asked, “This has got to be the heaviest thing you’ve ever hauled, right?”

  “No. Second heaviest.”

  That raised her brows. “Oh? What was the first?”

  Viktor couldn’t help but smirk. “You.”

  Alycia’s smile faltered. She cast her eyes down as she recalled what happened that day.

  Maybe I’ve gone a bit too far, Viktor thought. Note to self: don’t make jokes about other people’s suicide attempts.

  But then she looked back up, her brow furrowing. “You only carried me for like three steps. So it doesn’t count.”

  “I helped you get back to the house afterward.”

  “I merely leaned on you for support. I walked on my own.”

  Well, looks like she’s fine after all.

  Viktor looked around the room they were in. The size was average, he guessed. Not too big, not too small, just enough for whatever Alycia had in mind. A bit dark and empty, though. There was no light here other than what seeped through the small windows, and the only thing filling the space was a long table next to the wall, half-buried in tools and gadgets she had just dumped out of some of the boxes.

  “So, you’ve bought this pce?”

  “Yes. Barely made a dent in my stash of gold.”

  Oh, lovely. So now we’re bragging? Viktor thought. “And you’re going to move out of Rhea’s house?”

  Alycia shook her head. “No, this is only where I set up my shop. I’ll still be living with her. You’ve been there, so you know how dangerous that neighborhood is. No way I’m leaving her alone there.”

  “Also,” Viktor said with a grin, “who’s going to cook and do the undry for you if you live by yourself?”

  The woman shot him a gre, but her mouth curled at the corners. “I can cook and I can do my own undry, thank you very much.”

  “While getting your shop up and running?” Viktor said, eyeing the piles of boxes and crates. There was a lot of work ahead before this pce was ready for business.

  Alycia had decided to leave her adventuring days behind. She had made it clear that she would never set foot in a dungeon again. Well, fair enough. Her st experience in his dungeon had been nothing short of traumatic, and she had barely made it out alive. So now she was opening a shop, where she would sell the items she made to the adventurers who wanted to brave the dungeon. In other words, the next batch of idiots who marched into the same meat grinder that nearly swallowed her whole.

  “It’s tough, but I’ll manage. Besides,” Alycia said, gncing at him. “I have an apprentice here to help me.”

  He didn’t even blink. “Just so you know, I come and go as I please, so don’t count on my help.”

  She pouted. “What kind of apprentice are you?”

  “I’m busy,” Viktor said, and that was not a lie. “Besides, it’s not like I’m obligated to help you. You’re the one who owes me. And...” He walked over to the table, his eyes scanning the items. “It’s long past time you held up your side of the bargain.”

  “Wow, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a twelve-year-old talking like some jaded merchant. Where did you learn to speak like that?” Alycia said. “Anyway, it’s not like I forgot or anything. It’s just... too many things have happened, and I need to sort out my feelings and figure out what to do with my life next.”

  “It’s fine,” Viktor said. Many things happened on his end, too. Like, growing his dungeon, managing his minions, murdering people. That sort of stuff.

  Alycia walked to the table and stood next to him. “So, what do you want to know?”

  “As I said, everything. But we can start with your birds.”

  The woman sighed. “Too bad I’ve lost them in the dungeon, so I can’t demonstrate how they operate. But I can still expin the principles behind their workings,” she said, picking up an item from the table.

  Viktor knew what it was. He had first seen it when he searched through the trunk in Rhea’s house. A metallic cylinder with a rod running through its center. Then, he saw it again ter when his gremlins showed him. He had tasked them with studying Alycia’s birds, and after they dismantled the constructs, they had found inside many simir objects of varying sizes.

  “I call this a rotator,” the woman said. “You know, all animals can move around thanks to their muscles. Swinging the hands, fpping the wings, that sort of thing. And this is the ‘muscle’ of my birds.” She gave it a fond pat. “There are many of them inside each construct, and each one is connected to a different part of the body through a gear system. And when a rotator, well, rotates, its corresponding part moves. The faster it spins, the faster the movement. So, by controlling the speed of each rotator individually, I control the whole bird. Make it soar up, dive down, or glide through the air, whatever I want it to do.”

  It was, more or less, the same thing Kazyk had told him. But how did this so-called rotator function? What caused it to spin, and how did Alycia control it? The gremlins, despite their efforts, couldn’t give him the answers to those questions.

  The woman gnced at him. “You think how a rotator works?”

  “I believe there is magic involved somehow,” Viktor said with a shrug.

  He had spent quite a bit of time thinking it over, and ultimately concluded that this problem could not possibly be solved by engineering alone. After all, there had to be a power source somewhere, and the rotator was just too small to have any inside.

  “Magic, yes. And a Reliquary.”

  “You’re telling me that your gauntlets are a Reliquary?” Viktor asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Alycia ughed. “No, they aren’t.” She looked down at the table, her fingers drumming on the edge. “Have you ever heard of a Reliquary called the Mourning Woman?”

  Of course he had. It once belonged to him.

  “Is it a stone bust of a weeping woman?” he asked. “If a mage touches the bust and tries to cast a spell, she’ll ‘cry.’ A ‘tear’ falls from her eyes and solidifies into a gem. Basically, the spell is now ‘stored’ inside that gem, and anyone, even non-mages, can use it.”

  Alycia’s eyes lit up. “Yes, that’s the one. One of the most powerful Reliquaries in the Tyrant’s Legacy. You really know stuff, huh?”

  “The Tyrant’s Legacy?”

  Alycia blinked. “You’ve heard of the Mourning Woman but not the Tyrant’s Legacy? That’s what people called the collection of Reliquaries that was once owned by the Dark Emperor. You know, the guy who ruled the Empire three centuries ago. People also call him the Tyrant, the Impaler, the...” She paused, as though a sudden realization had just crossed her mind. “Wait, what you told me st time... it was based on his story, wasn’t it? That’s how he executed the royal family of Lyndor after usurping the throne.”

  Technically, yes. Except for the fact that the guy telling the story and the guy committing the act were the same person. Anyway, it was not important. Neither were those random names that people had made up to call him. He gave Alycia a curt nod and nothing more, effectively ending that pointless line of conversation.

  Let’s get back to the main point, Viktor thought as he refocused. From what she had told him, he figured out that the Mourning Woman was what made her constructs possible. But how? Also, had she just said that it was one of the most powerful Reliquaries he once possessed? Nice, that was a good joke. Really funny.

  Sure, the artifact sounded impressive on paper. But the reality was, most spells couldn’t be stored in the gems it produced. In fact, they could only hold two spells. Basic fire and wind magic. That was it. If it could at least create some healing gems then perhaps he would hold it in slightly higher regard, but as it stood, the Mourning Woman was a little more than a parlor trick. In the end, it was just another useless novelty in his collection.

  “So, you’re telling me that Reliquary is what powers your rotators?”

  “Yes, let me expin. The Mourning Woman is now the most important treasure in the Kingdom of Arstenia. We use it to produce the fire gems and wind gems, which we supply to the Pseudo-Mage Corps. As the name suggests, they’re not actual mages, but normal soldiers trained to use the gems in combat. While they’re weaker than real mages, they make up for it with their numbers.”

  Well, that was one way to use it. Viktor had never given it much thought, since by the time he acquired this Reliquary, he had already conquered the entire continent. Upgrading his army wasn’t exactly on his to-do list.

  But wait, now he did have an army, and the stronger it was, the better. Was there any way to steal the Reliquary and bring it to Daelin? It would be difficult, though. After all, Alycia had just said that it was Arstenia’s most treasured artifact. Perhaps that was an idea he could entertain ter. For now, he should just focus on the metallic birds.

  “How does all of that have anything to do with your constructs? You can cast the spells with the gems, sure, but you have to hold them in your hand to do so.”

  “Yes, that’s how everyone uses those gems, but...” Alycia’s grin grew wider. “But I’ve made an unexpected discovery.”