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Zich stared at Lyla. She was fixated on the magic item in front of her that she didn’t seem to notice that the vendor was Elena Dwayne. Zich tapped Lyla’s shoulders, and she turned around. Like she was annoyed that somebody was bothering her while shopping, the corners of eyes were slightly raised. Zich gestured towards Elena with his chin and Lyla finally saw the owner of the cart. At first, she tilted her head like she couldn’t understand what he meant.
‘Does she have no memories of Elena Dwayne?’ Zich thought Lyla remembered Glen Zenard’s party pretty well and wondered if that wasn’t actually the case. Soon, she opened her eyes widely, indicating that she had simply failed to recognize Elena at first.
“There are many more, so please take a look at them,” Elena said. Like she hadn’t had a customer for a long time, she hurriedly took out more items from the inner compartment. Thus, she didn’t notice Lyla looking at her in surprise.
Lyla carefully took one step backwards. Then, she took Zich and distanced herself from the cart like they were discussing whether or not they would buy the item.
“She’s who I’m thinking, right?”
“Yeah, it is.”
An incomprehensible dialogue passed back and forth between them, but Zich and Lyla had no difficulty in talking without revealing much since they both knew the conversation topic. Furthermore, they had to make sure that no one would catch onto what they were talking about. Even if there were a few people around them, they were in the middle of the streets, which wasn’t an ideal place to share one’s secrets. Even if Elena couldn’t hear them because of the distance, Hans and Snoc were perfectly capable of hearing their whole conversation.
Of course, Hans and Snoc didn’t seem to be concerned about their conversation as they looked at the cart’s items curiously; but unless they blocked them physically, ears didn’t operate in a way that they would only pick up what the listener wanted to hear. No matter how much Zich trusted Hans and Snoc as his servants, he couldn’t tell them his and Lyla’s secret.
“I was surprised.”
“Me too.”
If they thought about it a bit more though, it wasn’t such a strange thing. Elena’s talents and skills had been splendid enough for her to be part of Glen Zenard’s team. If Zich had to rank her abilities as a mage before the regression, there were only two people above her: the Demon Lord of the Magical Tower and Lyla.
Of course, in terms of powers, Lyla’s powers weren’t on par with the Elena from before the regression yet. However, if he thought how Lyla could recant double incantation and silent incantation with complete ease, her innate potential seemed overwhelmingly greater than Elena’s. This was understandable since Elena honed her skills through many experiences and time.
‘I bet it won’t take long for Lyla to catch up either.’
She wouldn’t simply catch up—Zich didn’t doubt for a moment that she would easily overtake her peers and leave them in the dust.
“What are you going to do?”
“Who knows?” Zich shrugged. “I don’t have much of an opinion.”
Besides, Elena was a different person now and it was her first time meeting them. What could they do?
“Then why don’t you become better acquainted with her like you did with the others?” Lyla said, recalling Lubella and Leona. Zich scowled and Lyla smirked. Then, she tapped on his shoulder. “If you’ve made your decision, let’s move. Like you said, there’s no need for us to do something.”
Lyla moved to look at the items on the cart again.
“Ah!” Elena covered her mouth and her eyes moved elsewhere. Like she was extremely surprised, her eyes trembled. “T-That is!”
“…Yes?” Snoc was taken aback. Her eyes were pointed towards him.
“That animal on your shoulder!”
“Ah, you mean Nowem?” Elena seemed to be interested in Nowem; and since Snoc was quite used to this response now, he wasn’t surprised. Many people noticed Nowem and took an interest in him because of his cute appearance. Snoc placed his hand in front of Nowem.
Koo!
Thud!
Nowem crawled on top of Snoc’s palm.
“He is my family.”
Koo! Nowem raised his nose joyfully, which made him look even more adorable. However, Elena wasn’t interested in studying Nowem’s cuteness. She pushed her anxious face up close to Nowem.
Koo? Nowem flinched. As a face much bigger than his body came closer to him while breathing strangely, even Nowem couldn’t help but panic.
“Is he the mythical beast of the earth?” Elena asked.
Besides Nowem’s contractor Snoc, and Hans, who was next to him, even Zich and Lyla were surprised.
Koo! Nowem’s body stiffened in surprise. Although they had met many people until now, no one had recognized him as the mythical beast of the earth at first sight except for her.
“It’s my first time seeing one. I can’t believe that there will be a day where I get to see one!”
It seemed that Nowem’s existence had greatly stirred up her interest as her eyes shone.
“Could I perhaps dissect this being a bit?”
Koo? Nowem backed off by one step. Then, he carefully moved from Snoc’s palms to his forearm.
“It’s fine. I won’t hurt you.” However, Elena sounded like she was out of her mind at best or a lunatic at worst, and her words held no persuasive power.
Kooo!
As Nowem felt fear, he rushed towards Snoc’s arm, crawled over the shoulders, and hid behind Snoc’s back. He hung onto Snoc’s clothes by tightly gripping onto the fabric with his talons and peeked his head above Snoc’s shoulder in high alert against Elena. He didn’t seem to have an inkling of terror as the beast of the earth.
Elena continued. “Ah, I promise you that I won’t do anything really scary! I won’t…!”
Snoc also took a step back, and Nowem dug his head into Snoc’s clothes.
“Please stop it. I understand that you are curious, but they are getting scared.” Their savior was Lyla. Like a hero from the legends, Lyla stood in front of them, and Snoc and Nowem were moved by her defense. Elena also lowered her head concurring with the thought that she had crossed the line.
“I a-apologize. It was so fascinating that I…”
“But you know that you were in the wrong, right?”
There was nothing Elena could say; she lowered her eyes.
Lyla looked at her and continued, “You also have to stay in line. If someone is going to dissect Nowem and research him, I’m the first one in line.”
“…What?” Elena dumbly replied back. Nowem and Snoc, who were hit in the back by their trusted ally, froze.
…Koo!
Only Nowem’s pitiful cries expressed their despair.
*     *     *
After the small commotion passed, Elena went back to selling her products as the vending cart owner, and Lyla began picking out items like a normal customer. Snoc and Nowem stood far away from them; Nowem even hid inside Snoc’s clothes, so there was a small bump around Snoc’s chest area. Snoc’s clothes trembled like crazy as Nowem was now completely terrified.
However, the two women who had cornered Snoc and Nowem into shock and horror were only focused on the products on display. Lyla picked up the nearest item. It was in a similar shape as the artifact Lyla first bought but the effects of this item was worse—no, way worse than the super trash item. Yet, the quality of the material was different.
“It’s iron.” Magic was a funny thing that was extremely particular about its ingredients. The rarer and more expensive the metals were, the better the magic infused into them. If there was a god of magic, Lyla was certain that they loved extravagance.
With this in mind, there were two reasons why someone would make an artifact out of iron. First, they were so talented that they were no longer bound by the quality of their ingredients to a certain extent, or second, they had no money. For the latter, the abilities of the artifact were so poor that it was basically the same as being nonexistent.
However, Lyla carefully looked at the item with no prejudice.
‘Hmm?’ Lyla was intrigued.
She scanned the magic symbols etched on the surface of the iron plate. When people thought of magic circles, they normally thought of extremely complicated lines and shapes intertwining with each other. They were not wrong. When Lyla made artifacts, she also took meticulous care in drawing the magic circles. However, the magic circle on this iron plate was different; it was complicated but not to the extent that people normally thought of when imagining magic circles. However Lyla didn’t belittle Elena at all—she was actually impressed.
‘This is high quality.’
Compared to the first golden plate she bought that had inefficient magic circles all overlapping each other, this was basically artwork.
‘What is this?’ Lyla felt something rough at the tip of her fingers at the iron plate’s back side, and she flipped it over.
“Wow!”
Lyla admired the magic circles also etched onto the back of the iron plate. She kept flipping the iron plate back and forth and checked the magic circles on them.
Zich asked, “Is there something interesting about it?”
“Look at this.” Lyla showed Zich the artifact. Hans also showed interest while Snoc didn’t move from his position but leaned his head forward. Nowem climbed on top of Snoc’s head, but the two of them did not come within reaching distance of Lyla and Elena.
“The magic circles at the top and bottom are different, right?”
“Yes miss, that’s true.” Hans looked at it with curiosity.
However, Zich’s reaction was different. Even though his knowledge in magic was lacking, even he knew what this was. “It’s a 3-dimensional magic circle.”
“Yep.”
It was a type of magic circle that increased its effectiveness by utilizing the plane and space of the material it was drawn on.
“Of course, for a 3-dimensional magic circle, it’s nothing really amazing. It’s at a level where I could barely call it that. It’s simple as hell, but it doesn’t change the fact that this is a very impressive artifact.”
Just the title of mage brought great admiration from people; a mage who could draw a 3-dimensional magic circle was considered extremely knowledgeable and skilled with magic.
Zich stared at Elena; it seemed as if she heard Lyla complimenting her since Elena’s expressions were very bright. However, her face stiffened at Lyla’s next words.
“Also, I don’t feel any sort of mana from it at all. She did an amazing job covering the mana in this.”
“Yeah, even I felt that. It’s really an impressive cover up.”
As their conversation continued, Elena’s expression darkened.
“Judging by the magic circle, it’s a fire artifact. It’s nothing much, but the symbols are drawn very efficiently. Moreover, the fact that the drawing is on an iron plate shows how impressive of a mage she is.” Lyla really liked the artifact that Elena made.
Zich was also intrigued. This was the first item that Lyla had showered with compliments; so far, Lyla had given out insults about 95 out of 100 times, and the rest were comments about the items being mediocre.
“How much is this?” Lyla immediately asked for the artifact’s price; Elena hesitated a bit before answering.
Lyla widened her eyes. “What? It’s that cheap?” It was not just cheap; this was basically free.
“Ah, actually…” Elena was about to carefully continue talking when—
“Are you going to buy that item?”
The mage selling his products in the cart next to Elena approached them. His cart was at a distance, so he wouldn’t have been able to hear their conversation, but his cart was already neatly cleaned up. It seemed as if it was time for businesses to close.
The mage clicked his tongue and said, “I understand your curiosity, but there’s no need for you to buy that kind of item.” Then he spat out a shocking statement, “What’s the point of buying an item from a low-life who isn’t a mage and can’t even use mana?”