Chapter 37: Goatee's Wife
Days passed. The friends recovered and the Order building refilled with joy and laughter. Georg Braun and his wife Sandy thanked the Rose Cruce immensely for what they’d done, and Georg even supplied them with funds. But so great was Edmund’s surprise when Goldmund took out a sack full of Yans[1]!
“How did you get those?” not only Edmund but the whole Order was astounded.
“You remember I made up a false order, Illuminant Darkness, right?” Goldmund grinned, “I talked Marvin Wagner into funding me and scammed him”.
Everyone burst out laughing.
“Marvin is my father,” Riza chuckled, “To only think he would actually fall for a trick like that!”
“My son’s quite convincing”.
They heard the proud remark of Goatee from one of the tables. All the eyes set on him. Once Goldmund caught the sight of a journal he was reading with some girls on the cover, he widened eyes and flared up.
“You moron!” he slapped his own father, “Give me that here!”
He grabbed the journal out of Goatee’s hands and threw it in a dustbin.
“Huh? What are you doing?! That was today’s issue!”
“I don’t give a damn! You haven’t changed at all, you old pervert!” Goldmund walked off.
Edmund, seeing this father-and-son argument which sounded so familiar from the sweet past times, chuckled and adjusted his glasses. Everyone got back to partying.
In the evening, once Edmund and Riza were alone in this former’s room, Riza asked:
“Ed, how come Goldmund doesn’t need to cast spells? He only cast it once when doing the Blast of Saturn. At other times, it was simple for him. I thought all Zodiac Masters needed to cast spells”.
She could still remember this particular detail from the fight back then. So, she had decided to ask Edmund, who was one of the few people in the Order to know Goldmund well.
“Goldmund is my cousin. Goatee is actually my uncle from my mother’s side. My mom, Luna, was his younger sister. Goldie and I are like brothers. But he… is a special phenomenon”.
“Huh? A special phenomenon? What do you mean?”
“Well, I guess, since Tamie too has shown her muse, there’s no point in hiding this fact anymore…”
Edmund took one of his family photos, with several people depicted on it: an old man, Wilhelm Jaeger – the former Magister of Rose Cruce Order – his grandfather; Gustav Jaeger – a brown-haired, vile-eyed man with a grim look – his father; Luna Jaeger – a blonde woman with glasses and light blue eyes – his mother; Goatee, standing next to Luna and with a grin, his sunglasses and the goatee beard on him as always; and beside Goatee, stood a green-haired fair woman with beautiful, vivid, unearthly grey eyes, wearing a goat-skull-like hat on her head.
“This woman,” Ed pointed on the green-haired woman next to Goatee, “is Ivy Ziegen, later Ivy Steinbock – my aunt, and Goatee’s wife”.
“Oh, she looks… beautiful”.
“You rather wanted to say ‘weird’, right?” Edmund chuckled.
Riza widened eyes and blushed – how the heck did the guess?!
“Ah, no, that’s not it!”
She smiled politely and shook her hands, but Edmund’s lips formed in a sly grin – he already knew his girlfriend too well.
“I wouldn’t disagree with it. She was weird. It is because she was created by Goatee".
Riza’s jaw dropped:
“H… How that, created by him?”
“Ivy… was Goatee’s muse”.
“Eh?!”
“Yes. Goatee’s muse was so strong that it manifested into life. After giving birth to Goldmund, though, it used up all of its powers and was forced to return to Goatee’s world, which means she technically died. But Goatee can still summon her whenever he wants. The point of this story is – Goldmund has got powers not only of a Zodiac Master but of a muse too. Thus, he can use his powers without casting spells if the powers aren’t too strong like the Blast of Saturn”.
Riza was dumbfounded. Afterwards, she told everything to Tamie and the other ‘sisters’. The girls got astounded just like her before:
“Muses can come to life?!”
“Ed said, only if they’re too strong, which is a rarity. The only fact of it known to him is Goatee’s wife”.
“I can’t believe it…” Olivia frowned, “I don’t even have a muse with a clear face, and you guys are saying they can come to life?!”
“But, Tamie’s muse sure can summon itself on its own already,” Cherrie shrugged, remembering the earlier fight, “I don’t think it’s entirely impossible”.
Muses can come to life? My muse can come to life… permanently?!
Tamie trembled with excitement and confusion.
“This is a blast!”
She darted off towards Goatee’s table.
I should totally ask him more about this!
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[1] Yan – a fictional currency in the Zariel realm. Based on Chinese Yuan and Japanese Yen