Chapter 7 : The door opened slowly

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Clarissa blinked, then casually reached behind her and knocked the skull into the cauldron, causing a small amount of sickly green liquid to spill over the rim like foam bubbling over the rim of a tankard of beer.

"I will gladly accompany you, my lord. Please give me a moment to prepare." She walked up to a bookshelf that slid to one side and headed into the secret room hidden behind it. I didn't know that was there.

A few minutes later, Clarissa returned. In place of the plain black robes she was wearing before, she now wore a light set of hard, leather armor that was splotched with grays and browns.

A hefty, burlap satchel was slung over her shoulder. It was likely stocked with various components she thought she might need to fend off child murderers.

"I am prepared, my lord. Will you require anyone else to accompany you?"

I shook my head. "No. I just wanted someone who could stall long enough for me to teleport us away and send in the cavalry. You can do that well enough on your own."

Teleportation wasn't instantaneous. You needed a good chunk of time to perform the ritual which was why it was rarely used in combat except to run away.

It was also why I was so focused on perfecting my fire form. I needed a battle-applicable form of mobility that would let me keep up with people whose speed outclassed my own.

"Very well, my lord. Whenever you are ready." She stepped close to me and waited.

Not seeing any reason to drag things out, I started casting a teleportation ritual. A large spell circle expanded out from underneath me to encompass both myself and Clarissa.

With a flash of orange light, we disappeared from her study and reappeared on a street on the lower end of the low-class district of Lilith.

Clarissa and I stood on a sidewalk adjacent to a cobbled road lined with small, crumbling houses.

This was a very low-class area. It made me wonder how the people who sent the letter were able to afford to embroider the letter with actual gold.

Double checking the address on the letter, I confirmed that I was in the right place. The house wasn't much to look at. A one-story building with peeling red paint that was missing shingles.

I looked up at Clarissa and said, "Does this seem like a trap to you?"

Her eyes were narrow as she studied the building and the area surrounding us.

"It is either a trap, or an act of foolish desperation. Be prepared to flee in your other state. I will be able to look after myself until you return with aid."

I may have been the lord, but she was the one experienced in deadly situations; that put her in charge. I nodded my head, accepting her wisdom.

Clarissa followed me up to the plain wooden door. I knocked three times then stepped back, ready to run away if Clarissa told me to.

The door opened slowly. A dark-haired man whose brown eyes hid behind spectacles poked his head out. "Yes?"

"Hello. My name is Riser Phenex. I received a letter requesting my presence in your home." I said, holding up the letter in question and doing my best to be cordial.

I lost nothing by being polite. If he tried to kidnap me, Clarissa would force his intestines to eat themselves. She was scary like that.

The man's eyes widened in shock as he immediately threw the door open, causing it to crash into something out of my eyeline. "Of course, my lord!

Thank you for your most precious time! Please come in." He bowed, stepping out of the door's threshold and motioning me to enter the house.

Now that I had a better view of him, I could see he was wearing a fraying button-up shirt and a pair of stained slacks. I walked past him and took in the house.

The entryway led to a sitting room and had a single table that the door had slammed into and knocked onto its side. The sitting room contained a couch and a single wooden chair arranged around a circular red carpet.

"Please have a seat, my lord. I will retrieve refreshments for you." the man said as he closed the front door and rushed past us down another hall and out of our eyeline.

Clarissa and I exchanged a look, then sat down on the couch together.

"I'm beginning to think this was a mistake." I said quietly to her as I noticed a bowling ball-sized, blackened hole in the drywall to our right.

"We are not required to remain, my lord. If you wish to leave, we shall." Clarissa said, her tone not betraying her opinion on the matter, merely stating that we did possess the option to leave.

Sighing, I said, "We're already here. We might as well see how this goes."

"As you wish."

A minute of awkward waiting later, the man returned with two others. The first was a woman with purple hair wearing a plain blue dress. She was carrying a tray of biscuits towards us.

The final figure trailed behind the other two. She was much younger – younger even than me, if only by a year or so – giving me the sense that she was the duo's daughter.

She had purple hair and eyes like her mother and was wearing a white dress. She began nervously wringing her hands as she saw Clarissa and I, stopping just behind her father as her mother held the tray out to us. This was seeming less and less like a trap every moment.

I held up my hand as the woman held out the tray. I hadn't come here to eat. "Thank you, but we will be fine."

The woman bowed hurriedly and pulled away, holding the tray in her hands as the closest table to rest it on was currently lopsided after the door had knocked into it.

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