Tales of the Legendary Magus

Chapter 233: Gracia

The sound of footsteps could be clearly heard as the two guards became stiff, not moving a muscle as they waited for the VIP to get into view.

The man that entered was over two meters tall. His hair was silver and looked as if it was glowing. His golden eyes would make him stand out in any room even if his previous features failed to do so.

He was wearing a simple black suit with the Von Hauser crest on his chest.

After entering, he didn't look at the guards, he simply walked further into the suite and had a look around. Following behind him were a couple of other people. The first was a man with green hair and sharp eyes, this was Leonardi. Other than him, four others followed behind Grand. Two of them were youths hardly older than Villin, one was a kid of around seven years old while the final one was a man that looked to be in his thirties.

Other than Leonardi, everyone here had something in common, their golden eyes, something only the Von Hauser family was known to have. Of the two youths, one had brown hair while the other was blonde, the adult man was ginger and only the small kid shared Grand's silver hair.

Most of the people here completely ignored the existence of the two guards but there were two exceptions. Leonardi gave them a small nod of acknowledgment while the small silver-haired girl looked at Villin intensely once she noticed him, "Ooh so pretty!" she exclaimed when she looked at him, "How did you get that scar? Did you fight like daddy?"

Villin wasn't quite sure how to respond, Grand sat himself down in a chair while talking to Leonardi who was also sitting, the others, excluding the little girl, were standing patiently behind Grand as they listened to their conversation without interrupting. Nobody was paying any attention to the girl.

Since she was a part of the group he was supposed to protect and he had been told he could talk as long as they initiated the conversation, Villin decided to respond.

"Some bad people attacked me and they later gave me the scar."

Villin didn't add too much emotion into his voice since he still didn't know what Grand's reaction would be if a guard talked to what seemed to be either his granddaughter or his daughter.

Still, the girl's eyes seemed to sparkle, "Oooh! Who did that to you? I can ask dad to stop them, they must be really mean if they did that!" she said, puffing up her cheeks.

"Eh, that's quite all right." Villin quickly responded, wanting to stay out of trouble with the Von Hauser family.

The girl looked at him with her bright golden eyes for a couple of seconds before talking again, "I like you! Do you want to be my babysitter?"

"Huh?" 

"DADDY! CAN THIS GUARD BE MY BABYSITTER?" the girl suddenly yelled out loud, turning towards Grand and the rest of the family.

The following couple of seconds one could hear a pin drop. Villin could see Alexi and Leonardi looked at him with alarm, as if they expected something really bad to happen with him.

Villin himself straightened up a bit further as he felt a bead of sweat going down the side of his forehead.

"Do whatever you want Gracia, just don't get too attached." This off-handed comment surprisingly came from Grand, one of the most powerful people on the continent.

"Yayy! Do you want to play? Ooh, no, tell me a story instead!" the little girl quickly said as she turned back to Villin.

'Shit' Villin thought, unsure of how to proceed. He had the option to go silent now but then Gracia could potentially start crying which may anger Grand. Thinking about it, this may actually be an opportunity. Gracia was probably quite close to Grand, if he got closer to her in the following couple of days and he wanted to bid for something, perhaps Gracia would be able to ask Grand to allow him to do so.

Sure, afterward, if they found out, the auction may not like that he acted in this way, but even if he was banned from being a guard it wouldn't affect him, he wasn't here for the pay either. If he was banned from the auction as a whole, he could always have one of his companions go instead of him.

Additionally, if Grand felt somewhat angry at his actions, later on, he'd probably survive if he said how close he was to Ruby.

Overall, even if there were risks, they were relatively small, and taking this risk gave him a potential opportunity to bidding for something himself. Which was still the man's purpose for this trip.

"Sure, what kind of stories do you like?" Villin said after making his decision.

"Real ones!" Gracia responded without needing to think, "I like real stories! Tell me something that happened to you!"

Villin didn't even consider lying since he knew the girl had a bloodline that would be able to figure out if he was and thought for a moment, trying to find a child-friendly story he could tell.

Since he couldn't find a single tory he could tell that didn't include death and destruction, Villin simply settled on one.

"What about I tell you about the time I went to Atlantis!" he thus began.

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"Hello, is anybody here? Headmaster?" 

Silver's words went completely unanswered as she looked around the room she was in.

She had been quite busy the last while. She had been following her classes and doing research on various subjects. But other than that, she had also met the headmaster a couple of times. 

She wasn't sure why but he seemed to have taken some sort of interest in her. Every time, things went similar. The headmaster had a matter to discuss with her. The first time it had been Villin. The time after that the escalation of conflict in the east, then it was the destruction of one of The Academy's prison complexes, and finally, it was to discuss a thesis she made about the use of transfiguration and why The Academy should do more effort to increase the skill level of their students and teachers in this field.

At first, she was scared of him, he seemed to be playing games with her making her feel very uncomfortable. But, she gradually grew used to conversing with him. She no longer feared The Headmaster as much as before.

The way she was called up this time was the same as always. A teacher contacted her saying that The Headmaster would like to see her. Rumors had been going around she was his plaything but she decisively ignored those.

She thought she knew the reason The Headmaster wanted to see her this time, it would probably be concerning the escape of multiple teachers in the fourth/fifth grade. She heard that a number of teachers had been secretly teaching students potioneering, they thought they had been found out and tried to escape, soon after, the secret lab they had been using blew up using runes that had been activated from a distance.

She looked into the fact quite deeply and it was hard to figure out why the teachers tried to escape in the way they did. They could've applied to go on a mission themselves and they would've been able to easily go a few days later. She guessed either the headmaster had something to do with it or someone found out about their secret but didn't tattle, something they hadn't expected.

She was in the same room she would always be in before meeting the headmaster. There were pedestals to the side with various cold weapons on them, each of which had a long history, having been used by both the headmasters of old and legends of before that time entirely.

Generally, the headmaster would either open the gates to the throne room or join her here just a few minutes after she arrived.

It had already been over an hour this time which was extremely unusual, even more so since she headed here as soon as she was told to go see him.

But, after all this time, she finally heard something, coming from behind her.

"Magrovishe"

Out of instinct, Silver immediately grabbed her wand and cast a defensive spell.

BOOM!!!

A large explosion happened as Silver was shot forward due to the force of the spell.

She twisted around in mid-air as she ignored the burn wound that appeared on her back, sending a quick spell towards the figure that appeared a dozen meters behind her.

When the smoke subsided, Silver saw who it was, standing behind her.

The figure was hunched over, his clothes were in tatters and he had clearly been hurt badly, but his face was easily recognized by Silver.

It was the Headmaster, and he looked like he was standing on death's door.