Chapter 755 — Distance

It was not until she had ducked into a nearby side chamber that she realized she had rashly abandoned her mentor—and had this been a year ago, it would surely have earned her a dreadful punishment.

Just as Mary grasped the gravity of her mistake, the door of the side chamber swung open and Daniel stepped inside.

The old mage in his black robe merely looked at her in silence for a moment, then said offhandedly, "I have arranged for them to rest elsewhere for a day. Tomorrow they will be sent home.

"If you do not wish to see them again, then you need not see them for the time being.

"Afterward, I will have people see to their livelihood."

Mary kept her head lowered, her voice a hesitant whisper. "...Thank you."

"There is no need."

"Master, am I... am I really so worthless?" Mary summoned the courage to lift her head and look at her mentor. "They are my parents..."

Daniel cut her off in a placid tone: "They did not wish to come at first. Only after the apprentice I sent displayed the identity of a mage and offered them a sum of payment did they agree to meet with you."

Mary was somewhat dazed. "Payment..."

"This is no one's fault," Daniel said evenly.

"Master, did you foresee this situation all along?"

"Yes," Daniel said, his expression unchanged. "But this was your own choice, and a situation you had to face. So I did not intervene."

Mary bit her lip, then lowered her head and looked at the robe she wore, and at the silver insignia near its collar that denoted a mage's rank.

What created the gulf was not only the separation of more than a decade.

"Master, between the extraordinary and ordinary people... is the difference truly so vast?"

"In most places, it is exactly so."

Mary bowed her head and for a long while said nothing more.

Daniel, for his part, turned and left the room, troubling his apprentice no further.

He still had a task assigned by his master to carry out.

...

In the back alleys of Aldernan's East District, a man with a scruffy beard, sunken eye sockets, and wholly unremarkable features was staggering along the street.

The man reeked of strong liquor and carried a cloth bag of food in his hand. His hair appeared not to have been groomed in a long time, and the somewhat worn clothes on his body matched the standard of living of most in this quarter.

Winter skies always darken early, and the dimming light of day had already settled over Aldernan. Scattered magic-crystal streetlamps lit up one after another from far to near, illuminating the old and dilapidated streets of the East District. Foot traffic was sparse; the factory workers had not yet made their way home. The occasional figure seen at the roadside was, if not a suspicious idler, then mostly a heavily painted low-class prostitute who had only just come out to the street.

The drunken man walked on, and all at once an inexplicable palpitation came over him, bringing the man in the worn coat to a halt.

He seemed merely to lean against the nearby wall, sick from the drink, yet his right hand moved without betraying anything to press at his waist, quietly closing around a spike wrought of gold.

A faint magical glimmer flowed across the spike's surface.

A tramp with a messy beard walked past him, and as the two passed each other, the tramp suddenly turned his head and looked his way.

In the drunken man's eyes, the tramp's form abruptly twisted and writhed, transforming into a figure in a black robe, face hidden in shadow.

A voice reached his ear: "Meet at No. 14 Blackiron Lane."

The drunkenness in the man's eyes had vanished entirely. Without any outward sign, he put away the golden spike, and sensing another will stirring quietly within his mind, he changed direction as he walked and murmured, "Yes, Bishop."

The man turned and left the alley, and along the road he had walked, no bearded tramp had ever been there—as though it had all been an illusion from first to last.

...

A brilliant shaft of light split the darkness, illuminating a plain shrouded in dark clouds—a barren, parched expanse where desolate ruins of buildings and withered plant remains lay buried under windblown sand. An endless wind swept across the whole of that world, and amid the ruined, forsaken land, countless shadowy figures were trudging across the plain.

Their faces were numb, their eyes blank, as though this trek had neither purpose nor end.

And far across the plain, at the far end where the light blazed forth, stood a radiant city—its halls towering, resplendent in gold, like the perfect city of myth and legend.

High in the cloud-covered sky, two figures suddenly emerged.

One was clad in a long white dress, carrying a lantern that flickered in and out of phantom being; the other was tall and slender, refined in bearing, with black hair and a genteel monocle.

"The Sailin Orthodox Church," the refined man with the monocle said to the lantern-bearing woman beside him, his tone faintly deferential. "This region is the largest spillover projection discovered so far, and to date the only one found that has broken entirely free of the Phantom Pivot City and taken form within the 'Imaginary Number Zone.'"

"This place looks like a ruin—a ruin that has stood for who knows how many years," Selina Gervin said with a frown. "Every overflow projection before this showed cities or villages in normal operation, and our delay device succeeded in regulating the time flow of Sandbox One to match the real world. In theory, no region inside the sandbox should be this long abandoned... Instructor You Yaoheng, what do you make of it?"

"Perhaps the historical process within Sandbox One has fractured, and time is no longer distributed linearly," You Yaoheng said, musing. "Or perhaps its internal world has expanded to an immense scale, so that some regions operate normally while others have in fact lain waste for hundreds or thousands of years."

"...A pity. This is only an overflow projection. Nothing we do here can affect the workings of Sandbox One."

Selina Gervin spoke softly, her eyes on the plains below, shrouded in darkness. After a moment of silence, she gave the lantern in her hand a gentle swing.

At the lantern's sway, the entire overflow projection dissolved soundlessly, reverting to the basic black-and-white grid lines and the gray mist that blanketed the sky.

"Summon that Daniel next week," Selina said to the elegant man beside her. "I want to speak with him myself."

"So soon?" You Yaoheng could not help but look surprised.

"Yes, sooner than expected—because that Daniel seems to have sensed something amiss and is quietly conducting some investigations of his own. Just as well. We can have a talk with him."

(Mother of God!!!!)