Warlock Apprentice

Number One was busily trimming grass and flowers in the garden again. It was supposed to serve Sunders as a house butler, but it had not seen its master for a long time.

Again, it tended to the house alone, just like when Sunders wasn’t here in the last decade.

Gardening, cleaning… there were no changes except that it also needed to provide food and water to the Krakoks. And since the only other guest in the mansion, Angor, left in the early morning, the machine butler had nothing else to do.

A teenage girl suddenly appeared at the manor’s entrance, along with a group of fluttering butterflies.

Number One quickly went to Sunders’ study and spoke through the closed door, “Master, a guest is visiting.”

“Send her away…” Sunders replied in a tired voice.

Number One complied and told so to the girl. But as it turned around to head inside, it saw the same girl, who was dressed in a showy violet fur overcoat, was already inside the garden.

“Sunders… aren’t you going to welcome an old friend?” The girl ignored Number One and walked toward Sunders’ location.

Sunders grinned, which was a rare thing to happen.

He allowed Greya to enter his study just to wait for such an offer.

Sunders had an urgent problem, which he had been suppressing in the last month. He did not know for how long he could prevent “him” from coming out, and Greya might be able to provide the only thorough solution.

In fact, Sunders had made a complicated plan to “lure” Greya into making the offer first. And he would gladly accept it since Greya also seemed anxious about retrieving her body.

“You’re willing to pay your precious time in exchange for that chunky carcass of yours?” Sunders commented.

“Chunky? Oh, hoho no. It is called ‘plentiful’, or sexiness, my friend,” Greya joked before putting on a more serious look. “So, how about it? I just offered a great opportunity that I don’t have many left in my life. I don’t have anything else if you say no again.”

Greya was considered a truth-finder wizard just because of a unique spell she created called “Artificial Life”. This spell had helped her create many new life forms, such as Section Ephemera, Twisting Protozoa, and Toby.

Apart from “creating”, the Mystery-level spell could also be used for reverse-engineering certain magical effects, and the spell could also create a dish that recreated that effect. Section Ephemera was invented by Greya for such a purpose.

But it couldn’t recreate just any effect she wanted to. Firstly, the complexity of the dish had to be within her skills. And secondly, dishes created in this way were mostly supplementary, one-use meals. Above all these, Greya could only perform this art once in every 50 years or longer.

It took her more time to create harder dishes. To make the “live dish”, Section Ephemera, she spent nearly an entire century.

Even with so many restrictions, Greya’s “Artificial Life” was one of the most flexible supportive spells recorded in history. Many wizards, including Sunders, still remembered the amazing omen brought by Greya on the day she created this spell.

And since that day, Greya was acknowledged as another truth-finder wizard who turned Candy House into a paradise for Gourmet talents.

Sunders did not know how much hardship Greya went through to make such impressive achievements. He did know that “Artificial Life” was potent enough to remove his imminent problem.

“Alright.” Sunders nodded in the end.

Greya smiled in relief. “Then you’ll have to bring me my body. I can’t perform Artificial Life without it.”

Sunders suddenly got a bad feeling. “Where is your body?”

“Inside Nightmare Realm.”

…

Greya slowly explained the bizarre adventure she experienced.

Telling from the legendary-level monsters she encountered, Sunders assumed that Greya did not reach the core area of Nightmare Realm. She probably ended up at another outer region like Nether City.

Greya was pretty surprised when she heard Sunders’ conclusion. That was a legendary monster and a dozen lackeys that were just a little bit weaker, and they only came from an outer area? Whatever does the core area look like?

Little did she know that someone already answered her question. On the day when Angor explained his talent test inside Barbie’s Restaurant, what he told everyone was the core area of Nightmare Realm. At least Sunders believed so.

Sunders frowned after listening to Greya’s story.

It wasn’t hard for him to enter the Nightmare Realm, but he couldn’t say so when he had to steal Greya’s body from the hands of a legendary monster. And even if he somehow managed, he wasn’t sure whether he could physically bring the body back to reality.

This was why he needed Angor to retrieve Singularity Dispersive Meditation, as he couldn’t take something in Nightmare Realm out using his own hands.

I either need Greya to accompany me so that she can get her own body back or…

Naturally, he thought about his young student again.