NOVPUB
Chapter 557: Returning to the Cabin with Miss Silver Dragon
As the door opened, everyone was dazzled by the sight—a literal dazzle, as the light streamed out of the house, reflecting off the distinctive bald head inside, shining brightly...
"Bishop!" Aside from Seraina, everyone in the room, one by one, stood up. The table and chairs rattled, and the bald-headed bishop laughed heartily as he stepped inside:
"No worries, I’m just here to check on you. Little Garrett, you guys just enjoy your meal and your reunion, no worries!"
As he spoke, he had already reached the center of the living room, placing a roast chicken on the table, and casually wrapped an arm around Garrett. His hefty arm pressed down, making it hard for Garrett to breathe, and he whispered:
"I’ve spoken to the lord of the city, you don’t need to mind him, just enjoy your gathering! Really, you’re a level 6 mage now, and he still wants to summon you like this, his brain must be malfunctioning!"
Garrett: ...Normally, we’d say someone’s brain is swollen, or their brain is waterlogged. If it were a medical diagnosis, you might say the frontal lobe is underdeveloped... I’ve learned something new today!
The bald bishop stood between Garrett and Captain Calrend, continuing to mutter under his breath.
Hearing that the city lord had sent for him, and that Garrett had declined, he immediately went to the city lord’s mansion. He presented facts and argued vehemently, effectively quashing the lord’s delusions:
"A level 6 mage at the age of 20! Two years ago, in a place like Nevis City, he already had his own mage tower!"
"Really, he’s just trying to bully you because you’re young, without a solid foundation, and a Hartland native," the bald bishop grumbled between them, not mincing words about the lord:
"If you had stayed in your mage tower, he wouldn’t dare summon you directly. You don’t show enough backbone, living next door, he thinks you’re weak! Tsk, brainless fool!"
Captain Calrend tried not to laugh. Garrett shrugged:
"Someone who wouldn’t invest in public health during a plague and fled the city, I didn’t expect him to be clever. But still, thank you—"
"Thank for what? It’s nothing!" The bishop’s arm tightened again before letting go, nodding at them:
"Hey, you guys continue, I’m off! Come visit the temple sometime! Remember to come!"
Looking around at everyone, he nodded significantly at Seraina and strode out. Garrett followed to see him off, but was pushed back inside:
"Go back, go back! It’s just a few steps from here to the temple, I can walk!"
With a bang, the wooden door shut, and Garrett was locked back inside.
True to his word, that evening, no one else disturbed them. Garrett and Uncle Calrend’s family caught up joyfully, talking into the night before parting—this shabby house really wasn’t big enough for three more people, truly too small to fit everyone...
The barbarians went to stay in the hospital. However, Garrett and Seraina returned to the cabin he lived in as a child: no choice, the lady insisted on seeing it, and he couldn’t argue.
The stone cabin smelled musty, grass had grown on the roof, but at least it didn’t leak. Evidently, Uncle Calrend’s family, as they wrote in their letters, tidied up the place occasionally. Garrett conjured several illumination spells, showing Seraina around:
"This armor belonged to my father... it’s knight-level armor, I can’t wear it. It’s been here since he passed away..."
"Don’t bother with the wardrobe, it’s empty... On my first day at the mage tower, there were just two shirts inside, one small, one patched... It was only because Aunt Eileen altered a new shirt from Brother Raymond overnight that I had something decent to wear..."
"There’s a chest of books under the bed, also left by my father. I learned to read and write from these..." 𝖓𝔬𝖛𝔭𝔲𝖇.𝔠𝔬𝖒
There were only two chairs by the table, one with a broken leg. Garrett cast a repair spell, barely fixing it, and sat down with Seraina. His Mage Hand flew out, dragging the chest of books from under the bed. Seraina leaned over it, flipping through each book:
"‘The Isolde Story Collection’... ‘The Song of the Sea Sirens’... also this one. ‘The Rose Legend’... still—"
As she flipped through, she glanced up at Garrett. That expression:
Your father’s hidden books, why are they all like this?
Garrett could only offer a bitter smile. A knight, a knight living in a remote little city, wanting to leave some readable books for his son, what else could he find? 𝐑ÁΝΟ𝐛Ès̩
Popular was already the best option, otherwise, what, holy scriptures? Though the offspring of warriors mostly received their education in temples, Garrett had some guesses about his biological father’s faith...
Luckily, as they continued to flip through, a few travel books and poetry collections appeared, salvaging the situation. He let Seraina keep flipping, while he conjured several more powerful Mage Hands, lifting the bed:
Underneath where the chest had been, the ground was packed hard, with no recent signs of disturbance. Garrett dug with his Mage Hand, soon lifting out a small box.
He lifted the lid, and inside was a shallow layer of coins under the dim light of the illumination spells, eight gold coins, five silver ones—
Seraina leaned over curiously to look. She dipped her fingers into the box and accurately picked out the distinctive gold coin: on one side was a bearded man wearing a crown, and on the other, a two-headed eagle:
"Huh, Garrett, why do you have gold coins from the Rhine Kingdom here?"
"My father left them..."
"How did he get them? From the battlefield? Or... right, Garrett! I seem to remember, the surname Nordmark, it’s from Rhine nobility! That’s right, Nordmark, it means ’lord of the northern frontier’... Was your father really local? Not from abroad?"
"…Now that you mention it, I recall Uncle Calrend or someone saying he really came from abroad..."
They turned back to continue sorting through the chest. Soon, Garrett found a thick envelope hidden inside the cover of an especially thick poetry collection.
The envelope was blank, and the inside page empty. Only when fingertips touched it could one feel the faint impressions left by a pen.
"No... it’s not water-stained... this is magic."
Garrett’s fingertips caressed the thin letter, feeling the subtle magical fluctuations inside. His original self had been a commoner, and right after he had transmigrated, he hadn’t thoroughly perused every book. Even if he had, his former self wouldn’t have recognized its anomalies...
"This has been sealed by magic...【Dispel Magic】!"
A thin ray of light shot from his fingertips. In an instant, the letter unfolded and morphed before him, elegant handwriting appearing line by line on the page.
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