“Mister Phantom.” The visitor steadied his walking cane and slightly bowed to Sunders.
Sunders frowned upon seeing the unexpected guest. “Something you need, Vifet?”
Vifet glanced at Angor, saw the issue of Moonfrost Periodical, and flashed a concealed grin.
“I wish to consult you on something, Mister Phantom.”
Angor stood up and excused himself. He knew that Vifet was probably here to ask about the Evernight Kingdom and the parasites. He had better stay out of the conversation.
Sunders waited for Angor to leave the room and summoned a chair for Vifet to sit on.
“Go on. What do you want to know?”
“I believe Angor knew why I’m here, but it seems he didn’t intend to explain.” Vifet shook his head and put a hand on his rat. “I was being too harsh on him back at the Frozen Wing. I understand if he wants some distance away from me.”
Sunders could easily see that the old wizard was putting up a show. Though he didn’t point it out. He also wanted to know what happened between Angor and Vifet.
Vifet slowly looked down. “Forgive me. But I couldn’t possibly stay calm and collected when I heard about Cassini’s name.”
Vifet carefully observed Sunders’ expression. To his disappointment, Sunders conveniently hid his eyes by looking at the desk.
However, there was something worth noticing. Sunders had been subconsciously knuckling on the surface of the desk, but he stopped his movement upon hearing “Cassini”.
“Let’s drop these insignificant things.” Sunders looked up. “You want to ask me questions, no? Get on with it.”
...
Meanwhile, Angor, who had been reading the magazine on a sofa outside Sunders’ study, suddenly felt a chill on his back.
“Oof. Did the snow get inside?” He put down the magazine and walked to the window.
The gloomy sky was fully covered behind a raging snowstorm now, which made the base even darker.
Angor got a bad feeling deep in his mind. He quickly tried to think of what might have gone wrong.
Is it Toby? I haven’t seen him for over a day now. But Toby has the Dusky Feather and gravity power to help him escape from danger...
Just to be sure, Angor wanted to go outside and look for his partner. But before he could leave, Sunders and Vifet joined him in the living room.
“Thanks for your time, Mister Phantom. I learned a lot today,” Vifet said as he walked to the exit, until he saw Angor there. “And Angor, my promise earlier still stands.”
“Um, promise?”
“The scroll you’re looking for.”
Vifet nodded to both Sunders and Angor before disappearing into the storm.
Sunders crossed his arms as he asked, “What, planning to go out there and play with snow?”
“No, sir. I just had this feeling. I was afraid that something might have happened to Toby...”
“Is that so?”
Angor was a bit terrified to see that his professor almost looked angry again.
“Humph. Yes, there’s something. Not about Toby, but you. Now come inside. I have more questions to ask.”
Angor obeyed and used Vifet’s seat.
“Tell me what’s going on between you and Vifet.”
Angor just realized that he had yet another important matter to tell Sunders, but he completely forgot it.
“There’s nothing, sir.”
“Nothing, eh? Have you perhaps heard about ‘Cassini’?” Sunders gave his desk two hard knocks to put some stress on Angor. “Don’t you tell me you actually met with Cassini, or did you?”
Angor slowly but surely nodded.
Sunders almost cursed out loudly. This had told him that Angor had been “marked” by Cassini, the Time Thief.
While apprentices and ignorant wizards usually saw this as a blessing, seasoned wizards like Sunders knew for a fact that this was a bad sign. If someone was marked by the Time Thief, they would be seeing him every time they made a life-changing choice in the future, while the Time Thief would always “steal” the discarded choice for his own use.
This would keep on until the Time Thief made sure that his target would certainly fail to become a truth-finder.
Those who saw it as a gift all believed so because the Time Thief usually paid great rewards for taking away people’s choices. But in the views of truth-finders, Cassini was a downright criminal, because he would subtly influence people’s decisions as he saw fit.
The Elder of Books from Brute Cavern once left a comment about the Time Thief.
“How can we tell if the choice stolen by the Time Thief is right or wrong? By making choices, we create unlimited opportunities that will affect our lives in different ways. Right or wrong, they are our own decisions. However, by gaining benefit from the Time Thief, your future choices will slowly get led astray. As we all know, each person should independently choose his or her path without relying on anybody. But the Time Thief ruins you by telling you what to do, using his own standards. If you fell into his trap and went after his rewards, you will eventually reach a point where you no longer know which way to follow, with no turning back.”
Sunders couldn’t tell this to Angor yet because this would cause Angor to actually think about how to deal with the Time Thief. He had to let Angor choose his own way, or it would make the Time Thief’s job easier.
Sunders tried to quench his anger as he could almost hear the Time Thief laughing at them.
“... I’ll only say one thing about Cassini. Keep in mind that Cassini is not an almighty figure you should obey. He’s called a ‘thief’ and not a saint for a good reason.”
Angor clearly felt that his professor was being very patient with him. These words had to mean a lot.
Sunders took a deep breath. “Now tell me, however did you find him?”
Without holding anything back, Angor explained how he made Crimson Aegis as well as what this item could do.
“The alchemy omen trapped you within the body of a madman for decades, and you refused to become one with him?”
Angor’s alchemy omen reminded Sunders of something. When he ran into the Time Thief, he was making an important choice that would determine him as either a “white wizard” or a black one. He chose “black wizard” then.
“He’s still using the same trick,” Sunders scoffed. “Forcing you to choose a side... This Crimson Aegis is pretty helpful in your case, especially when the dream wasteland is at risk of being found out. Keep the effect on for as long as you can. By the way, you made the Crimson Aegis half a year ago, right?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
Sunders just remembered that, about half a year ago, he had a dream about the Time Thief. It was as if the Time Thief wanted to show him a new unfortunate prey.
But he would never have thought that Angor was the “unfortunate prey”.
Coincidence did make wonders in this world.
At least Angor did not have to worry about the Time Thief before becoming a truth-finder. Moreover, if he could smartly confront the Time Thief from now on, he might even gain something useful.