NOVEL NEXT Chapter 28: 28—The last journey
Five years later, Percy found out he could actually endure being around children. He liked having siblings so he didn't hate Aella and Jason when they were born.
Jason was a quiet kid that did very well on his own, while Aella was like a pair of handcuffs. She would let go once you picked her up. But he still loved them… even if their parents dumped them on him
Thalos and Hecate found out that being both the new lords of Demetria and parents at the same time was impossible.
Hecate had originally vowed to breastfeed Aella no matter what, but soon gave up and started filling bottles for Percy and Sirena to feed them. And Thalos was outside the city so often that Jason sometimes didn't recognise him. So Percy had to take care of them.
It's often a running joke that the oldest sibling ends up raising all the kids, and these last five years he learned that was very true. He wouldn't be surprised if Jason called him dad one day.
And Aella at some point just refused to be carried by anyone not named Perseus. Her hair was half-black, half-white like his, so Percy was sure they would get along.
That of course didn't mean he didn't get along with Jason, of course. The boy was a spitting image of their father, Thalos: black hair and gray eyes, with a glare so sharp it could scare maids.
Percy had been afraid he was another transmigrator, but he found that Jason was just a very low-energy type of guy. He hated sharing, though; that was one thing that made him cry a lot.
By five years old, Aella and Jason were the well-adjusted children that Percy and Tommy would have grown into with good parents.
One evening, Percy was in their room, putting them to sleep. Aella was a fireball of a child; the only way to put her to sleep was to bathe her in really cold water.
Jason loved stories and magic; he would not go to sleep until Percy recounted the story of his namesake in this world.
In the late nights of the fortress, a Thirteen-year-old Perseus Amphene was lying down next to his younger brother, Jason Amphene. On their left, Aella was sound asleep, her little body snoring lightly.
Percy rested against the headboard of the bed and recited the end of the Mythical Perseus' story.
"And so the prophecy came true. During their duel, Perseus slayed his father. The end."
Jason's gray eyes flashed with displeasure. Their little room was lit by a faint candle. Jason and his older sister shared a bed while Percy got his own bed in the adjoined room.
"I don't like how the story ends," Jason whispered. "Why would Perseus' story end with fulfilling destiny?"
He had told the boy countless times that he wasn't the same Perseus as the story, and that he would not end up killing Thalos, but it was hard for the boy to accept.
In the first place, the mythical Perseus was actually the son of Zeus, so he hadn't killed his real father. But kids are superstitious in a strange way.
"Why don't we change it then?" Percy smirked, he cleared his voice and went into story-telling mode.
"But Prophecy was not to be fulfilled today. Danaë shouted from the stands to her son, informing them that Acrisius was his father. Perseus' sword stopped and Acrisius froze too, sharing a moment of realization. Then the duel was called off and they reconciled. The end."
Jason smiled brightly. Percy tapped him on the forehead and pulled the blanket over him. Then he got up and did the same for Aella, tapping her softly on the forehead.
"Sleep well, cockroaches."
"Percy." He turned back as Jason's small voice reached out to him. The boy gave him a thumbs up. "Good luck for tomorrow. I believe in you. I'll always believe in you, no matter what, Aella too. You're our Perseus."
Percy grinned wickedly.
"Well, I can't disappoint you, can I?"
Once he was back in his larger room, door shut, his composure didn't fail him. His spirit was as strong as ever. He turned to his desk and glanced over all his drawings.
The invention that got him the most love from the civilians was the water system. The one that got him the most money was soap. This world already had perfumes, but they just bathed with Castile soap if they were rich and herbs if they didn't give a fuck.
The introduction of easily accessible water was followed by his invention of soap to try and make these people stop smelling like old tires.
He made different brands too to make sure he could sell overpriced brands to the nobles far and wide. With the money they made from soap sales and the increased crop production, House Amphene was able to keep hold of Demetria for a while longer.
There was still the possibility of war with the Count of Yarol, but he seemed to be ignoring them for some reason.
They made so much money last year that they hired a new batch of guards for both the city and fortress. They also made sure to pay Lecetes handsomely; the man's fees were a bit high, but his usefulness far outweighed any price.
They even tried hiring a Knight's Order. This was a body of soldiers trained by the king's men, and could be bought out by nobles to protect their lands. They were skilled in both Spiritmancy and Arete, and came at a heavy price.
But the Knight order refused to work with them, whether this was because they were just a cadet branch of the real House Amphene in Tria or because the king told them not to help, no one knew why.
Percy flopped onto his bed.
"No one wants those expensive assholes anyway. The Graveseekers are so much better."
In truth, he would like to have them here. More protection to Dema meant more safety for Aella and Jason. He wouldn't be around for a while as he had finally turned thirteen, and it was time for his Spirit Affinity ceremony.
Together with Thalos, he would travel to Yarol, where the ceremony was being held for all new Spiritmancers. It was exciting to think about.
Traveling outside Dema, seeing new places and people, finally becoming a Spiritmancer. Hell, his mom had already started giving him lessons.
But he couldn't shake the fear of leaving Hecate, Jason, and Aella alone in Dema. He wondered if this was how Thalos felt every time he had to go out and hunt down monsters.
It must have weighed heavy on his heart knowing Sion could strike at any time, and he would come home to find his entire family dead.
Percy punched his pillow a couple times then forced himself to try and sleep. He regretted all his time wasted redoing his plans for an automatic defense system.
If only Hecate taught him Spiritmancy when he was ten! He could have defensive turrets that fired bolts of fire at enemies.
He was still working on the friend/foe identification of his Sentiment analysis circles… but just think of how far he could have gotten.
Percy decided to shut out those thoughts. Imagining what he could have done was a waste of time. He already armed the guards with his Spellbolts, he just needed to relax.
After a couple minutes, he decided relaxation was still far. He turned up and willed his system screen to appear with a sigh.
✧────✦ [ Status Window ] ✦────✧
༺ Name: Perseus Amphene
༺ Age: 13
༺ Race: Human
━━━━ ✦ Attributes ✦ ━━━━
༺ Strength: 20
༺ Agility: 15
༺ Constitution: 25
༺ Stamina: 25
༺ Spirit Energy: 30
༺ Intelligence: 30
━━━━━━ ✦ Skills ✦ ━━━━━━
• Spiritmancy: Rank 1 (Spark)
↳ [ Spirit essence drawing ]
↳ [ Fireshot ]
• Arete: Rank 1 (Spark)
↳ [ Igniting ]
━━━━━━ ✦ Quests ✦ ━━━━━━━━
– Daily Quest: [ Daily quest completed! ]
– Optional Quests: [ one available ]
━━━━━━ ✦ Rewards ✦ ━━━━━━
– Rank 1 Customizable reward.
– Rank 1 Customizable reward.
– Rank 1 Customizable reward
– Rank 2 Customizable reward
– Rank 3 Customizable reward…(Click to expand)
━━━━━━ ✦ Storage ✦ ━━━━━━
– Spellbolt Version 1
– Spellbolt Version 2
– Spellbolt Version 3
– Spellcore Version 1
– Bread…(Click to expand)
✧─────────────────✧
If only he finished making the Spellcore's second version. He had so many ideas to add to the rudimentary store of Spirit energy. With it, automatic weapon systems could work without fear of them developing an evil spirit.
He wasn't even worried about the journey anymore, he wanted to test himself against the magic beasts out there on their way to Yarol, and Hecate promised to prepare more chants for him to take on his journey.
All he wanted was for Dema would be safe. He dragged his duvet over his body, dismissing the screen and muttering a small prayer as he tried going to sleep.
"Nyx, if you can hear me, keep my family safe, please. I'll do anything you want."
His system screen popped back up unprompted.
━━━━━━ ✦ Quests ✦ ━━━━━━
– Daily Quest: [ Daily quest complete! ]
– Optional Quests: [ two available ]
✧─────────────────✧