Warlock Apprentice

“Yorkshire is a servant working for my family. This mute man used to serve my parents. After my parents passed away and my former teacher grew ill, he had been helping my teacher.”

Angor proceeded to explain some insignificant details such as how Yorkshire was tortured into a voiceless man by slavers, how Count Padt bought him, and how Yorkshire stayed with the Padt Family ever since.

There wasn’t much to tell about Yorkshire’s plain and uneventful life. The only thing worth mentioning was how Yorkshire was lucky enough to run into Count Padt, and how he enjoyed a relatively peaceful life later.

This voiceless man usually remained quiet and away from public attention. The name almost slipped from Angor’s mind.

“Yorkshire, a mute servant…” Sunders mumbled that name with a strange expression.

“But why did you ask, sir? Wait… is that unknown monster you mentioned called Yorkshire?”

Angor thought so because up till now, there were multiple figures from Padt Manor who showed up as nightmare monsters, such as Fawkes, Froggy, and Auri. It was quite expected to run into someone else at this point.

“It should be,” said Sunders. “I saw a number of possessed folks in the outer city who were performing strange songs, just like how people at Midnight Sovereign did. However, apart from their ‘Queen’, Fox, and Froggy, I heard another name in their song, which is Yorkshire. There was a strange individual who ambushed me earlier. Yorkshire, very likely.”

Angor believed this was how his teacher got that wound.

“Yorkshire is stronger than Fox and Froggy. I’d say it’s at least as powerful as a level-2 truth-finder, and you don’t find many people at such a level in this world.”

“Are you okay, sir? What does the monster look like?”

“I’m fine. Taken by surprise, nothing serious. As for the monster… no, I only saw its shadow. But I’m sure it’s not human or human-shaped.”

Angor expected much since every “named” monster he met up until now was nonhuman. Well except that “Queen” and Shava.

A real fox, a real frog, and a toy owl…

Speaking of Auri, when communicating with the toy owl during the incident in Twilight Auction House, the owl mentioned another name; one who was going to present a show following Fox and Froggy.

It was Yorkshire.

Angor tried to remember what else he heard on that day.

He did not have superior memory like Sunders or other mighty wizards yet, but with his current mental capabilities, it wouldn’t be hard for him to recall something as long as he once experienced it personally. However, it might take some time for him to recall it.

Soon, he remembered the strange time point when he was covered by nightmare mist and had a strange owl sitting on his head.

“I got it. Auri said that Yorkshire is a puppet performer!”

Sunders was preparing to leave the garden and explore the outer city, but he stopped when he heard Angor’s words.

“Isn’t Yorkshire a mute servant?”

“I mean, the Yorkshire from Nightmare Realm. During Twilight Auction, when I accidentally summoned all those monsters, the toy owl told me that Yorkshire was going to ‘give us a puppet show’ later.”

There wasn’t much to tell from this clue, but it was better than nothing.

This had told them that “Monster Yorkshire” was probably good at controlling its victims.

“Good. You stay here for now while I check the outside.”

…

While Sunders and Angor had their brief “intermission”, the other wizards in the inner city were terribly scared by what they saw.

A giant cyclone, which was the energy storm created by Angor, was powerful enough to disturb the atmosphere outside the darkness-covered area.

“Someone caused an energy storm and it broke through the dark barrier?” Douglas widened his eyes as he looked at the sky. “Is it Mister Phantom?”

They naturally reached such a conclusion since they knew Sunders entered the outer city with his student, and it wasn’t difficult for Sunders to induce such a thing.

“Hey, look! The energy storm is absorbing the darkness around it!”

The speaker was Tulouch from Utopi Academy. Utopi Academy was home to many “white wizards”, and more than 80% of them were inclined to be academicism. These wizards might not be good at fighting, but they were second to none when it came to certain skills, such as energy observation.

People all took a moment to observe.

Heroline from White Coral Floating Island Academy agreed. “Correct. The density of the darkness is decreasing.”

This was not all. When the storm came, the wandering shiny spots were grounded to nothingness in the deadly energy as well.

“Solving the problem by using an energy storm… Such ingenuity. Mister Phantom deserves his fame,” Veanne from Foreboding Forest said as she gave her words of admiration.

People realized that Sunders was indeed going to eliminate the darkness at this rate. At the same time, they held different ideas and attitudes about this—while some of them were glad that the crisis was dealt with, the others were jealous because they basically allowed Sunders to claim the Mystery item.

“But the storm is gone,” Qetesh said and drew everyone’s attention.

They looked up again and noticed that the cyclone was suddenly nowhere to be seen. The disrupted darkness in the outer city was getting thicker again.

“Did Mister Phantom fail?”

“It can’t be. An energy storm of that size can’t just vanish all of a sudden!”

While it was true that they still wanted to compete for the Mystery item, they were more concerned about the returning darkness that might threaten their lives should anyone get too careless.

Anglo suddenly covered his mouth as he coughed up blood.

“What’s the matter, Doctor?” Douglas quickly joined him.

Payne had been staying at Anglo’s side, so he knew what had just happened—Anglo began another “plucking” session as soon as he saw the energy storm rising into the sky. This probably meant that Anglo’s failed something.

“I-I forced my way to observe the strings, and I saw something curious,” Anglo said. He removed some blood off his lips while his eyes twinkled.

“Curious?” Payne meant to find out.

“Using the weakened darkness as a clue, I managed to read something regarding the situation in the outer city,” Anglo murmured as he rubbed his temples. “That storm wasn’t created by Mister Phantom.”

“Huh? Are you saying that the storm appeared over there out of thin air?”

“Mister Phantom had nothing to do with the start of the storm,” Anglo continued, “but it was him who stopped it.”

The others looked at each other in doubt.

That energy storm might do good to the city by removing the darkness. Why would Sunders stop it?

Naturally, people from Sleepless City, including Payne, appeared the most displeased upon hearing these words.

Anglo shrugged when he saw Payne’s annoyed look. “I don’t know his reason, but I can tell you that it was his student who caused the storm.”

That shocked the others even more.

An apprentice initiated an energy storm strong enough to penetrate that looming darkness? That’s got to be a joke!

Yet Anglo’s serious expression told them otherwise.

“I think Sunders’ student is called Angor Padt. He’s said to be extremely talented in alchemy, and he almost crafted a Mystery item once,” a wizard commented.

“Yup. When it comes to alchemy, that boy’s as famous as his teacher.”

“Did he use some sort of alchemy item to facilitate that energy storm then?”

Away from the discussing wizards, Mara was gazing at the outer city with a grim look.

He’s grown SO much… No matter what’s happening in there, Angor still becomes the center of attention even among wizards, while I’m just a useless old man.

“I wasn’t joking… I did find a ‘monster’ from the Old Earth and brought him here.”

…

Sunders leaped onto a small house and looked at two apprentices below who were dancing madly while their necks jerked into the shape of “Z”.

“Do you know them, professor?” Angor’s voice reached his ears.

“Yes. They’re Wallace’s students. I didn’t know Wallace sent someone here as well.”

Angor slowly descended from the sky and landed beside Sunders. His feet, however, weren’t touching the solid surface.

Sunders glanced at him with a smile. “Your soul looks as real as your body now. Ness will be terrified for good if he sees your current condition.”

Previously, Sunders meant to keep Angor safe by letting him stay inside the gravity garden. But Angor couldn’t stay tight as he had so many things to do, such as killing Hookdick and looking for Nausica, so he came out in his soul form.

He didn’t know whether Nausica was here, but it was very likely when Hookdick was around here somewhere.

However, if he were to show up in the outer city, it might cause another energy storm because his right hand would then begin to absorb nightmare energy on its own. Therefore, Angor found another approach, which was to use his soul instead. The right hand on his soul was still at its normal size, and it would not interact with the nightmare energy around him.

Sunders agreed to the decision. He then left a special spell that could sustain Angor’s body in the gravity garden. By doing so, they could now explore the outer city together.