41 Playboy Crown Prince

After deciding to stay, Greyson decided to visit the city library to see if he could find information on the rock from the forest. He had a feeling that it was very special, so he did not want to ask anyone if he didn't have to.

The next morning he left with Aria in the direction of the library. Spending a couple hours searching fruitlessly, Greyson finally gave up as he could not find anything even remotely related to the rock. Furrowing his brows in thought, he walked out of the library trying to think of what to do. Aria was of course not silent during this trip and kept bothering him about what information he was looking for. Ignoring her questions, Greyson continued on contemplating if he should bring it up to his teachers or just wait till a year later when he is in the Idris Kingdom to see if they have any information. Walking aimlessly towards the tavern, Greyson suddenly slammed into another body. Snapped away from his thoughts he finally looked ahead of himself towards the other person.

In front of his eyes was a good-looking young man hugging two beautiful women to his side with his collar opened a little too generously. Seeing an unfamiliar face, Greyson just apologized absentmindedly and moved to continue walking away from the teenager.

"Hey, kid, stop!" A voice yelled out. Greyson turned around to look at the young man while confusedly pointing at himself.

"Me?"

"Yes, you! Is that how you apologize after running into someone? Do you know who I am?" He fumed angrily.

"I apologized and I barely ran into you so it doesn't seem to be that big a deal. No, I'm afraid I do not know who you are."

"Hmph, well let me enlighten you then. I am this kingdom's Crown Prince!" Greyson's eyes widened in shock, feeling that his luck was too bad to run into someone like this.

"What are you scared now? If you kneel down and sincerely apologize I might let you go. Hm?" The prince sneered arrogantly before one of the women by his side whispered something into his ear. He paused before looking Greyson up and down then started nodding happily. The look in the prince's eyes made Greyson's hair stand on end while his heart began to sink. Without even waiting for the inevitable next words, he looked over at Aria and signaled her.

"Actually, you... Hey! What..." The prince began but was unable to finish as Greyson and Aria burst into action and sped away with their wind magic.

"How dare they! I want to know who they are! Immediately!" The prince shouted angrily while glaring dangerously in the direction the two kids had fled.

...

"Grey, what is with your kingdom's royalty? They are all arrogant and disgusting, whilst being weak. Really lets people be disappointed. First was the old man claiming to be cousins with the King and now some person claiming to be the King's son and Crown Prince. " Aria wrinkled her nose in annoyance. Greyson just sighed with her words and began to realize that he should learn a disguise spell. There were some non-element spells that just used mana to work and one of them was a disguise spell that changed your features. You couldn't change the body shape like Lyle unless you took a pill, but there were simple spells to change hair color and facial features. He was getting sick and tired of being bothered and he was sure that everyone around him was getting sick of it, too. He decided that it would be the first thing he did when he got back to the Academy, now it was time for all this to end. Pushing today's incident to the back of his mind, he made his way back to the tavern with Aria and decided to wear a mask tomorrow when he went around shopping with Aria. However, he couldn't fall asleep as if he were anxious about something. Instinctively, he knew something was coming but he did not know what it could be.

...

Inside the castle

"She met with my uncle? The disgusting old child-loving pervert? Hahahaha, the Heavens are obviously helping me. Just let my uncle know where the two of those kids are staying, I believe then I won't have to do anything and my revenge will occur. Those stupid girls will regret looking down on me! I've heard my uncle also has a sadistic side, I almost pity their fate now." The prince laughed happily as he thought about those arrogant little children getting tortured. He had never been shamed like he was today in his entire life. Everyone respected and feared him, however, those girls just left him without listening to anything he said. The entire town had probably heard of the incident by now. Gritting his teeth in anger, he told his servants to keep an eye on the situation then report back to him.

...

"My nephew? What does he want?" A gruff voice spoke out. The old man was still recovering from his burns so his mood was especially bad towards all his servants.

"My lord, he said that he found the little girl who caused your situation. That was all he said. The servant who came to relay the message said that master would understand his meaning." A male servant reported back while trembling.

"Those two girls?! He knows them, too?! HAHAHA they won't escape from me this time. Call for my private guard! They won't overpower me this time." His eyes squinted with a dangerous glint as he planned for tomorrow.

"Just you wait... once those brats are in my hands, I'll make them beg to die quickly!" He continued laughing to himself after imagining the many scenarios. The servant who was still present, witnessed his expressions and shivered. He couldn't help but pity the young girls that were going to be targeted next.

"They should have never come to the capital where this sick-minded old bag of bones was." He thought while inwardly sighing and shaking his head.

...

The next morning, Greyson woke up with dark bags under his eyes from lack of sleep. He couldn't understand what was making him anxious, but he knew something bad was coming. To his surprise, the always well-rested and active, Aria also walked out of her room with an exhausted face.

"Did you not sleep well either?" He asked.

"Hm? Yeah... You, too?"

"Yeah, I don't know what's wrong. I just have this deep unrest in my heart that won't go away. Should we live the capital? I keep feeling like something bad will happen if we stay..." Greyson seriously felt conflicted. It wasn't his personality to just run away on a feeling, but the dangerous apprehension was so severe that he couldn't believe it was only his imagination.

"I'm not sure... I have great survival instinct and it is telling me to run now. But, I also want to stay because I don't want to run away from the unknown. Even if we are in danger later, I have a feeling we could run away confidently. Wouldn't it be better to at least know what is going on?"

Greyson understood her point so he silently contemplated his chances. He turned and looked over at Lucius as his eyes lit up. That's right! They wouldn't know that he had another advanced magician by his side, right? The only one who knew that Lucius is actually powerful was himself because Lucius had yet to go into action in front of others. Feeling much more confident, he nodded to Aria and decided to stay and see what was going on.

They walked out of the tavern and Greyson went searching for a mask store. Easily finding one, he bought a sleek silver mask with some black engravings. It covered everything except his eyes and mouth. He also put his hood up to hide his face in general. By the end, he did not stand out anymore. Aria felt that he was going a little overboard, but at the same time she understood why he felt the need to. Even she couldn't help but feel a little jealous of the attention that he always receives.

They began walking down the main street of the market. Aria was fascinated by a bunch of different trinkets and after a couple minutes of walking around, the wariness they felt had all but disappeared. Greyson also felt it was fun even though he was being dragged around to shop. Sister Lily would always pull him around too because she knew that he might come off as someone calm and quiet but he also loves to see new things and travel around. There were all sorts of neat magic tools that he had never seen before and new food he had never tasted. They had only made it a third of the way down the street when night had already come. Seeing the sun had set, Greyson and Aria decided to head back. Greyson was lugging around all of Aria's shopping bags. He refused at first, but he soon realized that he should have just agreed after getting kicked around by her. They were both confused that the day had been so peaceful and fun, and were beginning to doubt if they were being too sensitive. However, the minute the thought had passed their mind, a group of black shadows had surrounded them. Greyson and Aria both turned serious after they felt the level of the five men who stepped out. They all were openly radiating their mana so Greyson and Aria could tell that they were all of the advanced level! Two advanced level stage 2, two advanced level stage 3, and one advanced level stage 4 magicians made up the group. Even if Greyson knew that Lucius and Aria were both around advanced level stage 4, he could not help but feel nervous. The differences between the stages grew with each level, but at the advanced level the difference was not enough for numbers to be unimportant. The fact that they were outnumbered made their chances of escaping much lower since they were all more powerful than Greyson.

Many thoughts started to run through Greyson's mind, but it all led back to the same disappointing thought. He was the weak link. He was the only one who might not be able to escape and Aria and Lucius were not going to leave him. Gripping his fists tightly, he resented his strength. Making up his mind, he turned to Aria and Lucius and made his thoughts clear to them.

"You guys need to leave me. You could escape easily if you were not trying to escape with me. Go call for help. Lucius, you need to go into the room and set off the alarm talisman that Teacher Elendil gave to me before I left. They will rush over at that point and help save me. The Head Teacher of the Spatial Department can send them here in a couple of minutes." He kept his voice even and showed that he was not going to take their rejection.

Aria and Lucius both hesitated. They knew that Greyson's plan was the best, but there were many things that could go wrong if they left him. What if the black clothed men meant to kill Greyson? Then the minute they left, he would be dead.

"Little girl, come with us. Master wishes for your presence. You cannot run away, so cooperate or we will use force." A low monotone voice spoke from the center man of the group. Hearing his mission, the three looked at each other. Aria finally spoke up.

"Lucius, you leave. I will stay just in case. It will be hard for them to hurt me." The minute she said this, her sword was unsheathed and caught on fire. Her legs glowed green with wind magic and she soon burst into action against the strongest in the group. Following her lead, Greyson nodded his head at Lucius and summoned his flute. Lucius took one last reluctant look at Greyson before running off towards the tavern. Negative thoughts of suffering and pain ran through Greyson's mind and was projected through his Siren's Voice. The group of five doubled over in pain where the two weakest were the most effected while the strongest barely stopped for a couple seconds. However, those seconds were long enough for Aria to strike. Her sword cut through him and sliced him in half. His corpse burned while his dying screams echoed. Greyson was uneasy after witnessing the man's death so his spell was broken. The minute his mental strength wavered then the spell would lose effect on the listeners. Having a free moment, one of the stage three men cast an earth spell that sent a flying earth fist hurtling towards Greyson. In a rush, Greyson summoned up his earth wall but his concentration was broken and the wall was too flimsy to stop the momentum of the fist. His body shot back and slammed into the wall. Black dots started to form in Greyson's vision and his breathing became labored. He felt as if his bones had cracked from the impact. He saw Aria approaching him and fighting off two of the stage three magicians while the stage two men approached Greyson.

His flute had been knocked out of his hands, and his mind was still confused so the most he could do was summon the first spell he learned. Ice Spike. His eyes flashed blue as ice spikes sprang up from the ground. One of the men quickly dodged while the other's chest was stabbed through. Watching the attacker bleed out, Greyson was suddenly in a daze. His mind could not process his actions just now and his hands began to shake.

"Grey, get a hold of yourself! Now is not the time!" Aria screamed at him. Her screams fell on deaf ears, though, and Greyson could not stop staring at the man's eyes that were now staring off into space. He had killed a man... He had just taken a life... His first instinct was to run back to Sister Lily and cry or maybe pray. But this was all not possible, he was thousands of miles from Willow Town and nothing could change the reality. He continued spacing out until he felt something warm splash onto his face. Snapping out of his daze, he looked up and came face to face with Aria. He looked down to her side which was stabbed by one of the assailant's magic sword. He realized that she had taken down the two stage three men which left only one man standing. He was the one who had stabbed her because she had jumped in the way while he was distracted.

"Aria... No, no, no... Aria!" Greyson couldn't stop shaking and holding her body. His brain finally started moving as his hands lit up and his eyes turned golden. Since Heal could not evolve with him, Greyson had learned a new light spell called "Angel's Touch" which was a step up. He pulled out the blade and began to heal her. The initial blood slowly started to stop and the cut began to scab, but he couldn't finish healing her because his mana began to run out. Angel's Touch was great due to its ability to heal larger injuries, however, it also drained an immense amount of mana and only advanced level and above magicians can use it more than once.

He was growing weaker and weaker, but could also see the last man of the group continued approaching. With the last of his mana, he shot out a fire arrow but fainted before he could see if it landed or not.