Man To Man

John felt his heart freeze as two horns were now fully sprouted out of Ganzac’s forehead and his previously neat and combed hair became wild and unruly. Ganzac removed the sunglasses he wore, and John saw that his eyes were a deep crimson, almost blood red.

“That feels better, I dislike having to use illusions, but it’s something I've come to accept if I wish to not catch the Order’s attention,” Ganzac stated as he pulled out a comb to pull his hair back. “Now then, I’ve never been the subtle type, so I will say this clearly and I will say it only once. I don’t like you and I don’t trust you. If I wasn’t sure it would upset Blair, I would have already torn you apart, opened a Barrier, and tossed what was left into it where nobody would have found you and I wouldn’t have a mess to clean up,” he said as he pulled a cigarette pack out from his pocket, took one out, and lit it by flicking his thumb against its tip.

“Yeah, I really would prefer if you didn’t do that! Also, remember what I told you about smoking indoors?!” John heard Blair call out from inside the kitchen. John watched as Ganzac made a ‘tch’, snuffed the cigarette out with his fingers and placed it back into the pack. Blair came out of the kitchen after that, carrying a plate full of tacos.

“I had some leftover meat in the fridge, so it may not taste as fresh as it would otherwise,” she said as she placed the plate on the table, and sat herself in between John and Ganzac. John tentatively took one of the tacos while keeping a wary eye on Ganzac, who was taking a taco of his own as well.

I guess that means I’m in the clear… for now. But if this guy is level 32 and Observe worked on him, wouldn’t that make Wentworth is an even higher level? But on the other hand, Observe wasn’t maxed out when I used it on her, John contemplated as he slowly took a bite out of the taco. They spent the next few minutes in silence, chewing on their meal.

“So, I can sense that you’ve gotten stronger since I last saw you. Stronger than your usual method of training would allow in only a month…” Ganzac suddenly stated, which despite John’s self assurance that he was safe now, still caused him to jump a little. Blair continued to chew the bit of food she had in her mouth and swallowed it. She turned to Ganzac, but didn’t meet his eyes. Ganzac’s eyes narrowed, filled with suspicion.

“You didn’t…” he started, but Blair averted her eyes and looked to the side. Furious, Ganzac slammed his fist into the table, breaking it in half. “You fool! That’s a risky source of power and you know it! If the Order ever found out-”

“If they found out, but they won’t, I made sure that they won’t. The demon I went to can be trusted to keep his word, and I’m sure the contract I made with him didn’t have any loopholes he could double cross me with,” she said as John tried to make himself as small as possible where he sat, so that he wouldn’t somehow be dragged into this. Ganzac’s face became red, a vein bulging on his face.

“That 's. Not. The. Point. Blood magic is a dangerous game and you know it, it’s far too risky,” he said with gritted teeth. Ganzac stood up from the couch and grabbed a broken half of the table as if he were about to throw it. However, he stopped himself halfway through the motion, and dropped it back down.

“How do you feel? Are you in any kind of pain?” he asked as he leaned against the wall, and began to massage his temples.

“I’m fine, I did it a few weeks ago. If there were any side effects, they would have happened by now,” Blair reassured him. Ganzac let out a deep sigh, and seemed to notice the mess he had made with the broken table. John looked at the situation from the couch.

Well, I have Craft, might as well use it, John thought to himself as he stood up.

“Excuse me, but I can clean this up, just give me a second,” John said as he began to cast Craft on the broken table. He looked at his options and pressed to repair it. It would cost him 25 mana, but that was something he was willing to spend, especially with his improved mana pool. The two halves of the table began to glow, and within a minute they were rejoined as one whole again.

Craft level up
Lvl 2 → lvl 3
The cost of Craft has been further decreased slightly.

Weird, this is the only thing I’ve used it on since it last leveled up. Is it because this is the biggest object I’ve used it on so far? John asked himself. With his job done, John sat back down on the couch. Ganzac looked to John, but John was unable to read what he now thought of him. Until he remembered that he could always just cast Observe on him again, which he did. John was surprised to see that Ganzac’s relationship score with him had gone from -26 to -19. The information provided in the text was the same as before, but improvement was improvement.

“Fine, since you have already done it, the only thing I can do now is to lessen any possible risks. Give me a sample of your blood, and I will go visit an Apothecary to see if you really are fine as you claim to be,” Ganzac stated as his horns retracted back into his head and his hair became neat again.

“Alright,” was all Blair said as she disappeared into her barrier. A minute or so later, she came back out with a syringe partially filled with blood and a bandage over her right arm, a sign that it was fresh. Ganzac took the syringe and put it inside one of his pockets.

“Depending on what the Apothecary says, I might be gone until tommorow, so don’t you do anything stupid while I’m gone,” Ganzac said to Blair, while he sent John an accusing stare. With that, he tidied himself a bit and left Blair’s house, closing the door behind himself. John saw Blair plop herself back onto the couch seat next to him.

“So, about that call yesterday… I’m pretty sure I remember telling you last night that I would explain to you why killing barrier monsters isn’t as bad as you tried to make it out to be. So, the simplest way to do that would be to make a barrier with some monsters in it, and then I’ll get to the rest when we get there, sounds good?” she asked. John thought about it for a moment.

Well, this was originally what I wanted anyway, so might as well… he decided. With a nod, they both went outside to open a new barrier and make some monsters for them to fight.