Aside from the fact that, in Tamay’s words, Sylver’s methods were primitive, cruel, and “beastly,” she agreed with Lola, and a man who Sylver had to assume was part of Arda’s military, that it would work.

Especially after they finished building a magic nullification perimeter around Arda, which was already halfway done, but was likely going to be moved up the priority queue if the higher-ups agree with Lola’s proposal.

Sylver left Lola and her assistant, who honestly looked more like her friend than her subordinate or anything, to figure out where and how to get the necessary quantity of ash-foam required to suffocate the attacking Krists to death.

Sylver on the other hand had dinner with Chrys, Ria, Misha, and Masha. The meal was simple, for Chrys’ sake, who for the first time since Sylver had known her actually looked like a little girl for a second.

They talked about nothing during the meal, most of the conversation was Chrys asking Misha about what kind of food Maul could make. It was then that Sylver realized that all three women had coincidentally in the past been incapable of eating food.

It was only when Sylver finished his meal, that Misha and Masha stepped out and Chrys began to talk.

“You’re going to need me when you go to the Schlagen mountains,” Chrys said as if it was an undeniable fact.

“…”

“I didn’t do it on purpose. This thing makes me know things, I can’t help it,” Chrys argued, with a gesture towards her left eye.

The eye that had previously belonged to Rose, the [Hero] from another world.

“It makes you know things, but not the fact that my answer is no?” Sylver asked.

He saw Chrys bite her tongue for a moment, as she considered whether or not to say what she had planned to say.

“Faust will protect me,” Chrys offered, again with that same tone of an undeniable fact.

Sylver crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the girl, who looked like she was 12, but spoke with an adult’s voice. Even if he was never going to say anything, so as not to hurt her feelings, it rubbed him the wrong way.

“Faust has been living here for 5 years. It would be cruel to ask him to uproot himself and come with me to a distant land,” Sylver explained and could feel that neither Ria nor Chrys seemed to consider this an issue.

“He’s been drinking himself to death, ever since his fiancée broke things off. Lola coddled him too much, it will do him good to go do something useful,” Chrys explained.

“What did I tell you about-”

“Masha told me. Ging thinks so too. Chloe said that if it weren’t for his body, he would have already been dead from alcohol poisoning,” Chrys said, and Ria bobbed up and down a little, which was her way of nodding.

“…”

“There are over 300 sects over there, and any one of them could have been the one that the [Jester Hero] fought and damaged his sword against. They’re secretive by nature, you would have to check each one individually if you went alone,” Chrys explained.

“I have a way of tracking Edmund. I get into the city, use the tracker, and rescue him, no extremely frail clairvoyant needed,” Sylver said.

He could feel that Chrys didn’t know this since this was the first time she had to stop reading from a mental script and had to actually think things through.

“Lola doesn’t have any contacts over there. And without someone on the inside, you’re going to have a hard time getting in,” Chrys said, and Sylver now struggled to guess what information Lola had told her, and what Chrys was being told by her clairvoyance and her eye.

“Chrys… Just… No… Alright? Can you trust that I know what I’m doing?” Sylver asked, almost pleading with Chrys to drop the subject.

“I want to help you… Unassailable, untouchable, unbreakable, unreachable. Strong enough that you never have to fight again… Everyone you care for, safe and off-limits. If I help you find Edmund faster, you’ll be able to go find the next person faster. And the next and the next, and then you’re done, and there’s no more fighting,” Chrys said quietly as if she could see all the dominos lined up right in front of her.

If the dining room wasn’t dead silent, Sylver doubted that he would have been able to hear what the girl had almost whispered.

“Let me tell you what will happen if you come with me. At some point, something is going to go wrong, because something always goes wrong, and you will be kidnapped, hurt, or possibly killed. And in all 3 cases, I’m going to take it personally,” Sylver said quietly.

He kept his voice calm and steady and took a brief pause when he remembered that despite how she sounded, Chrys was still a child. And as he realized this, he realized now wasn’t the time to explain to Chrys that Sylver was a monster.

Sylver stood up from his seat and walked over to Chrys. He crouched down near the floor so he was at eye level with her.

“Chrys... I do things, the way I do them, for a very good reason. This is how the Ibis was as successful and as powerful as it was. We specialized. The healers stayed inside, and healed the wounded, the researchers researched, the clairvoyants predicted the ends of the realm, and so on and so forth,” Sylver explained.

“We don’t send a healer to the front lines, we don’t send a clairvoyant to rescue someone, we don’t send a geomancer into the middle of the ocean, everyone was always used in places and positions that suited their strengths. You’re not a fighter. You’re a clairvoyant,” Sylver explained and nearly said “you’re a child,” and caught himself just in time.

“Faust will protect me,” Chrys repeated.

“Alright. What if he doesn’t?” Sylver asked.

“He’ll protect me,” Chrys repeated.

“Hypothetically speaking, someone sneaks up on him and knocks him out with a hammer to the back of the head. Now what?” Sylver questioned.

“I would warn him before he got hit,” Chrys said.

Sylver briefly looked down and gave up on his initial point.

“Cards on the table… I don’t want your death weighing on my conscience. Despite how I may appear, despite how it may seem sometimes, I am a very emotional person. We’ve only known each other for a few weeks, and you were unconscious for the majority of the time, but I don’t want a person under my protection being in a position where they could get hurt,” Sylver explained and made sure Chrys was looking him in the eye as he said it.

“I want to help you,” Chrys said, with a slight tremor in her voice.

“You can help me by staying here. Figure out how your eye works, and when I return, tell me where someone else from the Ibis is. Help Lola handle the war with the Krists. Help her track down the Council. Once we have their Eldar tree under our control, it’ll make…”

Sylver’s voice trailed off as his eyes went blank, and he stopped looking at Chrys and instead stared through her.

“Oh fuck,” Sylver said with a self-satisfied purr in his voice, as Ria made a sound.

Sylver lowered his head again, as he returned his focus to Chrys.

“Sorry about that… Are you afraid of me leaving you here?” Sylver asked as he had another realization.

“Yes,” Chrys answered, and Sylver could do little other than sigh.

“It’s Lola, isn’t it? She doesn’t look at you like you’re a person, and you’re worried that means she doesn’t care about you,” Sylver asked, as he remembered the cold and detached way with which Lola had conducted herself when they first arrived in Eira. In her defense time was of the essence, but you can only ever have 1 first impression.

“Listen… Lola is a high-elf. A real high-elf. One that could outlive everyone and everything, and she’s well aware of that… They don’t consider other races to be… important. To them, humans are like mice or goldfish. Dwarves are like cats, and other elves are just barely above dogs, or something along those lines.

“They don’t hold contempt for other races, but they never really bond with them. I’m immortal. More than that, I’m older than her. Her people place a lot of value on a person’s age. To the point a mentally decrepit high-elf has more value to them than a perfectly healthy high-elf, that’s 10 years younger than the other one. I wish I was joking,” Sylver said and could tell by the way Chrys was cocking her head she couldn’t see where he was going with this.

“She will warm up to you, I promise. Initially, it will be because you’re someone under my protection, but eventually, she’ll forget that, and simply care for you… If you want to help me, help Lola so she isn’t drinking herself to an early grave while I’m gone. Faust too, if you have the time,” Sylver offered, and could literally feel as he struck a chord inside Chrys.

“Alright… I can do that,” Chrys said, as Sylver felt relief flood through him, and a second later realized the feeling was coming from Ria. Seems like she also didn’t want Chrys to go with him.

Sylver stood up from his crouch and waited for the unsettled fluids inside of him to settle down.

“Where are you going now?” Chrys asked, as Sylver slowly leaned left and right to help the fluids settle.

“I’m going to have another chat with Zelvash. And if they’re willing to give me a tiny piece of their Eldar sapling, I’m going to make Lola a marker to track down the Council’s Eldar tree,” Sylver explained, as he lowered his hand towards Chrys.

“Oh… Is that why you said fuck?” Chrys asked, and Sylver felt Ria flinch while sitting on Chrys’ shoulder.

“Don’t swear. But yes. The spell I use to track via blood is very flexible… I never tried to use it on Eldar trees, but I can’t think of any reason why it wouldn’t work in theory,” Sylver explained, as the plates and cups on the dinner table, all mysteriously vanished as several white blurs whizzed around it.

They walked all the way to the front door before Sylver got another idea.

“It’s probably going to take me a while to convince Zelvash to let me touch their Eldar sapling. Why don’t you go tell Lola about the tracker I’m going to make, and I’ll go talk to Zelvash? Sounds fair?” Sylver offered.

“I would be delighted,” Chrys answered.

Sylver waited for Ging to get Romeo to come over, and Chrys left with the lycanthrope. Sylver went to try and convince Zelvash to part with one of the 12 Eldar saplings they had stolen from the Garden’s Eldar tree.