“Can you hear me?” A hazy voice that seemed to reverberate and twist called me in the middle of the darkness, but when I tried to answer, nothing came out. More than that, it seemed that I couldn’t feel my body at all, meaning this was likely a dream or something of the sort. “I guess it did not work again… Or maybe…”

  The voice stopped a little and I could feel something similar to someone staring at my non-existent body. A very annoying feeling since I had no armor here at all, especially if this isn’t just a normal dream. And the voice seemed to notice that I thought this much.

  “That is… What an odd reaction… But that does mean you can hear me, no?” It continued, pausing again for some unknown reason that ended up being very stupid. “Oh, right! Even if you are, you cannot answer, so no point asking. My apologies…”

  I couldn’t see anything, but I had the feeling the thing talking to me was bowing for some reason. I also had the feeling that some other voice was laughing at the back of this one, but it was too muted to be sure.

  “Well, I must be fast then. Who knows how long this will last…” The voice started once more, trying to focus itself or maybe just trying to remember what it wanted to do. “So, I would like to apologize first, for many things, but that seems to not work well in this situation… Instead, I shall give what you needed long ago, although not fully and not in a direct way. In fact, all I can really do is explain some things verbally right now and hope that you can hear and then use it… Oh! I am losing focus again, am I not?”

  The voice reacted to my annoyance again and went into another apologetic tangent. It was losing so much time, the voice itself was starting to fade away as I got more and more annoyed. Both of these seemed to finally push it back to the subject.

  “Ah! I am losing you again… Errr… Artifacts! It is not exactly that and it should not work that well, but focus on them. They should be enough for you to…” The voice finally trailed off, going too quiet for me to hear until it shouted one last sentence. “Just stop ignoring the voices of the tools, please!”

  And then I woke up in the middle of what seemed to be a medieval hospital with a huge headache. Me waking up called the attention of the two doctors that were around, but I dismissed them by saying I was fine. I had more to think about than a knock on the head, and they had more to do with the other three people in the room who were in much worse states.

  No one I know, and so, no one I care, though. And since that was the case, I just pulled the magical hand mirror and started to stare at it like the weird voice said. Paying attention to whatever voice was a little hard considering that the most I could hear were the usual cluttering whispers in my head. A mess of random whispers that I usually did my best to ignore but that I was now trying to make sense of.

  Which, weirdly enough, got me a result.

  A muted and hard to hear result, but there was something there. And the more I thought about it, the more I could feel my mana moving around the mirror and the more I got to understand it. It was pretty much like hearing a recipe or manual, but I couldn’t guess what exactly I could do with it.

  The mirror was willing to tell me, though in something I could hardly call a voice. It was more like random noises that my brain could somehow decipher, but alas.

  “This is…” I stopped with my head already hurting but a piece of information that was beyond what I was expecting. It was enough for me to stop every thought running through my mind to focus on this one little piece of information.

  Then, as I was messing with recipes and manuals with my little mirror, Eve and Elen appeared and got me worried again.

  “Mr. Hero is what?!” I shouted out after my focus stupor finally broke and I heard about the curses and the coma.

  “In a coma. No idea when he’ll be back, so we’re in crisis management for now.” Elen explained after we met with her at the infirmary area of the palace’s overcrowded chapel. “The others of his party aren’t that bad, but they’re all wounded too.”

  “We’re in trouble…”

  Curses are just like artifacts: rare, impossible to replicate, and linked to an old extinct race that were basically devils. They also usually came together with artifacts, although it made them actually rarer than those. Breaking curses was also a pain that relied on creating something close to a ‘magical vaccine’ or whatever, so an unknown one is a huge problem.

  “That’s underestimating it.” Elen continued with a serious expression. “Not sure how much you know, but both Lazzos and the Federation will probably make a move now. We can’t pull another summoning so soon, so we’re wide open for it.”

  I didn’t spend much looking at this place’s history, but I know that those names are from neighboring countries. Neighboring countries that, many times before, were punched by more violent heroes and didn’t like Prourene, so it was easy to get the idea.

  “Can you fight them?” I asked with my head already going to two different routes depending on the answer. “Fight and win, I mean.”

  “Yes. Kinda… They’ll surely come since we have no hero, but we can win after giving some land and wasting some people.” Elen sighed before throwing herself in one of the few empty beds of the infirmary, weirdly trying to avoid my gaze. “It’s either that or…”

  Elen’s words were way more serious than what I usually saw, and from what she told us, that was justified. Something went wrong with the hero moments before she could solve the internal dangers that would fire if the hero went down. It almost felt planned if you asked me, but I couldn’t imagine who would be able to plan something like this.

  But it meant that my least favorite option was the right one to use.

  “And what if you had a hero then?” I asked before getting up and staring straight at the laid down princess. “Or at least, if you made them think you have.”

  “You can’t mean…?”

  “I can.” I interrupted Elen before she could ask if I was going crazy or something. “Shouldn’t be perfect and I’ll have to make it work, but I have some magic, so if I use it…”

  “Excuse me, milady.” A male voice called me out from the side as a tall guy in glasses got up from one of the beds. One of the hero’s party members if I remember right, not that I ever talked with him or had any idea why he suddenly got up. Especially considering he had most of his chest covered in bandages.

  Quite the handsome guy still.

  Stern face paired with blue eyes and glasses, very tall, dark gray groomed hair, seemed to be fit enough, and had an aura of nobility to top it off. Wouldn’t rate him top-class like the princesses or absolute supreme master class like me, but he was quite good. And that wasn’t only due to the half-naked state.

  Could stare at him for a while even if I wasn’t so confused, but focus, please.

  “Errr…” I managed to answer eventually. “Do you need something?”

  “Sorry about coming from nowhere like this. I’m Calixto Vanrook and I heard you mentioning ‘your magic’ here, so it got my attention more than I would like to admit.” The handsome guy explained himself, finally going to the point with something I didn’t expect. “Is it about the 'silver magic' my father was researching?”

  His father? Why would I… Oh! The magic teacher who gave up on me and fled to some magical tower or whatever. Is this guy his son? This young?! That archmage guy was, like, super old or something. Efficiency, I guess… Back to the subject, though.

  “It is indeed about ‘silver magic’, although I can’t explain that well what’s happening.” I answered in the best way I could considering I didn’t know this guy at all. “Let’s just say that I can interact with artifacts, although I’m not sure how much.”

  “Interact with… artifacts?” He raised an eyebrow in an expression that seemed mixed in suspicion and curiosity. “What do you mean by that?”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “I need to try things out before being sure of anything.” I tried to avoid the questions, turning to the two people I know for help while at it. “I’m not so sure how much I can say about it, though… It’s a little too far off from anything I know about normal magic right now.”

  As I said before, artifacts don’t work like any normal magic. From the structure to the symbols used in it, they were almost completely different things comparable to the special skills other races have. Explaining what I can do with them didn’t make a lot of sense even for me…

  “So that’s how it is…” He answered in a somewhat disappointed tone but got more serious very fast. “Can I help with it? I’m unsure if you know this much, but I am a graduated mage and scholar. I could be very helpful to this experiment of yours.”

  “Hmmm…” I stopped to think, turning to my nominal bodyguards again just in case. I also tried getting Eve to say something with my expression only, but she turned away as if she didn’t want to get involved.

  “Shouldn’t you be resting now, younger Vanrook? Hells, at least wait some hours and have these bandages removed before forcing your body.” Elen got up with some good excuse to deflect this guy away and then went on firing. “More so, are you sure you want to play around wounded? You’re a mage, so you should know how messy this can get… You need a license to make magical experiments for a reason.”

  “I understand this much, but leaving this chance won’t do for me. This ‘silver magic’ from Ms. Illia caused a good deal of problems for me already, so I would be grateful if you would let me, at least, take notes.” He held onto the idea of staying close by, arguing even further. “And as you said, Your Highness, it is dangerous. Having someone who knows more about this kind of research would be safer.”

  “That… Hells… I mean… Wait a moment, will you?” Elen failed as my backup only to turn back to me after some arguments. “So, doesn’t he have a point? My curiosity got me and all, but isn’t someone who knows how this works useful?”

  “If it is as dangerous as Sir Vanrook said, that is probably a good idea.” Eve also agreed with the reasonable point of the two nobles, something I was close to doing too since I didn’t expect to be in danger. And then, both stared at me as if waiting for my decision.

  “Well… True. You two have a point.” I conceded to the light pressure and then turned back to the only person who seemed to have an idea of what we would be doing. “We have decided to take on your offer, Mr. Glasses. Thanks for the help in advance.”

  “Glasses…?” He stopped in confusion for a moment while I turned back to Elen without hearing whatever he wanted to say.

  “Anyway, I need artifacts to try this whole thing out. Can you get me some, Elen?”

  “Getting you some artifacts…” She mused for a moment, seemingly trying to read if it was a good idea or not. “I can probably get you the ones in the vault, but they’re all either troublesome or just useless.”

  “That’s good enough for me. I need them for tests first and only then we can think about practical usage or something of the kind.”

  “A plan is a plan.” She nodded at the idea with a brighter expression than before. “Let us go visit the vault and see what you can get. And you are coming with us, Vanrook.”

  “Understood, Your Highness.” Glasses nodded before rushing to put on a shirt even though Elen was already leaving the room with her maid in tow. It almost made me feel bad for ignoring him earlier, so I took the job of giving him a thumbs up before also following.

  After that, we followed Elen for a little while, passing by groups of hurried knights, maids and bureaucrats buzzing around the corridors. Impressive they were already like this considering everything started only a few hours ago, or maybe worrying fits better. But that was for me to think about after I managed to get some usefulness.

  “Down here, everyone.” Elen eventually stopped in one isolated door in some random tower of the palace, leading us down a few sets of stairs to a bigger set of doors. “I present to you my artifact vault! Although most of what’s in here are scraps.”

  She pointed to the double closed doors, standing by its side with Eve on the other side and waiting for me to open it. Was a little odd, but she was an odd princess anyway, so I ignored the detail and approached, but stopped a moment before touching it.

  “Now that’s a mean prank, you know?” I smirked, hearing the voice of the door and ignoring the migraine caused by it. This one didn’t have any complex rules, so I quickly decided what to change and opened the door. “Funny toy, though.”

  “Heheh. You’re no fun like this…” Elen laughed and leaned at the open door, suddenly blushing after activating my trap. “You… What did you do?”

  “Just a fun little experiment.”

  “Ignoring the danger of experimenting with silver magic without warning anyone…” Glasses came to the front and also touched the door after seeing Elen’s reaction, opening a surprised smile due to it. “Could you explain what you did, lady Illia?”

  “I changed ‘forget’ to ‘remember’ and ‘goal’ for ‘wish’ in the artifact’s rules. It uses a good amount of mana, though. I couldn't do it too many times like this, I think, but I could lower the mana usage by changing the words in a way that would lower the scale.” I answered with a pensive expression as I tried to decide what I should call the things I’m changing. “Looks like another successful experiment, but not exactly something I can use…”

  “The ability to modify a spell… That’s impressive.”

  “More like the ability to modify artifact effects, but that’s that.” I shrugged while still not so sure about how useful this one is. “Modifying spells shouldn’t be too hard, though. You can just read and go around swapping runes, I guess…”

  “Haha, that’s not wrong for sure.” The handsome mage laughed as if he just heard a smart joke, which I didn’t get. “Just taking a dictionary and going around creating spells would surely be incredible…”

  He was saying some weird things that didn’t really make much sense from what I read about magic, but I couldn’t point out what. Smart people are weird, though, so I ended up just ignoring it and moving on. I had more important things to care about and was already focused on the small room cluttered with stands and boxes.

  “Now, what do we have here?” I asked the two people who would have any idea, ignoring the deafening mass of whispers filling my head just by being here. “Anything that could blow people up or create huge illusions will do.”

  “Do you really think we’d have something that useful behind the minimal security necessary?” Elen focused herself back, putting on a cynical expression before turning back to normal. “Or at least I think that’s the case. I honestly have no idea of what I have here… But Eve does.”

  “We have the hand mirror you had removed from the storage a few days ago and a gauntlet that can change the looks of spell circles and enchantments. But nothing that could actually cause explosions or any direct damage.” Eve answered with her usual deadpan tone as if she was already waiting to answer this much. “We do have some that enter this classification, but they already have holders. Some are…”

  “The Hero’s Sword, the Three Moon’s Armor, and the Kait-gems are the most prominent of those.” Glasses added while fixing his glasses and taking a look around the room. “I can see one or two other famous items around here also. Although I wouldn’t recommend trying to use either even with your skill.”

  “Mentioning the items held outside this room and the dangerous cursed ones have little value, milord, so I would prefer to avoid such.” Eve shot out in a way that, although shouldn’t have, felt as if she was a little annoyed by having someone interrupt her. “Either way, we do have some minor defensive items here. The sort that isn’t worth the weight and mana usage, but they may be useful, milady.”

  “Maybe… Maybe, but…” I closed my eyes for a moment due to a weird feeling going over the mass of noises and tried to look for something unusual. Anything interesting other than pure intuition that I could go for or just some item that made me curious, which did get a result after some seconds. “But I want that one to test out.”

  I pointed without looking, but I couldn’t avoid thinking about how good I am at guessing.

  What I was pointing out was a fancy sword. A decorated black and golden saber that fit quite well my current villainess look and that I couldn’t get the effect right away. It didn’t make me stop and think about it before I had the damn thing at hand, though.

  “Oh! I remember this one… It sucks.” Elen spoke up right as I started to analyze the saber. “Too hard to use for WAY too little effect. It’s almost funny how little this thing can do.”

  “Your Highness’ right. Universal magical affinity at the cost of sapping your stamina at high rates is a very low gain.” Eve added to her liege’s words, only making me more interested in the blade, something that she noticed without much fanfare. “But I see you do have an uncanny interest or some unusual plan for it already, so would you like to have it removed from the stand, milady?”

  “Glad my expression was enough for this one.” I smiled with my eyes still locked on the sword until I heard a plan to use this blade that was actually different from what I had in mind.

  “I see… Since you cannot use magic, you want to make do by using the sword as some sort of catalyst.” He said in a matter of fact tone, nodding at the good idea and then adding to his own theory. “Likely by changing the fact it gives multiple affinities, maybe even replicate other artifacts with it… Or so is my guess.”

  All I wanted was to swap magical affinity for physical strength to make myself super strong or whatever the effect ended up being, but this one was more adaptable than what I had. Couldn't use them both at the same time and, even if the spells ended at the same mana usage, my reserves aren't that big, so I wouldn't be that powerful with it, but versatility is usually better when trying to play a role.

  “I would love to take your idea and pretend it was mine, but that’s not the case.” I stared at the mage with some newfound respect for his area of expertise. “Let’s use it, though. I’ll go picking artifacts and telling you what I can do and you tell me any ideas you have, okay, Glas…? No, tell me whatever you can, Cal.”

  This guy was more useful than I was expecting, enough for me to gain genuine interest in him instead of just having him as a member of Mr. Hero’s party. Not sure if it would result in more than some help at the current conundrum, but getting friendly with him could be useful in the future.

  The change in how I was calling him seemed to confuse Calixto a little, though. Even if not enough to change his focus from the potential research.

  “But of course. That’s why I’m here.”

  “I guess you two already have a good plan then.” Elen nodded at the situation even if she didn’t seem to care much about it by now. “And I guess we’ll stay here trying these things until you find something that’s good enough.”

  “Pretty much so. But don’t worry, I’ll make this be enough.” I answered in a cocky tone, already holding the blade that seemed to oddly draw my attention. “Or at least, I’ll make them look enough, like a good swindler.”