"What now?" a voice echoed through the crowded hotel room. It ca from a boy with short white hair, his unnaturally red eyes glowing faintly in the dim light. The hotel, located in the bustling central district, felt suffocating despite its size.
"What now?... We’re obviously in deep trouble, jungle boy," Bramon muttered, slumped on a nearby chair. Annoyance was clear in his tone, his frustration barely hidden beneath a frown.
"Well, I didn’t expect much from the likes of you anyway," Ghaarsh shot back, his voice sharp and dripping with sarcasm. "Can’t even answer the question properly. What I ant was, what can we do now?" His words, though biting, lacked their usual venom. The exhaustion was starting to show.
"If you’re so smart, then please, by all ans, offer up a solution," Bramon retorted, not willing to back down from their usual back-and-forth, though even he wasn’t in the mood for it anymore.
"Quiet."
The command ca from a girl sitting on the bed, her arms tightly wrapped around her younger sister. Her voice wasn’t loud, but the weight of it silenced the room. There was no fire in her words, just cold resolve, yet sohow that made her more nacing than usual.
As she stared at the ceiling, her thoughts raced through the possible outcos. But nothing made sense. Her gaze fell to Klad and Brent, who both sat in brooding silence, clearly just as lost in thought.
"You two," Onia finally spoke, her voice breaking the stillness. "Do you have any ideas?" Her eyes moved between Klad and Brent, hoping for so sort of answer.
Klad turned his head slowly, his cold, calculated eyes eting hers. There was always sothing detached about his gaze, but now, beneath the icy surface, there was a flicker of uncertainty.
"I have two solutions to get your sister out of this," Klad said. His voice was as flat and composed as ever. "First, we drain her mystic power—"
"No!" Onia interrupted, her voice sharp with desperation. "She’ll beco a hollow if you do that. I won’t let that happen!"
"Listen to first... I’m trying to help you here, okay?" Klad looked at Onia, his eyes as sincere as ever. "So, the first plan is to drain your sister of her power, and then, before she becos a hollow, we replace her power with a new one."
"How...?" Onia couldn’t imagine how that would even work. The process of becoming a mystic was already hard enough; changing one’s mystic power would be like... replacing a person. That thought sent chills down her spine.
"It’s not as bad as you’re thinking. People used to do this a long ti ago... though they avoided it when they could."
"Is it safe?" Klad tried to make it seem like a good option, but Onia knew he was fronting.
"... " Klad sighed, looking at Onia. "Fifty-fifty is the best I can offer. It depends on the person doing it. Changing a mystic circle reaches deep into the fundantals of a human being... it could even be considered heretical."
"Is this from that ancient book you found again?"
"Yep," Klad replied, not wanting to reveal too much about his past. Brent glanced at him and couldn’t help but smile.
"What’s the other way you were talking about?" Onia asked.
"We plan an escape for your sister. The bulk of our trouble cos from her having a heretic circle. If she escapes and is no longer affiliated with us, we might avoid so judgnt. As for the others... we could always say they weren’t with us when Theia escaped."
"That’s..." Onia almost said "heartless," but then rembered her tiger mauling a man, suspecting him to be a heretic—only to find out he was just a rcenary. If not for the priest’s arrival, that man would’ve been dead. She had no right to throw around words like that.
"I know how you feel, Onia," Klad said. "’Look out for yourself and your friends first—it’s better to secure your own ship before rescuing others adrift.’ That’s what Tumidus Sailors always said. There’s more: ’Sotis you have to let go of those you can’t save, or you’ll all sink together.’ It doesn’t translate one-to-one to this situation, but you get the idea."
Onia glanced at Klad, then turned to Brent. She didn’t like either option. The first risked crippling her sister forever, and the second endangered soone’s life. Plus, Theia’s fate as a fugitive wouldn’t be much better.
After listening to Klad, Brent seed to have a thought.
"I might have a better solution."
"Really?!" Onia’s eyes lit up. "What is it?"
"We’re passing by Ruion village, right? I know a place there that sells a certain potion that could transform a person’s star into a circle."
"Sothing like that exists?" Klad was the one to voice his surprise. He hadn’t heard of such a thing, even in two lifetis.
"It’s a secret in my family," Brent said, "but it’s unreliable at best. I only read about it in a book, so it might not exist. But it’s worth a shot, right?" He smiled with confidence.
"Yeah... maybe, but what if we can’t find it?" Ghaarsh chid in after listening.
"..."
The room fell silent. Onia knew what they had to do.
"Then we go with Plan B and help my sister escape," she said, determined. At least with this route, Theia would survive. Brent smiled, clearly liking this side of Onia—confident, like the girl he rembered.
"Then it’s settled," Brent said. "We’ll try to find the potion at Ruion village on our way to the capital. If we don’t find it, we’ll help Theia escape to the northern lands."
Onia nodded, satisfied with the plan. She looked at Theia, still sleeping on the bed, and gently stroked her sister’s hair.
"I swear, Theia, no one will lay a hand on you," she whispered softly. Normally, they would reach the capital in three days, but with the high-security prison carriage, the journey would take an extra two. Onia couldn’t help but worry if that would be enough ti to find the potion to return her sister’s mystic circle to normal.
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