Sylver Seeker

Sylver’s robe peeled itself off his skin and slumped down onto the floor. It stayed there for roughly a second before a white-tinted blur picked it up and disappeared along with the gore-soaked robe.

There was a lot to be said about the rabbits.

They slept together in a big pile and only used their individual rooms to store their clothes and other possessions. They had ended up removing a wall so they had one large room for sleeping in.

Given that they moved fast enough that Sylver couldn’t really see them at half their full speed, they spent most of their free time either sleeping or sitting in the library and reading Sylver’s and the old owner’s books. The only ones that were awake for the majority of the day were Benny, Chloe, Maul, and Ging.

Benny and Chloe were both more or less pages. Sylver mostly had them run errands for him, either buying and delivering ingredients from alchemists, passing along messages, and the rest of the time they ran around the house helping out whoever needed it.

They both looked like 12-year-old human children, save for the fact that they were likely somewhere in their 20s.

While Sylver had been told most of their race didn’t age as fast as humans did, despite sharing their appearance, Benny and Chloe looked the way they did because of malnourishment. Both had short white hair that made it very difficult to tell them apart without seeing their face, given that Chloe hadn’t quite gained anything that could be described as “curves”.

But going by the way the other rabbit women looked, it seemed that she wasn’t that far away from how she should have looked.

Maul was the cook for the house, and while Lau the gardener could weed the whole area in under an hour, Maul had to sit around in the kitchen and wait for the food to cook through. She got along with Misha from the very first day, and they were planning a feast for the day she regained her physical body.

Maul’s ear was still crooked, because she had refused to have it healed, but hadn’t told anyone why. The healer fixed her eye and since it wouldn’t impede her work Sylver didn’t press the ear issue and let it be.

Ging took over several positions that would have normally been split up among at least 9 people, in a house of this size. He handled everything from making sure the silverware was polished, to greeting guests, to hiring craftsmen to make renovations to the house.

He was the smallest and shortest of all the rabbits, including Benny and Chloe, but it didn’t seem at all strange that he was their leader, and the head of the house.

Sylver finished washing himself and stepped out of the shower and into the recently renovated and improved bath.

It was a large room that was made almost entirely out of white marble. A large eight-sided platform sat in the very middle, while the “bath” was the flowing ring of water surrounding it.

What used to be overly sexualized carvings of young women washing one another, had been replaced by mountains, flowers, and a nude regal-looking woman who looked oddly similar to Sophia. It had been done while Sylver was away, and he was all but certain either Misha or Masha had asked whoever had been doing the carvings to include the image.

A small bucket floated in the slowly moving hot water, and Sylver wasted no time walking down the slippery wet steps and immersing himself completely. He summoned the drink he had stored inside his forearm using [Bound Bones] and as he took a sip of it he was reminded why staying alive was worth the effort.

Being dead was easy.

You literally didn’t have to do anything, you just existed without any ifs, ands, or buts about it. Especially once all your meat had rotted away and all that was left was clean bone.

In comparison staying alive was next to impossible.

From eating, to making sure you don’t bleed to death, infections, having to use the bathroom, brushing your teeth, keeping your body clean, sleeping, the fact that the living had time to do anything other than staying alive sometimes amazed Sylver.

But it was these rare rare times that made it all worth it.

Sylver closed his eyes as he took another sip of his cold ale and-

“There’s-”

Sylver held his hand up as Benny appeared out of nowhere and started to speak. Sylver kept his eyes closed and took a long deep breath before he finished his ale in three big gulps and gestured for Benny to continue as he made the glass disappear.

“There’s an investigator asking for permission to enter and search the house. He has 12 guards with him, Ging is currently speaking to him,” Benny finished, without so much as a flicker of annoyance in his voice. If anything he sounded a bit apologetic.

Sylver stood up from the bath as he waved towards one of the robes hanging in the changing room, and made it float over to him. He tied it around himself as he walked out of the bath and walked normally until he left the white marble room entirely. Sylver turned into smoke and funneled himself straight up to the ground floor, via the many many pipes that he had installed specifically for this purpose.

Although Sylver moved in almost a perfectly straight line, Benny was already at the front door and was holding it open for him.

Marshal had a very odd look on his face as Ging quietly refused to allow him entrance. Ging was a small man, all the rabbits were small. And in Ging’s case especially, frail. Lao was the strongest among them, but she couldn’t even lift up certain flower pots, let alone physically overpower someone.

Which made the confident way in which Ging just silently stood in Marshal’s face and told him to “fuck off” with his eyes all the more impressive.

Sylver, with a wet head of hair and dressed in nothing but a plain white bathrobe, placed his hand on Benny’s shoulder and gently pulled him behind him. Benny took the hint and disappeared somewhere out of sight, and out of Sylver’s soul-sensing range.

Ging on the other hand disappeared in a faint blur of white before he appeared on Sylver’s right side and stood about half a step back from him.

“You must think you’re so clever,” Marshal said as he fanned himself with a thin sheet of parchment.

“Depends who I’m compared to. I like to think I’m above average, but it doesn’t feel like it sometimes. But compared to a brain-dead piece shit like you, I’m might as well be fucking Thoth,” Sylver answered, in such a polite and calm tone that it took Marshal a second to figure out what he had actually said.

“Insults, how predictable. Well, considering you’ve only got 30 days and 11 hours left, I’ll give you that one,” Marshal said after a short pause.

“That’s very generous of you. Since you’re being so nice, I’ll to go a bit easier on your mother’s cunt tomorrow night,” Sylver offered, still with a polite smile on his face, even as Marshal’s face turned a faint tinge of red, while the guards behind him ranged from neutral, to literally standing with their mouth open from shock.

“It says more about you than it does me when you speak such tripe. What are your beady-eyed servants going to think of you?” Marshal asked.

Sylver looked down at Ging who didn’t have even a trace of emotion on his face. He seemed a little angry, but it was hard to tell, Sylver wasn’t familiar with their species well enough to get a read using his soul sense.

“Scared I might actually do something? How do you know I haven’t already? I’m fairly gifted with earth magic if I do say so myself. Why I might have done it back when you nearly let one of your guards kill another one,” Sylver said.

He got the reaction he wanted as some of the guards behind Marshal perked up, and were careful not to stare at him.

“You know; I almost didn’t see it. I checked your housing permits by sheer accident, and I can’t believe you would be so stupid as to register it in your own name. I obviously can’t use anything I find inside right now, but in a mere 30 days and 10 ish hours, you’re going to just sort of disappear. It might be a new record for the shortest trial ever,” Marshal said in a low whisper, as he shoved the parchment towards Sylver.

“That’s Arda for you. One day you’re here, the next day you’re gone,” Sylver mumbled as he read through the warrant.

“Ging, do you mind getting everyone dressed and out here please?” Sylver asked, as the man did a very faint bow before disappearing.

“Want to confess a few things to save me the time? Imprisonment? Torture? Unregistered experimentation? What am I looking at here?” Marshal asked as Sylver handed the warrant back to him.

“Who knows? It isn’t like any of you are going to make it to the front door, let alone to wherever it is I’ve hidden all the atrocities I allegedly committed,” Sylver said, as the rabbits all appeared as one directly behind him and dressed as if they hadn’t been fast asleep a mere 5 seconds ago.

“Is that a threat!” the guard standing directly behind Marshal asked, and practically shoved out of the way. Sylver felt a warmness spread in his chest as not a single rabbit standing behind him so much as flinched. They trusted Ging, and Ging trusted Sylver.

“Just stating a fact. Even with how near-immortal guards are within city limits, there’s still a limit to the amount of damage you can take. I’d wager that if you all ran at the same time maybe one of you would be able to reach the front door. If they’re feeling playful they might even let you get inside,” Sylver wondered, as he walked a little to the right, and walked past the wide-open gates, and stood with the rabbits directly behind him and out of the way of Marshal and the guards.

“Let me guess, you booby-trapped the whole place. You do realize that this will be considered a direct attack on a guard, and as you’re well aware, is punishable by death? You’re making this too easy, I’m disappointed,” Marshal said with a small laugh at the end of his sentence.

“It would be, but I’m not going to attack anyone or do anything, I’m going to stand right here and watch,” Sylver said with a shrug towards the warrant in Marshal’s hand. The guards all took a step towards the house, but Marshal made them stop.

“Sir?” the guard at the very front asked.

“I don’t believe you’re stupid enough to attack a guard,” Marshal said, although he made it sound like a question.

“Why don’t you go inside and find out? What’s stopping you?” Sylver asked, as he pointed towards his empty house, where his bath was ever so slowly cooling down.

Not that he couldn’t get it back to a perfect temperature in a couple of seconds, but it was the principle of it.

“Illusion magic? There’s nothing here and it’s all a façade?” Marshal guessed.

“I’ll save us both some time because I’ve got more important things to do than standing around talking to someone that didn’t even read his warrant properly,” Sylver said, as Marshal opened up the page in his hand and started to read through it.

“Read carefully where it says “S class dwelling, unknown specialization,”,” Sylver offered as Marshal’s eyes traveled down to the section that would normally say “mansion” or “3 story house”.

“Nice try, I saw the quest you handed in to get this land, it was infested with phantoms and you cleared them out,” Marshal said after a short pause as he consulted his memory.

“I wouldn’t say infested. But it doesn’t matter, go on ahead, I gave it my best shot to stop you, my hands are squeaky clean,” Sylver said, as none of the guards moved an inch.

“Didn’t this used to be the Anderey residence?” one of the guards near the back asked. This stirred the others to start whispering amongst themselves.

“No, you registered it as your house right after you finished the quest,” Marshal said, his eyes were closed now and he was trying to remember the exact page he had read this information from.

“Did I? Huh? Weird, I was so sure I explained in great detail that it was still actively being dwelled in and should be classified as such. Technically speaking it’s a privately owned hunting ground, sort of like a mini-dungeon. But I’m sure your men trust you with their lives, so go right ahead,” Sylver goaded, as he waved his hand towards the entrance.

“He’s bluffing,” the same guard that spoke earlier said.

“Who knows? Maybe I had the foresight to make sure that if someone decided to break into my house I wouldn’t have to worry about killing them without having to bother reporting it to anyone. Or maybe I knew something like this would eventually happen, and thought this would be the best way to hide all of my alleged crimes,” Sylver said, still wearing his white bathrobe and still calm and collected.

Chloe sneezed, and Ging silently handed her a handkerchief.

“He’s bluffing. If there really was something inside that could kill us, he wouldn’t have said anything. Because I bet you’ve spent every night trying to come up with a way to get rid of me, haven’t you? You wouldn’t let such a golden opportunity pass you by, would you?” Marshal asked with an ever-growing smile all while staring at Sylver.

“Honestly I’ve been so busy with other shit I all but forgot about you. First, there’s the, you know what situation to worry about, then I have to spend several hours sewing up your mother’s…”

Sylver very suddenly remembered Chloe and Benny were nearby. He turned to ask for them to go on a walk, only to find they were already gone, and Ging gave him a very quick nod.

They might have been in their 20s in human years, but they were still children in rabbit years. And while Sylver had no problem with them seeing him operate on living human beings, swearing was an entirely different issue.

“-your mother’s cunt, and cleaning the blood of retarded would be thieves that became nothing more than splatters on my floor, and fertilizer for my garden,” Sylver explained calmly, while he checked his nails.

Marshal didn’t say a single word as he just stared at Sylver, all while Sylver didn’t even bother to meet his eyes and continued to inspect his pitch black, but otherwise perfectly fine, fingernails.

“We’re leaving,” Marshal said with finality. The guards that had been standing two steps away from crossing the gate’s threshold and entering Sylver’s territory stayed where they were.

“You sure?” Sylver asked, as he now met Marshal’s eyes and asked the question as if he were speaking to a child or a small cute animal.

“Sir, whatever it is we can handle it,” the guard standing nearest to the metal line in the ground that signified the edge of the house’s land.

Not that it meant anything anymore, Sylver had helped Misha and Masha out a little, they could easily grab every single guard standing here right now. Not to mention they had been diligent in practicing the exercises Sylver had taught them, he almost wished the guards would go inside, just so he could see how they would put their newly discovered abilities to use.

“We’re leaving, I’m not going to risk it,” Marshal repeated, as the guard who had spoken up just looked at him. Marshal turned around and started to walk away.

“Wow. I’m touched, I’m honestly at a loss for words. Here I thought you were too proud to admit defeat. That you would sooner die than let whatever the fuck your family name is get dragged through the mud in dishonor. But to think you’re willing to tuck your tail and run, all for the sake of keeping your subordinates and friends safe? Marshal, you might be a spineless wimp, but I can’t help but respect a man that is willing to admit when he’s been defeated,” Sylver said, shouting louder and louder with each word as Marshal gained distance.

It wasn’t that late in the night, and a few people walking through the streets turned to look at them.

Marshal turned around and stormed back towards Sylver, his hands were shaking and his eyes bloodshot as he got right up to Sylver’s face and spoke in a very harsh and controlled whisper.

“I’m going to see you dead in a labor camp even if it’s the last thing I do,” Marshal warned.

Sylver leaned a hair’s width closer towards him, to the point their noses almost touched. Sylver smiled slightly at Marshal as he considered what he was about to say.

He decided he didn’t really care if Marshal was scared of him or not, and decided not to tell him about the hired assassin.

“Good luck with that,” was all that Sylver said, as he turned into smoke and flew backward towards his house. The gates slammed shut behind him.

They squeaked open for a second as Benny and Chloe returned, but Marshal was already too occupied with his thoughts to have noticed it.

*

*

*

Sylver once again sat in the slowly moving hot water, drunk, and genuinely couldn’t imagine life being any better than this. After killing over 200 people and spending most of that time awake and on the move, he needed this.

It wasn’t that he felt bad for killing them, he did, but in a very general sense that he felt bad for causing anyone harm, but what he meant was that it was simply exhausting killing that many people. Even with the shades handling most of the killing, Sylver still needed to heal and organize them, Spring was still new at this whole thing and made more mistakes than Sylver was willing to allow.

But Spring was learning, so that was good.

Things were going well as a whole.

About the only thing that could make everything better was if Sylver somehow managed to bypass his blind spot and was able to find a way to make his undead immune to the one thing that stopped necromancers from taking over the world.

All mages had a specialty. An area of magic in which they naturally excelled and had no equal.

In Sylver’s case, it was soul magic.

Magic that didn’t work without an extremely powerful and flexible soul. And while Sylver’s soul was flexible, it was a very far cry from powerful right now. It was kind of funny if he was being honest with himself.

And in the same way that all mages had a specialty, they also had an inverse of a specialty. Sylver had always assumed his was Ki and other life magics, but apparently not.

If his complete and total inability to grasp the magic Lola had so easily applied was to go by, he had simply not tried hard enough to figure out how all those semi-immortal cultivators managed to get so strong while just sitting around and sucking on pills.

Sylver gestured at his freshly cleaned robe and the ring floated out of it and flew into Sylver’s hand.

With his [Mana Perception] Sylver could almost count the individual invisible folds in the metal that was used to make the ring, let alone the actual framework carved inside of it.

It was hard to describe the mental block that he felt when observing it. Like putting a puzzle together and seeing 99.9% of the picture, only for the last piece to go in and make the whole thing completely unintelligible.

If Sylver had asked Lola to make it for his shades, she would have probably made collars or bracelets, this was… very likely done without her realizing what she had made until it was finished. It made sense from a practical point of view, and it wasn’t like she made him a weapon he could use. The most vulnerable part had the highest defense, Sylver couldn’t fault her logic.

Sylver was familiar with priests and their “magic”, but there was plain and simple a limit to what a person could learn without ever being able to cast a blessing himself. It was like trying to learn to swim without having any arms or legs.

Sure, hypothetically you could sort of float and move around using your head, but even an amateur swimmer with at least an arm would swim circles around you. Theory only got you so far, magic didn’t make sense until it did.

Sylver heard the door open behind him and had expected to see Benny or Ging, but instead, he saw Sophia wearing his bathrobe that was far too small in the chest area for her, and far too short for how long her legs were.

Sylver was about to say something but was caught off guard in more ways than one. He very briefly saw Misha float behind Sophia while giving him a double thumbs-up before floating away.

“What is that?” Sophia asked as she pointed at the gem-studded ring in Sylver’s hand. He had forgotten he was still holding it and he didn’t have anywhere to hide it.

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