In the high throne room of the castle, there was a heavy twilight. The only sounds in this silence were quiet, measured smacks—the sound of a hand catching a falling object.
Lucius Feramir sat on a throne of black stone. With his legs crossed and his head tilted slightly back, he was tossing the head of Raul Werner into the air.
Lucius caught the head once again, met its lifeless gaze, and with a quiet smirk spoke into the emptiness of the castle:
"So, this is the path you've decided to take, Valdes and Olgerd..."
Rising from the throne, Lucius opened his fingers. Werner's head hit the floor with a dull thud and rolled across the stone.
Feramir left the hall. He walked through several dark, cobweb-draped corridors and emerged at an old stone staircase leading straight down to the lowest level.
Some flights of stairs had completely collapsed from age, leaving only gaping chasms. Lucius calmly stepped forward, leaping across the wide gaps and landing softly on the surviving ledges of the steps several levels below.
At the very bottom, in a damp dead end, loomed a colossal iron door.
Lucius stepped right up to it, typed a short numerical code on a touch panel hidden in the wall, and pressed his palm to the scanner. Inside the massive structure, hydraulic bolts ground into motion with a heavy hum. The door yielded backward with a screech and smoothly slid to the side.
Behind it, an enormous laboratory was revealed.
Inside the room, only the white screens of monitors glowed, and the blue and red LEDs of experimental rigs flickered. Hundreds of cables stretched across the floor, connecting massive server racks and sealed glass capsules.
Lucius walked slowly along the extended rows of terminals. Graphs, complex formulas, and biometric data reflected as white lines in his eyes. He thoughtfully ran his fingers over the metal panels, sorting through his options.
"How should I deal with them?.." Lucius mused, browsing through files on one of the main monitors. "I don't want to waste too much time on them. I need to pick something... that will finish them off very quickly."
Exactly one week had passed.
A rhythmic clatter echoed from the open clearing behind the house. Iron and Noah were sparring with wooden swords. Noah made a quick lunge toward Iron's midsection, but Iron effortlessly met the blade with a block, deflecting it to the side, and immediately countered with a quick strike.
The young men's physical condition was gradually returning to normal, and their joint sparring sessions were helping them regain their former reaction times.
Martha stepped quietly around the corner of the house. She stood for a couple of seconds, watching the boys, and then spoke up briskly:
"Let's wrap it up for today. Lunch is already on the table, go eat before everything gets cold."
"Alright, thank you, we'll be right there," Noah answered, lowering his sword first.
Iron also lowered his training blade and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. The boys walked over to a small wooden rack made specifically for training equipment and slotted their swords into place.
As they walked along the path toward the porch, Iron briefly recalled a conversation with Lumon:
"How long until my full recovery?"
[About a week and a half,] Lumon had replied.
"Why so fast?" Iron had wondered at the time.
[For most of that time, your body was completely under my control. This allowed for the distribution of physical load, avoiding micro-tears from chaotic movements, and directing the available resources strictly toward regeneration.]
"I see," Iron had muttered then, dropping the subject.
Approaching the door of the house, the engineer exhaled and followed Noah inside.
The boys entered the hallway, washed their hands, and went into the kitchen. Deep bowls of hot food and mugs of tea were already waiting on the table. Martha had stepped out into the yard for a minute, so Iron and Noah silently sat down and began to eat.
About a minute later, Elyria came down the stairs from the second floor—or rather, she floated down. Her pouting face and crossed arms made it clear she was extremely displeased.
Noah, without looking up from his food, asked calmly:
"Why are you so upset?"
"How could I not be mad?!" Elyria threw her hands up emotionally. "I'm in the middle of meditating, and I'm being forced to come eat!"
Noah looked up at her and said:
"You said yourself that food is the same thing as energy to you. That means eating is just another form of meditation. So keep quiet and eat."
Caught off guard, Elyria froze with her mouth open. She clearly intended to voice a couple of objections, but meeting Noah's stern gaze, she faltered. Pouting even harder, she silently drifted down to her portion and started eating.
The rest of lunch passed in silence. Fifteen minutes later, everyone had finished eating, cleared away their dishes, and went about their business.
About twenty minutes after lunch, Iron decided to check their surroundings. He took the steel sword—a gift from Martha and Alfred—and headed toward the forest near the house to see if any monsters lurked in the area.
Stepping beneath the canopy of trees, Iron walked slowly through the thicket, listening closely to the sounds and keeping his hand near the hilt. But after walking quite deep into the woods, he realized there were no monsters or dangerous creatures around. Only squirrels and other small harmless animals scurried about. Noting to himself that this forest was completely safe, Iron turned back.
By the time he emerged from the forest, it was already evening.
Approaching the house, Iron noticed Noah in the yard, training diligently on his own, practicing his lunges. Glancing up at the second-floor window, he saw Elyria, meditating motionlessly in the silence of her room.
Iron walked into the house and went up to the second floor. In his room, he swapped his boots for light indoor shoes, changed into dry clothes, and headed back down to the first floor.
At that moment, Noah was sitting alone at the table in the living room. A barely steaming cup of tea rested in his hands, and his gaze was fixed on a single point on the wooden tabletop.
Iron silently pulled out the chair across from him and sat down.
"Noah," the engineer spoke quietly but firmly. "There's no reason for us to stay here any longer. They saved us, helped us, gave us food and a roof over our heads—and for all of that, we thank them. But we can't sit here forever."
"Yeah... I know that myself," Noah answered in a quiet voice.
"We need to leave in the next few days," Iron continued. "Either tomorrow or the day after."
"Alright," Noah gave a curt nod, pushing his cup aside.
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