Chapter 71 Run.

  Lenna hated being fussed over more than almost anything else. She felt like she was trapped in the body of a statue that was being repainted. It never helped that whenever she was in such a situation, she would be lucky to still have her underarmor on. In fact, if she hadn’t been wearing the positively priceless drider silk underarmor that her husband had given her, they might’ve tried to get her to take that off too.

  Hours. It had been hours. Around six if she was counting correctly, which she usually was, and the two dressmakers hadn’t taken even a minute long break. She got to sit whenever they were cutting, stitching, and sewing, but then was immediately forced to stand once more. Parts and pieces of the dresses found themselves on and off again. Cut, stitched, sewn, size checked, measured, and then the cycle would repeat. Lenna had been both concerned and surprised when a spool metal wire the size of a table was wheeled in and then outright shocked when the dressmakers made her ignite her aura so they could check how the fabric would look through it.

  Eventually, Lenna had to clear her throat. “We are going to be late for an appointment that I am honor bound not to miss.” Lenna told the other three in the room. “Isaac, my clothes.”

  “But we are over halfway done, surely it can wait-” The male dressmaker began.

  “It’s been six hours. I cannot stand here for another two and a half. I have a brawl to win.” Lenna stated as Isaac got up and grabbed her clothes off of the nearby table.

  “I do apologize but that is the way it must be.” Isaac told the dressmakers. “We will return afterwards, if you would like, or we can come back in the morning?”

  “Tonight, yes, if we are to finish this by noon then it must be tonight.” The male dressmaker replied. His partner looked positively worn out but she nodded in agreement.

  “Alright.” Isaac agreed. “Get something to eat, and maybe some rest, we will be back in two to three hours.”

  The male dressmaker expressed that he would be doing no such thing but the female dressmaker looked like she was going to try and do just that if she could escape her companion’s attention long enough to do so.

  Isaac and Lenna, for their part, went straight to the Guild Hall for edible food before their fight. Once they arrived, everyone seemed to notice them, it was almost like they had triggered some unseen ward that notified everyone else in the building of their arrival. One of the younger adventurers got shoved towards them by his companions who all looked to be no older than eighteen. His hair was an orange so vibrant that Isaac had only ever seen its match in the sun at dawn, his eyes were so blue that they almost seemed to glow, and his teeth and fingernails were all a vibrant verdant green. Even if his mana capacity hadn’t tipped Isaac off at the fact that the boy was a sorcerer, then his strange color palette would have.

  “Hello.” Isaac greeted the poor boy whose skin was turning so red that Isaac was starting to think that he was gaining control over another color of the mana spectrum. Usually he would have made sure to maneuver the social situation to always force the other party to put forth the effort but this time he would just feel bad. It was clear that the boy’s companions had been too shy to confront the duo in the first place and the sorcerer had been voted to be the one that would have to do the talking.

  “H-Hi. Uh, we were wondering if you were the ones who fought with Lady Catastrophe when she shook the mountain yesterday.” He stammered out.

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  “Yes, though she did that before we started fighting.” Isaac replied.

  “You started fighting afterwards?” The young sorcerer's eyes opened wide.

  “Yes. The threats could be summarized as such: There was a general, who was effectively a level forty spellblade. A few hundred level twenty five warrior-barbarian hybrids. And a few hundred thousand single digit grunt infantry. Jane, Catastrophe, hit them with everything she had and dropped their numbers down to a handful of the warrior-barbarian hybrids and their leader. We were there to kill the leader and whatever managed to get lucky enough to survive Catastrophe doing what she does best.” Isaac explained and watched as even more money was being passed around in the background, though this time it was only by the gold and platinum level adventurers.

  “And you, you won?” The sorcerer asked in a mixture of awe and doubt.

  “Of course.” Isaac replied. “I am the Lord of all that is Dark.” Isaac’s statement momentarily dimmed the entire room as if half of the lights had suddenly gone dark. “I don’t lose, and neither does my wife.”

  “So it’s true?!” A girl from the same group as the sorcerer, though with the more common light brown hair and eyes of Altesia exclaimed, seemingly unaware of the flexing of true magical authority that had just gone on around them. “You are really gonna fight Setanta?!”

  Lenna nodded. “Yes.” She confirmed. “Though I would like something to eat first.” She said the last part more to the young man standing in front of them than to the girl and nodded her head in the direction of the food bar, the direction that was being blocked by the young sorcerer who had frozen entirely in shock as he felt all of the flexing of Isaac’s power.

  Isaac nodded for Lenna to go on ahead as he walked up to the sorcerer and put a hand on his shoulder. The placement of his hand seemed to be enough to snap the sorcerer out of his trance but the rest of the room was still solidly looking at Isaac. Some of the platinum level adventurers looked like they were worried that they didn’t have their weapons on them, probably because they had doubts that Isaac wasn’t actually just a black dragon that had shapeshifted into a human, the gold adventures just looked a bit wary and curious but didn’t really seem to understand what had just happened, and the rest just seemed confused. The one thing that every level range had in common was that all of the full casters were stunned and frozen.

  “If you ever feel what you just felt again, and it isn’t from me, run.” Isaac told the sorcerer who had finally broken from his trance. “Don’t just stand there like an idiot. Run.” He warned with enough seriousness that the young sorcerer gulped and nodded his head rapidly to make sure that Isaac knew that he had understood.

  “Why?” The sorcerer’s voice squeaked out a reply.

  “Because only archmages, dragons, and demigods can use Words of Power.” Isaac informed him. “And only double platinums are equipped to be on those battlefields. There might come a day when you and a bunch of other golds are sent to hunt down a young dragon, that dragon will speak to you in something close to Words of Power. That is fine, that is the only way that they can talk. But if you feel a word in your core and the environment changes, you take your team and run. Find double platinum level adventurers, like the Guild Masters, and pray that they are enough.”

  The sorcerer nodded a bunch of times again and Isaac patted him on the shoulder before he moved along to get some food as well. They didn’t have much time before Lenna’s fight so she was only going to get a light snack’s worth of food but he wasn’t going to be doing anything strenuous so there was no reason that he couldn’t enjoy the fight on a full stomach. He would have to make sure that Lenna had more food for after the fight, but that was easy enough.

  While walking towards the food, Isaac heard one of the platinum level adventurers talking to the rookies that were near her and she made sure to reinforce what Isaac had said to the younger ones. Words of Power were only spoken on battlefields where demigods, archmages, and dragons collided. Isaac wasn’t even an exception to that rule as he had crossed over into the realm of archmage during their battle. Apparently what he had needed to do and understand in order to get his two most recent level ups were the facts that he could command the death flames themselves directly with just his words and intent, and also that he could do that inside of another person.

  Speaking of the second thing, Isaac was a bit curious if he could do that against any person or just when someone like Lenna specifically allowed him to do so. He wondered if he had his first long range attack ability when he was fighting non-dark creatures or if it could only be used to boost or heal dark creatures even when they were out of his reach. He was also now aware that he could order death flames do things just like how he could with the shadows, like making his animated shadows, but he was still a bit confused about where he could get death mana freely out in the world. He still needed some kind of shadow to order around but there weren’t usually just death flames hanging around waiting for him to command them. He knew that there had to be a way to get death flames from the environment but he wasn’t quite sure what environment he needed yet. He knew that he would be able to do it, that he was certain of, he just wasn’t sure if that was something that he could do at a graveyard or if there would be a specific terrain in the Innerworld that just had exposed death flames for him to play with, but he definitely wanted to find out.

  For now though, it was time to get something to eat before Lenna’s turn at throwing hands with the locals for pride, honor, fun, sport, and maybe some gambling on the side.