After daybreak, they packed up their tents and gathered around the campfire for breakfast.
Conditions in the wilderness were primitive, especially in a volcanic wasteland like this. Skyl was still the one responsible for cooking. He took out a cauldron larger than a washbasin and placed it over the fire. If Snape ever saw Skyl using a potion-making cauldron to cook and getting it all greasy, he would undoubtedly put on that familiar deathly expression and glare at Skyl without saying a word.
Millicent emerged from the tent and went to wash up beside a magical spring, a stone basin that continuously produced fresh water, its surface as smooth as a mirror. She gently pulled down her collar, revealing several red marks extending across her pale skin and above her collarbone.
It wouldn't take long for the marks to heal completely, but until then, Millicent could still feel their faint, burning tenderness.
They were like the shadows of memories left upon her flesh, repeatedly filling her with a dizzying sense of embarrassment.
A smile played on Millicent's lips. Hearing approaching footsteps, she hurriedly adjusted her collar and concentrated on washing up.
Melina approached, pushing the young apprentice Moli's wheelchair. She barely glanced at Millicent, though she still greeted her with a reserved nod.
"Good morning!"
Millicent was practically overflowing with happiness. She wanted to greet every blade of withered grass along the roadside and every drifting cloud in the sky.
"Indeed."
Moli shouted, "Morning, morning, morning! Baldy's sleeping in! We gotta wake him up!"
Melina handed the little girl a toothbrush. "Wash up first."
Watching the young apprentice's adorable, childish behavior, Millicent unconsciously fell into another happy daze.
The aroma of meat and rendered fat drifted over from the campfire, accompanied by the fresh fragrance of wheat. Skyl was simmering lamb and turnips in his cauldron, releasing free amino acids and a rich array of savory flavors. The resulting aroma swept through the campsite like a storm, practically knocking down the tents and drawing out every sleepy glutton inside.
Doniel had been forced to share a tent with his mentor, but all his pent-up resentment was soothed by a steaming bowl of lamb stew.
"Would you like biscuits or noodles?"
"Never heard of them, but I'll take both."
Skyl's cauldron was like a legendary self-cooking pot. Besides brewing magical potions, it could cook ingredients to perfection in the blink of an eye. Beef and lamb had relatively coarse muscle fibers, and without sufficient cooking time, the meat would remain tough and difficult to chew. Yet after the cauldron had bubbled for only a short while, the lamb was already tender enough to fall off the bone.
The cook squatted beside his pot, serving food to his hungry customers.
Seeing their delighted expressions as they ate gave Skyl a special sense of satisfaction. There was a unique pleasure in having the fruits of one's labor appreciated.
When Millicent held out her bowl, Skyl piled it high with generous portions of tender lamb, including both lean and fatty cuts, as though he were terrified she might go hungry.
"That's too much. There won't be enough for everyone else."
"There's plenty of lamb to go around. Don't forget, we're all sorcerers. If we ever run out of lamb, we can always turn naughty children into sheep and eat them instead."
Skyl's dark humor was directed at the little apprentice.
Moli immediately spat out the meat in her mouth and cried miserably, "Don't eat me! I don't taste good!"
Doniel shook his head with an air of intellectual superiority.
"Magic isn't omnipotent. There is no such thing as magic capable of transforming a human into a sheep. Naturally, I cannot deny the theoretical possibility of such a transformation, but the current system of magic has yet to develop to that extent. Therefore, from a semantic perspective, that statement was merely a rhetorically embellished falsehood. Mage Moli, you have absolutely no reason to be afraid."
Thops and the others gave Doniel peculiar looks.
"You really shouldn't question Mage Skyl's claims."
Doniel's face grew as long as a donkey's. He scrutinized Skyl for a moment before scoffing.
"Impossible. I know Skyl. Isn't that right, room...mate? The moment we met, he started mocking me with deliberately ambiguous remarks. Naturally, I could tell he was only bluffing."
Skyl raised a hand and pointed at him.
Poof!
Doniel vanished in a cloud of smoke, and a vacant-looking sheep appeared in his place.
Everyone burst out laughing.
"Baaaaaaa!"
"Well, listen to that! Sounds like we've got ourselves a real country boy."
Skyl chuckled and stroked his roommate's woolly head.
"We'll roast you for dinner tonight."
Doniel the sheep immediately turned tail and fled.
"He's running away, Mage Skyl. Should we go after him?"
"No need. He won't get very far on a volcano."
Everyone continued eating without a care in the world. After breakfast, they cleaned up the campsite, gathered their belongings, and set out.
The village where Sorcerer Azur was imprisoned was called Hermit Village. It had been abandoned because of the war and lay behind the front lines, within Volcano Manor's sphere of influence. Leyndell's forces had never managed to advance this far.
The dilapidated little village had since become a home for demi-humans, who were military allies of the Academy. The Academy taught the Demi-Human Queen a few elementary, rather unimpressive sorceries, while the queen and her children were responsible for guarding Sorcerer Azur.
Rows of intact wooden barricades still stood along the slope leading to the village. A flock of sheep raised by the demi-humans grazed leisurely on the bitter, sour gray grass growing across the volcanic terrain.
When Skyl and his companions arrived, their sorcerer robes and glintstone crowns led the inhabitants to identify them as allies.
Several demi-humans resembling hairless, gray-skinned monkeys approached, chattered at them for a moment, then turned around and led them to their queen.
The queen herself was considerably larger. She resembled a gigantic, hunched old woman, with eyes glowing an eerie purple. She gripped a staff thick enough to serve as a flagpole, while numerous animal teeth, fragments of bone, and other ornaments hung from her body.
To maintain a degree of modesty and demonstrate the civilized dignity befitting a spellcaster, she had even draped herself in an old bedsheet, making her look like an ancient Greek dressed in secondhand clothing.
"Good day, Your Majesty. Greetings, fellow sorcerers."
Thops voluntarily stepped forward to handle the introductions and explain their purpose.
"We would like to ask Master Azur to repair a staff for us."
A group of Academy sorcerers stood a short distance away, silently scrutinizing the newcomers.
One of them suddenly spoke.
"Thops the Bluntstone? I remember you being expelled from the Academy. What are you doing here?"
There was no mockery in his voice. He sounded genuinely surprised.
Thops froze for a moment.
"Are you... Theo?"
The sorcerer opposite him removed his glintstone crown, revealing a face roughly the same age as Thops's.
"Long time no see, roommate."
The atmosphere remained friendly and cordial.
The Demi-Human Queen rarely had the opportunity to meet outsiders, so she eagerly dragged Thops aside to demonstrate the simple sorceries she had learned, including Glintstone Pebble and Crystal Burst, insisting that the unfamiliar sorcerer evaluate her performance.
"There's still room for improvement. How about trying it this way..."
The Academy sorcerers the queen usually encountered were invariably arrogant, their contempt for demi-humans deeply ingrained. She had never received such patient, attentive guidance from someone free of prejudice.
Thops had an exceptionally kind personality. Having also belonged to a group looked down upon by the Academy, he understood what it meant to be wounded by life, and that experience had made him particularly gentle toward the world.
Delighted, the Demi-Human Queen ordered her children to slaughter sheep and prepare a feast.
Soon, a lively banquet was underway.
Millicent, however, still had important business to attend to. She took the damaged staff and went to visit Sorcerer Azur first.
The elderly sorcerer sat motionless beside a cliff, with a sheer drop into the abyss barely five paces in front of him. He was utterly still, like a paralyzed body that had completely lost its ability to move.
The moment Millicent saw Azur, she turned to the Academy sorcerer beside her and asked in astonishment, "What's happened to him? Why is his presence so incredibly faint? And what's with that enormous green glintstone on his head?"
The sorcerer wearing a Karolos Glintstone Crown answered with a faint note of excitement.
"This is what happens to followers of the primeval current. You've met Instructor Botari, haven't you? Part of his brain has already been replaced by glintstone, but Sorcerer Azur's entire brain has been transformed into glintstone."
"Is he still alive?"
"Of course. Go closer. If he deems you worthy, he'll speak to you of his own accord."
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