Chapter 628: Optimistic

Jalen teleported all of the demons into the Transport Cannon’s top room.

All things considered, Noah was pretty sure that was definitely not the best way to make an introduction. Tim had less than positive experiences with people making abrupt apperances in the cannon. Having a horde of what were commonly known to be the greatest enemy of mankind suddenly appear in his living quarters was definitely not going to be a good impression.

Unfortunately, Jalen hadn’t waited to hear Noah’s reasoning out. The moment he’d gotten back to his room and suggested it, the Rank 6 Mage’s eyes had lit up and he’d snapped his fingers. His power had grabbed everyone other than Contessa and Karina, and then the world had changed.

Tim, who had been hunched over his desk scribbling something on what must have been the thousandth piece of paper in the room, had frozen in shock mid-sentence. He stared at the teeming mass of demons, lips pulling apart.

“It’s fine!” Noah yelled, pushing his way to the front before the poor old man could get a heart attack. He nearly bowled Lee over in the process as she somehow managed to do everything she could to entangle herself in front of his legs.

What is she, a cat? I’ve already got one of those!

“Most of us hold you no ill will,” Aylin provided, in what was probably meant to be a comforting manner. “We follow the Great Lord Spider.”

“Me,” Noah said as he finally managed to wade his way to the front of the horde. “That’s me. I like made-up names.”

“Sorry, Tim!” Moxie called from somewhere at the back of the pack. “Silvertide is here too! I hope Vermil got a chance to warn you about the visitors. He said you were fine with it, but something tells me he didn’t get a chance to warn you that—”

“He had so many lovely students? No, he didn’t,” Tim said with a huge smile. He straightened and stepped around the desk, brushing his hands off on the front of his shirt as he approached them. “But that’s no problem. This many faces is more than I expected, but this old building is quite spacious if you go deeper. We can make room.”

Noah’s words died on his lips. His brow furrowed in confusion. Tim hadn’t even mentioned the fact that half of his ‘students’ were demons. It wasn’t exactly hard to tell. Vrith was covered in black fur and most of them had massive horns jutting out from their heads somewhere or another.

He glanced back, just to make sure that everyone suddenly hadn’t figured out a way to conceal themselves. They hadn’t. There was no doubt that there was a horde of demons behind him.

Noah coughed into his fist. “Er… yes. Thank you, Tim. I’m sure you’ve noticed, but some of my students are a little unique.”

“All students are unique. Every individual is a flower to be nurtured, and no flower is the same.”

Okay, now you’re just laying it on thick. Has he really not noticed that they’re demons? That seems more than just improbable. Tim isn’t stupid, and he isn’t…

Wait.

There was something off.

Tim was looking in their direction, but he wasn’t looking at them. It was like his eyes were looking right past everyone in the room at something far behind them. Noah blinked in surprise.

“Tim?”

“Yes, Vermil?”

“Are… you blind?”

“Blind? Oh, no. I’ve never seen better in my life,” Tim replied with a hearty laugh. “I’ve just made a few adjustments to my eyes. I hope it isn’t too disconcerting. I haven’t left the tower much since my work.”

Moxie squeezed her way through the demons, the surprise in her features evident. She knew just as well as Noah did that Tim was taking this way too well. Even if he was the most welcoming, accepting man in the entirety of Arbitage, it made no sense for him to be completely okay with demons. He should have heard enough rumors to be at least wary of them.

“Your eyes look a bit… distant,” Moxie hedged. “You aren’t injured, are you?”

There was a crackle beside Noah as Jalen teleported across the room, not even bothering to push past anyone. He stared at Tim, his features surprisingly serious. 𝔯åΝố𝔟Е𝐒

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“What have you done, Tim?” Jalen asked.

“Please, please.” Tim lifted his hands before him. “Your worry for me means much, but I can assure you that I am doing quite well. I’m sorry if I’ve unnerved you with my eyes. I made a few Body Imbuements on them, you see. For research. Spatial weight is very hard to detect at my rank. I wanted to be able to study it better, so I had to modify the kind of information my eyes took in.”

“Spatial weight?” Moxie asked.

“I fear he’s gone off the deep end,” Jalen said with a sad shake of his head. “His old age has caught up to him.”

“I’m younger than you are!” Tim exclaimed.

“Tragic. If only there was something we could have done.” Jalen continued to shake his head. “He’s senile. The mind just goes after a few hundred years. Such is life.”

“I’m not that old,” Tim protested. “Don’t get cocky just because you look younger than me!”

“He’s not insane,” Noah said, unable to pull his eyes away from Tim’s as he slowly started to realize just what the old man had done. “And I’d have told you about his research if Jalen had given me more than half a second to explain things before he teleported everyone here.”

“Really?” Jalen glanced at Noah, his shoulders drooping almost as if he was disappointed to hear that Tim hadn’t lost his mind. “He’s not senile?”

“Why do you seem unhappy about that?” Moxie asked.

“Do you have any idea how easy it is to gaslight the elderly into thinking they didn’t play a game of darts with you recently? It’s like an infinite-game generator. I do it all the time in retirement homes.”

Noah stared at Jalen. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He supposed there were probably worse things to do with one’s time than entertaining aging seniors in retirement homes, but Jalen somehow managed to make it sound immoral.

Moxie blew a hair away from her face and looked to Noah. “Bring us up to speed, please.”

“I don’t think I can even properly explain it, but Tim has gotten very into researching space and Space Runes,” Noah said, looking back to the old man. “He’s found a number of things that he probably shouldn’t share too freely if he wants to avoid—”

“Space has magical weight, the empire weight is considerably lower than it should be, and I am confident that the empire is actually a man-made experiment walled in by some greater power to observe!” Tim fired off, his words practically blending into one in his excitement. He blinked, then cleared his throat. “Allegedly.”

“Damned Plains,” Moxie muttered. She glanced at Noah. “Did he…”

“Speak to Garina? Not yet. He will,” Noah said through a sigh. “I suppose it isn’t like anyone in this room is at liberty to go speaking to people. I trust you’ll all keep this secret — especially because Tim is being kind enough to lend you his room.”

Everyone nodded.

Todd cleared his throat and stood on his tip-toes so his head poked out over the crowd. “I might just be fixated on this, but I don’t see why it is that Tim hasn’t… uh, reacted.”

“To what?” Tim asked.

Todd waved his hands around him. “Us?”

“I fear I may not understand your question. How should I have reacted?”

“He modified his eyes to see the magical weight that all space bears,” Noah said, shaking his head in a mixture of awe and disbelief. “Tim, you can’t actually see what we look like, can you? You’re looking at our magic itself… or something like that?”

“I am,” Tim said with a huge grin. “Isn’t that fantastic? It’s actually quite easy to tell whose magic is whose. Everyone has a unique signature, and my eyes haven’t been the best in recent years anyways. I’ve been going by voice more than anything to tell who people were. This makes everything far easier. I needed a way to easily see shifts in magical weight in locations, and my eyes were slacking — so I put them to use. Is it unsettling?”

“It’s not that,” Noah said. “You’re fine, Tim. It’s… well, can you tell anything off about the people here?”

“Your magical signatures are a little odd, but that seems rather standard given the company.”

Okay, that’s probably fair enough. I’ve been involved in so much strange shit that I guess Tim is kind of used to it.

“Tim, I don’t want to alarm you, but half of our students are from the Damned Plains,” Moxie said. Her words sped up as she hurried to add, “They’re not what you think. Demons have been very misrepresented, and they’ve had issues with their runes at high ranks that make them become twisted versions of themselves. We’ve been fixing that. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Demons?” Tim asked, blinking in shock. “Truly?”

“Yes,” Aylin said. “Moxie speaks the truth. We will bring no harm to any who Spider considers friend. We will cause you no concern. Unless you leave food out. Then Lee may be problematic.”

“I see,” Tim said slowly. He studied them for several long seconds. “How interesting. There isn’t a significant difference between the spatial weight of a demon and a human. Fascinating.”

That’s what he’s focused on?

“So… you’re okay with it, then?” Moxie asked.

Tim shrugged. “If you and Vermil vouch for them, then I don’t mind. I’ve had more negative experiences with humans than demons. That issue with their runes you mentioned — it’s fixed?”

“Mostly,” Noah said. He glanced at Linestra, who winced and shrank in on herself in a failed attempt to become invisible. “But they’ll all behave. I promise you that.”

“Then they are welcome to my abode,” Tim said. A smile pulled at his lips and he rubbed his hands together. “I have a lot of questions I’d like to ask them. Perhaps this can expand my horizons even further. How wonderful!”

Well, nobody can say he isn’t optimistic.

Noah blew out a relieved breath and nodded. “Good. Good. Thank you, Tim. We really needed a place for everyone to stay. Now we can turn our attention to the bigger matter at hand. We’ve got a few hours until the Advanced Track meeting, and those of us attending need to do a little prep.”@@novelbin@@

“For what?” Isabel asked.

“I’ve got a few ideas on how we can control the meeting,” Noah said, a smile pulling across his lips. “But you’re going to need to be ready to back up some bullshit. A whole lot of bullshit.”

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