The Prince Of Magic

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Their talk was fruitful in the end.

The rogue servant had no choice but to comply anyway, considering as he would be marked to death if he were to refuse the offer. Accepting Hadrian's offer to be one of his retainers would give him freedom to live his life peacefully, albeit chained to the former's fate.

Once a contract was made between them, Angra Mainyu became Kieran to hide his true identity. And in time, he earned the former rogue servant's trust.

Kieran was still rude and has the same devil-may-care attitude to most people, including towards his fellow retainers, but around Hadrian and his family, his usually rude behavior was toned down.

The servant seemed to have a soft spot for Hadrian's mother too, given the way the former tend to behave whenever she was around. Kieran's strange demeanor around his mother was akin to a child behaving around a strict parent. Not that his mother was strict, but the idea was the same.

Hadrian smiled faintly, shaking his head at the memories.

It was almost rather inappropriate of him to think of such times when he was watching Kieran beat the living crap out of the intruders with that disturbing smile on his face. Then again, the intruders had it coming anyways, so the young mage doesn't really feel too bad about their predicament.

'But what to do with that guy? One way or another, he's going to make a move. It's just a matter of when he'll do it. Also…'

Hadrian turned his gaze to another screen where it showed his retainers in the island doing their damn best to follow through his command.

By the look of things, it seemed that his retainers were having a difficult time accomplishing the task. While his retainers are skilled and powerful, the enemy servants held the advantage in the long run since they have no reason to hold back in their battles. The one watching him in the shadows would probably rejoice at the mayhem they were causing in the island.

If the Spider awakens by the ruckus they were making, it would only be to the enemy's benefit, not his.

Previously, Hadrian thought of joining his retainers in the island. But when Jester Karture came into the picture, he had second thoughts.

The old mage might appear human, but in reality, he was not. As a matter of fact, the one playing dead on the floor and got stepped on by Kieran was not even the interloper's true form.

No, as soon as he was in sight, Hadrian had the automaton to pull up any information it had on the old mage and what he discovered honestly surprised him.

The old mage was a Dead Apostle. But, not one who was a part of the 27 Dead Apostles, which his grandfather also happened to be a member of.

After some contemplation, the theory he had once before didn't seemed to be outlandish anymore, not when he had gathered enough proof. The mysterious runic schemes drawn upon the cloaks, the enemy servants and their twisted forms, the Dead Apostle and the lack of info in the automaton archives regarding his investigation in the abandoned manor yesterday.

All of them were connected, which leads Hadrian to one conclusion.

'They didn't came from here.' Hadrian summarized. 'It's the only thing that makes sense.'

While he has yet to explore more on the Moon Cell's capabilities, there was something that he did learned about the automaton. Particularly, it's limitations.

One, despite its powerful capabilities in observation and information assessment, there are still some things that the automaton is incapable of appraising. When it does, all information it had gathered on the target would be sent to the Far Side of the Moon where it would be classified as bits of data errors, to which Hadrian had to take the time to clean up in person.

On a side note, that was also where he happened to walk upon a certain King of Heroes and nearly battled with him to the death.

The second limitation was that the automaton is incapable of observing other worlds.

There were some cases that it did, but only the ones that were mostly similar to the world it was currently observing. Other dimensions with too much differences to the one it was monitoring was out of its limits, which leads him to the current issue at hand. The enemy servants most likely came from a world different than his own, which was a real problem.

His grandfather was the only one he knew who can travel to different worlds, but now there was someone out there who was also capable of it.

'Gonna have to talk to opa about it. He'll want to hear this…' Hadrian mused, bright cyan eyes narrowing slightly. 'But first, I have to get things done here.'

As Hadrian watched the battles continue through the monitors, an idea came to mind.

It might not be the brightest one he had before, but he was a bit desperate and pressed on time. He wanted to help his retainers, but he cannot leave Kieran and Dia here, not when they were tending to the intruders above the headquarters. Hadrian was only one person, so he can't be in two places at once. But, there was still someone who might help him.

The end of his lips curled up a bit before he closed his eyes and opened a telepathic link to a certain someone.

'… Sorry to bother you about this, but are you busy?'

'…No… I am not. Why do you ask?'

'I need your help on something.'

'Speak then. I shall listen to your request first, and decide after.'

'Haha, thanks.'

One minute later, Hadrian grinned wearily as he sensed the mind link closed once the conversation was over.

Then, slowly, he turned his gaze to the right and down to his right pant pocket where his right hand was in. The crimson light of his Command Seals pulsed brightly before dimming as he felt one of the three seals was used and the familiar dip in his magical reserves.

One of his retainers, the second servant he summoned after the war, had just teleported to the island from a far distance via one of his Command Seals.

Hadrian rarely asked for that servant's help, but whenever he does, it has to be of utmost significance.

Otherwise, he would get a scolding from that weathered servant of his, which might sound tame but not exactly good to see nor hear in person.

Recalling the first time he got scolded by the servant in question, Hadrian shivered a little.

'Not even Kieran or Astolfo would dare to bother him when he's like that, which reminds me. I should get him to scold those two. They've been on bad behavior lately.'

Unbeknownst to him, the two servants would later lament on their horrible luck for being on the receiving end of their senior retainer's harsh lecture in the future.

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