Warlock Apprentice

Angor glanced at the boy on his leg and wondered.

I thought this guy hated me not too long ago?

They almost fought before boarding the airship because Angor did not take Ananda along. Here, "fought" meant Hobbiton was going to kick him, while Angor did not pay any attention to the kid at all.

A kid might he be, Hobbiton had been spending his years receiving "education" from Ananda, the leader of a thief gang. He knew all the dirty words used by adults. After Ananda prevented him from kicking Angor for real, he did not hesitate to use those words on Angor.

Maybe the kid was too scared of height as well as the strange world around him?

Angor did not believe those were enough reasons for the little devil to suddenly give up those gangster attitudes.

Maybe Hobbiton was suddenly enlightened by something overnight?

…

Once they placed their feet on the soft sand around Phantom Island, Angor picked up Hobbiton by the collar and removed the kid off his leg.

"We're here."

Hobbiton opened his eyes when he heard Angor. He grew calmer at the sight of beach and palm trees. However, he did not dare to look behind him. The neighboring area of the beach on Phantom Island was a sea of clouds. Anyone who could not fly and fell into the "sea" would definitely see peril.

Hobbiton blushed a little and avoided Angor's gaze. This was the first time for him to act so cowardly, and he just did it in front of someone he yelled at yesterday.

Angor did not notice the boy's little thoughts. He was trying to think of something now.

Without an invitation or something, Hobbiton would either get torn to pieces or eaten by the phantom beasts on the island. What should I do?

His low-leveled transmitter could not send anything to Goode over such a distance.

"Should I ask Hobbiton to hide behind me using his ability?" Angor pondered. That invisibility of the kid seemed solid enough to avoid spells and animals.

However, Hobbiton's ability lasted too short. He could only hide for a second or two before showing up again.

"What to do…" Angor stood still on the beach and considered his options. Hobbiton had gotten over his stress. The boy was staring at Angor carefully while waiting for the next course of action.

Angor grew a little uneasy after being stared at for so long. "Ahem. Phantom Island is where my professor trains at. I need to get his consent to bring you in there. You wait here, and I'll go ask him."

As long as he stayed away from the edge, Hobbiton would not need to worry about height or strangers.

"I understand. And… I mean, thanks," said Hobbiton as he nodded.

Angor raised an eyebrow when witnessing a little gangster actually thanking him.

"Okay, stay put." Angor knew how not to tease a child's ego. He left quickly.

Before he could enter the woods though, someone called him from behind in a hoarse voice.

"Angor?"

He turned around quickly and saw Sunders just entering the island from the sky.

Did the gentleman not send him the voice transmission from the island?

Sunders was wearing his usual, flawless gentleman wear. The man sometimes put on a black robe with crimson bosoms which looked extremely stylish on his handsome figure.

Sunders landed on the ground, and Angor quickly joined him.

The man glanced around and saw Hobbiton. He then looked back at Angor again.

"You… found yourself a Phantom Servant?"

Angor signaled Hobbiton to come. "No, he's here looking for Butler Goode. He says that Goode is his grandfather. His name-"

Angor stopped and revealed a grin.

"He's Peter Pan the Never-Grow-Up."

"Who's Peter Pan? My name is Hobbiton Moa," said the boy, somewhat discontent.

Angor explained to Sunders with a smile, "There's a story from my homeland about a playful child who never grows up named Peter Pan. They're so alike."

He briefly explained how he met with Hobbiton, the kid's special ability, and the business between the boy's family and Lady Lotus.

Sunders inspected Hobbiton. "Goode isn't a servant from the Moa family, but the Moxa clan. Also, I believe he's been away from the Moxas for forty years."

Hobbiton felt the suppressive aura from the gentleman even though Sunders did not display any power.

"My mother is a Moxa Phantom Servant," Hobbiton lowered his head while speaking. "I've never met Grandfather Goode before, but my grandma once told me of him, and, she gave me this,"

He took out an aged-looking ring embedded with an emerald gem.

"Granny said, if there's any trouble I can't solve, I can take this ring to Grandpa Goode who worked alongside a great wizard," said Hobbiton with a roll of his eyes as he flattered Sunders.

Sunders checked the ring and did notice a trace left by Goode.

The gentleman nodded and waved a hand to put a temporary allowance spell on Hobbiton to let him enter the island. Then he turned away and flew off.

Sunders never said anything about the trouble between Hobbiton and Lotus. In fact, he did not care.

"Go. Since Mister Sunders didn't say otherwise, he allows you to get in," said Angor. He had also checked the emerald ring as an alchemist and did not notice anything in particular. He thought it was just something memorable, like Sunders' family dagger.

Hobbiton watched as Sunders became a small dot in the distance.

"It's so nice, being able to fly. Will grandfather teach me how to become a wizard?"

Angor did not answer. He knew Goode was not a wizard, but the butler possessed something as powerful as a wizard. At least that man acted way better than himself when Mister Rein came to visit.

"In the story, Peter Pan can fly too."

With that, Angor stepped into the woods first.

They walked all the way to Sunders' mansion where Butler Goode welcomed them at the door.

"Mister Padt." He bowed, then looked at Hobbiton with a gentle expression.

Hobbiton already saw Goode's portrait in his family. The robe, as well as the mask with strange patterns, quickly helped him recognize his grandfather. Now the kid felt both happy to see someone who shared the same bloodline and nervous for being somewhere unknown.

More importantly, Hobbiton was quite shocked to see his grandfather addressing Angor as "Mister". Did that mean Angor was actually someone important?

"He's Hobbiton, your family, according to his own words," Angor spoke. He added, "Now I took him here, you can handle the rest, Butler Goode."

Goode replied in an emotional tone, which was rare for the butler. "Master already told me. Thank you, Mister Padt. Let me take it from here."

Angor left Hobbiton and prepared to head to Sunders' study. However, he was stopped by Hobbiton's timid voice.

"Sir-sir!"

Angor stopped and turned around to see Hobbiton blushing badly.

"Thank-thank you very much, for bringing me to my grandpa. I-I-can I ask something?"

Behind the mask, Goode frowned a little and wanted to stop Hobbiton's rude act.

"Go ahead."

Angor thought the kid was going to ask about Ananda again. He did not show it, but he was getting impatient deep inside.

"Sir, can you tell me that story about… Peter Pan?"

That surprised Angor a little. He wondered if the kid was getting lonely, or simply wanted to find the cause of life from the story.

Probably both.

It was not a difficult task anyway, so he nodded to agree.

"I will… when we have time for it."

…

Upon going through the door of the study, Angor found Sunders writing something in front of a desk, as always.

"I know you have a lot to ask, such as the Nightmare Domain. I'll tell you about them in due time. Now, you must tell me everything first, about what happened during that day when you shut the nightmare passage, so we leave no loose ends."

The gentleman's serious expression made Angor worried.

Angor put away his relaxed attitude in front of his professor and carefully went over his memory.

"You asked me to close the passage, professor, and I had no idea how, so I thought about breaking the illusion nodes in my body…

"… I went for the node on my heart and fainted. Then that green toy owl saved me. It told me not to kill myself. When I realized I can communicate with Auri, I thought about swindling him into telling me how to close the door.

"… There were monsters, and they were going through the passage one by one. Auri said something about arranging a ceremony for the queen's arrival, so I followed that lead and pretended that I wanted to enlarge the passage so the monsters could come faster. If I can learn about how to control the passage, I'll have something to close it off."

Enlarging the passage and closing it should be different, but Angor believed they had something in common.

Using the excuse of losing his memory, Angor managed to trick Auri into telling him info.

Whether the nightmare passage was open, as well as its size, depended on his own will. Auri told him how to control his will. It was then that Angor realized it was something similar to how he could sense the emotions of monsters.

He used to "communicate" with the monsters using his subconsciousness. Now that Auri taught him how to control the communications for real, there was a lot more he could do now. He could even directly communicate with a person through emotions, on condition that the target lowered his or her spirit defense.

After learning the trick, instead of closing the passage right away, Angor attempted something else first.