Lord of Mysteries:Fire of Destruction

Monday morning, Astope Quarter. Room 145.

Entering their shared apartment with a relaxed sigh, Adryan placed the briefcase by the entrance while Flora entered with a calm step.

"Let me know when breakfast is ready," The Jacob said, bored as she lay down on the sofa, her heels left at the foot of it.

Grabbing the book she had been reading, she opened it and lost herself in it.

'If there is one characteristic shared by the cowardly trio pathways, it is that given the opportunity, the beyonders of those paths would laze about as much as they could...' Nodding a little to himself at this curiosity, Adryan took off his thickest robes and rolled up his sleeves.

"Whatever you say, dear." With a sigh, the dark-haired man went into his kitchen and opened his mental recipe book.

A few days ago they had eaten something sweet for breakfast, so today it would be something a little more salted.

'Some omelettes with some waffles and honey will be...' Grabbing a couple of eggs from his cabinet, he took a frying pan and cut a piece of butter, and threw it in.

With a snap of his fingers, an orange flame lit up in the pot and in a few moments the piece of butter melted.

'The amount of money you could save on gas with these abilities is no joke...' Adryan repeated what he had said long ago.

A Fire Mage as a kitchen assistant was certainly useful.

With that in mind, he picked up a pot and broke an egg on the edge of it, then poured it in. He picked up a fork and began to stir quickly.

After a while, he decided it was mixed enough and put it in the hot pan. Of course, not before adding a few pieces of cheese and onion.

They weren't going to work today. He had already told Eleanor that if there was anything he needed to see, he should leave it on the desk and he would look at it tomorrow.

So this would be a sort of long weekend for them...

A little later, on the outskirts of the City of Calamities.

There were a few hours to go until today's Tarot Club and considering how much free time he had, Adryan decided to review the pages he got from yesterday's meeting.

"Let's see, let's see. What did the little bird bring me today..." Humming with amusement, the redhead read the first page he had.

As always and by now customary, the dates were all mixed up. It was to be expected since nobody could read Chinese - and the Emperor's horrible handwriting was a double insurance.

However, Adryan was pleased to note that, although the months were wrong, the entries were mostly correctly numbered.

'Of course. That's cryptology for you. Something as obvious and repetitive as numbers is doomed to be discovered when you put it in front of their eyes...'

Shaking his head slightly, the redhead began to read.

... February 2nd. There is not much to mention today; it's just that Bornova gave me a watch he made himself.

It's not bad. After I told him what he could improve on, he went straight to work without saying anything else.

Mm. That boy certainly has ambition.

I think his birthday is next week. I have some gadgets that I don't use anymore, I'm sure he'll like one of them.

... December 19th. My little Bernadette has taken her first steps!

Argh! How I wish I had my cell phone to take a video of it!!!!

 I wish I could show it to you who are reading my diary.

With her brown hair, a combination of my silky mane and her mother's somewhat chubby style, and plump cheeks, my Bernadette got up and walked!

I have never been so proud of a child in my life!

I usually hate children, I've always found them noisy and extremely annoying, but my little girl is different!

She's a real genius like her father, worthy of being the daughter of the protagonist of this Era!

I have to make her another Barbie house. This will be the seventh one I've made her, but who cares?

My little girl deserves the world!

... January 20th. I had shrimp again.

What a bloody idiot chef! I asked a thousand times not to have shrimp but the son of a bitch still put it in!

Luckily now I'm the Artisan of Sequence 6 so the most that happens is that I turn red and my throat swells up a bit.

But that doesn't mean I didn't give that bastard a piece of my mind!

The bastard's only response was that it wasn't his problem that I was allergic to such a common ingredient and that if I had something to say there was a trash can outside where I could be heard.

Ohohoho! I was like this! Like this from beating his ass!

Luckily I managed to control myself and decided to take revenge differently.

His wife wasn't exactly my type, but she wasn't unpleasant to look at either, she was even quite pretty. I decided she would be my next conquest.

... January 23rd. Guess who got their revenge and the husband walked into the room~

I did, baby! Woo!

Nobody messes with the Great Roselle Gustav!

Adryan's face twisted into an intense grimace of disgust.

'I really like you Roselle, but I'm increasingly considering hitting you with a clenched fist rather than a slap, which may also be dangerous. I feel like I'm going to catch a sexually transmitted disease just by reading your pages!!

'And that's how you receive a gift from your son?! He didn't say anything because he was going to make up for what he did, he didn't say anything because your words hurt him! Incredible idiot!'

It seemed that Bornova, when he was little, tried to win his father's affection through 'inventions' and machinery, but it seems he failed.

This did not surprise Adryan, to be honest.

Roselle always showed more inclination towards his daughter, leaving his sons to one side to the point that he lost one to the Church.

Perhaps the Emperor did not realize it, but little Bornova did. Many people want to deny it, but children are very observant of their surroundings.

Since Roselle was not very discreet in his affection, it was clear that the boy knew he was not as loved as his sister.

'Perhaps this is why the God of Steam and Machinery managed to win him over so easily. Wanting to impress his father, Bornova did not realize that he was just being used...'

This was a case of favoritism taken to the extreme.

Once again lamenting the poor character of the Emperor, Adryan turned to the following pages.

**

... September 11. Some days I feel like I'm not me anymore, but someone darker and crazier.

These episodes are distant and strange, but they have left a mark that I cannot get rid of no matter how many times the thought crosses my mind...

Sigh. For anyone reading my diary, don't pay much attention to the meaningless drivel I wrote. I just wanted to let off some steam.

That's not what I decided to write about again after so long.

It's been a few months since I advanced to Arcane Scholar.

In order to act, I spent a lot of time in the Church's libraries, reading and reviewing every book and ancient scroll they had.

In one of those scrolls I came across something strange that, although it caught my attention a little, I didn't give much importance to at the time.

I found several old books in the library's darkest and oldest parts, which were only accessible to high-ranking members like me.

None of them were very special. They only briefly discussed the history of the Church and its founding. In the final part of the last book, which covered a little of the Fourth Epoch, there was a passing mention of a project the Church was working on.

Again, I didn't think much of it. Being a church focused on machinery and inventions, when were they not working on a project? If anything, the name was strange but it was nothing to write home about.

I put the book aside and decided to continue reading it the next day. But when I returned the next morning, it was gone!

I asked the librarian what had happened to the book, where it had been kept, and if I could still read it.

The man gave me a strange look and said, "We have no record of such a book."

"Bullshit," I said. How could there be no record if I was reading it the day before!

Again, the librarian said the same thing, there was no such book.

Heh heh... I already knew that the Church kept its secrets but this?

This is something extremely strange! Fishy!

If they wanted to keep the secret, why would a book with information about what they wanted to hide be so easily available to me?

The answer was obvious.

They were trying to get me to read the book!

Was this some test? Or an experiment to see what would happen?

Well, it doesn't matter. I'm sure I'll find out soon. After all, now that I'm Sequence 3, remembering something I read the day before was child's play.

Of all the information I read before leaving the book, the one that stood out the most was undoubtedly that strange project.

I don't know what it was about or what it was looking for, only the name.

Project C.

Whatever this name means, I doubt I'll get an answer from the Church.

Nobody believes me that such a book exists. Not to mention that there is no record of this mysterious 'Project C.'

Well, it doesn't matter.

If the church doesn't want to tell me what that silly game was about, I always have other contacts who are sure to know something.

That mysterious organization is one of them. I'll try to ask about it at the next meeting.

**

Adryan looked at the page in his hands in silence, his brow slightly furrowed.

"Project C... It's an acronym for something, but what? Calisto? Caravan?"

Shuffling through the possibilities a little, the redhead could only grunt.

"During the Fourth Epoch the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery carried out a top secret project. One so secret that they decided to reveal the name to Roselle to get a reaction? Why the fuck would they do that? Was something supposed to happen?

"Whatever kind of reaction they were looking for, it failed if they cleaned up their tracks. It must have been something important for them to decide that risking revealing it was worth it if they got what they wanted - something that clearly didn't happen.

"Hmm. Classic of the Church of the Unimportant, no matter where he points, he never achieves anything. To the point that he had to climb on Roselle's back to finish digesting the potion..."

Nodding slightly, the redhead turned to the following pages to see if anything else was useful.

**

... February 14th. Back home, it would be Valentine's Day. In this world, there is no such thing, but even so, I decided to do something nice for Matilda for our first year of marriage.

Like every woman from Intis, she also has certain tastes... strange ones.

But being a good husband, I decided to bite the bullet this time and fulfill my wife's wish.

And I must say, I don't look too bad in a dress.

Maybe there's some truth to that Intis saying...

**

Adryan stared at this page with a lost look on his face.

After 15 seconds of silence, he could only raise his hands and applaud the man's manliness.

Again and against all odds, the Emperor had left him speechless.

"At least it was only because of his wife's wish. But if one day I read something about a cake and a chair, I swear to you Roselle, I will show this page to Bernadette."

Adryan couldn't help but look at the last thing the Emperor had said with some concern.

He knew very well what the man was referring to.

'The perfect woman is a man.'

"Wait!

"Wasn't there a silly joke about him watching femboy streamers?!"

 Stunned, Adryan stared incredulously at the page in his hands before bursting into lunatic laughter.

"HAHAHAHA! Naaaahhhh! ROSELLE?!! HAHAHAHA"

Had the Emperor tasted the forbidden fruit?

After thinking about it briefly, the redhead reached a definitive conclusion in 5 seconds.

That guy would get into anything with a hole and look feminine enough!

"HAHAHAHA!"

Oh! Klein had to see this!