PART 10 : THEON / KAZUMA

Winterfell, 289 AC

Two weeks passed without any notable public events outside of Megumin's daily explosions. And even those explosions stopped being such crowd pulling spectacle after her fifth or sixth one. Sure, some smallfolk still come near Winterfell to watch the free magical fireworks but that's it, not as many gathered compared to the first one.

Yeah, regular explosion every night at the field east of Winterfell, after dinner. No we are not allowed to venture out of Winterfell as according to Lord Stark, we are still too young. Absolutely no venturing outside and doing our previous world routine of 'bakuretsu bakuretsu la la la' here, at least not until Lord Stark deeming Megumin old enough to going out without close adult supervision.

The prearranged time of the explosion is literally after dinner, no explosion allowed before that except in emergency circumstances according to Lord Stark himself.

Megumin could not say anything against his father's logic in placing the prearranged time after dinner, that if she will get exhausted after casting the magic of explosion, she better cast that at night after dinner, so she could be brought to the nursery to sleep afterwards. The rather routine, predictable part of the time also serves as some sort of guarantee to minimize any potential innocent victims wandering into that empty field. There are some measures of quarantine complete with warning signs posted around the field. Having seen them close when I venture out with the boys in a riding lesson, I could see that apparently mushroom cloud is a universal sign of huge explosion everywhere.

At least for Megumin, having Lord Stark permit her one explosion per day is already big enough boon, especially because her mother Lady Stark never really accepts her daily routine at the first place. Lord Stark and Lady Stark definitely has very different opinions upon Megumin's affliction with 'one explosion each day' rule, but at least for now, things are in Lord Stark's favor, and thus working for Megumin's joy.

Lord Stark, and every follower of the Old Gods here, is rather very quick to just accept that as the required drawback of having such powerful magic at a very young age. They apparently understood something that is in line with 'magic come at a cost' so Megumin's explanation about her magical ability being blessing and curse at the same time, end up very easily received. While I could see that even Lord Stark still has some amount of fear by the risk said by Megumin, he simply accepted the risk are being inherent to her ability and already deem the daily routine required exercise of magic, that is.

Lady Stark however, in rather stark contrast (pun intended) compared to her husband, always argued against Megumin continuing her practice of magic, saying that the risk is far too high. Predictably, Megumin turned deaf ear to her plea, so Lady Stark could only cry in the Sept every time Megumin doing her daily explosion routine, clutching a book she refers to 'Seven-Pointed Star' close to her heart.

Demonic religion aside, as far as I could tell, that was obviously a very reasonable response from a mother who has her religion said that magic is abomination and in fear of her daughter's life at the very least. On some levels, I actually respect Lady Stark's thick-headedness, or should we call it as faith (even for Demonic being), because even as other Lords apparently expect her to convert to the Old Gods, she strives to keep The Seven. Lord Stark himself apparently tried to speak some sense with her before, but then Lady Stark apparently said something about she will wait for The Second Long Night to come first before thinking about converting to The Old Gods, and Lord Stark never brought that particular matter anymore.

Of course while I and Megumin know that the true nature The Seven is actually Seven-Faced Demon, and they misled humans to shun and avoid magic for their own nefarious reasons. Lord Stark already told us about the risk of igniting continent-wide religious war if wrong ears happened to hear 'The Seven are Demons'. For while Lady Stark and Septa Mordane did not want the war to erupt at the first place as their homeland of Riverlands would end up literally ravaged and torn in half, just like in the latest war that is Robert's Rebellion, many Southern Lords still seek to curry favor to The Faith, and may be far too eager on the prospect of igniting the wars between First Men and Andals all over again.

Even as The King is Lord Stark's foster brother and closest friend, while current Hand of The King is his own foster father, Royal influence could only go so far when it comes to dealing with The Faith as a whole. For even Aegon the Conqueror bows to The Seven despite having Dragons at his disposal, and even as Maegor the Cruel hamstrung the Faith's powers by removing the Faith Militant, their grip upon the people south of The Neck are still extremely strong.

...

I quickly made friends with the other two boys in this castle, Robb and Jon. I usually refer to them as puppies and turned out that was actually the norm in this world to refer you using the sigil of your House if that was an animal or plant. Of course, Robb and Jon (and others) in return called me Squid and refer to me as Squid ward too. As they are actually younger than me for around a year, they quickly look at me as if I was their cool older brother (and I don't mind that, think them as some sort of manly replacement for Princess Iris).

Having not to hide my magic of Ice and Fire from them helps me pull some nice tricks (but still has to hide them to many others for very obvious reasons). Still limited to just some ice and fire party tricks, that I must reluctantly admit inspired by the Goddess of Party Tricks, Aqua-sama, but those are more than enough to keep the boys entertained.

There are some boring stuffs, and that include Maester Luwin's lessons, which I attend together with Robb and Jon, some medieval equivalent of private tutoring just like back at Pyke.

Still, after eating our breakfast...

"Robb, Jon, what are you two doing here?" I said when I see the two boys poking around kitchen this morning.

"Psst!" Robb put his finger on his mouth, telling me to keep my silence and mentioned me to come to the place he is currently lurking in with Jon, somewhere behind barrels of...

"Beer?" I said when I recognize the smell, and both Robb and Jon nod their heads vigorously.

I felt that I shouldn't let all those little rascals going around drinking something that would cause legal problem back in Japan. Even in the previous realm where I do my adventures with the gang, for most of the time, Megumin is verboten from consuming alcohol in public due to her age (she still sneaks some chugs given by the generous Aqua-sama every now and then).

But the laws of this realm is even more relaxed concerning that, considering we, even children, regularly drink (very diluted) watered wine as apparently even after boiled, water here often smells somewhat stale and thus the unpleasantness needed to be masked by wine. Damn it, this particular thing made me really miss Aqua for all her water purification ability, or maybe I should just starting to experiment on how to make a proper drinking water filter.

"We just have breakfast you know..." I tried to reason with these two puppies who eyed the kegs stacked on top of a big, solid oak table.

"Those cups are placed on place where we can't reach them..." said Robb looking forlornly at the cabinet which hold some wooden tankards used by men to drink those, conveniently placed just at adult height outside the reach of children like us. I could see Jon trying to stack some boxes but it still falls a little short from required; Robb points me to help Jon with that.

I am slightly taller than both of them, but looking at how hap hazardously Jon stacked those boxes on top of a small wooden stool that seems can't really hold all those stacks.

"No Robb."

"Please..."

"Still no."

"Or I'll tell my father that for somewhat reason, we found a smallcloth that could only belongs to a maidservant inexplicably inside your room." said Robb with nasty wolfish grin upon his face.

"I am at your service, partner."

I thought about just climbing that tower-ish thing Jon had made, but then it was built without any sound grasp upon stability. And considering these two boys already knew that I could use magic anyway.

"I'll get them, but will you swear upon the Old Gods to keep this a secret?"

"We swear before the eyes of The Old Gods." said those two rascals, and I smiled. Even as they are children, there is one thing that all the Northmen have, and that is they took anything said under oath very seriously.

"Alright... Steal!" I said while waving my hand, and upon my palm, I already held one wooden tankard before the two puppies.

"Uoooh!" said Robb in awe. "Is that magic?"

"Obviously!" said Jon with happy tears in his eyes! "I wish the Old Gods touched me!"

"Me too!"

Long story short, the beer was nice to drink, we soon felt light-headed, and later on, servants found three little boys lay wasted upon the kitchen floor.

Lord Stark made our ears red from all the pulling and lecture us about how drinking too much is not honorable, or some sort of that stuff since the three of us didn't have the necessary competence to hear properly with all alcohol inside our bloodstream right now. But at least those two rascals keep the secret of my 'steal' ability with Robb telling his father this is all some servant's fault to left three tankards down on the floor.

...

This night, Megumin already had her after dinner explosion. She is currently sleeping on Maester Luwin's back, as we boys walking alongside them. I could only pity the poor Maester, as he is so engrossed in his daily observation of Megumin's explosion magic, that he literally transcribes every chant of her into parchment upon parchment. Megumin naturally never mind that at the first place, deliberately set up her chants to be extremely ambiguous, yet the double meaning is often strictly between us two for us to have a good laugh afterwards. Knowing how Lord Stark practically spoils her most of the time, the big tome full of chuuni bullshit spells will go to be the most treasured book in the library of Winterfell, bound using high quality lizard-lion or shadowcat skin.

Of course, my guilt for partaking in Megumin's chuuni bullshits led me into helping Maester Luwin to carry his parchments, quill, and ink bottle to and from our daily explosion trip. All while saying 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.' inside my mind for tormenting the Old Maester who only wanted to learn about them, wasting his precious time chasing something that was learned in another realm by a swipe on adventurer card and thus, maybe nigh impossible to learn here. Also, Maester Luwin sometimes asked me to freeze or burn something, before spending his sweet time observing the result. That only add up all my feelings of guilt to put him in a wild goose chase like this, but deep down, I am also afraid that he would glean upon some way to actually learn magical skills from all of our bullshits.

"Well, thank you for always helping me to learn about this Theon." said Maester Luwin with a smile after he gave the sleeping Megumin to Old Nan in front of the nursery. "May I have my parchments back? I want to read them along the way."

"No need to say thanks Maester Luwin; it was my pleasure to help you." I politely hand the parchments for him and as predicted, he started to eagerly devour all the chuuni bullshits written there.

"That explosion was amazing." said Robb while raising his hands to emulate the recent display of the destructive magic. "I wonder if I could simply say the same thing Arya said!"

"You need to be touched by The Old Gods first!" replied Jon while I roll my eyes. Yeah, Maester Luwin aside, these two boys is also very fixated with all things magic.

"My name is Robb of House Stark! The Red Wolf who brought extra doom upon the doomed world! Darkness beyond the dark, having big hot things underneath the hard shell that I highly covet! I brought my jealousy upon thee and summon the sacred Hammer of The Old Gods! EXPLOSION!"

"BOOM!" added Jon while jumping in mimicking the explosion with his hands.

"That was something about volcanic powers." said Maester Luwin with a smile.

I winced as Megumin's latest bullshit chant invoke her desire to have big breasts like Darkness, but for Maester Luwin she *obviously* refers to volcanic powers.

"I could see that she must invoke something about powers of destruction and or something about blackness, darkness, despair, or something like that to power up her spell. Understandable enough for such destructive magic." said Maester Luwin while scratching his beard. "While you on the other hand, either only use the simple words of 'freeze' and 'tinder' or spoke no word at all when performing your magic. According to my observation so far the power of the spell has some relation toward the chant length, but I still not sure about this."

"Different magic from different Gods, Maester Luwin." I politely added while trying not to push the poor Maester deeper into his obsession of learning about magic. All while Robb look at me while making the hand gesture I use when I use steal in front of them, you swear an oath to keep it secret dammit.

"As you might already see, one of the chain links I have is a Valyrian Steel." said Maester Luwin while pointing upon the distinctive rippled chain links in his neck. "That signifies that I had studied the lore of magic. But before the day you've shown your magical prowess, The Citadel thought there are no magic users aside of what was written in history centuries ago."

"Well, that is why it was my pleasure to help you. At least you turned out to be very accepting toward magic instead of going into rant about how magic is abomination like Lady Stark."

"There have been two factions in The Citadel, one who wished for magic to return one day, and one who wished for magic to never return." said Maester Luwin reminiscing his old days at the Citadel, before he was sent to serve Winterfell. "As I learned the lore of magic and forged this chain link, I am proudly belongs to the pro-magic faction of The Citadel."

"But you've said that The Maesters already knew magic has returned somewhere in the recent past, with what you said as glass candles or something."

"Just before the madness of Prince Rhaegar, in which brought ill tidings for House Stark seven years ago." said Maester Luwin sadly. "Two years before the Rebellion, glass candles could be burned again, and it was said that this event is one who triggered the madness that brought down House Targaryen."

"... well, I already knew about that. You told me a week ago in the lessons. For glass candle burning signifies the return of magic, but that was two years before I was even born." I said while mentally noting that maybe, just like what was said by The Demon King we slain in previous realm, that Aqua's coming brought a light upon the magic of that realm, maybe this mean Aqua, due to timey wimey ball that is the afterlife realm of the Gods, actually come two years before I come, and thus Darkness, who should come together with Aqua, is either eight or nine years old.

I don't know why the other Old Gods, who has been mentioned in the afterlife, did not maintain the flow magic on their own before Aqua's coming. Eris-sama has said to me that a God or Goddess has tasked to keeping the flow of magic in their respective world from becoming either clogged (not really know on how freaking magic could be clogged at the first place as Eris-sama never expand upon this) or becoming unstable and overflowed (the later is a very real risk in her world, due to all divine relics left by Aqua's idiocy to sent too many Japanese issekai with cheat items that end up loitering her world with dangerous magical artifacts known in universe as 'Divine Relics'). Eris-sama said this after I realize the true identity of Chris the flat chested chivalrous thief. No worry Eris-sama, I don't mind if they are padded and your ass is still very nice.

"Why is your face looking like that, Theon?" questioned Jon and I quickly close my mouth before drooling over the memories of Eris-sama's / Chris' ass.

"Nothing, I'm just... hungry? Err..."

"We already eat dinner." said Robb.

"Anyway, glass candle. How exactly they work Maester Luwin?" I tried to get back on the topic.

"Glass candle is made of Obsidian, for they could be burned in the presence of magic." said Maester Luwin. "Every Maester has some of them, previously thought only as symbolic item before the return of magic, but then if you concentrate enough to scry within its flame, it was said that it could give you vision."

"And you said something about a group of beings with pale white skin and glowing blue eyes surrounding..." I realize that maybe I should not talk too much about Aqua at this point. Having her locked away would be better for this world, maybe.

"Ah, the riddle of glass candle, the blue haired, blue eyed young woman who dresses like a whore." said Maester Luwin with a smile and I mentally winced. I don't want this kindly old Maester to end up receiving Aqua's divine wrath upon her release. For the Drowned Goddess is petty and will make you suffer if you insult her too much.

"There is a whore inside Glass Candle?" questioned Jon.

"Maybe it was some sort of symbolic vision." said Maester Luwin softly, after all, we Maesters call her and the demons surrounding her as 'riddle of the glass candle', a yet unsolved mystery."

...

After spending some more time walking with the boys, we parted ways with Robb and Jon as I walked with Maester Luwin toward his turret, which is located somewhat far at the west side of Winterfell, but still near enough with my room at the Guest section.

"You said there was anti-magic faction in The Citadel." I said while Maester Luwin closed the door behind us. "What did they do now? Magic has returned, so they should not really exist anymore as skeptics, right?"

"Let me tell you a secret first, but you might already infer about that. I was born in the South, but I never truly believe about The Seven." said Maester Luwin with a smile. "Their anti-magical stance is well known, and many in the Citadel just swallow their teachings without critical mind to question about why The Seven ban the practice of magic at the first place. Their typical reasoning of magic being dangerous, come at a steep cost, and condemn the soul of their users are never fully explored. Sure, in some way, I could see that lady Arya's magic is a very dangerous one to those caught in the explosion, and the requirements of daily casting is the 'steep cost' or so to speak. But as House Stark worship the Old Gods who held magic in high regard, I failed to see how her use of magic condemn her soul at the first place."

I smiled a bit when thinking that Megumin's 'steep cost' is actually her own doing. Now if only she is more cooperative and actually said that she want to do daily 'training' instead of saying that as 'requirement' maybe magic acceptance would be far easier too.

"Your magic of Ice and Fire as well, when properly used, could be a lethal one in a fight. As you could encase the entirety of a door in ice, with enough focus, in a fight you could actually freeze the belly of your opponent solid, which would be instantly incapacitating a person's ability to fight while dooming them into a slow, painful, lingering death, while the application of fire is more straightforward in nature."

"Well Maester Luwin, I think I would keep that as reference for future use." I said while remembering my previous adventure in Eris' realm. With other magic users who could dispel frozen status easily, that would be at best temporary incapacitation, but when thinking about it, in this world without magical dispel being handy for most. Let's say that maybe I would only use that on those really deserves it. "And about the glass candle, may..."

But when I just placed the quill and inkpot on top of Maester Luwin's desk, a raven come bearing a letter sealed with blue-red stripes and a fish on top of it.

"Hmm, a letter from Riverrun? I think I should inform Lord and Lady Stark about this." said Maester Luwin before he later added. "Thank you for your help today, Theon. If you want to have a glass candle, you could take one from inside of that drawer."

...