Chapter 6: Recovery

Since Waver's rushed departure, Adashino and Melvin were left alone inside the unsealed room. The piece of Trimmau came towards Melvin and turned back into a mercury pocket watch. Adashino was smiling as if something good had happened to her.

"Love. What a curious feeling it is. Even something so small can turn dangerous."

Melvin turned towards her, thinking about how Waver must have felt.

"Then what Waver discovered was that this current case and the love potion incident are connected. And the doppelganger effect on the entity added towards the confusion."

"That's correct. But there is more to it than just that. The unrequited love that the apprentice girl had for her master. It's surprising that he wasn't able to notice it until now."

Melvin nodded to her statement. Many people had known about Gray's crush on Waver, but even then, he couldn't see it. And he was going to fix that and reconcile with Gray properly after the incident. But he has to deal with the entity first.

"Waver, overthinking things too much as usual. But Waver is Waver. Let him find out for himself."

Adashino chuckled. Waver's longtime friend was always entertaining to listen to, even though he can be eccentric at times. Maybe he was interesting after all.

"We shall find out, Melvin. Can he face himself?"

Love. A word so simple yet so complex. The answer was in front of him this whole time. The connection between him and Gray, and the entity's actions. The love potion incident and its connection to Gray. The type of love potion effect that affected him.

"If only I noticed sooner, this wouldn't have happened! Please forgive me, Gray! Please be safe!"

Waver ran back towards his office, thinking she would be there. But she was nowhere to be seen. But he couldn't contact Reines, due to the love potion effect still affecting him. And he left small Trimmau with Melvin inside the unsealed room.

Itching to take a smoke, he took out a cigarette to calm his nerves.

"Where does she usually go when she is lost? Think. There are usually open courtyards around certain buildings in Clock Tower. Maybe I'll check there."

Waver prepared a Mystic Code from his cigar and used Reinforcement magecraft so that he could protect himself against the entity. Taking bits of his hair to use as a mana source, he made sure that he was well protected. Afterward, he went to look in the open areas of Clock Tower for Gray.

Through the Clock Tower windows, I can check if she is outside around the courtyards.

He immediately went to search for her.

Meanwhile, Gray was being approached by another Waver. His demeanor was strange and off, but everything else seemed normal. She smelled the scent of tobacco faintly from his clothes, and he didn't look dangerous at all.

If he hadn't appeared so suddenly, it would have looked as if Waver was just tired after a long day of work.

"Sir, are you feeling alright? Are you still sick?"

Then, Waver began to speak.

"Gray, were you waiting outside for me? I'm here for you now."

"Here for me?"

"Yes. I'll always be there for you. Just like you wanted."

Gray blushed a little from hearing those words. It sounded calm and serene, but with his voice. He went closer to her, touching her hands and shoulders. He smiled kindly, like a father towards her. It was as if Waver had become a slightly different person, with a more generous personality. She felt like she was seeing another side of him, even if she felt unsure.

"Sir…"

He gently hugged her and rubbed her hood. She felt the warmth of his body and his arms around her. Waver was holding her tightly, not wanting to let her go. The two of them embraced each other under the lone tree by the bench. Gray slowly felt like she was getting sleepy and tired.

"I-I feel tired. Sir, should you take a break from your investigation? It's probably too stressful for you—"

Someone came running towards them, screaming at her to get away.

"GRAY! Get away from him!"

The real Waver rushed towards the two of them, and aggressively pushed his doppelganger out of his grasp on Gray. Using Reinforcement, he created a small barrier around himself to protect her. The doppelganger nonchalantly got up from the ground and looked at them.

What is that thing? Is that what I look like to other people? But his face looks a bit distorted and disjointed. Just, what is it…

To Waver, his copy looked like a monster. The entity had managed to copy most of his outer features down, with some changes. His long straight hair. His black suit and tie. His front as a Lord of Clock Tower. Everything about him was there, just slightly off.

"W-Why are there two Sirs?"

"Gray? You can't tell the difference between me and him?"

"No, I can't."

Her face was very red, flushed with embarrassment. Gray looked like she was being affected by something from the entity's disguise. Waver saw his doppelganger approaching them again, this time with full force. It managed to counter his defense and grabbed Gray's arm away from him.

She wasn't paying attention to the confusion going on between Waver and his copy.

"Ah! Not again! Gray! Snap out of it!"

He chased after his doppelganger, who was holding Gray hostage. Waver managed to trap it under a blocked path around the Clock Tower buildings, so it had no place to escape. There were no hidden passageways, only dead ends.

The strange red glow of the fake Waver's eyes brightened the shaded alleyway.

I'm running out of stamina and energy. I can't keep running like this. At most, I just need to get Gray out of his clutches so that we can escape and get out of here. I can't really fight…

Waver held on with some Reinforcement magecraft around his body so that he could withstand any attacks his doppelganger did toward him. Gray looked to be in a daze, so he was on his own to get her out one more time before the entity could do anything to her.

Just one more chance. I can't stall for much longer. I need to bluff one more time.

He knew that the entity was trying to copy his movements and learn from him. But there was no other way around it. He had to make a decision. And make it quick.

"TAKE THIS!"

In an instant, he quickly grabbed Gray away from his doppelganger and tried to get her back to safety. But the entity had prepared something else to counter him. This time, it activated a passive within its eyes, triggering something within Waver.

Faint images of blood, gore, and death. The scent of a very strong flowery perfume. He saw himself underneath the water above him, with ice cracks opening up around him. The doppelganger above him smiled through the cracks as he lost consciousness.

"Sir! Sir! SIR!"

He could faintly hear Gray's cries calling out to him.

What just happened to me?

Then all went black.

Meanwhile, back in the unsealed room, Adashino looked disappointed as she left the room to Melvin. The room was still barely lit from the entity's actions in sucking out the mana around the area not too long ago.

"Looks like the fight is over. You should go check up on your friend, Melvin."

She nonchalantly left the room, leaving Melvin behind. They had waited for at least half an hour before she had suggested checking up on him. Afterwards, the room was quiet. Little Trimmau was perched on Melvin's shoulder and hid itself as he went towards the Clock Tower courtyards to find Waver passed out beside Gray.

The entity was nowhere to be seen. It had disappeared again.

"Is Sir alright? He isn't responding."

Melvin went to check Waver's vitals. He was still breathing.

"Gray, we'll send him to the Clock Tower infirmary just in case. Hopefully the entity didn't do anything damaging to him."

"Thank you, Melvin. Hope he's fine."

And the two of them got help from other people nearby to carry Waver into the infirmary to get medical treatment for his injuries. The rest of the day passed without incident, with Gray and Melvin later helping Waver onto his bed inside the apartment unit later that night.

Darkness. Emptiness. The void. A reflection of myself. Where am I?

Waver saw something in the distance, in which the atmosphere reminded him of the 4th Holy Grail War. The sky was darkened to a purplish red hue. He saw his younger self not too far away next to another servant on top of a building. A familiar servant. It was the King of Knights. Saber. Artoria Pendragon.

Her sword immediately stabbed his other self in the stomach. His younger self covered in blood as it tried to gasp for air. It screamed in terror as it turned back into the entity, filled with black and darkness around itself.

No. Stop. Please. This is too much! Please, not Saber! Not her!

He ran away into the darkness, hoping no one would kill him. Then he heard a familiar voice. It sounded like Gray. Her homely and wholesome voice running towards him.

Gray, is that you? Gray! Gray…

He felt his own body get pierced by something sharp. It looked like the Holy Lance that Artoria Pendragon also carried in her life. He turned around to see Gray, or what once was Gray. Her hair had turned blonde, and she was wearing the blue garments and armor that the King once wore. She was not herself anymore. She was Saber.

He spat blood as his insides were being shredded by the lance inside him. His lungs were immediately filled with water as he opened his eyes to see himself underwater. His blood had turned the water red as he slowly went further and further down into the abyss.

"You were really never meant to be great, Waver Velvet. No wonder you were called Waver the Failure. Go die alone and in misery, my fellow student."

Professor Kayneth, is that you? Am I dead? Am I really dead?

All he could see was red. The ocean was red. Everything was covered in red, just like blood.

He quickly opened his eyes to see himself in bed inside his own apartment. The scent of warm chicken soup filled the room, with Gray preparing it. She looked back to find Waver awake, and sweating.

"Sir, are you awake? I have prepared some soup for you."

"T-Thank you, Gray."

Waver turned his head to the side in shame. He had almost forgotten about her crush on him. So many things had happened since the entity case began, not letting him notice something in front of him. It was more than just a simple entity case.

"Gray, I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Waver's hoarse voice echoed throughout the room, and Gray looked back at her master. After he had eaten his meal, they were able to have a quiet moment together. Add was still sleeping inside his birdcage in the corner of the room. A few lights lit the dimly lit room, such as a small bedroom light. The night was quiet and tranquil, with no one else to bother them.

"Sir, don't talk so much. You need to rest. I can leave if you want."

"It's fine. We've got more important things to talk about right now, don't we?"

"Sir…"

The flickering of the bedroom light led to the silence. Gray had brought some hot lemon tea for them to drink together late at night. Waver sat up from his bed so that he could talk to her better. He looked away from Gray, not knowing what to say.

"Lady, you should go love someone else. There are better people waiting for you."

"Sir?"

"Love is dangerous. You need to be careful about who you choose to love. It shouldn't be me. There is no reason for it to be me."

But Gray touched one of his hands near the bed. She was blushing and looked determined. Waver looked back at her, confused.

"But Sir, you said that there were many forms of love, and how it could be used as magecraft. What's wrong with that? Even Reines wanted me to show my love for you."

Waver sighed. If Reines also had suggested it, it must have been genuine.

"That is true. But you didn't need to force yourself to do things for me. Just be careful of who you get advice from, Lady. We don't want another love potion incident."

Gray looked down in shame. She sipped a bit of her hot lemon tea.

"I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry about that. I-I just wanted to understand your lecture about Love and Love Magecraft. I really am not smart at all. I don't understand things well."

The Love Magecraft lecture…so it all had to lead back to that. Was this all a misunderstanding, or am I overthinking this? I can't even explain such a simple term as love. Something so simple yet so complex.

"Sir, are you blushing?"

Waver's face was a bit red, thinking about someone. His admiration for his King, the King of Conquerors, filled his mind. The adventures they had together during the 4th Holy Grail War, from at least a decade ago. The lessons he learned as a naïve student to such an ancient ruler. Maybe it could be a form of love as well. Even if Iskandar might not have looked at it that way.

"I understand. I understand now, Gray. I know how it feels to not be appreciated by someone you love. You would want to be seen by them. But I cannot accept your love for me in a romantic sense. You are my apprentice. And I am your teacher."

"But I can still love you, Sir?"

Waver nodded. There are many forms of love after all.

"That's fine. Even in a familial sense, it is still love. This is adolescence that you're going through, so I'll accept your growth in wanting to experience love. It was my mistake that I didn't understand your reasons until now. But everything is alright now."

He gently patted Gray's hood and smiled. They were still a family regardless. Even if they weren't blood-related, they were mutual with each other. He did take her in the first place and let her escape her accursed village. There was hope for her to create her own path, but it just takes time to find herself in life.

Even if she was just an apprentice. Even if she was just a helper in dealing with strange beings and spirits as a Gravekeeper and as the wielder of Rhongomyniad. She was still someone important to him.

"Sir, are you still feeling sick? What did the entity do to you that made you pass out?"

Waver shook his head and checked his temperature. Everything was normal. He was healthy and there wasn't anything wrong with him, in the physical sense. But since magecraft was involved, there could be something that imprinted on him from that encounter.

"I'm not sure. According to doppelganger mythology, I should have been dead. Whereas if the original see the doppelganger, he is fated to have an early death from their meeting. Its eyes, the way the effect worked is similar to Mystic Eyes. So that could be where the doppelganger passive could have come from."

"Similar to Mystic Eyes? You don't think they're really Mystic Eyes?"

"They may work in a similar way to Mystic Eyes, but it can only work under specific circumstances. The reason I'm not dead could be that its power is coming from a source, so its power is not as direct. After all, it never originally had it in the first place. It's definitely connected to something."

Waver turned around to touch Gray's face. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with her either. The entity definitely cast something upon her before he was able to get it away from her. She retaliated by touching his hand back.

"I'm fine, Sir. I found no marks or any sign or indication around my body."

"Do you remember anything during the encounter? It looked like it put a spell on you. Hopefully, it didn't imprint anything on you as it did on me. Did you feel anything?"

Gray closed her eyes, trying to remember what it did to her. Everything felt hazy, like a dream. She wasn't able to see the difference between the two Wavers, so it probably was related to how she viewed them.

"I don't know. But it looked like there was an illusion effect around it. Maybe it had to do with our perception?"

"Perception. So a Projection magecraft illusion being cast around the entity is possible. I could see it based on how strange my other self looked. So it could be based on how each person views the entity differently. That's why we saw different things despite it taking my form."

"I see."

"Gray, I'll have to figure out something so that you won't get affected by the doppelganger passive later on. But for now, we should rest soon. It's getting late."

Waver took a sip of his lemon tea and looked at the nearby windowsill. The cold moonlight lit up a small portion of the window, giving it some more light in their dimly lit room. But he felt something was watching them outside. He quickly got up to check and saw a faint path of mana across the outskirts of his apartment.

"Sir, is everything alright? What just happened?"

The flight path looks like something coming from a bird. Was the dove watching us?

"Nothing. Don't think too much about it."

Waver closed the curtains and went to finish up his tea. Gray took it as a sign to finish drinking and get ready for bed. She hastily took Add as she grabbed his birdcage and take her leave. They had a long night, and he still needed to recover from dealing with the entity and the love potion effects.

What are her plans? What does she want? I still need to figure out a plan for dealing with the entity first before it gets any worse…

A few days later, Waver and Melvin were walking together near a semi-abandoned corridor around Clock Tower. On one side of the buildings, it wasn't used as much compared to the other areas of the campus. There were fewer people around them to eavesdrop on them, so they were able to have their private conversations in public.

"Waver, did you fully recover? The entity's activities have been quiet lately."

"I feel fine now. For its movements, it's probably waiting for more directions."

Waver took out a cigarette and lit it to take a smoke. The air became slightly tainted by the tobacco smoke as they continued walking. The small Trimmau pocket watch was in his pocket, waiting for any of his students to discover any other clues around Clock Tower.

"The entity's behavior never truly changed after all this time. Since it still needed mana before causing problems around Clock Tower, there should be a way to bait it. Something like a massive mana source."

"So, under the ground?"

Melvin pointed towards the ground. Clock Tower was built upon the corpse of a massive dragon, which stored large quantities of mana underground. The Spiritual Tomb of Albion was underneath Clock Tower, first dug out by the Dragon of Albion to dig itself to the Reverse Side of the World.

If it had ever managed to go underground, it would have caused an even worse disaster within Clock Tower.

"That's a bad idea, Melvin. It should be easier if it was managed by us instead of relying on natural chance to capture it. But to reseal the entity itself is also another issue. The best way is from its natural connection to the book. But it would be very risky."

"Because we don't know where the book is?"

"We may not know where it is now, but there's a good chance someone else has it. Otherwise, it wouldn't be that easy to unseal the entity in the first place. They may not take the bait either, but we'll see. All plans do not come without risk."

Waver took another smoke as they checked up the corridors around Clock Tower. Their silent footsteps echoed through the floor. Unused classrooms and clubrooms were to the side as they went further and further into the area. In the place least suspected, the entity could have easily hidden in these places.

"The Clock Tower not helping us also is strange. For such a dangerous entity wandering the premises, they would have immediately taken action by now, unless there's more that they're not telling us. Melvin, I think they might want something like a confession or statement from us."

"You have a point. What are they really hiding anyway? But this is normal in mage society. You already know about this, Waver. But it's possible to hit two birds with one stone."

"Really?"

"It can probably fit into our plans if we coordinate it well enough. If they already knew since the beginning, what's more, if we add to it to complete our objective?"

"I see."

Suddenly, the pocket watch buzzed from Waver's pocket. He took it out to check who it was. There were a few familiar voices being heard from the receiver.

"Professor, we found something strange. It looks unused so I don't know if we should touc—"

"Don't say that! We have to see what it does!"

Svin and Flat's voices could be heard through the pocket watch. But Melvin heard something else. There was a slight echo coming from the corridors they were walking in. The two students were nearby and around the area, they were investigating. After a while, their voices suddenly went quiet as they heard fast-paced footsteps coming toward them.

Flat looked excited while Svin was trying to catch up to him.

"Big Ben! We find something that might be useful for you! It's—"

Svin quickly covered his mouth.

"Not here! Don't say something like this so loud around here. Let them see it for themselves first, Flat!"

"Sure, sure."

And the two of them led Waver and Melvin towards something within Clock Tower.

The darkness. The chilly cool air froze the rooms around the unused corridors. The smell of dust and mold made breathing difficult. The secrecy that mischievous Clock Tower students hide within these rooms when they are not doing their assignments or studying.

A hooded girl with a fur cloak came from the darkness into the light. A small brightly lit red room with its bookshelves and seating areas could be seen through the door. She watched silently before slowly walking towards it.

However, she got interrupted by someone's footsteps hurrying through the door.

"What are you doing standing there, Gray? Come on in. The show is about to start!"

It was Reines, with a small fur coat and feathered hat. Trimmau was beside her, staring blanking in one direction. But her mercury hands were around Reines' arm, leading her away from Gray and into the room. There was a small bump on its back. Gray later walked in, carrying her cloth-covered birdcage along with her.

Waver was sitting in the center of the room, smoking a cigar. Melvin was next to him, gesturing for Reines and Trimmau to get close to them and sit on the nearby chairs around them. Adashino and Nijima were seated to the side of them, enjoying their tea and cake. Gray slowly came forward but got stopped from getting closer to Waver.

"Sit down, Gray. We're here for something important."

"What do you mean, Melvin? You want me to sit down?"

Melvin nodded, and she quickly took a nearby chair in the room. Something was about to begin. Waver looked towards them to begin his meeting. But instead, he spoke about something else.

"Today, I will tell you about the case that happened twelve years ago."