A few hours later…
Unlike before when their teammates waited for them at the breakoff point, Greem and Mary found no one there waiting for them. They had all left already or died to the attacks of fallen apprentices in the tunnels.
The latter was most unlikely due to the combined strength of the entire team and the 15 golems Greem passed on to them. Still, even if they were still stuck in the Underground completing their missions, there was no way he'd dive back in to go and get them.
That's why upon finding the place empty, he moved along with Mary and his new captive, a short green goblin that kept its head low and followed them obediently.
The dirty little gremlin was one of the reasons he'd bought the map from the Turlock merchant. In the novel, the greedy little creature was the one who led the original Greem and Mary to some ruins where they obtained some crazy stuff.
That Greem only discovered this creature after passing through the lightning trap and escaping with a nearly dead Mary. He basically controlled the golem to move to where it could sense a lot of weak and small underground creatures, where he slaughtered them all to revive Mary with their blood.
In our Greem's case however, the only difference with the story was that Mary was in tip-top shape. So there was no need to feed her their dirty blood.
After commanding the Alligator/Hunter hybrid to slaughter the dumb and primitive creatures, he snatched and questioned the last surviving and only intelligent goblin while Mary gathered the spilt blood with her extraction and compression spell.
The extra hour they spent doing this is probably why they came to meet no one.
Well, that was still a non-issue.
Adept Angus would not receive the mission items or any reports unless the whole team was present. So by the time Greem and Mary arrived at the adept tower, the whole team, with not one member missing, stood there waiting for them.
Varying levels of relief worked its way onto most of their faces, mirroring his own at their haggard and clearly injured but alive states. The cores he gave to them had made a difference. Shila didn't die this time.
"Go and get Master Angus."
Managing to look pretty despite the signs of ordeal she wore, Sabrina smiled and nodded at Greem, her half mechanical face managing to stir the doused attraction he had for her.
With her sharp, territorial senses, Mary grabbed his hand and shot a mild glare at the team leader, who brushed it off and locked gazes with him.
"I… we're glad you guys are okay. It would have been hard to thank you for the cores if you didn't return. Thank you."
Greem interlocked his fingers with Mary's and nodded, moving his gazes to the other team members who all visibly shared Sabrina's sentiment.
"We made things hard for the team by leaving, so I hoped to make up for our absence. There's no need for thanks."
Everyone, including Sabrina nodded at his statement, the team lead looking at him with an unsure and hopeful gaze. "Will you… be taking them back?"
He shook his head. "No. You can keep them."
He got multiple raised eyebrows and gleeful looks in return, a sight that added to his contentment at their survival.
Bruce, the apprentice Sabrina sent to fetch Adept Angus, returned and rejoined them, one of the other apprentices whispering something to him.
Judging from his smile and the appreciative look he sent Greem's way, it couldn't have been more obvious what was whispered to him.
Following that, the usual handing over of mission items and intelligence, Sabrina retrieved a head from her storage item and presented it to the master.
Apparently Sabrina and co had been attacked by four Pseudo Adepts, the latter group stating that whatever happened next was because of Greem and Mary. What happened next… couldn't have been more true.
Sabrina, Leo, and the other Pseudo Adept fought against three of the attackers while the Advanced Apprentices faced the last one, the unlucky guy being the first to fall.
Facing the combined attacks of six Advanced Apprentices determined not to die like one of them did not long ago, he had no choice but to fall after the first wave of attacks from them plus their two Intermediate golems each.
Greem could imagine it. A rain of powerful spells with varied effects plus a veritable rain of compressed Dirt Spears drowning the fallen apprentice and cutting him down swiftly.
It brought a smile to his face, one his teammates shared.
Due to the guy dying right as the fight began, the other three turned tail and ran, leaving a victorious and cheerful team behind.
Of course, being the stubborn and vengeful cockroaches they were, the fallen apprentices assaulted the team a couple of more times, hence their haggard states.
Anyway, once Sabrina handed over everything, Angus smiled mysteriously and settled his eyes on Greem and Mary. "I heard you have some things for me."
"Yes master Angus," Mary and Greem responded at the same time, looking at each other in shock as the vampire blushed and removed a large gray sack from her storage belt.
"Two Pseudo Adepts and five Advanced Apprentices."
Multiple gasps escaped the lips of their teammates, their minds unable to process what their eyes and ears just picked up. Adept Angus of course, had no visible reaction and shifted his gaze from the couple and their sack to Sabrina and co.
"You apprentices can leave. You two, come with me."
Turning around and making for the stairs that led to the upper floor, Adept Angus didn't check if Greem and Mary were following him. But they would be fools or suicidal if they let him wait or slowed him down.
Giving his bewildered teammates a farewell nod, Greem adopted a serious expression and hurried after the Adept, Mary right beside him.
He led them into a large room, one very similar to an office but without chairs for visitors.
Adept Angus didn't sit down and instead stood in front of his desk, facing the duo who stood nervously a meter away.
He tapped his staff gently on the stone floor and colorful and prismatic lights surged over the walls, door, and ceiling of the room before disappearing just as fast as they came.
'Probably a silencing and concealing effect,' Greem thought.
Knowing that even with his abilities, there was nothing he could truly do to resist the Adept if he wanted them dead or captured, he remained calm and silent and kept his head low.
"You hid yourself really deeply huh kid. To think all this time you were a Pseudo Adept."
Greem's supreme control of his body allowed none of his shock to leak through, but it seems whatever Angus used to suss out his secret also bared his emotional state to the Adept.
Mary was also trembling, her shock mirroring Greem's. She couldn't believe her boyfriend, whom she'd been vulnerable with, whom she thought had never once lied to her, kept such a huge secret from her.
Uncaring of whatever was going on in the girl's head, Angus stared at Greem.
"You can calm down kid. I'm not interested in your reasons for doing it or how you did it. Your secrets are your own. Though if you'd been more dominating, you could have asserted your position at the start and by now, all the girls on your team would be warming your bed each night."
Greem blinked and looked up at the wild Adept, bewildered at the amorous turn the conversation had taken. It was one thing to read something on page, and have the same exact thing happen to you.
The experience was jarring… to say the least.
Bewilderment aside however, Greem was both glad and relieved. In fact, he didn't know why he'd been afraid earlier. Adept Angus had always shown through his words and actions that the little schemes and plans of mere apprentices were beneath his notice.
He wasn't suddenly going to change.
Beckoning with his staff, the gray sack Mary was clutching escaped her tight grip and flew over to the Adept, his expression wavering on them for a moment before he looked at Greem and grinned.
"That's a lot of apprentices. The black bastards are definitely going to come for you even harder. I can take you and your little girlfriend off the missions and protect you from any of the Adepts whose students you killed. But you must do something for me."
"Anything, Master Angus."
"Good. I like smart people. How certain are you of advancing to Adept in the next three years?"
Advancement was a topic even veterans were rarely certain about. So despite his confidence at advancing in the next few months, Greem remembered a phrase from the books and tempered his answer.
"I'm fairly confident, master."
"I'm asking because I can only protect you for three years. After that period is over the fallen Adepts will be free to come after you."
Nodding vehemently, Greem said, "I'll do my best not to disappoint you."
"Okay. Okay. Enough of that sappy shit. I want you to sign this contract. I'll protect you for three years. When the period is over and you've advanced, you'll represent me in a puppet fighting competition with your golems." Angus said as a scroll covered in silver writing appeared hovering between him and Greem.
The latter read through the entire contract three times, the former saying nothing at all about this level of caution. He would do the same too.
Satisfied with the terms and conditions and confident there were no loopholes, Greem extended a sliver of Spirit to the sheet, drew in some fire elementium, and left his personal brand—a fist grasping the sun—on it.
It then dissolved into light particles as he felt something latch onto his soul, something… unbreakable, connecting him to the Adept standing in front of him.
Clearly pleased with himself, Angus tapped his staff on the ground to draw the duo out their stupor and grinned. "What do you want for the heads?"
☀☀☀
Just like the last time after they received their special rewards, Greem and Mary returned to their residences.
However, unlike before when Mary's head was abuzz with fanciful thoughts about their relationship, a haze of the opposite sort had settled on her mind.
She didn't even try to go into Greem's room, despite having slept there every night since the day he asked her to become his girlfriend.
She instead went straight towards her much less slept-in own, her expression and mood sullen.
Before she opened her door, the huge meaty hand she'd become intimately familiar with, grabbed hers gently and turned her to face its owner.
"Mary, I… give me a chance to explain. If you don't like what I say, I'll understand and leave you alone."
Giving him the most subtlest of nods after a period of hesitation, she let Greem lead her into his room and sat her down on his bed. The bed they had—
She pushed those thoughts out of her mind and focused on the explanation he was about to give.
"Yes. I was always a Pseudo Adept. Way back in the Swamp Tower. Even before we fought in the arena. And I didn't tell you because of only one reason: Anderson."
At the mention of that name, rage of a caliber the vampire hadn't experienced in a long while bubbled within her.
"I've thought about it alot, but I think he's nearing the end of his life. He's about to die."
Mary's interest was piqued, the sullenness in her gaze lessening a great deal.
"Now why would an Adept at death's door experiment on his own apprentice, give her a bloodline, and not take it for himself… since it's something that can definitely solve his lifespan problem?"
Mary kept silent, the picture Greem was painting becoming clearer despite being in its infancy.
"One simple reason: he couldn't. Meaning he had to look for other avenues to advance. It's why he left you to your devices even after you killed his students and attacked him.
I'm not completely sure, but I'm willing to bet my life on the fact that he wants you to fatten up on this mission. Not just you but the other apprentices, myself included. So that when we return more powerful, he'll sacrifice all of us in a ritual to advance.
And in your case, when the time comes, you'll not be able to resist. Because I'm one hundred percent sure he's left some method or seal to control you in your mind. It's why I kept quiet about my true strength and have been helping you.
I was afraid I'd catch his attention in the tower and also wanted you to advance quickly so you can get rid of whatever brand he's put on you."
Mary didn't know what to make of this.
This theory seemed too far-fetched, even for Greem. Sure, he'd never once led her astray with any of his plans, but this… to say that an Adept was going to sacrifice his own students.
Wait! Didn't he do the same to her?
Whatever was in that substance he injected her with, she was not supposed to have survived it, and Anderson knew this. He used her as a sacrificial lamb to test the viability of a risky bloodline transfusion, and the results he got clearly didn't please him.
A lot of emotions—chief of them rage, hate, and surprisingly, affection—warred in her chest and belly as she imagined the bleak future where her will had been stripped from her.
She didn't know how valid this theory was, but she was going to believe it.
Because it fit with everything she knew about Anderson to a T and also confirmed that her boyfriend's lie wasn't due to a lack of trust in her. Because it would mean she'd made a mistake by baring her heart and soul to him.
The truth was a simpler matter, thankfully. Greem had simply grown comfortable with and fully settled into the charade after maintaining it for so long that he forgot to tell her. That's all it was.
Opening her mouth to apologise for doubting him, Greem sensed her intent and waved her off, stepping forward and sitting beside her. He grabbed her hand and rubbed it affectionately, looking into her eyes.
"I'm sorry for not telling you. After I asked you to be my girlfriend, somewhere in the back of my mind, I just assumed you knew. Sigh… I don't even know why I thought that."
Mary smiled, her affection winning the inner battle and filling her with a warmth she'd come to appreciate.
Never one to hold back or shy away from expressing how she felt, the vampire said in a soft tone, "It's okay. I understand. Thank you… for everything," and leaned forward, pressing her eager lips against his own.