“585 counts of corruption?!” Aurelius muttered to himself in awe.
“The Commission had someone like this as their Secretary General? I know that the early days of the Magic Commission were messy but this is horrifying stuff!”
“...321 philandering charges… 1 count of sexual assault on a stately figure… Runae Aethernalis?! The Empress?! Does this guy’s dick not draw a line at anyone?”
The list that he held in his hand went on for several pages to document the extent of crimes that Pultris Politia had committed.
Along with the horrifying list, there were several notes by the Ethics Committee and witness testimony in the form of an official state document from the then kingdom of Aethernalis from the Empress herself.
Skipping all the way to the end, Aurelius already knew as a certainty the outcome of such a strange, horny man.
Death. After a healthy amount of torture of course. This was like 300 years ago after all.
Aurelius closed the document, and returned it into the box with a gaping mouth. And without a word, he restarted his work in the archives diligently…
???
Given that the Tower was created only in 130 BE, it was viewed as a cheaper alternative to create the underground levels for the Commission rather than building different necessary facilities over the city.
And interestingly enough, it had allowed for an expansion of their existing infrastructure at a much more efficient and effective pace, allowing for an expansion of their gyms, as well as the relocation of much of their archives in the central continent to the Tower.
The ignivite coating on the tower further gave the Tower proper facilities to support charm creation, and research for all sorts of scholars and academics.
The Commission training gym was one of these numerous facilities constructed with quality in mind at the Commission’s Tower of Trust.
Spanning much of the upper sections of the Tower’s vast underground sections, it was expanded to create several terrains and consisted of many training equipment for mages from all manner of background.
The Commission actually rented out much of the space to civilian mages on a membership basis for their training as a public facility. This meant that by the time that Aurelius had finished his first round of training with Sage Yeltz in this loop, mages had started to enter various spaces for their own personal training as well.
Sage Yeltz had decided that the two of her… interns were to use one of these public facilities, citing her desire to avoid an old coot.
Aurelius was almost certain that this ‘old coot’ referred to the former Sage Tona, given the amount of irritation that Sage Yeltz had put into the phrase, but he couldn’t quite… prove it.
He had given Sage Yeltz a brief complaint during their dinner about how Sage Tona was the reason that he had died in the previous loop then.
While Sage Yeltz remained quiet throughout his explanations that day, he glimpsed that imperceptible twitch of her eye when the incident had been mentioned.
Clearly, Sage Yeltz hadn’t been too happy with Aurelius’s report on Mr. Tona’s fickle loyalty. Or something along those lines.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
But coming back onto the topic, Aurelius and Seraphine were made to train in one of the publicly accessible gyms that morning.
And unfortunately for them, they would find a horrible sight in their routine.
It was the sight of a shapeless teenage boy getting beaten half to death by a cheerful teenager with an unfair amount of magic.
“Aurelius. For Dragon’s sake, can you step it up a notch?” Seraphine complained, annoyed by the sight of a sprawling Aurelius on the ground.
Seraphine was of course, also out of breath, but it was nothing compared to the absolute mess that was Aurelius.
Sage Yeltz had done the exact same thing as the previous loop and pitted her two poor interns against each other to duel to ‘increase instincts’ or whatever the hell her reasoning was.
“I agree with Seraphine, boy.” Sage Yeltz chimed in unhelpfully, forcing Aurelius back onto his legs using some of her magic.
“I don’t know why you decided to use the mana tackling technique in the first match of all places. You should already be aware that even basic magic techniques require time to practice and master to decrease the strain on the body.”
“That’s of course, not even mentioning the fact that you failed in your little trick.” Sage Yeltz said as she rolled her eyes scathingly.
Aurelius could honestly not care less about the stupid advice that the woman had given him. Although, the embarrassment would not have been noticeable given the kind of red hue that his cheeks had already taken.
But why was an intern like him suffering in the bloody gym anyway?
“...We’ll stop here and grab lunch before you shadow me for the afternoon.” Sage Yeltz declared, clapping her hands loudly and earning a few stares in the direction.
What they would see was the sweaty blob of… meat and bone on the ground, and the sweaty young lady carrying herself with dignity after battle. An interesting contrast that went to show anyone the gap between Aurelius and Seraphine.
With a casual snap of her fingers, Sage Yeltz summoned relief potions and gave her two interns exactly 5 minutes to recover.
Seraphine looked over at Aurelius quite a bit over this time period, clearly having been informed of Dragon knows what from the sage at the Archives.
However, Aurelius was in no shape to acknowledge even her weird stares at this point, and instead went to enjoy the rancid contents of the relief potion…
“Please stop that.” Sylven, the spirit familiar, commented from Sage Yeltz’s shoulder.
“Stop wha- Oh.” Seraphine said, glancing over once again at Aurelius on the ground, unfortunately subject to the boy desperately licking at the tip of the relief potion’s bottle in an obscene and frankly, rather lewd display.
And unfortunately, that was the horrifyingly unappetising sight that would lead the four of them over to lunch.
???
“No time today to renew your contract unfortunately.” Sage Yeltz commented, checking her wristwatch after noticing the expectant look from Aurelius.
“The vault would not be available even to me after 5. The spell on the vault forbids visitors without emergencies from access at these hours. Think of it as a quirk of the binding magic placed on the entrance.”
Aurelius tightened his lips wordlessly, having been looking forward to finally being free of the more screwed up parts of his contract with the Commission.
“I want you to write up some proposals about how you want the contract to be changed and submit it tomorrow. I’ll review it and negotiate with you after lunch tomorrow.” Sage Yeltz assured carelessly.
“What about Seraphine?” Aurelius asked curiously. What would she be doing when they were visiting the vault?
“Oh, I’ve given her some archive records to look through. It would greatly benefit her future research. I believe she was interested in the ruins near the South Tlacualtzin plains.”
“Unlike you, she’s an actual intern who’ll do actual, productive work.” She jabbed.
“But she’ll also double as a cover for you, allowing you to discreetly slip unnoticed into Commission records.” Sage Yeltz explained, waving her arms around casually, glancing at Seraphine at the Tower lobby reception desk apparently dealing with some paperwork of her own.
Aurelius nodded at this, understanding what was going on in better detail.
“But before we talk about all this, we must first discuss the topic of Pultris.” Sage Yeltz said candidly, giving Aurelius a chill down his spine.
Did she figure out that he had read up on the trial records of Pultris?
“I-Er-Was there a problem with the records I looked at?” Aurelius blurted out, stumbling over his words in his nervousness.
“...No. I did notice that from the records in the archiving charm I gave you that you read up on the trial records of Pultris. But that’s not really the issue here.” Sage Yeltz responded.
And with a serious, stoic face bordering on that of a boulder, Sage Yeltz commanded something horrifying to Aurelius.
“I want you to take Pultris as a Contracted Angel.”
