Jargo seemed to be headed straight for the shed out in the garden. Of course, by now, it would be too late to stop him anymore. He had already seen it, and even saw that the door was already open. His skills were active as well, so he should be able to see any magical aspects of that shed as well.

  What the fuck was Runar even doing?!

  Ryan rushed after the acciptan, but at the same time, it wasn't like he could be too conspicuous right now. After all, if he suddenly started freaking out, Jargo, who was already extremely suspicious of Ryan in the first place, would figure out that something was really up, and then maybe come back later.

  "Fuck," Ryan whispered, and Jargo slowly turned around. It seemed like he hadn't perfectly heard Ryan, but just heard that he said something. Either way, he noticed. Jargo stepped up to the shed and peeked his head inside.

  "So what is this?" the agent asked, and Ryan sighed a bit.

  "Just an old shed that we cleared out a bit ago. Used it to store our drinks at the party yesterday," Ryan replied, and Jargo looked even more suspicious at that.

  "And you already removed all those drinks from inside here?"

  With a roll of his eyes, Ryan nodded, "Yeah, so? We already cleaned up the rest of the place, so we just did this as well. It's the weekend, so we want to see what we can do with the place. That's one of the reasons my uncle is here, to help us out with that," he said, pointing at Runar, who was standing just standing in the shed, acting like he was inspecting the shed's old walls. And shockingly, the pattern that was supposed to be on the ground was simply gone without a trace.

  Ryan had no idea if Jargo could see it, but he doubted it. Runar had to know what he was doing.

  "He is here to help you? And what do you plan on doing here?"

  With a shrug, Ryan stepped inside, "As I said, we don't know yet. Might make it a small playhouse for Liam or something. Or just use it as extra storage like it was used before. And if the wood is too old, we'll just tear it down and expand the garden a bit more."

  Though he didn't seem exactly satisfied with that, Jargo clearly had to just live with this answer. He continued to look around, even inspecting certain parts of the property multiple times. However, he did linger around the workshop for a while.

  "And what is this about? There is plenty of potent magic lingering here," Jargo snickered, as though he finally found what he was looking for. But Ryan immediately shook his head.

  "For the record, this is a totally legal workshop registered for both alchemy and magic engineering. It's the same with all the plants out there. Because one of my spirits is a nature spirit, I got a license to grow magical plants, and there is nothing dangerous in there," Ryan said clearly, crossing his arms, "I can get a copy of all the documents to you if you want."

  "... Even if this is all registered, that doesn't mean that you do legal things in here. Come, now explain to me everything that you are doing he-"

  "They will do no such thing," Runar replied, stepping into the workshop, "That is a total breach of the rights allowed to the OAA. You know exactly that there is a right to privacy related to any research, particularly magical research."

  Of course, that was a topic that Runar knew about pretty well. He was a researcher at the magic tower for a while as he completed his training, after all, so that was something he was more than aware of. Plus, he clearly dealt with the OAA a fair amount.

  "That is only the case when there is no reason to believe that part of the research was used to commit a crime."

  "And what reason do you have to believe that, exactly?" Runar asked, glaring at the eagle-man in front of him, "I want to make it extremely clear that I find this situation wholly inappropriate. As far as I'm aware, you are only here because a single individual, who happened to have been here at the party and insulted my son as a monster, was affected by some unknown magic. There is no reason for you to believe that this has anything to do with my nephew."

  Jargo shook his head, "It is very relevant. What if the magic was placed onto them as an act of revenge for their behaviour?"

  With a laugh, Ryan sat down on one of the swivel chairs ere in the workshop, "That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it?"

  "Whether it is a stretch or not is up to me to decide," Jargo responded, continuing to look around the workshop. But once more, he was stopped by Runar.

  "Everything here in this workshop is the intellectual property of the Aglecard Foundation. If you even dare take a look at any of this, I will sue you and the entire OAA out of this world," Runar said very bluntly. To be honest, it startled Ryan a bit.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  He wasn't exactly a fan of how much the Aglecard Foundation abused its power. Sure, it was useful at times, but it was also severely immoral, especially when it came to stopping investigations like this.

  "I have a warrant to search this property, what right do you think you would have to sue me?"

  "Specifically, the warrant is about finding the source of the magic that affected this Nora person, right? Well, it's not in here. Rather, this entire workshop was locked yesterday. Right, Ryan?"

  "... I mean, yeah, it was," he replied. He wasn't even lying, it really was locked. There was a lot of fragile and dangerous stuff in here, so once the party started, nobody came inside, "We do have security cameras in here as well. We can send you the recordings of last night to show that nobody came in or out. And if something was brought out, there would be traces of magic somewhere outside."

  Jargo hesitated, but soon agreed, stepping back out of the workshop. For about another hour, he continued looking around, but didn't find anything. In the end, he went on his way.

  "This is most likely not the last time I will be here," Jargo sat down in his car, and proceeded to drive off.

  "That's... it?" Ryan stared at the car as it drove off, "He's just leaving like that? What the fuck?"

  "Yeah. The OAA is kind of a mess," Runar agreed, stepping back into the house for now. Quickly, Ryan followed him.

  "Okay, a few things. First, none of the stuff in the workshop is the Aglecard Foundation's intellectual property-"

  "I know, I lied to get him to back off."

  "Good, just wanted to make it clear. Second, what the hell did you do with that magic circle?"

  Runar sighed, sitting down at the dining table, "I filled the grooves and disguised it. That magic circle doesn't have any magic in it innately. As for the rest of the magic lingering around, I just gathered it all up and pushed it into myself. I've got pretty good resistance against these things. Don't worry, I'll put a new lock on there later."

  Ryan nodded. Fair enough, that was a good way to do it, then. But Ryan wasn't finished yet.

  "Third. Why the hell was that guy even here?"

  "... As I said, one of the elders gave the OAA permission to come here. I don't know which one, but I've got an idea," Runar looked up at his nephew standing next to him, "Any other questions?"

  "Yes. One more," Ryan leaned forward, speaking quietly so that Liam wouldn't hear him from where he was sitting, "Why the fuck couldn't we contact you? How could you let your battery run out and not even notice?"

  "... It's complicated."

  "Of course it is. Everything here is complicated," Ryan replied, "How the fuck did you get hurt? You! And where is Yamada?!"

  "Yamada is waiting outside in the car. She needed some... time to herself, so I came in alone. We ran into a few tough opponents. But everything's fine, we dealt with it, and things will be okay. My leg will recover in a day or two as well, so it's okay," Runar started, pointing at another seat at the table, "But now, it's time for you to answer some of my questions. What happened here?"

  Ryan grumbled slightly, sitting down at the table. And then, he just started telling the story in detail, telling him exactly what happened and how it happened.

  At the end of it, Runar slowly nodded his head, "... Okay. That all makes sense so far. I'll have to thank Rose later. There is still just one more thing that confuses me right now," he stared at his nephew, "How were you able to protect yourself against the spell? You shouldn't have any particular debuff resistances."

  Ryan scratched the back of his head, "You know about those seeds that are left behind by specific strains of corruption when they're cured?"

  "... We had some reports, yes."

  "And, well... you know how we cured Kindly? And then the flower spirit Maribelle and the lake spirit during spirit week?"

  "... Yes?" Runar frowned slightly, seemingly understanding where Ryan was going.

  "Well, they actually did leave behind some of those seeds. I fell down and hurt myself when I was holding the seed from Kindly, and some blood poured on it, and I, well, kind of absorbed it? And it implanted myself in my magical vessel, and then I actively chose to absorb the seeds from the infected spirits."

  Runar hit the table and pushed himself up, "You did what?!"

  "Dude, it's not a big deal!"

  "Not a big- Of course it's a big deal! You implanted seeds of corruption into yourself!"

  "Except, I didn't do that!"

  Confused, Runar frowned at Ryan, "What do you mean?"

  "They weren't seeds of corruption anymore, they were seeds of... blessing. I confirmed it through Gaia's skill, since she looked at the seed once it took hold in my vessel. Plus, even Goria confirmed that it was a seed of blessing, and then... while giving me those items gave me a bit of a blessing as well and added a small pond around the seed inside of my vessel."

  Runar looked his nephew in the eyes, "... What? You were blessed by Goria?"

  "Yes?"

  "How could you not tell me that?"

  "... It felt like I'd have to tell you about the seeds," Ryan pointed out, "But seriously, it's a good thing, trust me. The tree supports my mental growth and protects me, and even held back that spell last night!"

  "Did you just say 'tree'?"

  "Right. I did. So... the seed grew just earlier, and, uh... I actually kind of used a slightly special seed for that one? You know, I, uh..." Ryan adverted his eyes from his uncle, who was slowly catching up.

  "Did the dungeon drop a seed?"

  "... Maybe?"

  "Did you absorb the seed from the original strain of corruption?!"

  Ryan slowly stood up, "Well, maybe? But it's fine! The sapling became a tree, and I even got a new ability! But it also just happened a few hours ago, so I wasn't technically hiding that part? You did say I could keep all the item rewards from the dungeon, so..."

  Runar limped in front of his nephew to stop him from avoiding eye-contact, "And how exactly did you suddenly absorb that seed, three months after you got it?"

  "... I may have purposefully taken in the spell and connected with the seed?"

  "You're a gods-damned idiot, Ryan."

  Though he wanted to make a retort, in the end, Ryan could just shrug and nod, "Yeah, probably. But hey, listen, this is great! I didn't have a chance to try it out yet, but as I just said, I have a new ability! And it's a good one!"

  With a raised brow, his uncle looked back at him, "Okay, I'm curious. What is it?"

  Ryan grinned, crossing his arms, "I have the dungeon's 'shop' function now."