Tales of Astora: Legacy

Chapter 64: Marcus William

Chapter 64: Marcus William

"Welcome to my mansion, Traveller!"

Standing in front of a huge gate, Alastor was struck with awe. Not far outside the city of Europia, a giant white square building stood majestically in the middle of a green field. A yellow soil path led from the road right to it. The exterior looked very simple: it was basically a cube with only one entrance which was a heavy metallic door that had no handle. Next to it were a small glass panel and a speaker poking out of the wall.

The old man moved toward the strange panel and put his hand on the class. A green horizontal light bar appeared on the screen before going up and down as if scanning his hand. After a few seconds, a voice came out of the speaker.

"Welcome back, doctor Vincent!" the voice was female but spoke in a monotonous tone.

"Ein, can you prepare a meal for us? And clean up the living room please! I have a lot to discuss with this young man right here." The doctor said.

"Of course, doctor Vincent! It will be done right away! Please come in! And welcome back too, lady Fiora!"

The metallic door that seemingly immovable just a moment ago slid up to the wall, revealing the entrance to the building.

"Old man, as much as I want to eat, I am more curious about what you said earlier." Alastor spoke anxiously. Even in Astora, the Artificer was not something commonly known by the public. To most people, he was a legend, a myth from centuries ago. Yet, how was it possible that the people of this world knew about him? And from the look of doctor Vincent when he spoke of him, it seemed more than just a simple acquaintance.

"Be patient, my boy! Everything has its time. But you can't do anything with an empty stomach. Let us eat first! Then we can continue our conversation. Come in!" the old man signalled the boy and Fiora to enter.

The actual inside of the building was completely the opposite of the simple design of its exterior. Small buds of light were planted inside the wall that lighted up whenever someone walked close by. The walls were neither made out of stones or glass but a dark blue metal with a green light trailing everywhere like a blood vessel. Strange machinery with a clear instruction 'DO NOT TOUCH' were everywhere.

Containing more than thirty rooms, Vincent was actually the only person living here. At least the only real person anyway. Aside from him, the rests were all consisted of humanoid machines with different shapes and functionalities. Some were for housing purpose like cleaning and cooking while others were clearly for security as they were armed. Vincent referred to them as 'Robots' and these were the ones he created for his personal use. A genius couldn't waste any time to clean his house if he could use that time to create something extraordinary for mankind.

But there were something shocking about these security robots that Alastor has noticed. They looked exactly like the Destroyers found in the basement of the demon lord's castle. There might be some minor differences in term of colour and the exact shape but they definitely were related. However, Mephisto said that the Destroyers were created by the Artificer himself. What if the Artificer, being a Traveller and having the ability to cross dimensions, actually brought these robots back to Astora for some purposes? His other creations, while having a trace of magic in it, shared some kind of similarity with the design of some objects Alastor saw inside Vincent's mansion. For example, the armor Alastor took from the assassin in Zagon, one of the Tempus Machina,d was actually displayed right in a room here. It couldn't be a coincidence that two things from two separate worlds looked exactly the same. That would explain how the Artificer could create those strange artefacts without anyone being able to replicate or even understand how they worked. He himself was inspired by what he found in this world and decided to create a version of his own.