LIGHTNOVELSTORY Chapter 7: Plans
Under the influence of strong emotions, the dark-haired young man continued to squeeze the lifeless body of the scientist. Several minutes passed. Finally, when the storm of emotions inside him subsided, he pulled away from the corpse.
"Ha..ha... the bastard is dead. Ha-ha... got what he deserved, damn scientist."
Greedily inhaling the damp air, smelling of a mixture of blood and herbs, he began to carefully examine the room. His gaze stopped at the table where Morris mixed his potions and stored his tools.
"There must be something useful for me there."
The young man thought that the tools or potions stored there would help him escape the city. Sorting through dozens of vials one by one, he kept coming across the same substances that Morris had used on him. The sight of them made his skin crawl, and a slight shiver ran down his spine. As he took out the items that caught his eye, a thought crossed his mind that all of this probably required special storage conditions.
Taking out the last vial of restorative potion, he looked around the room again. Approaching the cabinet from which Morris had previously taken the strange stone, he began searching for any records or books about potions. Initially, the young man assumed this would take quite a bit of time, but to his surprise, the scientist had conveniently organized and titled all his records. After spending several dozen minutes, he found nothing about potion storage methods.
"It can't be that simple. For any product to be stored forever in an ordinary glass vial is nonsense."
Remembering that Morris was clearly not a novice in his field, the young man assumed that there must be old records somewhere from his early days. The first thing that comes to mind is a home library. At the very least, an office, a simple workspace, or a bedroom. The young man was about to leave the room but remembered one insignificant, barely noticeable detail — the corpse in the middle of the room.
"Damn... what am I going to do with you?"
Making a quick decision that Morris's remains needed to be moved at least, he approached the corpse. Overcoming a bit of disgust at the sight of the scientist's frozen face, the young man grabbed him by the legs and dragged him to the side. Reaching the corner of the room, he released his grip, and the characteristic sound of something heavy hitting the floor was heard.
Finally, leaving the room, he thought:
"Where am I right now? Did he live in a private house or an apartment? No, he couldn't conduct such experiments in an apartment, maybe it's a separate laboratory? Whatever, it doesn't matter to me."
Orange light, reflected from the bright full moon, poured in through the windows lining the entire corridor. Along the relatively short path, various paintings adorned the walls. There were landscapes, portraits, still lifes, creating the impression of being in an art gallery. Seeing a door ahead, the young man stopped admiring the decor and quickened his pace.
Behind the door, which opened with a characteristic creak, was an ordinary guest room. A regular double bed, nightstands on either side, a wardrobe, an untouched vanity with a fairly large mirror, a carpet.
Losing interest immediately, the young man continued on his way. Encountering several more almost identical rooms, including Morris's own room where he apparently only slept, he reached the end of the corridor. Surveying the fairly wide wooden staircase and the spacious area in front of it, he began to descend slowly. The stairs creaked under his steps, and each sound echoed through the presumably empty house. He stopped halfway, listening to the silence, searching for the slightest sound that might indicate someone else was in the house. But besides his own breathing and the faint rustle of old boards, nothing disturbed the night's tranquility.
Continuing to descend, the young man finally found himself in a spacious room on the lower floor. By a large window stood a black piano, which, judging by its appearance, was regularly used. Against the far wall stood a long lacquered table made of dark brown wood, with a fruit dish in the center creating a typical and unremarkable composition. A cabinet with glass doors next to the table contained a crystal set and several half-empty containers on a separate shelf. To the right of the carpet lying in the center of the room and covering the parquet was a large double door. On either side of it stood two lamps, and on the wall hung a portrait of a mustached man. He was dressed in luxurious, colorful attire and seemed to pierce anyone who visited this place with his haughty gaze.
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The young man spent quite a bit of time examining the entire first floor. In the left wing of the house was the living room with the portrait of the haughty man. In the right wing was the dining room, from which one could access the kitchen. A separate area in the right wing was the entrance to the basement, where the room in which Morris kept the young man was located.
Finally, after inspecting his place of confinement, the young man faced the last room on the first floor. Unlocking another double door, he found himself in another spacious room. The dim moonlight falling from the windows barely illuminated the high shelves filled with various books and antique furniture. In the center of the room stood a massive table with maps, heavily used atlases, and books left on it, as if someone had just left without finishing their work. He walked past the tables, ignoring the unclear notes, and headed towards the bookshelves. Quickly scanning the titles, the young man realized he would spend a lot of time here. Unlike the previously read records, which the now-dead scientist had conveniently sorted, the hundreds of books filling the library were in complete disarray. Astronomical maps, encyclopedias, collections of works on biology, scientific papers by various authors covering all sorts of scientific fields, novels, and even a few cookbooks. One look at all this could make most ordinary people dizzy, including him.
"How is it even possible to create such chaos?"
Quietly grumbling and accepting his daunting fate, the young man began sorting through all this paperwork in search of the necessary information.
Barely opening his sleepy eyes, the young man, lying on the couch, looked around the room. It was in even greater disarray than yesterday, with books scattered all over the floor, a significant portion of the shelves empty, and two small maps and a rather thin book neatly stacked on the table. Raising his stiff body after sleep, he began to recall the events of the previous night. After spending hours selecting the necessary books and initially reviewing them, he lay down on the couch hoping to rest a bit, but, unnoticed by himself, he slept through the entire night. Approaching the table, he glanced at the neatly placed maps and book. The map of the Western Continent, the Ignis Empire, and "Basics of Creating and Storing Low-Rank Potions."
Taking one of the maps, the young man began to read it. The Western Continent was a vast asymmetrical territory. Its southern part consisted of several large peninsulas. In the east and northeast were numerous small islands filling the entire space, thousands of kilometers long, in front of its jagged coast. The western part of the center and the west itself was occupied by a vast desert, separated from all other places by a massive mountain range. The north was a mountainous wasteland. The northeast, east, and south were occupied by three currently warring and bordering states, several principalities, and small kingdoms serving as buffer states. The Kingdom of Vjorn and the Ignis Empire were located close to each other, sharing the northeastern lands.
"The war zone is where their borders meet... so I need to go in the opposite direction."
After quickly examining the map, the young man rolled it up and put it in the pocket of his tattered pants. Taking the book on potion-making, he headed to the kitchen, intending to eat something.
The heavy wooden door opened with a slight creak. The young man, buried in the book, was about to step inside, but...
"AAAAAAH!" — a piercing female scream hit his ears.