128 Flamel Elixir
Luke and Nathalia thought it best not to call Shiro, Livia, and Jilly to see if Manilyn knew anything about Flamel’s Elixir. The pair asked for directions from some officials, who pointed them in the direction of the man’s residence.
Interestingly, Manilyn’s house was much further away from the other homes but also showed by far to be the largest. Luke and Nathalia had to pass through a small garden of strange plants, which they had never seen before.
“This uncle of yours…did you get to meet him at the party?” Luke asked as he looked curiously at a blue plant. He touched the oval head of the plant, and it opened, releasing a bit of a bluish glow, which almost made him sneeze.
“He stood in the corner of the party reading a book. I went and introduced myself, but he didn’t seem to care much,” Nathalia replied. “Shall we go?” She asked, seeing that he had braked his walk.
“Sure…” the half-wolf was shy that he had been distracted by something as silly as a blue plant.
So they stopped in front of Manilyn’s huge residence, which was three stories high. Interestingly, all the residence windows were covered with curtains, which prevented them from seeing anything that was going on.
Without hesitation, they walked to the door of the house. As they approached, Luke saw something so luxurious that he was amazed because he would easily steal this if he were still a thief: a door knocker made of gold.
Nathalia also looked surprised, but she still used the knocker. The sound reproduced by the gold hitting the wood was shrill and disturbed the sensitive ears of the half-wolf. KNOCK! KNOCK!
They waited for a few seconds, and no one answered, but since they had learned from their mistake when they had broken the door to Alexis’ hotel room, this time they just opened the door to the Mansion carefully. Fortunately, the double door was not locked, so all Luke had to do was turn the knob and walk in the front.
Manilyn’s entire house was in total darkness. Only a faint light was coming from the end of the main hallway, which was precisely where the main door was. Luke and Nathalia ignored the other rooms and walked quickly to the lighted spot. In these seconds, several theories crossed their minds.
Could it be that someone had attacked Manilyn? No… The Strogueher estate was too safe a place; even the former Luke knew it was stupid to break into such a place. But this residence was the furthest away, so perhaps an attack still plausible?
They eventually discovered that the light was coming from a flight of stairs leading down. Luke looked at Nathalia and realized she was nervous, so he stayed a little further ahead.
When they finally found what was reproducing the lighting, a large chandelier, they also found a bald man with his back to them, who was fiddling with a shelf full of books.
As soon as they opened their mouths to get the old man’s attention, he turned back and saw them: “AAAAAAH! WHO ARE YOU!? AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON MY PROPERTY!?”
Luke stretched his hands forward and leaned forward a little too to calm Manilyn down. “Easy, sir… I’m Luke, and she—” At that moment, a book hit the half-wolf’s nose, which was so thick that it almost broke his nose.
“Oops… Did you hurt yourself?” Manilyn asked, worried that he had thrown the book too hard, even though the half-wolf was still a stranger.
“No…” the half-wolf replied with a spindly voice and eyes just a little watery.
“I don’t know if you remember me, but I am Nathalia, we had the opportunity to meet a couple of weeks ago.”
He looked at the young Elf and clenched his eyes to see better, and when he saw that this was useless, he took the glasses hanging around his neck by a rope.
“Ahhh! You are the daughter of Akai and Ayumi…” spoke Manilyn, raising her arms slightly high.
‘Now I know why someone as young as Ayumi is the Matriarch of the Family…’ The half-wolf thought that if all the old Strogueher men were like Manilyn, that family would be doomed.
The old man in front of Luke and Nathalia was strange, to say the least. He had no hair over much of his skull, but the white strands on the sides were relatively abundant, and he also had a very long beard, which was slowly tapering off naturally.
In addition, there were many watches on his left wrist, some of which were of types Luke had never seen before. The half-wolf couldn’t tell if he was wearing them because he wanted to flaunt them or because he was crazy himself.
“Come on; you guys almost made my heart stop. What do you want here? If you’ve come for sugar, I’ve already told Kili to look in Carter’s house. I don’t put sugar in my tea…” Manilyn grumbled as she went back to rummaging through the right shelf of the dusty little library.
“Actually, we’re here to ask some questions.” Nathalia took the reins of the conversation because she could tell that Luke wasn’t having much patience.
“Yes, yes… You can ask, I’ll do anything for my new…” He turned briefly to look at Nathalia. “What are you really of me?”
“Great-niece.”
“Oh, that… I’ll do anything for my new great-niece. Go on…” Manilyn turned her attention back to the books again.
“You know that the Tournament of Legends is going on, right? This year, we only have three members of our family participating, because it seems that all my other young cousins are on a trip. And getting back to the main subject, I have learned that you are a good alchemist-“
“Do you know what Elixir of Flamel is?” Luke was frank and didn’t want to waste time fawning over the old man.
Manilyn suddenly turned around upon hearing the half-wolf’s question and, more serious than ever, inquired:
“Where did you hear that name?”
“The Second Phase of the tournament is asking us to make this… And I thought you would be the right person to ask about.” Nathalia replied.
The old man looked at them, and with a throat full of hiccups, he replied: “All right… I will help you make this Elixir. But you will have to go after the materials. I don’t have everything here with me.”