Chapter 138: Absolute Chaos
"What’s the fee?" Priam decided to ask. Either way, he had a little over a hundred Red Prisms stored in his spatial ring, so he could afford to pay for information.
This was a window for him to talk to her and try to discover something, or recruit her. After all, he could now create his own faction in the sect.
The millisecond the word *fee* left Priam’s mouth, it was as if a mechanical switch had turned with a violent click inside the girl.
The air around her changed instantly. Her fluctuations transformed, as if they had snapped.
Flaris widened her eyes. That half-beast young woman in front of them... seemed to have been possessed by some sinister commercial entity!
The slight shyness, the shrugging, and the cute hesitation from seconds ago evaporated like smoke in the desert.
The girl opened a radiant smile, from ear to ear, and extended her hand in a professional greeting.
"My name is Dandara! Don’t worry, my dear client, I am an extremely honest professional and would never deceive a living soul. For a standard market consultation, I accept a single Red Prism."
She didn’t even wait for Priam to breathe before taking a step forward, reducing the distance between them.
"Now, if the question refers to the most vital and obscure details of the disciple selection, the price fluctuates a little upward..."
"Of course! I also possess exclusive secrets, insider information, and crucial gossip about what happens *after* you enter the sect. This little sister here solemnly promises, with her fist over her heart, that if you know these secrets, your life in this place will be a walk in the clouds!"
Dandara fired the words like a machine gun, staring Priam deep in the eyes, her pupils almost shining in the shape of Red Prisms.
"I can see in your eyes that big brother is a good person, extremely honest and focused on success. Because of that, and only today, I’ll offer you a special all-inclusive combo. For a mere ten Red Prisms, I’ll empty my mind and tell you absolutely everything I know!"
"This isn’t a price, it’s a gift! A colossal discount! You definitely won’t take a loss!"
At this point, Dandara seemed completely hypnotized by her own speech. She started gesturing dramatically, throwing her arms up like a fifth-rate theater actress.
"Nothing in the world is as valuable as knowledge, my friend! The size of your world and your future possibilities are directly connected to what you retain in your mind. But of course, life is a game of bets: only by investing resources can you truly make a huge profit! Think of your future! Think of the peak of Magic! Think..."
She kept talking nonstop, gesturing in an almost hypnotic way, trying to seduce Priam like a market vendor who needed to hit the month’s quota.
"Okay, okay... Breathe. Stop that," Priam extended his hands, interrupting the continuous flow of words, looking at her with a mix of amusement and pure strangeness. "If you keep talking at that pace, I’ll think I’m falling into a pyramid scheme. By the way, my name is Priam."
Dandara froze her dramatic gesture in midair and let out a loud little laugh, slapping her own forehead, looking slightly embarrassed—but not too much.
"Ah, boss Priam! Don’t take it the wrong way! It’s just that I took one look and saw that you’re such an honest young man... I was afraid you’d lose this golden opportunity! That would be the same as kicking a bright future away. Everything I do is for your own good, I swear!"
Near Priam, the trio of spectators made up of Shione, Lumiere, and Flaris watched that performance completely stunned. Their jaws were almost touching the ground.
They felt as if their horizons had been forcefully expanded. Who would have thought that a renowned sect of the Divine Plane wouldn’t only house geniuses, but also... peculiar figures like that?
"Do you really guarantee that you know everything about this place?" Priam raised an eyebrow, testing the waters.
"But of course! My motto is total transparency; I don’t deceive anyone!" Dandara puffed out her chest with pride and firmly tapped her own sternum, exuding pure confidence. "If you ask me a question about the Ironweald Sect and I don’t know the answer, I’ll break my own contract: I’ll give you everything I have in my database for free!"
Upon hearing that absolutist guarantee, Priam’s mind traveled through a few memories. Soon, an absurdly brilliant—and slightly ridiculous—idea sprouted in his mind.
"Great. Since that’s the case, answer one crucial doubt for me," Priam began, crossing his arms and letting a corner smile appear on his lips.
"If a cheeky fly dares to land right on the tip of the nose of the Elder who commands this Branch, right in the middle of that sacred opening speech... which hand does she use to shoo the insect away? The left or the right?"
Dandara’s commercial smile froze.
Her cheeks trembled lightly.
She stared at Priam, slowly blinking, as if trying to process whether she had heard a humanoid language. She let out a dry sigh, and her entire friendly saleswoman posture collapsed.
"You... are you calling me an idiot?!" Her voice rose an octave. "What kind of stupid question is that? How would anyone know something absurd like that?!"
"The world is full of clues for those with refined eyes, Dandara. You lack a bit of macro vision, advanced perception," Priam provoked, clicking his tongue and shaking his head in theatrical disapproval.
"Oh, don’t come acting like an enlightened philosopher with me!" she exclaimed, her fists clenched at her sides, her chest heaving with indignation. "Are you going to tell me now that you, a rookie who barely lost the smell of milk, uncovered the intimate habits and reflexes of the highest authority of the Outer Branch?! Of the fearsome Elder Mishnar?!"
"Exactly. I know the answer to that," Priam stated, pointing to his own chest with a serenity that bordered on insolence.
Dandara narrowed her eyes until they became two dangerous slits, trying to read any sign of hesitation in his expression. "You’re bluffing. You’re using a nonsense question just to see how far I fall for your slick talk."
"Want to pay to see? I really know," he urged, taking a step closer, throwing more fuel onto the fire.
"Very well! Challenge accepted!" Dandara took a violent step forward, her eyes sparkling with an intensely competitive gleam.
"If your answer truly makes sense and has logic, I’ll open my secret contacts notebook and give you all the gossip, maps, and commercial secrets of this place without charging you a single Prism! But... if it’s a shameless lie to make a fool out of me... don’t think I’m some defenseless little girl who can be ridiculed! I guarantee, by my own soul, that you’ll bitterly regret crossing my path!"
Priam kept his posture unshaken, without letting his sarcastic smile waver.
Internally, he was having more fun than ever with Dandara’s absurdly exaggerated reactions. That girl was a living force of nature; she simply didn’t have a middle-ground button.
In a matter of merely five minutes, she had gone through three completely different states of existence:
At first, she was a hesitant girl, somewhat lost and shyly withdrawn.
A little later, she turned into a hyperactive, dramatic, and talkative street vendor.
Now... her aura gave off a wild fury, her eyes shining like those of a territorial beast that had been insulted and was about to leap at his jugular.
All of it raw, intense, and fast.
Priam smiled even more. At least the bluff had worked to pull out the name of that so-called highest authority: *Elder Mishnar*.
Instead of handing the logical answer on a silver platter to the "irritated beast" in front of him, he decided to control the pace of the game and subtly shifted the direction of the conversation.
"Dandara, you, better than anyone here, know Elder Mishnar’s military reputation and history, right?"
"Obviously!" Dandara answered at once, her voice still harsh and her combat stance ready.
"She’s a living legend of the Sword Path! Five hundred years ago, that woman’s blade cleaned the borders, and her name made Sorcerers from all over the universe tremble in fear. Anyone who looks at old portraits of her understands the weight of her presence. Where are you going with this talk?!"
"Excellent. You yourself mentioned the portraits," Priam smiled, adopting the serene posture of a master about to reveal a hidden secret.
Priam remembered everything he had studied back in the Ylisse Clan. Among Catalyst Mages, besides traditional paths like Alchemy or Forging, there was an extremely rare group of Mages known as: Followers of the Weapon Path.
Basically, they were Mages who dedicated their existences to a single weapon, treating it like a living divinity.
They completely abandoned the Ancestral Arts of their races, elemental control, or any manipulation of external energies. They channeled only the purest magic to move their sacred weapon.
And the most famous among them were, without a doubt, those who walked the Sword Path.
To walk this path, it was mandatory to be a Catalyst Mage. That was because the Mage needed to project and create a Sacred Mark, fusing the power of their Mind, their Soul, and their own life force directly into the metal of the weapon.
The Mage gave everything they were to the blade, becoming one with it.
The Sacred Mark was a unique creation, a miracle comparable to the refinement of divine pills. No other type of Mage in the universe could replicate something like that, and each individual’s Mark was an absolute reflection of their personal studies.
When Priam laid eyes on that sword sheathed on the Elder’s back earlier, he felt that she was this type of Mage. And the way the Central Elder spoke to her at the end of the event only sealed his certainty.
Priam took a step forward, lowering his tone of voice to give it a dramatic effect:
"What ordinary people forget is that pure Followers of the Sword Path treat their dominant hand like an untouchable temple. They never use the hand that wields the sacred blade for mundane, banal, or... embarrassing tasks. Using the sword hand to shoo away an ordinary fly would be considered a profanation of the Sacred Mark itself."
Dandara frowned. Her cornered-beast posture gave way to an expression of deep concentration. "Wait..."
Priam searched his memory. He had noticed very clearly that when Elder Mishnar crushed the Talismans twice in a row earlier, she had deliberately used her left hand.
"Her dominant hand, the hand of the Mark, is precisely the right. So, the conclusion is purely logical," Priam concluded, holding back his laughter at the girl’s shocked face.
"For any ridiculous everyday inconvenience—whether scratching her nose, shooing away annoying insects, or signing irritating bureaucratic paperwork from the Outer Branch—she is absolutely forced to use only her *left hand*."
Dandara stayed silent for two whole seconds. Her mind seemed to have short-circuited.
She blinked, stunned, and slowly raised her gaze to stare at Priam.
Before her, the young man wore a calm, relaxed, and genuinely amused smile.
"Hehe..."
Suddenly, the girl’s "wild beast" aura completely collapsed. She covered her lips with the tips of her fingers and let out a clean, restrained, and genuine laugh. Her cheeks blushed lightly, a mix of embarrassment for losing the bet and pure amusement at the answer.
"Damn... I didn’t think of that at all!" she admitted, trying to catch her breath while the blush rose up her neck.
"A bet is a bet," Dandara continued, with an incredibly light and soft tone of voice, almost docile. "You won fair and square. I’ll keep my part of the deal... you can ask whatever you want until you’re satisfied, and I’ll answer with complete honesty."
"Keep your secrets for now," Priam gestured with his hands, turning his back in a relaxed way. "Mystery makes the journey more interesting. I don’t want to ruin the surprise of discovering this place’s dirty secrets on my own."
Dandara raised an eyebrow, frozen in surprise.
After all that spectacle, this guy was simply... refusing the reward? Her database was worth a fortune!
That was when the chaotic mechanism inside her turned the switch once again.
In less than a second, the sweet and laughing girl disappeared. A deep, visceral, and noisy irritation took over her entire being. She stomped her foot on the ground, the veins on her forehead almost popping out.
"Fuck! None of that! I don’t owe favors to anyone!"
At that instant, whether it was Priam, Lumiere, Flaris, or Shione, all of them were stunned. This young woman called Dandara...
She was absolute chaos!