I Refused To Be Reincarnated

Before Adam knew it, he was following Yann and the musician down the corridor above the bar.

A thick silence hung in the air, their steps echoing against the closed doors flanking them. He could even catch snippets of what happened behind a few. A man throwing up after yesterday's hangover and cursing his bad luck with the cards. The creak of a bed, soft moans, and honeyed whispers. From another, hushed voices filtered through—low, urgent, and laced with danger.. Whatever they were saying was clearly not for him or anyone to hear.

Unsatisfied with being kept in the dark, he leaned toward Yann's ear, his voice barely audible. "Who's that man, and why the multicolored cape?"

Yann's eyes darted between Adam and the man for a second. Then, he covered his mouth, whispering. "Not people you want to offend, lad."

He pointed at the flutist's cape as it fluttered with a cascade of shifting hues. "He's a member of the minstrels, a group of sweet-tongued storytellers, silver-fingered musicians, and performers as swift and fluid as sylphs weaving between tree branches..." His voice dropped lower as if he was scared of being heard. "Officially. In reality, they're members of one of the oldest orders in the archipelago. They hold more deadly secrets than even the most corrupt noble household..."

Before he could continue, the musician halted cold in his tracks. He snapped his head at Yann, his hand finding the cold key to the room facing him. With a soft click, he unlocked it, then beckoned with a curt, demanding gesture. "You don't seem to realise the scale of what we know. A noble household?"

He sneered, shifting the subject by sizing up Yann's battered coat. A single glance confirmed what he had already suspected. A noble coat battered and torn by years of abuse. The hauberk hidden beneath, broken in several parts, left to dangle against skin. Sharp marks of sword slashes on the leather pauldron whispered of a dangerous life for a mage, one of adventuring outside the archipelago and battling cultivators.

"Interesting," he said, gesturing inside the modest room. "I'm sure you have much to recount, and it so happens I just freed a few minutes from my schedule."

Yann stepped inside, sitting directly around the table. The sound of the music from the bar below and the smell of old wood filled the air as he crossed his arms over his chest. "And you seem to underestimate my knowledge of your order." He glanced at Adam as if to remind him not to answer any of the minstrel's questions. "My story is of no interest to the archipelago's broadest spy network. Why don't we focus on our business instead?"

Realising who they were dealing with, Adam sat beside Yann. A frown creased his brows as he locked his gaze on the multicolored cape, its meaning now entirely different.

The minstrel joined them with a chuckle. "Impressed by the cape, lad?"

"Not really." Adam shrugged. "Just wondering why spies stand out that much."

"Do we, or are we attracting clients?"

Yann cut the minstrel off, his tone forceful. "To most, that cape is another tool to entertain the crowd. It's a symbol to nobles."

The minstrel answered in a deep voice, correcting Yann. "A warning that we know whatever they've been up to. And your story won't take me long to uncover, friend."

Adam glared at the two men, veins squirming on his forehead. He had thought Yann unmatched in self-preservation tactics. But the fool had just brought a curious spy to their table. His fists tightened around his knees, mana flaring in his magic circuits.

"Indulge your curiosity all you want, friend. You'll find nothing worth a Prestige." Yann shrugged, his eyes sharpening. "Our business, however, is another story."

He tapped on the table, forcing the discussion back on the right track. "Five hundred Prestige for each coat. How much you earn or to whom you sell them is not my concern."

"Five hundred, you say?" The minstrel's voice turned icier, his posture shifting. He leaned forward, the table groaning under his elbows, his chin resting on the back of his hands. "That's more than Olivander's tier four armor."

Yann snarled. "Suffocating blocks of metal barely enchanted to absorb soft impacts. What we have is the real deal—defense wrapped in elegance." He turned toward Adam, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Tell him about the enchantments, lad."

As the minstrel's ears perked up, Adam clenched his jaw. Not for being put on the spot or Yann's doubtful partnership with a spy, but because of the price itself.

"The same price as junk from a nameless enchanter?!" His crafter's soul throbbed with forge fury, his sky-blue eyes blazing beneath his hood. "I thought you were competent, Yann. But I realise I've given you too much credit."

He rose, chair tumbling behind him, and his steps cracked the wooden floor on his way out. He stopped by the doorway, his voice as icy as the ocean's depths. "Don't forget we share the same family name now." He made a zipping gesture in front of his lips and ran a finger across his throat. "If I fall, you'll fall, too. That is, if I don't obliterate you first."

Yann and the minstrel watched Adam leave in stunned silence. Only once his figure vanished from the doorway and his stomps faded in the silent background did they let go of the breath they had been holding.

"T-That mana... W-Who is this youth?" The minstrel blurted out after a moment, awakening Yann from his stupor.

Trembling enough for the frost-rimmed links of his hauberk to chatter against his skin like teeth in a blizzard, Yann pinched the bridge of his nose. His voice came out like a cracked bell. "You've felt it, too. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Ask no questions. Investigate, and you'll face the consequences yourself."

Sweat soaking his back, the minstrel watched Yann rise from his seat, then vanish in Adam's footsteps. Alone, he wiped his forehead and fanned his shirt that had stuck to his back with a heavy exhale.

"That's a first." He stepped over to Adam's abandoned seat, eyes locked on the mana still distorting the air.

The quality was nothing special, but the sheer quantity forced a gulp down his arcanist's dry throat.

He cast a wary glance toward the hallway, then retrieved a yellowed notebook from inside his coat. His hand trembled on the hive leather cover as he flipped the pages to its end, where names were few enough to hold on half a page. Each of them belonged to terrifying individuals. And now, he added 'Adam' in bold, bright letters from condensed mana, which appeared in every minstrel's notebook.

With a last glance at the title—targets to avoid—he sealed the ledger away back in his coat's inner pocket and tightened his cape around himself. The air seemed colder, and curiosity, a deceitful friend...

---

AN: I'll try to release another chapter tonight.