87 Ch 84: Spoils of War

*3rd POV*

"Huff..... Huff....." Anos was on the floor gasping for breath then laughing then gasping for air once again.

His left arm that had been hit was already numb and a bit swollen and the cause of the injury was lying split in half less than 4 steps away from him.

"What was that Scarlet Miasma?" Anos said to himself as he sat upright and looked at the now split statue.

Someone must've certainly made it sturdy cause its outer shell was still more or less fine except for the areas in which it had been hit with spells, the punch despite being not at full power should've been more than enough to at least leave a dent but it hadn't done much to the statue at all.

Anos walked up to it and started examining it, its insides were stone as well, glowing stone but stone, and between the statue's split chest right where the spine should've been on a human there was a Crimson colored Orb.

Careful to not shatter it, Anos extracted it from the Statue, looking inside there was smoke, specifically blood colored smoke floating around.

As he looked it over, the floating smoke started to take shape.

With a shortened breath Anos waited for the smoke to finish forming its shape, anticipating the results.

After a minute or two, the smoke settled and finished its shape... The number 7.

"What the fuck." Anos said angrily, almost wanting to throw the Orb away, all that waiting for it turn into the number 7. What was this, a non-brand ancient Magic 8 ball?

"Sigh. Well, I'll look into you after this." Anos spoke to the Orb before gently placing it down and looking back into the statue.

He did wish to break it more to find what he could but decided not to, instead, he looked at its 4 brothers that were in the corner of the room looking straight into oblivion.

'Hmm, it seems they won't attack without being prompted to.' Anos wondered before returning to his task of searching through the statue but finding nothing more as interesting.

'Well, I'll just take some of it with me.'

He could immediately say more than a thousand uses for this.

But what did confuse him was that Scarlet Miasma, it looked eerily familiar in function.

Deciding to shake those thoughts off Anos took some chunks of the statue that had fallen off and pocketed them and put the Crimson Orb safely with himself and then left the room not noticing the smallest of the wisps of the Miasma still in the air gathering near his neck.

Marking him before disappearing from his neck entirely.

*10 minutes later*

Anos made his way straight to the Common room, thankfully finding no one there he then walked straight to his own room before putting both of the objects down safely.

"Phew." He let out a breath of relief.

He looked around his room before storing both of the objects safely and going back out.

"Oof." And immediately bumping into Harriet and catching her before she fell.

"There, you okay?" Anos asked, helping her regain balance.

"Huh? Oh yeah." Harriet replied offhandedly.

"Sigh. What's on your mind?" He asked as they walked back to the couch and sat down.

"That photo."

"Harriet, that is your mother. At our age. Your father was one of the best Seekers in our school. He probably has photos as well that we're not aware of. If we're lucky we might find one of the Enchanted ones where they move around. It's not much but... " Before he could continue Harriet cut him off.

" I... I never saw them before this. I don't know what to do." Harriet wasn't sobbing but sounded confused looking at the unlit fireplace.

" Keep the photo, what else? You had parents that loved you, from what the stories tell they loved you till death and if they see you they'll still love you now. Just remember that." He replied before being tackled in a hug.

As she sobbed he gently patted her back to stop her from crying.

" It'll be just fine. If you ever need to talk you're literally in a room next to mine." He said as she started to calm down.

"Thank you." She replied, wiping her eyes.

"Hey, I am your friend. If I ever stop doing this then you've my permission to punch me in the face." He replied, getting her to let out a laugh.

"Now where're the rest of them? We've dinner soon."

*Bang*

The gate opened and in came Alucard and Simon, acting as if they hadn't been giving each other comforting words this very morning.

As all four of them talked about random things, waiting for Lan to get back Anos looked at the snowing sky above smiling.

'Better Christmas than any I've ever had.' he thought smiling behind his mask

"What's up with you?" Simon asked confused.

"Hmm? Nothing. Hey, Alucard I was looking through this book in the library about Automatons what's up with the random number 7 popping up every once in a while?" Anos asked innocently.

" 7? Well, I suppose it won't be common knowledge since most of their works have been reduced to rubble." Alucard pondered for a moment before continuing.

" It describes the significance of someone's craftsmanship, it's an ancient symbol and according to myths all numbers marked with the number 7 in a magical way are Artifacts from the very first 7 great craftsmen. One of them was even a Goblin, probably the same one that made Godric Gryffindor's sword." Alucard answered amused.

" Goblin huh? Well, that probably explains all the numbering mess of Gringotts " Anos replied with a chuckle suddenly all that weird importance to numbers made a bit more sense.

" What do you mean?" Alucard asked in turn with a raised eyebrow.

" Oh, Gringotts has this system where a vaults number describes the exact use of them. For example, same digit vaults like seventy seven or Two hundred twenty two have customizable locks and safety measures. I own one vault like that." Anos replied.

Alucard thought the words over in such a brooding way that everyone else in the room was completely silent as if the atmosphere had turned oppressive. Anos played along with the others though he was unaffected.

" Harriet, what was the vaults number?" Alucard asked suddenly.

" Huh? " She was startled by the sudden attention.

" The vault you and the Half-Giant visited. What was its number?" Alucard asked.

" Oh, 713 I think." She replied and Anos smirked as he saw Alucard's mind work its wonders going from brooding to a bit surprised. He was thinking hard.

Suddenly the gate opened and Lan walked in.

" Greetings. "

*Clang*

"Quiet," Alucard said, throwing a stone he made appear from God knows where directly at Lan who easily dodged it, provided the stone seemed unnaturally slow and only meant to probably get his attention.

"Done," Alucard said in accomplishment, allowing himself a small smile and Anos couldn't help but grin.

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Author's Notes:

Still alive, not well, but being alive is good enough. Sorry for the delay in chapters, irl issues have a tendency to fuck schedules over, and well all plans are made to fail [They're not, I'm just shit at making plans].

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Thanks for reading the chapter and your continual support.

Hope everyone has a nice Day/Night.