Protective Enchantments

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Once they arrived in the courtyard, Hadrian wasted no time in preparing the bounded field.

The young mage gave Charles ten pieces of paper, all of which had primordial runes written on them, followed by a set of specific instructions to stick the papers firmly unto certain spots that Hadrian had selected when they were surveying the exact limitations of the wards earlier.

While the cheeky retainer was doing as he was instructed, Hadrian had busied himself in observing the wards.

In the past few weeks, he had never really inspected the wards surrounding the Flamel couple's property before. The ones that he did were mostly quick and not thorough.

But, now that he had recently given Yan the green light to investigate the murder locations near their location, Hadrian merely wanted to err on the side of caution by making preparations in the case of something unexpected happens in the future.

And so here he was, inspecting the wards closely with the automaton scanning it in the back of his mind.

If anyone, who was not the homunculi twins and his retainers, were to see him now, Hadrian supposed that he would make for a strange sight since he was literally five stories high up from the ground, only being supported by the large magical carpet that he had chanced upon with the help of the Gate of Babylon's resident guardian, Enkidu.

It was a few months, when he was still in his world, that Hadrian found the magical carpet when he wanted to look through his benefactor's stuff in the Gate of Babylon for unique objects.

Just like the first time Hadrian had used the gate, the gold heavenly chains made its appearance and was kind enough to forward several items that would garner his interest.

The first time Hadrian had met one of the treasured items of his benefactor, it did not took him long to realize that Enkidu has sentience, which surprised him quite a bit since it was a rare thing to encounter.

Even in the world that he had originated from, Eos, Hadrian had never encountered an object with sentience before.

The first that he had encountered one was when he had first seen the Moon Cell in person.

Objects with sentience were unique, rare to even encounter, and he had literally met two by great coincidence in his second life.

In truth, Hadrian does not know how to make of that fact, considering as such things only reminded him that his life will never be normal no matter where he goes.

After all, almost no one can ever really speak that they had experienced what he had in the Moon Holy Grail War within the span of a month, surviving all of the brutal encounters by a hair's breadth in each battle, and then emerging the horrifying event with a powerful alien artifact residing in his soul at his beck and call.

Hell, even thinking about it was like a slap to his face, metaphorically speaking that is.

Shaking his head with a sigh, Hadrian forced the dark memories of the war away from his mind, knowing that it would be no good to ponder of such things while there was an important task for him to do.

He then turned his attention to the wards above him by a few meters, taking fleeting glances every few minutes at his familiars, who had busied themselves in playing a little tag game despite the short space.

The familiar gentle chime rung through his mind, snapping him out of his musing as the automaton notified him of completing its task.

Then, a near translucent blue screen appeared before his eyes, and upon its surface was a series of text colored in black, pouring in like water as his sight rove from one text to another.

'Hmm… let's see here… disillusionment, muggle-repelling charm – that's the one to prevent people with no magical heritage, protection charm for defense, bunch of anti-theft and intruder detection charms here and there. Oh, and this 'Fidelius Charm', this one is most fascinating. Given by the automaton's info, this spell is extremely old. The technique to cast it seems tough to learn, but not impossible…'

With his mind made up, Hadrian nodded to himself and smiled.

'Alright… Moon Cell, scan and record the structure of the Fidelius Charm. I want it to be thoroughly recorded. This is a high priority.'

[… Affirmative… Initiating scan on 'Fidelius Charm' now …]

A few seconds passed, and then…

[… Scan complete. Recording the target unto the data archive …]

[… Loading… Loading …]

[… Record complete …]

Satisfied, Hadrian smiled to himself, turning to give his familiars gentle pats and cuddles as he waited for Charles's signal.

Fortunately, he did not have to wait long as the link between him and the cheeky knight chimed in his mind, signaling the latter's intention to contact him via telepathy.

Accepting the 'call', Hadrian briefly closed his eyes as he initiated the conversation.

'Done?' The young mage asked.

'Yep, all done here. You can start putting up the bounded field, master.' Charles informed in a light tone.

Opening his eyes, Hadrian titled his head, gazing up as he lifted a hand upwards, palm open wide before he activated his magic circuits and gave a mental command.

In a split second, a small ball of light, translucent but tinged with a kaleidoscope color scheme glow that change in every second, suddenly appeared at the bottom of the last ward.

Slowly, the bounded field spread out, flowing downwards along the inner surface of the protective enchantments that were already in place.

The process was almost like water flowing down against the surface of a glass, lulling nearby observers to simply watch and observe the near mesmerizing scene.

The bounded field glowed in a bright flash as its materialization became complete before turning invisible to the naked eye, along with the protective enchantments.

The magical field that he had chosen to use was a simple amplification spell set, particularly designed to amplify the effects of the protective enchantments that were already in place.

It was a set of ancient runes combined into one bounded field. The runes were not that complex in their structure, but if Scáthach were to see it, she would either compliment him or criticize him for its flaws after judging his work.

Knowing the scarlet eyed rune mistress, she might even do both.

While Scáthach considers herself uncritical to most branches of mystery, primordial runes was one subject she can be quite fastidious about.

The mere thought of her possible reaction caused Hadrian to sigh out loud, much to the bemusement of his familiars nearby.

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