In the end, Billy ends up making a new mirror, and at night, he goes toward the nearest dungeon. After summoning and making some monsters hunt the frozen wolves by themselves, Billy began to recover mana pretty fast. He infused that mana into the mirror and made it move toward the past. A shit ton of mana was used, but he managed to finally see the time when Haruna's parents were alive when the sun was about to rise.
They stayed in their beds for about two months, unable to do much. Billy tried to check their status, but he was unable to use Appraisal on things that the mirror was showing. In any case, after a couple of hours, Billy confirmed that no one around them made them drink or eat anything suspicious… If they hadn't been poisoned, perhaps they had been Cursed, but Billy had no indications of that yet.
"Am I thinking too hard about this?" Billy furrowed his eyebrows. "No, my instincts never failed me until now. I am almost one hundred percent certain that the hand of that asshole is in this and I will find the proofs. I just need to be patient."
Billy wanted to believe that was the case, but his instincts were telling him that he was right. He thought that Uvish used indirect means to cause problems to that state and manipulate Haruna, but it seemed that he used more direct ones.
In any case, while Billy was thinking, the mirror kept going back to the past until it showed Haruna's father training with the sword and the spear. He was pretty good… With the power of that relic, he could become a troublesome opponent…
"Is Uvish afraid of that?" Billy thought. "It could have been that Haruna's father would become an obstacle to his goals?"
Both of them were in their forties when they died, but Billy couldn't understand why he would target Haruna's mother. Maybe she had some talent like Haruna's father… when Billy tried to check her past, he didn't find much. Maybe she would have caused him problems if she had been left alone after her husband died…
"Fucking asshole… causing the death of people out of fear, let's see if your plans will keep working like this in the future," Billy thought.
Billy decided to make his spies keep an eye on that kind of information as well. Anyone that gets ill because of weird diseases, they should inform him. Even if they don't do much in the future, Billy could avoid some plagues that might affect thousands of people's lives, which would be costly once the time comes.
After finishing his investigation, Billy returned to the training grounds while wondering about what he had learned. He couldn't confirm that Uvish was one hundred percent related to Haruna's parents' deaths, so saying that it was would be too dangerous. For the time being, he had to play his cards well before doing anything too drastic.
"How are things on your end?" Kate asked when she saw Billy returning.
"I didn't discover anything conclusive aside from the fact that the people here really like their rulers," Billy replied. "Anyway, don't think too much about that. We can't let the people here realize what I am up to."
"When you say it like that, it really sounds like you are up to no good…" Kate said.
In any case, the samurai had some pretty good skills, and adding that to Fierce Aura would make them even better. While Billy watched them train, he recalled that he forgot to learn one of their main skills. By copying one of them, Billy managed to learn the skill. Absolute Mimicry could be useful when it wanted…
Severe Blade: a sword slash that is able to ignore the defense of the enemy or even objects, and it ignores their defense by one point per level.
Cost: 10 stamina.
It was pretty useful considering its cost, but the potential was a bit lacking. Billy looked around to see if someone had learned the improved version of that skill, but they didn't, and it wasn't unexpected. Even at level fifty, the skill would be enough against humans and ordinary monsters.
While checking his skills, Billy also considered trying to improve them. It has been a while since he improved any of those. Alexander was the one who improved Light Spear and some of the passive ones that he had been, thanks to his friends. He actually only improved spells… which was a bit disappointing, but since he tried to master so many things, it couldn't be helped.
"Did you realize that the samurai are pretty handy with their naginata?" Billy asked Alexander. "You should pay attention to them to learn a few tricks."
"I am already doing that, but that thing that they do predict moves is hard. Besides, I am here to teach, so I can't train that much," Alexander replied.
"I can help you with that," Sei said. "You have more than enough skill with the spear to manage that. You just need to spar with someone who knows what to do."
"Thanks, that would help a lot," Alexander said.
Billy also told Natalie to pay attention to that because while she has good instincts and reflexes, the improved version of swordsmanship also would increase extra damage. Billy wondered if Lily could learn something like Heroic Archery, but it would be hard to tell how she could do that. Trying to predict the movements of the enemies from a distance? It wasn't impossible, but it would be hard.
"We also should try to improve our skills a bit," Billy said while looking at Kate and Sarah. "It will be hard to think of ways while helping others, but we don't have much of a choice."
"Leave that to us and focus on your armor. You need that extra layer of protection," Kate said, and then Sarah nodded several times.
"Yes, my ladies," Billy said.
