Death, Devotion, Dissonance

Evin imagined Leanne moaning in pleasure with the gentle-looking chairman behind her, firmly grasping her waist and couldn't help but feel disturbed at the vision... and oddly, slightly disappointed. Calming himself, he thought about things a bit, and continued.

"What's going to happen now, then? Am I just supposed to take the Chairman's side, knowing that I'm just being used?"

"I know that it feels bad, but this is the only way forward for the time being. The reason I'm telling you the details behind it is so that you can at least be in the know. When you see the Chairman showing you his pleasant looking smile, know that he has motives and plans behind his façade."

"Alright. Thank you for telling me beforehand," Evin said.

"I know you don't want to put your trust in me after all that has happened, but I'll always be willing to help you. And if you need to, you can ask Aran for help. He's one of the most able mages I'm acquainted with, and I know he'll give you solid advice if you feel lost or confused," Leanne smiled and gave Evin another hug.

"Alright," Evin uttered, and pushed Leanne away.

Leanne seemed surprised, and even anxious at Evin pushing her away. A glint of fear seemed to run past her eyes before being replaced by her usual half-smile.

"Also, just in case, please keep this conversation secret from the Chairman. I always imagined him as a down-to-earth, good man, but now... I'm not so sure anymore. Who knows what he'll do when he realizes I've told you about all these things?"

Evin nodded perfunctorily.

Leanne fidgeted for a bit, before seemingly deciding that it was time to leave. She fixed her ruffled clothing and walked towards the door. Right before she left, she looked back towards Evin and mentioned one thing.

"Before I forget, you still need to attend classes, alright? I think you already missed one, but I'll take care of that. I know it's a bit out of place, with the trial and everything tomorrow, but don't you think it's best to move forward with the expectations that everything will be fine?"

Saying that, Leanne closed the door.

Evin was a bit surprised, but he still brought out the schedule he got from Leanne before the ceremony and saw that he'd missed Arithmetic. He then noticed that he needed to attend two more classes today, which was the Applications of Magic and then Mage Specialization right afterwards. But he still had some time before that, so there was no need for him to hurry.

'Weird how I'm worrying about classes when my life might end abruptly tomorrow,' a sudden thought flashed through his head.

"What do you think?" he then murmured to the voice.

<Hmm… Well, there's nothing much to think about is there? We'll do our best to hug the chairman's thighs and just hope he doesn't molest us too hard,> the voice sounded like he'd already made peace with the situation, <We don't have much of a choice anyway.>

"Don't you feel dissatisfied, though? Being used by such scumbags…"

<Not really… There's not much point to worry about these things and besides, it's not like we're losing anything other than some of our freedom. It's best to spend our time trying to nab a World Shard or two out of the chairman whenever we can... Now that I think about it, we should really ask him for the Shards he owes us.>

"I can't believe you're thinking about these things when we might die tomorrow."

The voice sighed loudly ad exaggeratedly, before speaking.

<Like Leanne said, it's best for us to be optimistic about things and trust in the chairman to save our asses when the time comes. And also. If the situation was so bad that he was unable to help us, then we wouldn't be sitting in the comfort of your room, talking about classes and magic. You'd be in the Countess' dungeons, getting your fingernails pulled off one by one.>

Evin thought about the matter for a second and guessed that the voice was right.

"So I don't have to worry about tomorrow and worry about my classes?"

<That. And World Shards. Pretty sure the more World Shards we consume, the more mana we can absorb. I'm excited to see what kind of heights we can reach after that explosion I made.>

"Wouldn't that just bring in more trouble for us?" Evin murmured.

He had shown one sliver of talent in Imagination Casting and without his knowledge and influence, he found himself wedged between the nobles and the mages. Something told him there would be endless trouble if he showed even more promise.

He always wanted to become a mage, to soar through the skies and bend nature to his will… but so far, things haven't been going as planned.

<It definitely will… but like I said, now that we're already in this mess with no way out, we should just think about the best ways to get the most out of it. And also, we don't have to do anything too extra. I'm sure we can find some hidden place to practice our magic.>

"What about the Chairman knowing about your existence?"

<Hmm… about that,> the voice murmured before going silent for a bit, <Actually, depending on how things pan out, it might be better if others think that you have something going on in your head.>

Its answer surprised Evin quite a lot. The voice always ordered Evin around, but it always wanted things done secretly and silently.

"What do you mean?"

<Don't worry about it,> the voice sounded a bit annoyed at Evin's constant questions, <We'll see what happens tomorrow. For now, go wash yourself.>

Evin did as he was told and went to the bathroom to fill the tub with some water that came from a product of magical engineering, as Arza explained to Evin. According to the boy, 1st grades and above used a plumping system that involved a bit of engineering and a bit of magic, which allowed for miracles like this to happen.

Evin was a bit interested in the topic so he asked Arza about it all, despite his dislike for the boy, but he soon realized that he didn't have the brains to understand it all. The voice though, seemed to be enjoying the conversation quite a lot.

While Evin was in the bathroom, he heard the room's door open. From the sounds the new guest was making, Evin judged that it was Arza.

Sure enough, when Evin finished washing and went to check, he found Arza lying on his bed with a book in his hand.

"Morning!" the boy greeted cheerfully, a weird glint of adoration in his eyes.

"Morning," Evin replied, feeling weirded out by Arza's stare.

"You never told me how talented you were at magic!"

"Well, I never thought it was that big of a deal… before yesterday happened."

"But it's such a big deal!" Arza said and jumped off the bed, "You only ever absorbed one World Shard in your life, right? To think you're able to create a spell of such power with a mana-core that's just awakened is something unheard of before!"

"Mm."

Evin could only nod along to the boy's enthusiasm, listening to him sing his praises. It was a bit awkward, but honestly, it felt good. He also learned a few things about his mana-core during this conversation, about how its ability to absorb mana and bend World Energies becomes stronger with more practice and more World Shards. Arza didn't go too in-depth, as they were supposed to learn much more in the Mana-core Cultivation class.

But it didn't change the fact that for Evin, who wasn't even a mage for half a month and also having absorbed only one Shard, to be casting magic with such intricacy and control was quite frankly, quite miraculous. Thanks to this conversation, Evin finally understood the extent of the things he was achieving.

When Arza asked him how he was able to do these things, Evin politely refused to talk about it, like the boy himself advocated.

After a bit, Arza offered to eat lunch and then attend their classes.

Evin nodded, and the two went to the cafeteria after both grabbing a stack of papers and a pencil. He received a few odd looks here and there, but he didn't think much of them. Evin wasn't the most popular kid in town, but he was pretty well known, and not for the good reasons. He was used to these curious glares. After eating their fill, Evin and Arza then found their way to their classroom.

Evin looked around the classroom and found that there were 15 or so children sitting around, all looking very, very excited. The desks were all slightly long, with two seats around them, designed for two students to share on between them. He looked further and noticed Kon, or should he say Konanne, sitting in the back alone, looking slightly nervous and out of it.

"Hey, Arza!" one of the kids shouted when they saw Arza come in.

"Hey, Kolin," Arza replied back and walked over to a group of two boys and three girls who were all pretty well-dressed.

"I'm so not glad to see you, ha-ha."

"Huh?"

"Well, you're the one who told us to not lie, ain't that right?" the boy, Kolin joked.

"Oh, ha-hah. Good one," Arza nodded without really laughing and they then started talking about what they thought was going to be taught in this class.

<I guess he doesn't mind lies if they're jokes, huh?> the voice suddenly commented, <Well, I guess that's about right. If Arza went around punching people for telling jokes, even bad ones, that would be kind of bad.>

Left alone, Evin found himself glancing at Arza's new friends and found one of the girls glaring back at him with unveiled disgust, a clear sign that he wasn't very welcome in their group.

Evin hesitated for a bit, before going over to the lone girl.

"Hello, Konanne."

The girl seemed surprised to be called out by her name as she meekly glanced towards Evin's direction.

"Master Eviendra?" she seemed to recall, as she quickly stood up to greet Evin.

"Just Evin's fine," Evin replied and asked, "I'll sit here, is that fine?"

"Yes, of course," Konanne replied and moved away a bit to make space for Evin.

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