House of Amarin

Their little group followed Sion closely in the city as he led them to a more hilly part of town. They were walking upwards on sneaking, swirling streets and narrow alleyways, going past two- and three-story houses with yellow and orange walls, all belonging to people who called the floating island their home.

"Where are we going?" Ceiline asked, walking in the middle of the group, looking upwards, watching the windows and some of the closed shutters.

"An old man is living here; his name is Opparu," Sion explained from the front. "He was once a pretty powerful Kingdom's royal artificer."

"Which Kingdom?" Raufon asked from the back of the group, walking with his hands held behind his head.

"Kalabas," Sion answered, waiting for a little, but none of them said anything, trying to remember the name.

"Nothing!" Lia said in the end, skipping happily next to Sion, "There are too many kingdoms and empires; I never learned their names!"

"Heh, I never was good with history!" Koa chuckled while Aurora simply played it off, also wholly oblivious to the name.

"I only know those that neighboring my family." Ceiline sighed in the end, giving up, while Keily was embarrassed as he only knew his own little village. He had not even the slightest idea where the Six Houses were at all, realizing he had to buy a map pretty soon and start learning.

"You wouldn't find it now as it no longer exists." Sion continued with a small smile, "Also! After arriving, don't bring it up! He would simply throw you out! He blows his top if you bring up Kalabas!"

"Oooooh? What happened?" Lia asked, curious just like the rest.

"Around 450 or 480 years ago… somewhere there, the ruling king's son was admitted into the Academy. It was a great honor as the only one who ever managed to do that and graduate was Opparu himself! After that, he was the artificer for the royal family for the next hundred years! Anyway, the kid was a jackass. He had an awful temper, spoiled little shit."

"You speak like you knew him." Koadriana chuckled.

"Hehe, no, I did not, but I studied his case when preparing for the exam to become an inducted member of the Disciplinary Committee. The guy was a bully and constantly managed to find out people's backgrounds. It is not illegal, but it is frowned upon. Of course, he went further than that and started to send information back home. He made connections with similarly awful people in power to abuse those students' families who said no to his whims."

"Bastard," Ceiline said it first while the rest nodded in agreement.

"I told you." Sion chuckled, "Long story short, someone on the outside working for him took it too far. A family was killed, and an orphaned student was left behind, attending the Academy. When it came to light, the ruling Headmaster came down hard on him. He expelled the kid and announced that the Kingdom of Kalabas was a hostile nation."

"Isn't that a bit… harsh?" Raufon asked, raising an eyebrow. Where he came from, he saw many people act just like that, but to punish a whole kingdom for it? That was unheard of. At worst, their family would have been killed off, and that is all.

"It was deemed an attack on the Institute of Eight Elements. And not just that! By killing the family, it was also labeled as Terrorism, a scheme to bring the Undead into existence, as the corpses were not burnt but left to rot. Luckily or not, they did not rise up this time." Sion sighed. "The Kingdom of Kalabas fell to ruin in just five years. The economy collapsed as everyone else pulled out from it, and the people whose lives were ruined in a snap of a finger rebelled. In the end, a contingent of ex-graduates established order before it got too violent. The Kingdom was broken into two new republics, and the royal bloodline ended."

"Ouch…" Raufon said, clicking his tongue.

"Damn…" Koadriana whispered, "The Academy does not play around, huh?"

"It is not." Sion nodded, "The guy was unlucky. Something like this rarely happens, but when it does, the Academy brings down the hammer… HARD. They make it so that people remember what the Academy stands for and that they do not tolerate using their name in vain. So…" He looked behind his shoulder at them with a grin, "Don't be like that kid… it is that simple to avoid trouble~."

"Mhm!" Keily nodded rapidly, letting his ears flap around with the force of his head going up and down.

"What about Opparu then?" Lia asked after she went through Sion's story.

"He was an ex-graduate. He was accepted into the Academy and taught classes about artifact forging for the time being. After 150 years, he stopped and lived here as a normal citizen since then. Most do not know about him! I only learned about his history because I was reading up on the story of Kalabas! Finding the old guy was a lucky chance. I made the mistake of bringing it up to him, so we did not start on the right foot... but I worked it out. He was exceptionally loyal to his homeland… so much so, he went ahead and beheaded that bastard when the Kingdom fell apart."

"Damn!" The rest exclaimed, including Lia.

"Yeah. Bring it up, and he would flare up like a spell of flashfire! Anyway, keep your mouth shut about it and let me do the talking first, okay? He is a hardass! Bitter like a grapefruit! But he is a damned good artificer. Teachers still bring bracelets to him for repairs if they malfunction or break and they need it to be done quickly. He does not work for the public and only does things for favors. Now… I made sure I could introduce you…." Sion said, looking down at Lia, who was prancing beside him with a grin. "Yet I am going to show up with a group? I already feel my stomach dropping…."

"It will be fine! Trust me!" Lia laughed as they arrived at a part where the constantly inclined street finally leveled out, and they stood before a two-story, red-bricked building. The front door was made from old wood, and the windows on the ground floor were all boarded up.

"Here?" Aurora wrote, surprised because the building looked like it was built at least 1000 years ago, ready to be demolished any time by now.

"He lives upstairs; the bottom floor is his workshop," Sion explained, knocking with a particular rhythm on the front door. When his knuckles stopped, he just stepped back, waiting patiently.

It took a few minutes before they heard the many locks being turned and unlocked at the other end. The door opened with an ear-hurting, loud creek, letting natural light into the workshop behind it. The old man standing there looked frail, thinner than a skeleton. His skin was dark brown, filled with spots and sticking to his bones as he looked at the young, lively kids with cloudy, greyish eyes. He barely had some thin, white trails of hair and a sharp goatee hanging off his chin.

"No deal." He said with a raspy voice, already slamming the door into their face.

“Wait, Master Opparu!” Sion spoke up, expecting something like this, then everyone heard Lia's voice, even the old man inside his home.

"Raufon… can you kick his door down?"

"Huh?" Asked everyone except the Kamarian Devil, who just flashed a grin.

"Sure." He walked forward, his right leg suddenly surrounded by rocks, leaning heavily into it, kicking straight at the wooden door.

It resulted in an ear-shattering sound, like striking a gong, making Raufon stumble backward, and the soundwaves made all the surrounding windows vibrate, close to a breaking point.

"Hah!" Echoed a raspy laughter from inside. "You are still wet behind the ears, boy! You won't kick my door down with that flimsy power! Bwahahaha!"

"Let me!" Aurora wrote, walking forward, summoning a blade of pure darkness, and slashing against the wooden obstruction.

"Haaahh…" Sion just held his head, giving up everything and stepping back to watch the show, knowing it won't succeed.

Aurora's blade clanked against the door, and she felt like hitting pure metal. Her summoned blade broke apart as if it was made out of glass, making her stumble in the opposite direction, taking multiple steps.

"Sharp. But not sharp enough! Loser!" Opparu's laughter came from behind the door.

"Hmph! You are so brave, speaking from behind a door, old man!" Koadriana harrumphed, holding up her hand, forming a finger pistol, and shooting a thin jet stream against it just so it would splash around like a harmless water-balloon when landing on it.

"Pft! That is it? I shat harder rocks than the first kid's kick and pissed sharper streams than your pathetic creek of an attack!" Opparu mocked them once again.

"Don't look at me," Ceiline added, not willing to take part in this. She was not about to play with her position in the Academy, that was for sure.

"I can't cast spells yet!" Keily added, happy to be the amateur in the group at this moment.

"Hey…" Sion looked around suddenly. "Where is Lia?"

"Dunno," Raufon replied, not worried, already preparing a punch, going against the door a second time just to feel the painful, rebounding force and see no damage done to it.

As they were hammering at it and Opparu continued to goad and mock them from the other side, Lia was… already inside. She was looking around the second-floor rooms, exploring Opparu's bedroom and living room. She even took a cookie out from his jar in the kitchen, munching on it. While everyone was focused on the ground floor, she just walked around the block, blasted herself up a story, and entered through one of the open windows above. It was easily done while the rest distracted the old man.

"It's like Koa's side of the room." She murmured with a mouth full of cookie bits, watching the mess in all of the rooms. The clothes were thrown onto the chairs, the floor, or wherever they landed, while the kitchen sink was full of unwashed plates. "Hm?" She stopped at a bureau in the main hallway, noticing a magazine left on it that had some curvy, naked women posing right on the front page. "Eh…" She flinched, leaning a bit closer, opening it, then quickly closing it back, turning bright red. "These are not like the images in the books back home…."

She gulped, finishing the cookie, hurrying away. She was already told how things go between a man and a woman, even read books about it with some paintings… but those were written more than a thousand years ago. Since then, things had already changed. A lot. Not to mention that since the invention of capturing images via light magic and recording them on paper with nature-based spells… the book industry had had a second revolution in the past 500 years. Compared to the outside world, the Six Houses were a bit… old-fashioned.

To avoid getting caught, she hurried downstairs and reached the end of the steep staircase. She saw Opparu leaning against the door with two hands. From his palms, silver-colored energy flowed into the simple, wooden door, reinforcing it in such a way it was impossible for the rest to break it down, no matter how hard they tried. Taking a quick sniff, Lia could already feel Opparu was at the Speciali level, the 5th stage of magic. She was not about to interrupt their 'playing,' so she instead went ahead, looking around the just as messy workshop.

“Egh… old pervert…” She moaned immediately as the walls were plastered with posters of naked, seductively posing women of all sizes and shapes, proudly flaunting their breasts or hidden valleys. Some were already crumpled or yellowed a little, the dates going back more than 200 years on a few, while some had autographs written in one of their corners. "Tsk.." She clicked her tongue, looking down at her flat chest, knowing she was just starting to grow… yet still feeling slightly jealous.

After shaking out the weird thoughts, she turned towards the tables, filled with tools, raw materials, and unfinished or abandoned artifacts and some that were clearly actively worked on. Probably some repair orders. There were two swords, a pair of daggers, one spiked shield, and three helmets. Walking around, looking over another curved table at one of the corners, she saw a bright lamp, a multi-layered magnifying glass, and many small pieces of jewelry placed under it. Earrings, necklaces, and even some piercings were fitted with such small gems that it needed a sure hand to work on them.

"A book?" She said, stepping towards a lone reclining chair, noticing an old blanket and an open book in it. Picking it up and reading it, it was clearly a personal journal. It was hand-written, dating back hundreds of years. Flipping it through, she noticed some drawn images on some pages. Portraits of probably a king, going by his crown and awe-inspiring, stern gaze. An image of a kind, smiling woman with curly hair, some detailed coat of arms with a lion's head, and many more drawings of weapon schematics. "Is this about Kalabas?" Lia asked, raising her voice, finally drawing the attention of Opparu.

"Yeah, it's my personal diary from-" He replied, looking at the young girl, sitting in his chair and leisurely flipping through his diary. "Huh?" He faltered, his brain catching up to the fact someone was inside his home.

The momentary laps in his concentration resulted in a mistake in his spell, and the door was blasted apart by a conjoined attack of Aurora, Koadriana, and Raufon. The resulting explosion splintered the poor door into fine dust while Opparu was sent flying backward like a cannonball, smashing into the open closet at the back of the room. His body destroyed all the shelves inside as his spare tools, resource boxes, and vases filled with junk and knick-knacks all fell onto him, burying him alive. Ultimately, only his legs were sticking out from the pile that buried him like an avalanche of trash.

"Fuck…" Raufon said, gulping, looking in from the outside while Koa licked her lips.

"Damn it… you killed him!" She said.

"What? No! WE killed him! Not just me!" He replied while Aurora wrote in the air.

"Lia can dispose of the body quickly; Koa washes down all the foot- and fingerprints, and I'll get rid of our aura! Noone shall know."

"Good." Sion chimed in after reading it, "I don't want to be kicked out of the Disciplinary Committee because of you three idiots!" He scoffed, snapping his fingers, forming a lasso out of white light, letting it wrap around Keily and Ceiline's wrists, pulling them backward. "And you two are also staying! Don't even dare to sneak off; we are in this together!"

"Hauh…" The two groaned, being caught before they could escape.

"I'm not dead yet…." Opparu groaned, moving his toes. "But I will be if this pile of crap crushes me to death! Dig me out already, you bunch of misfits!"

"Don't look at me!" Lia said, flipping through her new, favorite book. "You broke his door and sent him flying, not me!"

"You told us to!" Raufon and Koa protested immediately.

"I just asked if you can do it. I did not say… do it." Lia flashed a grin, enjoying the gentle sway of the reclining chair.

"Hello? Anyone?" Opparu's muffled shout came again from under the mess. "I'm DYING here!"

"Fuck me…" Sion murmured, shaking his head while walking towards Opparu with the rest, "I feel like I was duped into something awful since I met you…." He sighed, looking with one eye at Lia while they helped clean off the surprisingly heavy and magically reinforced materials and boxes from Opparu's buried body.