“Say master, should we help this kid?” A young girl that was about the same age as Zeph crouched down and poked him with a stick.

“We’re not a charity, Ery. We’re just here to study the wolf. Also, aren’t you the same age? Who are you calling kid?” An older woman was currently examining the wolf and jotting down all the information in her journal.

“He is smaller than me so he’s a kid.” She said as she continued to poke him.

“Leave him alone will you?” The older woman finished up writing in her journal and called Ery over to leave before pausing.

“Hm? What’s the problem?” Ery stood up and walked over to her master.

The woman ran over to the unconscious kid and picked him up, examining and touching him all over his face and hands.

“Master! You’re being a pervert!” Ery put her hands on her hips, disappointed in her teacher.

“No! Ery! He’s…” She laid Zeph over her shoulder. “We’re leaving, let’s go.”

“But you said we’re not a charity.” She looked up at her master.

“I said let’s go!”

—

Zeph sat bolt upright and found himself in an unfamiliar bed. He searched around and patted himself looking for the dagger, to see that it had laid at his bedside.

“Relax kid, everything’s there. Even the rags you call clothes.” The woman sat at a desk facing away from Zeph, writing something into her journal.

“Where are we?”

“My place, where else?”

“Are you not afraid I’m going to kill you?”

She let out a taunting laugh. “You can try. You’ll regret-”

In an instant, she turned around and grabbed Zeph by the head. Papers fluttered all over the room. Zeph squirmed all around, kicking and punching the air before finally giving up.

“You really did try, you bastard.” She threw him up in the air before sending him sliding down the wall with a kick. “Can you relax?”

“Do you know who Verith is?” Zeph asked as he rubbed his nose.

“The current emperor’s bastard of a son? Of course. Why? Did he kill your parents or something?”

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“Something like that.”

Zeph sheathed his blade and sat on the bed holding his knees. He looked around the room to see stacks of paper scattered all around, monster cores inside capsules, a variety of weapons just strewn about.

From the small tidbits that he could see, the woman was marking all the places where monsters condensed their cores. Notes about monsters he had never seen before or even heard about were thrown all over the floor.

A light knock could be heard on the door before a small girl walked in with her hands behind her back.

“Master, dinner’s ready.” She looked at her master before turning to Zeph who wanted to refuse until his stomach growled loudly.

A quiet dinner ensued at the dinner table, aside from the splattering of soup from the ravenous Zeph. Ery let out a small laugh as she went to refill his bowl. He learned that the woman was Veronica and Ery was training under her.

“So why am I here?” Zeph asked, taking the bowl that Ery handed to him.

“Well, are you interested in my disciple?”

Soup flew across both sides of the room.

“M-m-master?!” Ery exclaimed.

“Just kidding of course.” She gave a slight smile and rested her chin on her interlaced fingers. “Let’s get to the point. You swallowed that Wolf King’s core, didn’t you?”

“Yeah I did. What about it?”

She let out a loud sigh. “You’re really oblivious aren’t you kid? Do you think people can just eat cores like chips?”

“What? You can’t?”

“Mana that concentrated will be poison to your body. This is why people slowly unravel the mana over time. What were you thinking?”

“That I needed to kill Verith.” He said simply.

“You’re lucky you said that to me and not anyone else.” She pushed the dinner table to the side. “Take off your shirt.”

Ery covered her eyes with her fingers but still peeked through as curiosity got the best of her.

Veronica tossed Zeph a core and instructed him to eat it whole. She took off her glasses and focused her eyes, turning her irises golden in color.

As soon as the core entered his body, it unleashed itself violently, thrashing at every corner of his body. However, a low growl came out once again that turned the mana into an obedient puppy. His body absorbed the mana with ease.

“You’re a goddamn heretic, kid.” She pulled a mana disk out of her bag and tossed it to Zeph. “Send your mana through.”

“I used these before, I have no affinity.” Zeph recognized that it was the same disk Lucan had shown him before. The disk that ruined his chances of ever casting magic.

“Just do it.” Veronica insisted.

“Fine, but I already told you. Nothing’s going to happen.” Zeph looked up at her in annoyance only to see her smiling at the disk.

“What?” Zeph looked back down at the disk to see a single element had lit up.