Lauron was sitting atop the Tower of Light in his home, serving a cup of hot chocolate to his sister, who happily slurped it up, getting whipped cream all over her face and nose.
"Heh, relax; nobody will steal it from you!" He laughed, watching her enjoy it.
"I know, but I love it! So… um… Why have you brought me here? I didn't do anything that bad! And I'm still a virgin! I'm not stupid; I won't sleep with a boy yet. I'm just having fun! Like Koa!"
"Bah, I don't care about that in reality!" He waved his hand, "That was just an excuse! You do you, sis. Mother is the last woman on Meriath who could find fault with you! She got together with Dad before marrying him! Hah! Nobody knows, but she was trying to get pregnant before they married! She was afraid the other branches would protest with some legitimate claims or some ancient rules to vote against her marriage… so she planned that if she gave birth to big bro first, nobody could deny her claim to Dad!"
"Pft!" Lia laughed, almost suffocating on her hot chocolate. "Really?"
"Yep! Uncle Parthorn told me that." Lauron nodded, smiling, "Anyway! I trust you that you won't bring shame on us! If you do get pregnant, you are going to marry the guy! I will make sure of that, you hear me?"
"Eh, I don't want to do that yet… I didn't even travel the continent!"
"Good~" Lauron nodded, before changing the topic, "Here is why I brought you away!" He flicked his wrist, showing her the captured image. She was surrounded by fire, burning in blue, and she could see Palvina frozen in place, making it possible for Lia to dodge something that should have hit her.
"Huh?" Lia sat up straight, looking at the image, confused, "I did that? I do not remember doing that! How?"
"That is what I wanted to ask!" Lauron said, looking into her eyes, trying to read her thoughts, "That was no ordinary fire! After extracting it from the school's system, I ran it through my own analysis. That fire froze everything. Not just the girl's body but her mind, alongside her perception! She did not realize she was unmoving for half a second, so you could dodge!"
"I… What…?" Lia gawked, standing up, leaning close to the projected image, wanting to see if it was fake or not. A prank by Lala… but it didn't seem like one, and he was acting way too serious for this. "I… I did it?" She asked again, looking at her own hands now, trying to muster up her mana and form an ice-based spell, but nothing happened.
"You did!" Lauron laughed, turning off the projection. "I already informed mom. She said she is not home yet but is analyzing the whole fight while visiting the House of Ro."
"Did something happen?" Lia questioned immediately, thinking back to Solren's visit.
"Undead. The usual, so don't worry about it! This is what we, Houses deal with all the time! Did you think Mom was just sitting back home, enjoying living in an old castle, raising us?" He joked, flicking her forehead.
"Owie… y-yeah… for a little while!" Lia grumbled, holding the red spot in the middle of her forehead.
"Well, duh, you were wrong! Anyway, that is not important! She said that this must remain a secret for now! Until you manage to do it consciously! I rigged the system; it will record your meditation sessions, fights, lessons, and anything you do and send it to me for analysis! You can come to me if you feel something has changed, and you can review it!"
"But… I don't know how I did it!"
"Exactly!" Lauron clapped, looking energetic and greatly excited. "Since Forefather, nobody managed to do it! Yet here you are, only a Magi and fusing two opposing elements?! And you DON'T KNOW how?! What the hell?! Sis, you are either a genius or a moron!"
“Eh… no need to shout…” Lia flinched, pouting, crossing her hands before her chest, looking hurt. And frustrated. She really didn't notice it, and now she was angry with herself for missing something so awesome. Plus... she wanted to replicate it to show off but didn't know how.
"Whatever you did, try meditating on it and keep working on it! This is the best place for that, as the system will record everything and let us analyze it! I just hope when you can reproduce it willingly… you will tell us all and not just leave some cryptic nonsense behind like Forefather!"
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"What do you think of their strength?"
Olivia asked, standing in her luxurious penthouse home on the top floor of a 4-story building, looking down at the busy street below them. It was already night, and people were getting ready to celebrate the start of a new year in a few hours. The streets were filled with locals, students, street vendors, and a cacophony of music and laughter. She was holding a small glass of wine, slowly sipping it, and wearing a simple, long, red gown. Behind her, Palvina was in the middle of pouring wine for herself, wearing a fluffy, white bathrobe, as she answered.
"Strong." She said, walking beside her after taking a sip, "The youngest is a tier below me, yet her spells are vigorous and strong. If she goes through her tribulation, I would have to focus fully if I want to defeat her. I have to say… those Houses do produce strong mages."
"They have the resources for it that they hold back from everyone else. They may have this Academy built, but they keep the best things for themselves. Scooping up talents left and right, brainwashing them to be their minions." Olivia grunted, her voice filled with evident disgust, "Anyone who is a danger to rise to their level is stomped down and eliminated."
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"They hold the power of the Realm in their hands for four millennia…." Palvina continued after a moment of silence, glancing at the side of Olivia's face, "They won't start giving it up or sharing it by now!"
"My family experienced it first-hand!" Olivia whispered coldly, drinking the remaining wine in her cup, "We were so close to unlocking the magic behind why people turn into Undead before they came and killed everyone! And they said it was to safeguard the Realm! Bunch of hypocrites!"
"The Undead are the perfect scapegoat for anything they do!" Palvina told her, rubbing her back with a smile, slowly hugging Olivia's waist, leaning against her as she hugged back. "Your family threatened the perfect tool to keep them on the top of the food chain! No wonder your family was unjustly executed!"
"They made a mistake leaving me and my sisters and brothers alive…." Olivia added, her eyes reflecting the dancing fires down the streets, illuminating the cold night.
"Time, Olivia! Time!" Palvina chuckled, tiptoeing and kissing her cheeks, that then turned into a real, long kiss between them, sharing their wine-tasting breaths as their tongues were intertwined for a long time. When their lips parted, it was connected with a thick, long bridge of glittering saliva. "I'll accompany you until the end, so be patient! Even if we can't do anything right now, years later, it won't be too late. They won't go away, fufufu!"
"That is true!" Olivia smiled finally, putting down her glass, taking it out from Plavina's hand before opening her bathrobe, picking her up, and disappearing into one of her bedrooms to celebrate the new year, their way.
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…….
Back at the House of Misfits, the reunited group was having their own celebration for the start of a new year. As midnight came closer, the mood was getting truly heightened as everyone was holding glasses filled with drinks. Even Lia was let to have a little cup with a bit of wine in it after nagging everyone to let her taste it already. Same with Keily, who was already tipsy after sticking his tongue into it, and his face was red as a tomato.
"Bwahaha! You are so weak!" Raufon laughed, holding as big of a jug as Keily's head, filled with stout to the brim. At least, until he raised it to drink half of it in one go, yet none of his features changed. And it was not his first mug of it either.
"Well, on the other hand," Ceiline said, leaning against the bar and sipping some fruit wine with a happy smile, "You seem to handle it well!"
"Of course!" He grinned, "My home village has a brewery that my family has run since 3E405! We have alcohol running in our veins!"
"That… sounds unhealthy." Sion chuckled, realizing that Raufon was tipsy even if he didn't show it with his stance or speech.
"Eh, you know what I meant!" He waved his hand.
"Huh?" Keily looked up at Raufon after a minute and a half delay, "I'm not weak! *hicc* I battled a woman!" He said, not realizing how wrong that came out.
"That you did!" Laughed Koadriana, wearing a short dress that barely covered her bottom and had an open top. It was decorated with a bit of enchantment as little white deers were running back and forth on the red dress, doing laps around Koa's hip, especially as she was letting it sway while walking, acting as a bartender, refilling everyone's cups. "Want to have a training session with Auntie here?" She leaned forward, caressing his face and playing with his ear, making Keily audibly whimper, not knowing what to do, panicking and looking for help.
"Stop it." Aurora wrote while multiple black strands pulled Koa away from the boy. "Stop teasing him." She added, stretching her hand out and letting Koa refill the cup she was holding.
"Ahaha! I can't. It is so much fun! I just love when they are innocent!"
The only one who was relatively silent was Lia. She did pay attention to their chit-chat, but she couldn't shake Lauron's words out of her mind.
"What's up? Isn't it how you expected it to be?" Koa asked, noticing her absent mind, nodding at her cup.
"No, it is good!" Lia snapped back, looking at her grinning, "I was trying to freeze it and turn it into ice cream!"
"Ahahaha~" She laughed, dipping her finger into Lia's little bit of wine and freezing it solid. "There you go!"
"Teehee~ Thanks!" She winked at her, picking it out and playfully licking her new 'desert.' Which made Keily even more nervous, not knowing now where to look.
His mind was shifting into overdrive, bombarding him with weird thoughts, ones that he had never had before. But he was happy. He felt like he was with family again, however weird of a family this was.
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It was early afternoon when Koa managed to wake up, sitting up on the couch next to Lia and Keily. She was wearing nothing more than her thin panties as she stretched with a satisfied voice, rubbing her messy hair while the two were still sleeping merrily. She could hear that Raufon was outside, working with Ceiline to clean up the main road of snow leading to their tower.
"Already morning…?" She murmured, climbing off the couch and meeting the eyes of Aurora, who was already dressed prim and proper. Only Koa, Lia, and Keily seemed affected by the drinks, as everyone else was looking fresh beside them.
"It is the afternoon," Aurora answered, sipping on a cup of coffee. "Are you coming?"
"To where?" She moaned in answer, already shaking her head, "Well, wherever you are going, no, I won't."
"To the library. Sion is already there, occupying some tables for us in advance."
"Huh? Why?"
"It is the new year. At the end of the week, we are going to have our first tests. Don't you remember what Dayen said? She will test our knowledge of the classes we have taken so far!"
"..." Koa suddenly was frozen in place, unable to move a muscle until she went through what she had just read. Then tried to understand it. Again. Again. And again. "Nah." She shrugged finally, returning to calmness, "That is still four days from now on. I have time to crunch it!"
"Thought so." Aurora smiled, not surprised, watching Koa walk next to her and pour out coffee for herself. "Keep an eye on them. But tomorrow you will come too! Ceiline said if any of us fails any of these mid-term tests, she is going to step down as our official overseer."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah… how hard could it be anyway?" she waved her hands.
"It isn't about being hard!" Aurora wrote to her, "It's about prestige. We earned a lot of that yesterday with our fight. Sion said he had heard murmurs already while going to the library. We are expecting applications to flood in, people wanting to join us. You already have your members, but we will have new ones to take care of too! This will be the best opportunity to choose some girls and boys who have the potential~ Just look at all the old companions from Lady Reyra's group. Lords of their own territories. They are ready to provide help if Lady Reyra ever needs it with something."
"I know, I know!" Koa moaned, rolling her eyes, "Your words sound like my grandfather! He always said without subordinates, none of the Houses could keep an eye on the entirety of the Realm! And when I said I should have a harem and lovers everywhere then, I was confined to my room for a month!"
"Well, for once…." Aurora put down her empty mug, walked past Koa, patting her shoulders, finishing the words with a hand sign. "I support your endeavor in it. Just make sure you stay at the top. It would be embarrassing if your subordinates overtake you, scoring more on the tests than their leader~."