The sunrise together with sounds of alarms playing marked the beginning of another first semester of lessons in the scholar Imperial City, Faystorm. Students of all numerous schools in Faystorm run through the city to not be late for the first day of school and the ones in different vehicles sped up.

On this important day for Solomon, his parents were occupied with a sudden job he doesn’t know about but they had given their farewells before leaving.

Solomon stood outside of the gigantic mansion Isabel bought to feign to be their home in the Imperial City when it was just a waypoint to teleport without any problems.

He wore the school uniform, straight black trousers, and similar colored blazers, under which he also wore a long-sleeved white shirt and reddish knotted silk tie. Near the heart’s area was sewed the school’s symbol, two flying black dragons eating each other’s tails in a pale blue background, to demonstrate the status as students of the Imperial Magic School.

Solomon knew that the feminine uniform had black shirts, black tights, scarlet skirts, and a red bow ribbon because he saw Ibyr yesterday in one of them.

The only difference Solomon wore in comparison to the other students was a black scarf with two salients ends despite the Ecrium Empire being known to be hot even in the winter. It was something Solomon was forced to accept as Tessa said she sewed the scarf by herself.

At the least, the scarf was magical in nature and had the function of cooling him, so it was quite refreshing to use it, he has nothing to complain about except he will call attention by wearing a scarf, although he would anyways with his inauspicious eyes.

“Young master, please enter. I will safely drive you to your school.” Jord opened the doors to the same car Solomon rode after being adopted.

Solomon until now didn’t understand the change of tone in Jord and how the old man with a stern face would drive with his leg not working properly, but nevertheless, the teenager entered the car.

Jord got his hands on the steering wheel and started the car, from his legs a black sludge came and began to make pressure on the correct dials without him moving his legs.

Solomon silently observed the mighty city of Faystorm with Bessy at his side, she was happy for being outside once again, never did she think she would miss the sun so much even though she was a ghost.

She wondered how Solomon was still good after being away from the sun for two months, by this time his skin should have some kind of damage but was still fine.

Faystorm was bustling with movement and took twenty minutes to Solomon reach the school while doing small talks with Bessy.

A shame Ibyr went earlier to the school by Tessa’s orders to verify something, if not, the mood in the car wouldn’t be that awkward.

Jord gave his farewells to Solomon and also showed the location to the teenager go to the bus to go back home.

Solomon mixed in the crowd and walked the enormous staircase until he was able to glimpse his new school which was at a higher height than most buildings.

The school was magnificent, being an eight-story sparkling white high building supported by magic and design resembling a castle. It had side areas where poor or special people can decide to live instead of going home after school ends and special areas for various activities that can be made in the school.

Solomon’s appearance only called attention for a second before other students ignored him, considering how weird some nobles are, having strange eyes and wearing a scarf was fine. It was a reaction different from Hollowell where magic isn’t that prominent and nobles are rare.

In this school even the Imperial Royalty come to study, being a low noble here was almost the same as being a commoner which actually compose more than half of the students since it turned out being spoiled didn’t make the noble children become smart enough to not be expelled from the school.

Solomon was calmly walking to enter inside the school to receive instructions on where to go to his class when he heard a scream near the pink trees that served as decorations.

Looking around he saw a chubby teenager with a black complexion being ‘assaulted’, no, bullied by a group of older teenagers that seemed to be from the high school’s second year.

The chubby teenager was in tears as the older teenagers tormented him with little zaps of magic and were laughing while humiliating the boy. It wasn’t anything that could endanger him though.

Solomon could hear the older teenagers saying things like, “this is what happens when a commoner like you mess with us,” and “how dare not look where you were walking and dropping your disgusting drink on us.”

Solomon could more or less understand the situation and thought that the chubby boy was in deep trouble since nobody came to his rescue and the adults on the school’s doors were turning a blind eye to it, not because they are doing favoritism but because the commotion wasn’t still on the school grounds and every day similar incidents occur so they are bored of them.

And to make it worse, the school was ‘lazy’, preferring to let students take care of it alone or with help of the student council since in the adult world they wouldn’t be there to save the bullied students, the victims must learn how to deal with this by themselves, or so it seems to be the apparent teachings of the Imperial Magic School.

The director would strongly disagree with that.

Solomon walked to the commotion, cursing at his stupidity and how Miss Olivia’s teachings were so deep into him. The results would be the same, actually worse.

A little necromancy wouldn’t change that fact.

“Come on, brother. Are you seriously doing this again? The last time, I could understand since the girl was your first crush, but are you risking losing your social life in a new environment and with new parents? This is why you won’t ever accept me, you are too stupid for it.” Asmo scolded while maintaining his voice childish without real admonishment present.

“Try this time to at least protect your face, it was really annoying to talk with you with your nose broken in the last time,” Bessy said, loving her friend hadn’t changed after learning Dark Magic or being too near that problem girl, Ibyr.

Solomon’s legs shook, there was something in dealing with someone older than him that made the fear factor increase. “H-He probably had already said that he was sorry, let him go. We are all colleagues here, let’s not resort to violence to resolve problems that can be solved with some words.” From Solomon’s hands came a blast of invisible force that tried to push the older teenagers away, contradicting his words but failed because of the well-timed enveloping spheres the older boys used to protect from the blast.

Everyone was surprised by this event, how could the trembling boy try to win against four students older than him to save the chubby boy? Both the bullies and the victim were the most surprised since the blast of force was even weaker than the one the chubby boy tried to use to escape earlier.

I shouldn’t have tried to show off. Force magic isn’t my forte and I can’t control well Dark Magic to attack someone.

Solomon sighed in his mind knowing his fate and decided to face it with a straight face, this situation was completely his fault and he couldn’t blame anyone beyond himself for the beating and bullying he will receive.

He just hoped for one thing in his heart.

Please, Ibyr. Tell me that you are easy to find here to cure me, Miss Tessa and Mister Jesse will be angry if they discover I lost without using Dark Magic.

Solomon that had problems with other types of magic discovered himself so comfortable with Dark Magic that in two months he learned more about it than usual magic in the last fifteen years of his life.

Being understandable why his parents would be angry at him for losing without really trying, his power now was quite considerable if he puts his mind to it.

A burly boy with spiky hair that seemed the leader sneered and advanced to Solomon.

As Solomon silently received a punch on the stomach and was forced to go to his knees, he perceived the burly boy had a sword with a magic crystal embedded in it on his hips, those swords were only given to soldiers or to nobles for safety reasons.

“Oh, at least you are better than the Wilson you tried to save. Let’s see for how long you can go without screaming.” The burly boy kicked Solomon once again on the stomach. “What was in your head when you tried to save Wilson? That fatty is worse than thrash and now you will suffer for him. Are you stupid?”

The burly boy concentrated magic around his hand, reinforcing it, and punched at Solomon’s face, or at least tried.

“I said to protect your face.” Bessy’s hands with Solomon’s signature shone as she blocked the attack of the burly boy despite being just an incorporeal ghost and tried to crush her enemy’s hands, drawing strength from Solomon’s magic.

Before the burly boy could understand why his punch stopped before hitting Solomon or why his hand was hurting on the verge of breaking, a gloved hand clamped on his other hand and lifted him away from the ground and Bessy’s ghost grip.

“Can I know why Sol is on the ground hurt?” A beautiful tall teenager with her long scarlet hair arranged in a ponytail said.

She was Ibyr’s human form that was brimming with anger for seeing her cute cousin being tormented on his first day of school.

“Ibyr?!” Everyone that wasn’t of the first year near the commotion was stunned and in fear of the presence of the barbaric woman that last year knocked out in anger a corrupted teacher and torn off with her bare hands a wyrm.

The adults in the area were having a headache and regretting not stopping the commotion earlier.

The only daughter of the Light God’s Divine Hound wasn’t easy to be placated and she was harder to deal with than an Imperial Royalty. Not just because of her status but her overbearing strength.

“What’s wrong? Are you so scared you can’t talk?” The cold look on Ibyr made Solomon for a second not recognize his cousin, she was always arrogant with him but not this cold and full of killing intent. “It seems you are the ‘thrash instead’.” She threw the burly boy on the other older teenagers, making them fall to the ground to catch their leader.

The older teenagers were more scared than when their parents discovered they weren’t studying as Ibyr picked Solomon as always and put him over her shoulders. “This is my cousin, Solomon. I don’t want to see any of you near him again and if I discover he is having a bad time here, it will be better if you guys never come back to school. I’m letting you with a warning this time only because it seems you weren’t actually bullying him at first.”

Ibyr wanted to someone pick on Solomon so she could save him and sent a warning to everyone else that can have bad intentions towards him, so she went earlier to school and waited for the right moment to appear.

Her threats would work better if she at least beat them a little or said something more menacing than ‘it will be better if you guys never come back to school’ but the foreign look on Solomon when he saw her talking was hurting her too much to continue the little act her aunt made for her.

She walked to the school with Solomon still on her shoulders without caring for anything or opinion from others.

Nobody stayed in her way and the adults flew away to not have the blame shifted to them.

Exemplary and best school of the Empire, none of those words seemed to combine with the current situation, something was wrong from its root here.

Meanwhile, the chubby boy took the chance to flee and the older teenagers swore to never get involved with Solomon once again, if the boy with the scarf was a nephew of the Divine Hound why didn’t he say so earlier? It would resolve a lot of problems of cropping out.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Solomon was relieved that Ibyr’s expression came back to normal and that she wasn’t too violent with the other teenagers, he tried to ask to be put down but she refused his requests.

He was used to being carried in this way and didn’t have that much shame of being in this position, but he worried that at least six nicknames would be made for him because of the way he was being carried.

Lifeforce poured into him to cure him while Ibyr asked for directions to where his class would be to study, which was on the third floor and ninth door. “Sorry, if I scared you, Sol.” Ibyr slowly said.

“Don’t worry, I understand why did you do that, and thank you for saving me.”

“Next time use Dark Magic to protect yourself, you can’t always count on your spirit guardian to be able to use your magic’s signature to guard you.” She looked at Bessy that was following them. “She is still an amateur in being a ghost with the power to exist in our plane, she isn’t too reliable.”

Bessy glared at Ibyr, she had protected Solomon when it was needed.

“And did Jord tell you where to go to pick up the bus home? I will probably be occupied later so I won’t come back with you.” Ibyr said.

“Yes, he did.”

“Goodbye then, see ya later.” Ibyr opened the door to his class and unceremoniously threw him there before going to her own class to not be late for it.

“That brute woman could be more gentle, this is also technically my body,” Asmo complained while Solomon rubbed his hurt butt and looked in dismal at his classmates looking at him with strange eyes.

The class was mostly equal in space to the one he studied at the beginning of the year, the wood on the chairs and tables was of another quality though. They were enough to thirty students and quite comfortable, and at the front of the class, there was a whiteboard and the teacher’s marble table.

Solomon searched for his name without his surname on the tables as Mister Jesse instructed, his seat was the first on the line near the windows and the teacher’s table. Even if he wanted it would be impossible for him not to pay attention to the class or make small talks with his colleagues in the middle of the class.

Time passed with his colleagues constantly arriving, the one that most called attention in his class was someone that looked to be an Imperial Prince because of the dragonic traces on him, like his reptilian eyes, overwhelming magic, and the people crowding around him on one of the seats at the back of the class.

“Being near an Imperial Prince is really annoying, isn't it? Scarf boy?” The girl behind Solomon said to him. She was blond with a little mole near her eyes.

Solomon looking at her after some moments noticed how different she was and that he probably knows her name without looking at her table.

Near the school’s symbol, there was another symbol, the face of a fox, sewed on there.

It meant she was a political hostage and from his own country, Ochia, moreover.

The Ecrium Empire makes the important relatives of the royalties it has control over be sent to the city where the Dragon Empress lives or this Imperial City to serve as hostages, ‘deterrents’ to their subordinates, not rebel and reinforce their control over the dominated countries.

Normally the hostages go to this school, army or go adventuring through the areas where monsters live.

The Ochia country was known to be ruled by a half-lycanthrope, or as some call werebeast, that has ancestry with a powerful sapient fox that had a strong fire and shapeshifting powers. A werebeast that is part human and part monster always has minimal parts, like ears or tails, which has relation to their monster part, however, Solomon couldn’t see any in the body of his country’s political hostage.

Pure werebeasts were complete monsters with no relation to humans with the exception that the majority walked upright.

This girl if Solomon remembered correctly must be the 1st Princess, Lyn Ochia, as she is the only female relative alive of his country’s king which made him wonder why he didn’t notice her when he sat on his chair.

He doesn’t know how formal he should be with the princess of his country, was he still considered an Ochia’s citizen if his parents’ citizenship was ambiguous?

“Not much, Princess Lyn. It means that another person beyond yourself will be in the spotlight and you will live relaxedly through the year. By the way, my name is Solomon, nice to meet you.” Solomon said.

“This symbol is also annoying, everyone knows that I’m a hostage.” Lyn’s eyes twinkled as she looked with curiosity at Solomon. “I can understand why you know my name because of the table but how did you know that I am a princess? Political hostages aren’t always princes and princesses, sometimes even the relative of a powerful duke is enough to be a political hostage.”

“I-I just guessed.” Solomon stammered and Bessy facepalmed herself.

“You are a bad liar, didn’t never your girlfriend that brought you over tell you that?” Lyn laughed while covering her mouth.

Solomon sighed. “I know that you are a princess because I have a relation with the Ochia country and that there’s a princess there with the same appearance as you. And the girl that brought me isn’t my girlfriend, she is my cousin, Ibyr.”

“So that is the notorious Ibyr I heard so much about? This would explain how easily you got off the hook when dealing with those second-year students.”

“How-”

“Just look at your left.” She interrupted her colleague.

Solomon looked through the windows to his left and perceived that here on the third floor and in this class, it was easy to see the place where the commotion happened.

“Why did you try to help that other boy? You didn’t seem to have the power to do so, my eyes are good and I could see you were even shaking when doing it.” Lyn said.

“Would you believe if I say that I did it to satisfy my own ego? I’m not that good of a human, but I was taught to always do good things because happiness would come within myself. So I did that more in instinct.”

“Hmm… for me it seems more like you are lying to yourself but I can accept your current explanation.”

“Believe whatever you want, Princess.”

The time for the lesson to begin was approaching and all students already arrived. “Say, why didn’t I notice you when I sat on my chair?” Solomon said.

“I was invisible.”

Oh, that makes sense.

The bell rang and the teacher entered the room. “Silence. The lesson already started.” Perite entered the class and slightly faltered seeing Solomon for the first time, the boy made him remember his torture.

He calmed himself and adjusted his black hair.

“Class, if some of you don’t know yet, I’m the 11th Imperial Prince, Perite Ecrium. I will be your general and magic teacher throughout the year. The other teachers will come later to talk to you and explain how their lessons will be. I’m in charge of explaining to you guys the rules and answering any doubt you may have.

“For example, why didn’t we have an introductory reunion with all classes in the auditorium? But first please introduce yourselves with your names and hobbies to your colleagues, we teachers already know all of you so you don’t need to repeat this process later.” Perite said and pointed to the student near the door to begin.

“I’m Irwin and I’m just a commoner. My hobbies are fighting and playing card games.” A muscular teenager with short hair and a sword kept at his side said.

The introductions came one by one and Solomon paid more attention to another of them. “I’m Jack Ecrium, the 16th Imperial Prince as I expect my colleagues to know. My hobbies are a secret but I can open a space in my schedule if any of you my beautiful colleagues want to pass time with me.” His body was fit and his reptilian eyes were piercing, even his mere presence made everything around him seem royal just because of the way he moves and looks at you.

“I’m Nodwick…”

“I’m Artax…”

“I’m Yeagar…”

“I’m Piffany…”

“I’m Rowen…”

“I’m Aaron…”

“I’m Puffin…”

“I’m Lyn Ochia and I’m a political hostage as you can see. My hobbies are singing and painting.” Lyn said with a curt bow.

“I’m Solomon and I think I’m a commoner, I’m not sure about my status. My hobbies are wearing unnecessary clothes and to read.” Since the scarf was too comfortable and refreshing, Solomon tried to make it part of the persona his colleagues know him.

“Now that all of you know your colleagues’ names, let me explain the rules here,” Perite said while writing on the whiteboard with a highlighter because the director was too traditional.

Solomon took a notebook and began to write the most important rules and explanations.

“The Imperial school focuses more on quality than on quantity, the lessons will begin in the morning and end after lunch, here the division between commoners and nobles doesn’t exist. And the reason to have fewer lessons is to also encourage extra-curricular activities known as clubs or societies.

“Here the clubs are serious business, they're meant to prepare students for the high-pressure work environment into which they'll eventually be dumped into, students are strongly encouraged to join at least one. And just like in their future jobs, students are expected to show utmost loyalty to their club. Even existing the student council to make a resemblance to someone being a king.”

The bell rang as time passed and each teacher from all subjects entered the classroom to introduce themselves, there wasn’t anyone remarkable in Solomon’s opinion with exception of the physical education teacher who was full of scars and seemed to come from the army’s frontline.

The lessons on the first day were mostly just talking and they will really begin on the next day.

Unfortunately, Solomon couldn’t meet Ibyr during the break times as each year had regularly a break time different to not cause overcrowding.

When the first day of the class ended there were a lot of people from the second, third and fourth years at the staircase to publicize their own clubs and societies.

No club or society made Solomon interested in them, and there were some dangerous ones like an Adventure club that goes on expeditions in monsters territories and Magic Combat societies that compete with other schools on battlefields.

Solomon went back to his home without anything notable occurring.

It was just a normal first day at his school, but outside of the school, other events will shortly occur with him there that would change how the world works and that maybe would finally contest with the overwhelming might of the Ecrium Empire.

***

Nergal was in his own room given by the Dragon Empress at Faystorm, he was waiting for the contacts of his disciple, his God, and the spy on the Republic of Renar. Nergal was a man with many loyalties and yet not morally tied to any of them, if necessary he can even betray his own God to the Light Gods and become immortal already.

A shame if he does that he would be obliged to do all that bullshit of purgatory and receive a sermon from his ancestors that were different from his parents, they were quite good and annoying to deal with in the afterlife.

He was currently quite mad with his feet constantly tapping on the wooden floor that his experiments with the three boys he picked on Hollowell failed, they didn’t mature well enough to him use them on his plan to overthrow his beloved Dragon Empress so he just brought them back to Hollowell, changed them back to their normal selves and erased their memories about him.

Nergal just chose them because his ancestors dealt with the boys’ ancestors, and although the result wasn’t satisfactory he didn’t see a reason to kill them. He can kill at any whim he feels but just killing some weak teenagers didn’t feel that good considering they were more worthless than the 11th Imperial Prince and 14th Imperial Princess to his plans.

He wasn’t a psychopath to mindless kill anyone that doesn’t fulfill his expectations, after all.

Maybe, perhaps.

He actually doesn’t know now that he thinks about it.

“Master, Disciple is here to report to you.”

Finally, one of the beings he was waiting for contact. “How’s going school? Studying properly? You can’t become the heir to the Overlord of All Realms without a good education.” Nergal said, exaggerating his future title.

“Master, this is still the first day of school. There’s nothing to study yet and that self-proclaimed title is embarrassing, please never use it again.”

“Oh… forgot about that.” Nergal coughed to hide his embarrassment. “So did you find any good target for our plans or did that ‘thing’ contact us?”

“I have some suspicions about a good target, but the most important is that I heard a question by that thing’s offspring. It said “do you want to know why magic disappeared? I can answer that,” and it also said it needed help to reach a certain place in the school.”

“Interesting… continue maintaining contact with it and say that I will help it if I receive more information about where it wants to go.”

“Understood.”

The contact ended and Nergal was just mildly curious as to why magic disappeared and was more interested in making that thing not interrupt his plans, ‘it’ was too big of a variable to work on.

Another contact arrived and it was his God this time.

Today was a busy day for Nergal.

His God, The God of War and Death, appeared before him in a shape his mortal brain could understand.

The Black Axe telepathically said. “Nergal, my most powerful and faithful servant, the journey of the Divine Hound to the underworld ended and he came back with ‘good’ news to the Light Gods. The One Down There agreed to not mess with any of the worlds anymore, although his demons will still be seen, he won’t anymore lead them. However, we had to concede to one of his conditions.”

“Which was?” Nergal said.

“The Republic of Earth must be helped and allowed to try to conquer the world. As we talk the republic is receiving help from many Gods and champions. The other Gods feel like having the Republic of Earth dominate the world will be much better than having The One Down There trying to destroy all worlds in fury after his heir died. However, it is unknown to me what ties The One Down There has with that republic to ask for this.”

“If it’s so why aren’t you happy about it? It means it will be easier to destroy the Ecrium Empire, right?” Nergal knew his God long enough to read some subtle emotions in his voice.

“As much I love war and death as I’m the God of them, this turns of events means we must hasten our plans of stealing those weapons from the Dragon Empress and killing her to cause chaos in her empire. We need to do it before the Republic of Earth becomes strong enough for the Dragon Empress to notice them.”

“Understood, I will hasten my plans and maybe destroy Faystorm earlier than expected. Do you have any other order?”

“Try to plant a spy or become a spy on the Republic of Earth. That place will in a short future become the center of the world.” The Black Axe said before disappearing.

“Isn’t the Republic of Renar near the Republic of Earth?” Nergal mused and just as he thought about this, his spy on the Republic of Renar said the republic was taken in mere two hours in record time by the Republic of Earth and he almost died in the process but was able to infiltrate the Republic of Earth, he was waiting for new orders.

“Good job, try to reach a higher position there. That republic will become important to my plans.”

It seems the time for Nergal to betray everyone is nearer than he thought.

“Your pizza is here, sir.” His room’s bell rang.

But now he will indulge himself in more important things.

“I’m coming, did you also bring the guava juice? Thank you.”