Son Gaef took a step backwards and bowed.

‘Good evening, Lady Marshall. My apologies if I disturbed your training. Yet I couldn’t help but take the offered opportunity when I saw you on my way out.’

I wiped at the side of my cheek, where the leaking moisture was still present and raised a brow.

‘Opportunity?’

Suspicions of men doing deeds in the dark flicked through my head. My eyes roved. The hall was still empty. But there was no shot Son was assassinating me on campus grounds.

Though we couldn’t see the sentinels (and I hadn’t seen them since the first day. That’s how good they were at their job), they were always watching us while on academy territory. He would never get away with it.

Son Gaef’s smile widened as if he’d heard my thoughts and they amused him.

‘An extremely great opportunity,’ he said, going into the chest pocket of his robes. ‘I happened to catch a rumour while it was young.’

I closely followed his movement. The first thing I would do was duck and swipe his feet, should it be anything dangerous. But what he removed was a small, square piece of metal.

Son handed it to me with an open palm.

‘Please, inspect it before accepting. Common etiquette.’

‘Amongst merchants or thieves?’ I said.

He kept smiling and didn’t answer.

I huffed. Inspect, I thought.

[Name: Locus Locator - Nature: Water - Grade: E - Uses: 1]

I’d never heard of a locus locator before. But if the name was what it implied…

‘It’s what it says on the tin?’ I said, slowly looking up.

He nodded.

‘I thought you might be interested after one of my friends told me what happened in class today.’

At the term “friends”, his voice added an extra layer of oil to the frying pan.

What happened in class…he was talking about Elder Chinju’s story of my mother and the schedule. So, it was already spreading. I should’ve expected that. My own status notwithstanding, my mother was an S rank hunter. News of her would spread quicker than wildfire.

‘Which locus does this lead to?’ I asked.

‘If I knew,’ he said, ‘the gift would lose purpose. It’s a gamble.’

‘Right,’ I said.

Reminder to myself: double check if a locus locator had a single use. It would be for the best if so. That way Son couldn’t know where I was going in advance and prepare a trap.

Reminder set! Notification will occur in twenty-four hours.

Time can be modified in the reminder screen.

I opened and closed my mouth. That…wow. Alright. Set reminder: explore what the system can do. Fully.

The same notification flared up, and I turned to the still-smiling Son, who was waiting like I thought a sage would. He was just missing the cup of jasmine tea, giant water lily to float on and the sunset behind him.

My chin turned down at the gift again. The saliva dripped inside my mouth. A water locus would allow me to practise my shaping and nature manipulation practically around the clock. Then, there was the fact my core training needed it as well…

Yet there was a single question I needed answered before I could even think of accepting.

‘Why?’ I said.

Regular people didn’t give you freebies for no reason. Let alone initiates of the Hunter Academy. Let alone someone who organised a small-time crime syndicate on the second day of school and started a war.

He paused and thought hard. Whether it was fake or real, I couldn’t tell.

‘You strike me as a pragmatic individual, Lady Marshall. So, I’ll be perfectly honest.’

My back straightened.

‘I’m listening.’

Son pulled on his lapels, tightening his robes, and cleared his throat.

‘I think it’s best explained with an allegory my father once told me.’

‘An allegory of your father?’

Son nodded.

‘The tale of the fisher, the carp, and the bear. Have you heard of it, Lady Marshall?’

‘I have not.’

But the title was interesting. So, I continued listening.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

‘This takes place aeons ago on the northern continent,’ Son said. ‘An old fisherman discovered this beautiful, golden river lush with life, where the very air reinvigorated his bones simply by breathing.

‘My narrative skills are lacking,’ Son said solemnly, ‘but I hope you can visualise it. Truly, this was a perfect place for an old man to spend his days enjoying himself. There was just one problem with this river.’

Son raised two digits. Then, he leaned forward as if to share a secret.

‘Two spirits were having a turf war. Lady Marshall, have you ever seen a turf war of spirits?’

I shook my head.

There were spirits on my home island, yet their habitat was cordoned off. I didn’t deal with anything but the livestock we had on the farm.

‘They’re destructive affairs,’ Son said. ‘Whole ecosystems can change forever before they resolve.’

The ends of Son’s hair whipped side to side, and in the faint glistening of his pupils, I could see regret for the potential lost.

“My narrative skills are lacking” my butt. This man, I thought, was an actor and storyteller first-class.

‘Fortunately,’ Son continued, ‘this war was not that hazardous. One of the contenders was quite weak, you see.’

‘A carp,’ I mused out loud. ‘Not quite a threat before they morph into a dragon.’

As far as I knew, there were no documented events of a carp turning into a dragon, or any dragon existing at all. But Mother had told me of the myths.

Son grinned, joyful that I knew my fables, and valiantly carried on.

‘The bear, being the only worthwhile predator in the vicinity, wanted to get rid of the carp before it evolved. The carp, in turn, spent most of its time hiding and feeding on scraps. Understandable, yes?’

‘A battle against time,’ I said.

‘Exactly!’ Son exclaimed. ‘Could the bear gobble up the carp before it was too late, or would it be swallowed in a great breath of fire once the carp evolved?’

‘And the fisher cares because they’re a threat to him?’ I said.

‘If he helps one beat the other,’ Son said, ‘his loyalty will be rewarded. Imagine making use of the Golden River while having its lord protect you.’

And supporting the wrong party would be disastrous for the fisher.

‘He cannot stay impartial?’ I said.

Son tutted.

‘The impartial are beset by both sides, Lady Marshall. No one likes a coward. One who’s afraid to take a risk.’

The tall boy took a single step forward, and my shadow entered his own.

‘So. Which one would you approach, Lady Marshall? Which one would you offer aid?’

My thoughts raced for a moment.

‘The carp,’ I said. ‘Bears can hunt in water. Yet I cannot picture it catching a carp smart enough to hide. I expect that’s not the answer, though.’

Son grinned. The curve of his lips was like a wicked medium. A channel for a Devil that used it to transport all of its greed.

‘Both. Just at a different time of day.’

A shiver went up the side of my legs as Son finished. I understood at once what was standing before me.

Son Gaef was a snake.

But not in the usual sense. Not like how I thought Jax was a snake for leaving May and me for dead. This was a calculated horror.

As long I proved useful. As long as I stayed at the top of the strength rankings and kept my potential for growth, Son Gaef wouldn’t do anything but be kind to me and engage in a mutually beneficial relationship. It was when I lost that status that problems would arise.

Oh, he wouldn’t do something as silly as backstab me. He was too mannered for that. He’d simply do it from the front after telling me he would.

Despite this revelation, I found myself relaxing.

This was something I could live with. Two schools. Both aware of their standing with each other. It couldn’t be more clear cut than this.

So, I picked the locator from his smooth-skinned palm. The grey sheen of the locator refracted in the light. If there was anything wrong with it, I couldn’t tell.

‘We’ll be in touch,’ I said.

His request to me would come at a later date, no doubt. Maybe during the group battle.

Probably, I corrected.

‘That we will,’ he said, his teeth whiter than a pearl.

He turned to walk away but stopped. His chin stuck out over his shoulder.

‘I’m not sure if I should mention it. But are you aware of the target on your back, Lady Marshall?’

‘Sixty pair of eyes are hard to miss,’ I said, frowning.

Most of which should be his men. Then again, was their support of Jax his order? If not, he didn’t have them on as tight a leash as he was trying to let on.

Son chuckled. Again, as if he read what I was thinking.

‘It’s never the masses you need to pay attention to in a war. Their movements are easy to spot.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

He was silent for an instant.

‘The Black Thirteen of Tsuda Daiji, does the name ring a bell?’

‘Not at all. A book?’

Son hummed.

‘The second floor of our library is quite extensive. It should be in the last row. Good evening, Lady Marshall.’

Then he was out the training hall, leaving me with his cryptic statement.

10.

image [https://i.imgur.com/jhHPHXK.png]

It was almost midnight when Son left.

All school facilities closed with the gates. So, I rushed towards the library. My maura was spent, which meant I had nothing better to do anyway.

The tall building was located on the second tier of the mountain.

Its stone walls were a deep black and would’ve reminded of the night if they weren’t interlaced with pale windows every few steps.

There were multiple tiers to library. The first was filled with manuals of all kinds: lost martial styles with images that explained stances, outdated ability manuals, handbooks that promised mastery over monsters through ancient taming techniques.

All of this was related to combat in one way or another, however. The second floor was not.

Here, the books were milder. Theories on the origin of hunters, scrolls on medicine, meditation, and the Divine Emperor. But also, at the far back, an aisle for fiction.

A sour taste entered my mouth.

‘Is he referring me a fiction book?’

His attitude said he wasn’t. Yet this was the last row in the stacks of rows of books spanning the second floor. Fiction being at the end made sense, too. Who would care about fiction during their stay here?

Still, there must be a reason Son mentioned it. So, I searched.

I’d never been in a library as big as this, but the principle for finding titles was the same in every gathering location of books.

Rather quickly, my fingers traced over the hard covers of a few novels before landing on a wholly black tome. Red letters on the side of the sleeve read “Black Thirteen.” This was it.

The tables were empty, so I chose a seat at random.

‘It’s thin.’

Was the first thing I noticed. Couldn’t be more than a hundred pages. A quick peek at the last page revealed even less. Ninety-seven.

There was no blurb to tell me what it was about. I considered rifling through the pages yet quickly abandoned the idea. What he wanted me to know may be hidden on a specific page instead of in the entire book.

‘Two hours should do it,’ I said.

Problem was that there was only half an hour left before the library closed, and my eyelids were complaining about the ‘motivated decisions’ that were keeping me up.

Which was why I rent the book and went home.

I slipped quietly into our dorm to not wake up the others, but my efforts were not needed. May and Kate were still joking around.

To my surprise, Lynne and Evelyn were fighting back the demon tide together. I thought they’d already learned their lesson on that front. However, to my even greater shock, some of their remarks actually bit into May and Kate’s skin. So much so that the two of them went to bed with a frown on their face.

Seems like they spent time practising. Good for them.

When the lights finally turned off, I grabbed the book from my pouch and lit a tiny lantern I also rent from the library, which was fit for underneath my blanket.

My idea was to just read the first few pages and go to sleep.

But all I remembered when I woke up was the darkness of night.