As I opened my eyes, the smell of cooked food woke me up. I leaned forward and groaned when I felt my stiff neck. Looking to my side, I noticed that Rina had disappeared. I got up and was stretching when Rina leaned out of a doorway towards the side.

“You’re finally up. Dinners ready if you want some.”

“Dinner?” I asked, “What time is it?”

She rolled her eyes, “It’s five in the evening. So are you going to eat or not?”

“Eating. I’m eating,” I quickly walked over and entered the dining room.

The size of the dining room was enormous. It would have been more correct to call it a mess hall with the rows of tables with windows on the walls where you would collect your food. Seeing Mia and Nely already sitting down at one of the tables, I hurried over and sat down with Rina.

Looking down I was pleased with what I saw. There were meat dishes with salad and bottles of different colored drinks.

“Who made the food?” I asked as I took a bite of a meat. It was tender and juicy. Cooked to perfection.

“I did,” Nely said as she grabbed some salad.

“Oh?” I raised my eyebrows, “You got a lot better. I remember that you and your sister always ended up making this weird blob. I thought it ran in your genes.”

“That was when I was nine. Obviously I would get better,” she took a glance at her sister, “But some people will never have a talent for it.”

Rina looked away with a slightly red face as she also dug into the food.

After we finished eating, Rina took away the dishes to wash them as I went back to the living room with Nely and Mia.

“Mia, we have to talk about something.” I said as I sat down on a sofa and Nely sat down next to me.

“What is it?” Mia asked as she sat down on a sofa on the other side.

“The thing is, on this world, every person is required to attend a military academy once they turn sixteen for a year. Longer if they want to become a mercenary or join the military.”

“Why?”

“I told you that in this world, there is the Vara that are a dangerous race right?”

“Mhm.” She nodded

“The thing is that although we have a defense line against the Vara, there are always ways they can sneak past our radars or go around. So every so often, a Vara ends up on a planet that’s away from the defense line, like this planet.”

“So . . . everyone is taught to fight so that if a Vara comes, anyone can pick up a weapon to fight back?”

“Only as a last resort. But so far, there has never been a situation the military or the mercenaries couldn’t handle.”

“I see,” Mia thought for a moment before turning to face me, “What about you? What did you do? Are you part of the military since you’re a royal magister?”

I shook my head, “Being a royal magister has nothing to do with who I work for. To be a royal magister, you have to pass a series of exams.”

“I see,” Mia sat while lost in thought. Then she asked, “What do you think I should do? Study only one year or longer.”

“You should keep attending the academy,” Rina walked into the living room and took the empty seat next to me, “Even though the emperor makes only one year mandatory, everyone would want to attend if they could.”

“Why?” Mia asked.

“Because,” Rina answered, “To actually be worth anything to anybody, you’ll require skills that you can only get by continuing your education at a academy. But the academies allow only a select number of students to continue their education. Of course, you can create a space for yourself even if you fail by offering a large donation.”

Rina glared at Mia, “But if you need help with something as small as that, you might as well just walk out that front door right now. You’d only drag Virk down.”

Mia glared back, “And what makes you think I’ll fail. Just watch, I’ll become a royal magister just like him.”

Seeing that Mia had made her decision, I clapped my hands together to make the two glaring women face me.

“Alright then, Nely, can you apply Mia to attend the same academy as you?” I rubbed her head.

“Of course! Mia follow me,” She then dragged Mia away to hole in the wall, which was what was left of the front door since Rina destroyed it last night.

“And Rina, I was wondering since a while ago, but where did everyone go?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“You mean your living weapons?”

I nodded.

“Follow me,” She led the way deeper into the house.

I followed her down several corridors, and she led me to a room.

“Why are we at their rooms? Were they home this whole time?”

She rolled her eyes and opened the door. Inside was a large room with capsules on either side. There were four capsules in total, and three were closed.

I walked over to one. The capsules had glass lids so I was easily able to see that inside was a girl with green hair sleeping peacefully. Looking at the other two closed capsule, there were two more girls, one with yellow hair and one with blue. All of them looked to be in their twenties and were incredibly beautiful.

“Why are they all in deep sleep,” I frowned, “Is there something wrong with them?”

Rina rolled her eyes again and held up a device. A holographic screen was projected and what I saw made me pale.

The screen was showing the emperor’s throne room that I had been at the other night. But this one looked, less complete. There were chunks of the wall missing, the throne had been smashed to pieces, the tapestry on the wall was torn down, and even the emperor was on the floor.

Looking carefully, I saw that he was staring up at the sky while crying and it looking like he was saying something. Unfortunately there was no sound. After a moment, four figures flew down. Three of them were the girls in the capsule, and the last one was most likely the one that was missing from her capsule. She had white hair, and like the other three girls, was extremely beautiful with the perfect curves.

The three of them looked like they were screaming something at the emperor, while the emperor was shaking his head. The white haired one suddenly materialized a black sword out of nowhere and was about to cut the emperor down. However, before it landed, a red blur appeared and knocked her back, out of the screen. Before the other three could react, the red blur flew around them and they fell to the floor like dolls with broken strings.

When the red blue stopped moving, the camera was finally able to focus and show that it was Rina. When the clip stopped, I had a pale face and had cold sweat dripping down my back.

“When did this happen?”

Rina shrugged, “When the rumors started that you had gone on an S-rank mission and gotten killed. About a month after you last left the house. You’re lucky that the emperor let this go due to your friendship with him. Also, Moon ran away before I could knock her out. She’s been missing all this time. Luckily, she hasn’t tried anything like that again since then. As for the rest of them, I put them in deep sleep since I didn’t want to bother with them after the mess they made.”

“Oh man,” I covered my face with my hands, “I’ll need to visit him later on to apologize properly with them later.”

After a moment of silence, I sighed and turned back to the capsules. One by one I pressed a series of buttons on the side of the capsule. As the capsules opened up I walked back to stand by Rina with my arms crossed across my chest as I waited for them to wake up.

“Mmmm!” The one with the yellow hair sat up and stretched her arms, “That was a long nap. How long was I sleeping for?”

“I don’t know, I was sleeping too,” the blue haired girl said.

“Me three,” followed the one with green hair.

“Aura, Ivy, Sun, come here.” I said with a glare.

They all turned to me.

“Who is that scrawny kid?” The yellow haired girl frowned.

“I don’t know. Oh it’s Rina. Hi!” The blue haired girl also frowned.

“Ah! I’m sorry Rina! I was just so mad at that time!” The green haired girl rolled off her capsule and peeked her head out from behind it.

Rina sighed and pointed at me, “First off, ‘that scrawny kid’ is Virk, Sun. Second of all, Don’t ‘Hi’ me Aura. Third, I don’t care. Get over here Ivy. All of you.”

“””. . . . Eh?!?!?!””” They all yelled out.

“But how?! Did he get a surgery to change his looks?!” Sun looked me up and down in shock.

“But master said that he would never waste his life span to change his DNA, but I feel like I’m forgetting something important,” Aura frowned.

“Hey you idiots,” Ivy yelled at them, “Did you already forget what we did last night?!”

“Last night?” Sun frowned.

“Mmm. Ah!” Aura remembered first, and then Sun did as well.

They all turned to me at the same time with fear in their eyes.

“””Master!””” They jumped and bowed their heads in front of me.

“Oh? What happened to ‘that scrawny kid’ Sun?” Honestly, the yellow haired girl was right that I was scrawny compared to my original body, but right now I was a bit too pissed to care.

“Master! That! I didn’t mean!” She started panicking and was wildly gesturing randomly in the air.

“And Aura still as forgetful as ever I see. Is the AI I gave you just a piece junk? Do I need to remove it?,” I glared at the blue haired girl.

“No!” she began tearing up, “She’s extremely helpful! It’s me that’s the problem! Please don’t delete her!”

Ignoring her, I finally turned to the green haired girl, Ivy, “Ivy oh Ivy.”

Hearing that she began trembling, “I made you the leader of my squad but to think that you would disappoint me this much.”

“I-I-I” She kept on saying ‘I’ like a broken recorder, unknowing what to say.

“Quiet! I took the four of you into my squad after you graduated because you four were the most talented in your generation and had a lot of potential to grow. But to think that you all attacked the emperor. Are you all out of you damn minds?!”

The three of them were trembling with closed eyes.

“And do any of you know where the hell Moon ran away to?”

The three slowly shook their heads.

I groaned. The four girls were abandoned children I had picked up a long time ago, much like Rina and Nely. After they had graduated, I had given them each custom equipment ranging from weapons to support tools and an advanced AI bracelet. The AI was connected to their equipment and the bracelet had a dimensional storage function that allowed the girls to store the equipment in an alternate space, allowing them to pull whatever they needed out at any given moment.

Using these equipment and AI, they became some of the strongest Royal Magisters. As they became more and more well known, they were given the nickname Living Weapons due to the terrifying combat prowess that made them seem more like killing machines than human.

“The three of you,” I pointed to them, “Are to go with me to the emperor and apologize for the mess you made tomorrow morning. Is that understood?”

“””Yes!””” They sat up and shouted.

“And as of now, you three are grounded. Is that understood?”

“””No!””” By now they already knew they were forgiven and ran out the door laughing.

“Those brats are seriously a pain,” I sighed.

They were probably going to go to the living room and watch a movie or something that they missed in the last seven years. They may look like adults, but they definitely did not act their age most of the time.

“But you know you still love them,” Rina gave me a kiss and left the room.

As I watched her leave, I began thinking. In the past, I had rejected her as I had felt that the reason she had been so attached to me was due to the way she felt when I took her in, not because of actual man to woman love. But if she felt the same even after being seven years apart, I guess I could give it a try. Although Nely would need more thinking, and maybe more growing in a certain area.

I turned to look at the capsule that had been empty for several years.

"Please be safe, Moon," I quietly prayed as I left the room to follow the laughter down the corridors.