"Open your eyes, servant!" a voice yelled out practically right next to Ryan's head. Startled, he jumped up and threw his legs over the side of the bed.

"What the-" he yelled out, staring at the face of the person that the voice came from. It was a kid, with short, pure white hair that practically melted into his just as pale skin. It all just made his practically glowing blue eyes stick out even more. The kid was standing there, fists on his hips, and practically showing off the prominent fangs in his mouth.

"Perfect! Now swear your eternal loyalty to me, offering me your neck to seal the contract!"

Ryan stared at the boy as the memories from last night caught back up to him, "You're the vampire kid, right? The one that'll be staying with us?"

Smugly, the boy smirked and nodded his head, "I see that my legend has spread far and wide already! Now, show me your-"

Ryan rolled his eyes and got up from his bed. He walked out of the open door into the hallway, quickly making his way to what used to be Runar's office up here. Though, it was clear that it was just for show, now that Ryan had seen the one below the café. The boy was startled and followed him.

"Did you not hear me, servant?! Show me your-"

"Yo, Runar, what the hell is happening?" Ryan asked, stepping into the room. His uncle stood there, sorting in some books from a cardboard box into the shelf. He turned around surprised.

"Hm?" he let out, as his eyes moved from Ryan over to the boy standing next to him, "Oh, you already met? You could have slept a bit longer, it's still pretty early."

"I would have, if this kid hadn't yelled into my ear," Ryan glared down at the boy, though he felt a bit silly for it. He was just a kid. Kids were assholes. Everyone knew that.

Runar let out a long sigh, "Right, I should have warned you. Liam is a bit... loud."

"I simply have a voice befitting a king! One that can be heard across the battlefield!" Liam proudly exclaimed, letting out a loud laugh immediately after.

"It's 1354, I don't think you want to get involved in the battlefields we've got going on these days," Ryan pointed out, but Liam simply let out a long sigh, shaking his head disappointedly.

"And this is why you're a mere servant, you simply don't understand the art of war."

"... Runar, why is he talking like this? He's creeping me out."

"He was raised by one of the elders, who just happens to be a total historical-fiction nut," Runar admitted, finishing placing the last book from the box onto the shelf before walking up to Liam, speaking to him directly, "We spoke about this, right?"

Liam smugly nodded his head, "Yes, you told me not to make the children at school my servants! You did not say anything about the peasant wasting away in the other chambers!"

Awkwardly, Runar looked over at Ryan, who was just showing a bit of an expression of defeat, "Sorry, he's... just kind of like this."

"I can see that," Ryan responded, "Definitely the best choice to show others that vampires are normal people. Also, tell him to stop asking me to show him my neck."

Runar immediately snapped his head toward Liam, "Excuse me?"

The boy pulled back slightly, "I... well, that's what the vampires in my books always did, and..."

Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Runar sighed loudly, "Yes, and it's not only very dangerous but also really inefficient. No sane vampire feeds like that any more. Do you not like the blood we've been giving you?"

"... The artificial blood tastes so bland. No flavour," Liam pointed out, glancing toward Ryan, "But it's not about food anyway! It's about him showing his loyalty and servitude to me!"

"Ryan is not your servant. Nobody is your servant. Stop doing that, or the other kids will think you're weird."

"Hmph!" Liam huffed, pushing out his chest, "You may call it 'weird', but I call it the aura of a noble!"

Ryan smirked lightly, patting the kid on the top of his head as he turned back around, "Oh you're going to be bullied so bad."

While Liam was trying to protest, Runar peaked out the doorway, "Put on some pants while you're walking around the flat."

"Calm down, I'm wearing boxers. It's only us anyway, right?" Ryan yawned as he tiredly turned into the kitchen, scratching his belly with closed eyes. As he opened them again, he saw two people he didn't know. A dwarf with a finely braided beard that had jewellery woven into it, standing in front of the counter to make himself a sandwich. And seated right at the table was a young demon woman with intricately carved horns and black tattoos creeping up on her neck on her blood-red skin.

Ryan looked at the two people, who awkwardly stared at him as he stood there only wearing a loose, old shirt and boxer shorts. He was trying to process the information for a few moments, but then just gave up and walked up to the fridge, pulling it open to grab the milk carton. He turned to the dwarf.

"Don't use up all the gouda, please. Wanted to use some for lunch," Ryan requested, pulling the package of granola off the top of the fridge.

"A-Aye, of course!" the dwarf stuttered out, not sure what else to say, as Ryan grabbed himself a bowl and spoon. He poured some of the granola into a bowl and poured milk over it, and after returning both to where he grabbed them from, he sat down at the kitchen table to eat with his phone pulled out.

Quickly turning around the corner to see what was going on, Runar let out a long sigh, "Ryan, what are you doing?"

"Eating breakfast?"

"You could also introduce yourself."

"Bro, I'm tired as shit, just found out that we're part of a secret society, and had a vampire try to yell me into subservience," Ryan replied, "Let me be antisocial for a bit."

Runar sighed loudly, starting to sign toward the demon, "Fine, whatever. Anders, Yamada, that's Ryan. I told you about him. Ryan, these are Anders and Yamada, my 'aides'. Well, they're like assistants, really."

Nervously, only just now realizing he hadn't introduced himself, the dwarf stepped up to Ryan and stretched out his hand. Trying not to groan, Ryan grabbed the man's hand and forced out a smile.

"Anders Steinberg, pleasure to work with ya!"

"Ryan Aglecard. Likewise," he replied, before having another hand stretched out to him. The demon shook Ryan's hand silently as he glanced over at Runar.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Do you know any sign language?" Runar asked, and Ryan shook his head.

"Not really... should I learn?"

"Wouldn't hurt. You'll probably need to learn a few other languages too. Which second languages did you take in school again?"

Letting out a loud groan, Ryan remembered that annoying past, "Just Gardian, my school didn't offer anything else."

"Better than nothing, I guess," Runar rubbed the back of his head, "Well, sociability should help with that."

Ryan raised his brows, "Sociability makes it easier to learn languages?"

"To some degree. It definitely increases your language-processing ability, and learning languages is a decent training method for the sociability stat," his uncle responded, continuing to sign so that Yamada could follow along properly, "But whatever, that's not important right now. Luckily Yamada does know how to read lips to a degree."

"Got it," Ryan replied, looking up at Runar, "So, what's the plan for today?"

Runar looked over at Anders, who quickly took out a notepad from his pocket and flipped it open, "We'll be grabbin' some more things for the lad, then we're droppin' by our men in Eastbanks ta' get some pixie grub, and then in the evenin' we've got an appointment at the symbiote nest fer Ryan."

Hearing something that he didn't expect, Ryan's spoon stopped mid-air right before his mouth. He slowly lowered it and stared at Runar, "The 'what' nest?"

"I'll explain it to you later. It's nothing bad, don't worry," Runar replied, before turning back to Anders, "Did you hear back from the legal department about that Vanda girl?"

Anders immediately nodded his head, "Aye, just earlier today we got the university to drop the charges against 'er. We're roundin' up the ones that witnessed it and havin' them sign an NDA as well, so by the start of the week things should be settled."

Ryan glanced at his phone. It was barely 9am. How did they already get everything figured out?

"... The power of money is terrifying," Ryan muttered to himself, suppressing a shudder.

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Modak pulled open the door, stepping into the robotics clubroom. There weren't many people here; just Kit, Richie, Vanda, and some man in a black suit and slicked-back hair. The man turned around as Modak stepped into the room.

"Excuse me, we're having a private conversation. Would you mind waiting outside for the time being? It will just take another minute." the man asked, and Modak looked over at Richie confused. Vanda was seated on a stool, her face still buried in her hands.

Richie looked at the man and quickly explained, "He was here yesterday as well, he knows what happened anyway. Actually, he helped take the thing down," the gnome replied, and the man raised his brows, glancing at Modak from behind his thick glasses.

He took out a small notepad from his pocket, "What's your name?"

Hesitantly, Modak stepped further into the room. Not sure what was going on, he looked at the others for help, and Richie just nodded toward him, before the orc responded, "Modak Stonebreaker."

The man frowned immediately, "I see. In that case, before we continue, I need you to sign something before we continue."

Even more confused, Modak shook his head, "I'm not signing anything."

"Don't worry, it's just a simple non-disclosure agreement. What happened yesterday was an accident that should not have happened. An experimental power source was recently illegally acquired and made its way here, causing some small interference with electronics," the man explained, taking out a folded-up contract from his chest pocket and placing it onto a nearby table. Modak stared at him, glancing at the small pin that he had on his chest. It was a cursive 'A', one that Modak had already seen before. He sighed lightly and pushed his hand into his pocket, pulling out the coin he was given last night. Modak tried to hold it in a way where the man could see it but Richie, Vanda, and Kit couldn't, and the man's eyes widened for a quick moment before a broad smile appeared on his face.

"Ah, actually, I remember your name being amongst the ones that already signing the contract, correct? In that case, there is nothing to worry about," the man quickly said, before turning back to the three students behind him, "Well, as I said, please contact us if you have any inquiries about damages to personal property. We are ready to fairly compensate you for any issues our out-of-control power source caused."

Without further ado, the man then walked past Modak, giving him a quick nod, before walking out of the clubroom.

"... What was that just now?" Richie asked with a confused frown, "He just left like that?"

"Was he bothering you?" Modak glanced back at the door, but Richie shook his head.

"Not really bothering us. He was just being pretty pushy about everything that happened yesterday," he explained, glancing over at Vanda.

Modak looked at the three nervously, "So you're all okay?"

" 'Okay' may not be the right word," Kit pointed out, clopping his hooves on the ground, clearly annoyed. Vanda sunk into herself even more.

"I... I'm sorry, I didn't know that was going to happen, I just..." Vanda started, but she wasn't able to finish her sentence, unable to find the right words to explain everything. And Modak knew exactly why; she had no idea how to explain things. She just knew that her robot rampaged.

"Where did you get that thing anyway? They called it an 'experimental power source', but Ryan mentioned something about some kind of core? Does he know what that was?" Richie wondered, looking directly at Modak as he spoke. The orc hesitated. He obviously wasn't able to just tell them what was going on, now that he knew what he knew, but he also couldn't just leave them completely in the dark.

"It looks like it has something to do with Ryan's class? You'll have to ask him, I only know a few surface level things," Modak tried to excuse himself from that sort of conversation. Acting like he didn't know anything was the best for the time being, "But more importantly, what about the showcase thing? It's been cancelled, right?"

Richie nodded, "Yeah, we had to push it back a few weeks. That's why the three of us are here right now, talking about what to do next, since our duellists are the ones that broke. But Vanda, she..."

"I'm not participating any more," the hobgoblin shook her head immediately, "I ruined everything! Because of me, both of your Duellists are broken, and I-"

"Lightspeed is not completely broken," Kit interrupted, and Vanda slowly glanced at him. The minogid quickly explained, "Its arm was torn off, and it short-circuited in response, but it should be something repairable over the next few weeks."

"And I was just doing it for fun anyway," Richie shrugged, "It's kind of a shame that Roxie broke, but as long as nobody got seriously hurt, it's alright."

"But... but you got hurt, and Ryan did as well, so I-"

Richie quickly interrupted her, "It was just a bit of a shock to my magic circuitry. It's happened plenty of time while I was trying to learn new spells."

"And Ryan's alright too," Modak added, "His hand got a bit scratched up, but by the time we were at his place he didn't seem to really care any more."

Vanda slowly looked up at the others around her, "I ruined everything, why are you being so... nice?"

"Because that clearly was an accident," Richie laughed a bit, rubbing his bulbous nose as he leaned against the table behind him, "I mean, you're definitely to blame for how you acted while things were going on... Energiser was rampaging and you were begging Ryan not to destroy it, but I also get why you did that. But at the end of the day, this all started because of an accident. If you could purposefully make something like that, you'd be a genius amongst geniuses. And you're smart, but you're not that smart. No offence."

Vanda scoffed lightly, in disbelief over what she was hearing. She rubbed her tears out of her eye, "Even so, the others don't think the same, right?"

Richie rubbed the back of his head. It was true that the other club members were furious about what happened, even though they were able to get away pretty quickly without any of their private property being damaged. And while the gnome personally didn't believe that it was Vanda's fault, it was also hard to blame others for being upset and not wanting Vanda to be a member of the club any more. It was a 'weird' situation, to say the least. Even Modak wasn't totally sure about it for a bit, but by the time he realized that Vanda wasn't even able to speak about who gave her the fragment, it was clear she was just used by someone with a bigger goal in mind.

"I'm sure we can figure something out, alright?" Richie suggested, and Vanda slowly nodded her head. Kit also seemed ready to forgive her, especially after hearing her side of things.

The minogid slowly stroked his goatee in thought, "Do you think it would be possible for you to create a new prototype Duellist until the new showcase?"

Vanda shook her head without hesitation, "Are you kidding? It took me months to build the old one. And I don't have the money either. Plus, even if I did have everything, I'd just run into the same old problems as before."

"About that..." Modak started, looking at Vanda while pulling something out of his bag. He had texted her earlier, and she said she was here, so he figured coming to this place on his way to Ryan's place would save him some time. The orc soon held forward his mana tape and customized tape recorder, "That's actually what I'm here for. Your issue was that you weren't able to create high-frequency mana patterns, right? I think I've got a solution for that."