“Alright, so! Sir Earthen, let’s continue our tour. Although is spectacular, the universitar classes have no use to me as I’m not of this rank. Please just show me the bare minimum as I still have something else to do.”
“Eh? Oh, alright then-“
“Huh? Earthen? What the Hell are you doing here?!”
Just as we wanted to leave, a tall man with a rather fit build got closer while roared as his eyes stared sharply at Earthen.
“A friend of yours?”
Sabin asked amused as he kinda missed some action the last few days while Shen looked disinterested as he simply wished to finish this long day already.
Earthen on the other hand stood tall with a firm expression, but one could feel the agitation inside his heart. With a respectful behavior, Earthen bowed his head and cupped his hands.
“Greetings, priest Louis. I’m here on the-“
-POW~!-
Unable to even finish his words, the priest named Louis instantly punched him in the face, smashing him on the ground and sending him flying around ten meters back, until he crashed onto the walls of the courtyard that surrounded the university’s castle.
“You dare show yourself here? Get back to your low tower, insect!”
“Hey now~. Is that how you speak to your colleague?”
Louis suddenly felt a stabbing feeling behind him at the rib area, then a cold and amused voice resounded in his ear as a hot liquid flowed down his back. Looking behind, he saw Sabin’s bloodthirsty smile and sharp eyes, making him shudder with a feeling of dread.
“Roah!”
Out of panic, Louis swung his fist backward, only to miss and have his wound open up wider. He looked back and saw beside Shen, Sabin standing tall with a mocking smile. He then examined his back and felt blood flowing out, making him use quite a bit of energy to stop the bleeding and start healing himself.
“You… How dare you take out a weapon and injure an Uni-Priest?!”
“What weapon? Is this a weapon to you?”
Sabin raised his bloody hand amused, showing to Louis that all he needed were only his fingers to land a deadly strike on someone like him. Louis’ face paled and wanted to rebuke them once again, but this time Shen was already too impatient, wanting to meditate over the vision Kaveh showed him and have the finishing touch on the golems he promised to Jian.
With a strong aura, Shen stopped Louis from talking and simply said.
“We don’t have all the time. I’ll give you 5 seconds to decide if you wish to fight or leave. 1…”
“Guh?!”
“2… 3…”
With every number, Shen would get closer and raise his pressure on Louis, making him step back unconsciously and sweat rivers. A cold feeling of dread overwhelmed him as Shen’s wild and sharp eyes stared with a resolute shine, as if telling him that if he’s not going to make a decision soon, he might end up unable to make another one ever again.
“4… 5-“
“Alright! Alright! I’ll leave, I’ll leave!”
Shen was now right in front of him and his aura suddenly disappeared. He turned around and said simply with a calm voice,
“If so, then keep your mouth shut and get lost.”
“Y-yes…”
The one named Louis hastily left the area while Shen didn’t even look. Shen then walked toward Earthen who was now heavily breathing, trying to get up while spitting blood, his upper lip having a nasty cut from where blood continued to flow.
“You’re no longer able to show me around. Come, we will walk you to your place.”
“Boss, let me help him.”
Shen held one of his arms to help him up, Earthen being too dizzy to get up alone, then Sabin hastily lent his shoulder, helping him move.
“Man, you got wrecked to this state from just one punch? Come on, I saw your fight with boss Johan just now. How can you end up like this cuz’ of a little Energy Master and be perfectly fine against my boss?”
Sabin couldn’t help feeling baffled by Earthen’s sorry state after just one punch. But Shen then explained, knowing that what happened wasn’t at all Earthen’s fault.
“At that moment I limited my powers to be on par with his. Even though I landed a few blows on him, it was nothing he couldn’t handle. However, this time it was something else. That Louis guy used his Energy Master powers to punch him. Although it wasn’t with full force, it was still something strong enough to take out a Core Warrior like Earthen.”
“Well damn…”
Sabin sighed helplessly as he didn’t dislike Earthen’s character to wish for something like this to happen. On the contrary, he found his noble yet humble self quite respectable, characteristics rare to meet in the people nowadays.
“I-I’m… fine… Let me, please… continue…”
Earthen lightly shook his head left and right, trying to recover, trying to get rid of the pitched sound ringing in his eardrums. Sabin then rebuked him while thinking that simply giving him a piggy-back would be better.
“Nu-uh, you ain’t gonna show us s*** today but your house. We’re going to bring your sorry-ass back to your place right now. Now up you go.”
Unable to speak against as his own mind seemed to spin from the shock, Earthen gave in and simply told them which way to go. After a few minutes, the three of them reached more levitating towers which spun around a wide building that appeared to be something like a library. Some of the towers flew faster, while some slower, some higher while some lower to the ground, almost touching the ground.
“The, E tower… is where I’ll stay. And most possible your new home as well… The F tower is… not a place to live in…”
Earthen informed more coherently after calming his spinning thoughts, then Shen and Sabin looked at the towers until they found a small, barely flying tower, that was slowly but surely spinning around the library. While this tower looked almost completely wrecked, the other towers looked more decent, while the highest ones appeared as if almost divine, with golden lines and white embroideries on the finely-sculpted dark wood.
“Oy come on. For real?”
“This is hierarchy at its finest…”
The amount of show-off from the higher ranks and the incredible indifference for the lower ranks showed everywhere around inside this kingdom until now made Shen and Sabin aware of their past decisions once again.
“F***! At least as a bandit I still have my freedom and dignity! Yeah, dignity! I said it right!”
“Never expected that living as a hermit was a blessing in disguise…”
“What… are you two talking about?”
Earthen asked confused, still dizzy and unable to think right. Then Sabin and Shen sighed tired and simply shook their heads,
“Nah, nothing. Let’s go.”
Shen then rushed toward the lowest tower and jumped on a platform on which the tower was levitating. There, two wooden normal doors welcomed them, barely hanging there, seemingly as if a stronger blow of wind might destroy them. Carefully Shen opened the door and made Sabin enter first with Earthen, closing the door just as carefully, but ending up destroying it anyway as the door fell and broke in three, being almost completely putrefied and leave Shen with the handle in his hand.
“…”
“… Boss?”
Sabin looked baffled at Shen who’s forehead started to show some blue veins from irritation. He then ripped the other door as well and threw everything off the platform with a roar.
“You call these doors?! Let me show you what REAL doors are like!”
He then controlled the element of Earth and from the stone platform, two tall stone gates raised, on them showing multiple Celtic elements with the typical braided strings on margins, while two wolves howling at one another on the two doors. All in all, the stone-doors gave off a strong and domineering vibe, while the Celtic motives around the two howling wolves gave off a rather mysterious and magical appearance.
“Now this is what I call a door! Especially for magic researchers! For god’s sake!”
Lifting them with ease, Shen placed the two doors with strong frames right inside the space of the former doors with decomposed frames, then molded the stone and wood from the walls to combine and appear as if the doors were there since forever.
Sabin stared frozen at the doors and even Earthen couldn’t help but open his eyes wide, forgetting his sorry-state for a moment.
“Boss… A-are these doors… enchanted?”
“Rather… don’t I feel quite the ridiculous magical power emanating from them…? May I ask what’s with these doors?”
Shen then proudly showed his creation and explained to them what he truly did.
“How is it? You like it? Besides the epic design, these doors are also the core of the barrier which now completely guards off the entire tower. Also, in case there is some retard that tries any tricks on the E-tower, a little something will appear and make them exclaim in surprise.”
“Surprise? Or pain?”
“I wish it would be in terror as well.”
Earthen asked baffled while Sabin laughed amused, already knowing how crazy his boss can be sometimes.
“Well, anyway that. Let’s continue.”
Shen made them move forward and after walking up the stairs… Or rather, after struggling to climb the broken stairs that sometimes would simply welcome their feet to the other side of the wooden planks, they finally reached the third floor where Sabin’s room was positioned, numbered 313. Unlike normal when room 100 meant the first room from the first floor, room 100 literally meant the 100th room. So, rather than have to climb only 3 floors to reach the 13th room from that floor, the trio had to go up more than 30 floors, arriving close to the peak with a red face from frustration and anger, being unable to use flight as the stairs were simply too close to one another. It seems that some kind of ancient space-magic has been integrated on the towers because, at most, this one appeared to be no taller than 5 floors from outside, having in truth more than 40 floors.
“We finally reached…”
Both Sabin and Shen breathed heavily as they couldn’t help feeling tense while climbing the stairs which resembled more like a dungeon filled with traps. Both of them were now tired from being wary at their every step, feeling completely defeated by a putrid tower which, weirdly enough, was reconstructing itself after breaking down in the same putrid form as before, as if time was simply turning back before being broken.
“What the hell is this place…? I observed how the putrid wood would repair itself but remain putrid! It’s like someone said we will rebuild this place after it breaks down, but cursed it to never break down no matter how rundown it truly is!”
“I see… So this is what evil truly looks like… A forever-putrid, yet indestructible tower…”
Earthen smiled wryly and said somewhat helplessly.
“Indeed, because of this tricky structure, many thought of simply jumping through the floors, but were unable to use too much power as the ground below their feet would give in.”
“Yeah… at around floor 6 we also thought of that, but gave up, not wishing to climb again…”
“But I remember Lord Johan can fly…?”
“We thought of that before learning of this tower’s curse so we gave up at first…. And after finding out about it, while struggling to get to floor 7 we forgot completely…”
-SIIGH~….-
Both of them couldn’t help sighing dejected as this obstacle completely defeated them, clouding their judgments with irritation and quite some murderous intent for the one who created this tower, not once both of them controlling their inner desire to just wreck everything and build their own tower from scratch.
Earthen on the other hand smiled amused while getting up from his bed, trying to make some tea for both of them. Although the place looked extremely old and cracked in some parts, the slowly-moving sight from the wooden window, the wooden table and two chairs beside the window with a little candle burning even now on top of the table, together with the warm smell of wood, wax, and tea, made for the most relaxing ambient the two of them felt until now.
“God damn, Earthen. This place feels like Heaven. You really know how to care for your place.”
Sabin sat down and leaned on the wall, feeling like finally being able to relax his sore muscles. Earthen smiled calmly while preparing the tea. If a moment ago he was as if half-dead, now he seemed almost completely fine, at most like a sick person. His lip stopped bleeding while his swollen cheek was no longer as purple as before. With quite the shy expression, Earthen scratched his head and explained while evading eye-contact.
“Well… I can’t say I’m the cause of this…”
“What do you mean?”
Shen asked confused but Earthen couldn’t bring himself to explain. Feeling their stares, he then said with a little blush on his face.
“O-one of the priestess from the High-classes sometimes comes here and helps me with cleaning this place. Although I told her many times not to trouble herself with this, she still insists.”
“Oh? Is she your woman?”
Shen asked rather surprised but Earthen hastily negated while his blushing face turned completely red.
“N-no! No, she’s… only a friend…”
“Hm~ is she really? Your heels seems quite on fire now that we’re talking about that lady.”
Although Sabin wasn’t someone to chase skirts, he appeared to have some kind of sadistic interest in teasing love-struck people. Although he also had his share of experiences with women, he never really cared about love… until seeing Earthen’s reactions and Sylvia’s pure love for Shen.
This seems much more interesting than I thought~. Damn bandits. And here I thought “love” means only mating like animals in heat.
Shen remained somewhat surprised by how Sabin was prying in this subject and was also interested in it, thinking that maybe like this he might learn more about this weird element: love.
“T-that’s!… Kind of true… yeah…”
Earthen’s serious expression instantly softened after thinking about the respective maiden, his eyes shining with warmth and bliss, a view that made both Shen and Sabin smile like two dumb people, for some reasons feeling amused by this show of childish happiness.
Unable to hold his curiosity, Sabin peered on this matter, appearing to be quite interested.
“And~? If it’s like that, when are ya gonna ask her hand or something?”
“Hm?”
Asking such things, Shen also appeared more interested, all 3 of them sitting at the table while drinking tea, a peaceful air surrounding them as they calmly chatted together. Rather, Shen calmly sipping on his tea while the embarrassed Earthen continued to be teased by the excited sadistic Sabin.
“I-I’m not worthy to ask for her hand, you know? She’s the daughter of a Baron and she’s a high-priest while my father is just a poor lord over a runt-down village with me being only a mid-priest. Even a knight could order us around.”
Earthen said helplessly but Sabin simply raised an eyebrow and waved his hand, bored,
“Baron. And what? Ma boy. Listen here. From life I learned one thing: If you want it, take it. The world is simply too damn huge to mind some barons or lords, while life is too filed with wanders to care for some ranks. Listen to me, mister just a Lord, you never know what might happen if she’s destined to be yours. Maybe up and turns might appear in your ways to either make you worthy of her or for her to drop at your lever.”
“I would never wish for her to suffer such!”
“Then you gotta work hard and do your job as a man. And to be sure you’re not working for nothing, be sure to also tell her what you have in your heart. Who knows? Maybe she feels the same already, knowing that she comes here to take care of your place.”
“M-maybe…?”
Shen couldn’t help but smile as Sabin continued to encourage Earthen on doing his job as a man to confess, but after hearing his next words, Shen’s expression turned serious again,
“For sure, friend. Besides, you’ll just make her aware of your own feelings. Is not like you’re going to steal her away or anything… Although you could do that-“
“Let’s not cause problems.”
“Yes boss…”
Earthen couldn’t help laughing at the downed Sabin and stern Shen, feeling as if he watched a naughty child being put to his place by his father.
After more chatting and merely drinking some water, Shen and Sabin took their leave, Earthen already informing them of the more general locations they needed to know.
“Are you two sure you won’t let me guide you? I could at least show you to your rooms.”
As the three of them reached the stone-doors Shen created, Earthen asked once again feeling like his duty was being interrupted mid-way. Shen and Sabin on the other hand simply shook their heads, Shen answering with a calm smile,
“No need to worry, Sir Earthen. In case of anything, we could ask anyone on our way.”
“I-if you say so…”
“Besides, I’m pretty sure someone else would wish to have some more time with you. Is she the lady you talked about? Well damn, she’s truly a beauty.”
Just as Sabin looked to another direction, a woman that seemed to be in her early twenties landed atop the platform and came closer, looking surprised at the three of them and standing still, as if waiting for them to finish their conversation. Her hair was blonde and knitted in one tail that rested on her shoulder. Her bluish-green eyes shone with curiosity and surprise while a calm aura surrounded her, while two fleshy and alluring red lips were easily arched in a small smile. Sabin guessed right when he called her maiden as she truly had quite the holy aura around her, but at the same time he seemed to be wrong as she also had an almost indistinguishable naughty air, visible only for those with a keener eye.
“Priestess Claudia…”
“Sabin, let’s go.”
“Yeah. We shall no longer be in their way~.”
Seeing how Earthen was no longer aware of them, Shen and Sabin quietly left as the woman slowly approached Earthen, looking at the two curiously and answering their nods with a light bow, showing a great character of a respectable young lady.
“She’s… Really something else.”
Sabin was surprised to see her so respectful even with a bandit as himself. Although she didn’t know who he was, his clothes would spell out at best adventurer: people that were similar to mercenaries and viewed like uncultured brutes, most of the times viewed with contempt by nobles. Shen on the other hand, although his clothes were more noble-like, they were quite simple like those of a simple lord, what actually truly made him more noble-like being the domineering and solemn aura he released unconsciously by now. He also nodded and commented while continuing on another road that was going to a more remote area,
“I agree. Her tittle of a baron and high-priest are befitting such a noble character. If Earthen could get such a person on his side, he will win much in life.”
“Well, if she loves him back, that is.”
“Eh? Uh, yeah. That’s one important factor as well…”
Still a stranger of this love feeling, Shen was still unaware why was this element so important and why Sylvia was so dead-serious on making him feel it once again. Although she tried many times to make him do so, all he could feel was how his seal was slowly weakening, having to retreat and distance himself from her for a while once again.
Damn, if not for that damn huge shadow that told me to learn more of what “a heart” is, I would’ve simply ignored such subjects altogether…
While continuing on their way towards the F-dormitories, Shen and Sabin continued chatting until they finally arrived at the last corner that went toward the F-tower, going by the road pointed out by Earthen before having them leave.
“Earthen said that the F-dormitories will be shared between the students and teachers because the numbers of low-class students and priests are negligible, such as giving the school no need to build another tower for the students. So basically we’ll be staying with the brats you gonna teach?”
“If my room is not at least ten meters away from them, then I might as well sleep in my own wooden-house. Earthen did said that we might be able to sleep in the E-tower, but hell if I’m going to climb those damn stairs again.”
“Agreed… and, wait. You have a wooden house? Where?”
“In my pocket.”
“Wot.”
“If the time comes, you’ll see.”
“Uh, ok… Huh?”
“This…”
As the two continued forward while chatting, a fluctuation of mana suddenly caught their attention, making them glance at one another then hurry forward, smoke appearing in the direction where they were going, rising over the surrounding stonewalls and closed shops.
.
Back in time when Shen and Sabin just separated from Earthen and Claudia, at the F-tower some other events were taking place.
“I said to apologize, you mutilated pyro-woman. Or should we make you do so?”
“B-but she already apologized. Didn’t she? P-please just leave it at that, young lords.”
“Hah! What is this? John the Trash actually dares to talk back? Let’s show him with who he’s talking to!”
“Ya’ll pieces of trash truly don’t know when to cross the line, huh?! And you, pyro-woman, let loose of that power of yours! Why try to control it?!”
“N-no… I… Don’t wish… to harm anyone… again…”
To have so much power yet unable to use it. Not sure if enviable or pitiable.”
“You lot are truly laughable… Prying on the weak just like that, makes me understand why so many revolted against the likes of you.”
In front of an old collapsed stone-tower, inside which the rooms have been improvised in a way so it could be easily accessible even if the tower is collapsed, a group of around 10 youngsters between ages of 16 to 18, were ready to pick on a group of barely 5 people, 3 boys and 2 girls. While the group of 10 people had well-trimmed white and blue uniforms with a silver lining on them, showing that they’re from the high classes, the five youngsters didn’t even have a uniform, on their chests appearing just the badge of the Victoria School to show to everyone that they’re not really outsiders.
