In any other scenario, returning from Stiel's place in the academy district of the city, wouldn't be of any problem for the young man. While his time in the city was still relatively short, with how he grew up on the verge of the forest, just a few landmarks were enough for the young arcanist's apprentice to map the entire city down in his memory.
But it didn't change the fact that there were huge chances either Basil or one of his colleagues would try something funny were Fen to go back by himself. To prevent this situation, Stiel had to babysit him all the way to the archarity, to the great disappointment of Kaisha who apparently waited this entire time at the doors.
Unable to join the pair, the girl could only follow right in their tracks to the building. Even though she clearly wanted to finally have some time alone with Fen from how her eyes constantly latched onto his back and his free-falling hand, the sheer pressure from the grave atmosphere that Stiel surrounded himself with was enough to repel all her advances.
"I will have to ask you to wait here for a bit."
Rather than knocking on the doors or at least calling someone out, by the time the three of them arrived at Fen's lodging, Stiel turned around to the girl that followed them before ordering her as if she was non-important pawn on his board.
And he couldn't extinguish her fires in any better way.
Tensing up all over, Kaisha relatively quickly relaxed her whole body, allowing her shoulders to drop along with her head in defeat.
"Don't worry, it will only take a moment."
Pushing against the door without any reservations for the privacy of those insides, Stiel stepped inside before decisively shutting the doors behind him.
"Excuse me?"
Raising her eyes from above the floor she was currently mopping, Firo looked at the intruders in a strange way. From one side, Fen was extremely familiar with this expression, as if was the natural way ofacting for the girl from the times he though he was just a mischievous maid.
But right now, after the learned that this clumsy and clueless face was nothing but a play put in place to throw her enemies off, seeing this weird expression was actually repulsive.
The fact that it was cute didn't change any bit. Any man who would see those upturned eyes, slightly wet, glistering mouth and just the tip of her glib tongue gently hinting its presence between her lips, were enough by themselves to instantly rope any man into her clutches, not to speak about their combined potential presented by the girl right now.
"May the sun rise in the east once again."
Flexing his arm in what looked like a simple gesture, Stiel looked at the girl with all the seriousness in his eyes.
"So that it will lay down to rest in the west."
Nodding her head as she copied both the grave tone of Stiel's sentence, its rhythm and the strange gesture Fen's teacher made, Firo instantly changed the atmosphere in the place.
"What is your problem, sir?"
Instantly reverting to this vibrant self of her that Fen started to like over the past few of their interactions, Firo looked at Stiel with curiosity exploding through her eyes.
"Come on, you will kill me with that stare. I'm called maggot. Finally knowing who I am does make my presentation… special, wouldn't you say?"
Clearly not speaking in the code anymore, the two of them quickly started and finished their small talk, before the seriousness returned to their faces.
Stuck in between the two people that were clearly familiar with each other despite seeing the other for the very first time in their lives, Fen could do nothing else but analyze the meaning of Stiel's words while eagerly listening for more clues.
A maggot. A vomit-inducing insect manifesting its colonies in the rotting flesh. Taking Stiel's position into account, how he clearly wasn't on the best terms with the royalty or how smuggish he was upon revealing his nickname, the conjunctions were too simple to not be noticed.
"Anyway, this son of a…. This student of mine needs some help. We need to get him through the tournament despite how he attracted a lot of inquisition's attention…"
Halfway through Stiel's sentence, Firo sends quick and harsh look towards the young man. Reading the obvious question from her stare, the young man lightly shook his head, declaring that the answer was negative. With the entire interaction happening so fast that even Stiel would likely have problems with noticing it, Fen realised one more thing about the current situation.
'So there are levels upon levels upon levels of confidentiality? But to think that Firo would be capable of managing an entire web like that, while acting like a maid in Fire Serpent's archarity!'
Taking a quick look around while the two returned to using the code as they spoke, Fen couldn't help but notice how clean this place was. With the exception of the floor that Firo was in the process of cleaning as they interrupted her, finding a single speck of dust anywhere else would be a challenge on par of overcoming the gutter pit that Fen voluntarily threw himself in!
"So that will be all. I can buy you some more time, but from the look of this young man's academy partner outside, I can only afford to spare you a few minutes at most."
Clearly coming to some kind of understanding, the disposition of the two changed. Focusing his attention back on his aquiatances, Fen realised that he was too late to discover anything about their debate. Maybe it was the matter of the code they were using, or maybe they managed to come to an agreement far quicker than Fen expected, but he no longer had the way to even attempt eavesdropping on their discussion, even if he could only learn how to make any sense out of it a few years into the future from now!
"That will do. I only need two minutes."
Nodding his head, Stiel didn't waste any time. Reaching for the doors, he instantly burst out from them. Even though anyone else would consider his actions to reach the speed of godlike beasts, for some reason, Fen couldn't consider it to be any better than slow stroll through a park. Given this disparity, the young man could see how his teacher "accidentaly" crashed into his female friend before using the last swing of his leg as he was falling to shut the door closed.
"Come on, we don't have much time."
Instantly grabbing Fen's wirst and pulling him down on the still dirty floor, Firo sat with her legs crossed, not paying how revealing this position was in her current clothes at all.
"Listen, given Stiel's meeting, there will be too much attention on me for the two of us to have any chance at this kind of open talk. That's why, you need to quickly learn three things."
Raising her hand with her thumb and forefinger bent down, Firo started to count.
"First, do never bring the name of the paragon up, unless the guild will acknowledge you as one. If you think the empire hates you for belonging to Phoenixian tribe, then you don't want to know what will happen when the combined effort of several kingdoms would be wasted just to restrain you."
Suddenly revealing that instead of improving his situation by claiming to be a paragon Fen actually managed to completely fuck it up, the young man couldn't help but start to see Firo as a harbinger of bad news, fully caused by how blind he was in this game of strings of shadows, where everyone appeared to know everything that Fen's knowledge was missing, yet was unwilling to share it!
"Secondly, as long as you manage to act peacefully and lowkey, we will be able to bring you through the tests without any harm to anyone. While the situation with the royal tournament is awful and everyone hates it, it still gives us a bit of leverage over the royals. After all, they don't want this place, their second most wealthy city, to turn upside down because of some revolts, don't they?"
Finally speaking about something that albeit not being Fen's expertise, still somehow vibed with him, Firo once again managed to reinforce Fen's focus on her face.
"And thirdly… There is a huge difference between who is considered to be a paragon now, and what is the real meaning of that title. Even though I'm quite sure you are actually the true paragon, the chances are that you do not even come close to reaching the qualifications for the current meaning behind this title!