"D-Drop the -chan!" Deuce stammered in bewilderment as they took a seat next to Grim.
The friend of his laughed, "That's just how Cater shows affection."
"Who's the guy next to you?" Ace pointed out curiously noticing the red armband similar to his and Deuce's.
"Oh, my bad. I'm Trey." The tall guy responded with a smile, "Trey Clover. I'm a third-year student in Heartslabyul like Cater."
He turned to Yuu and said, "You're that freshman in charge of the ramsha-"
He cleared his throat nervously, "Unused dorm, right?"
He folded his arms and smiled apologetically, "I heard from Cater. Sorry about all the trouble these guys from our dorm have caused you."
"I'm sitting right here..." Ace grumbled.
"We should put that aside and make up!" Carter said cheerfully as he swiped out his smartphone with the red and white phone cover, "We're in the same dorm, after all. Let's exchange numbers!"
"I don't have a phone." Yuu noted in embarrassment.
"Me neither." Lotus responded as matter of factly and pushed her tray to Yuu after seeing him worryingly look at his plate of riceball, "I already had a snack back at the dorm.
Yuu looked to her in bewilderment. However, before he could comment, Cater had already stared at them in shock, "Eh?! You don't have a phone? That's crazy! You're like an endangered species!"
He continued on, "I know a place you can get the latest model for cheap~! How about we go on a date to choose one?"
Overwhelmed by both Lotus and Cater, Yuu wasn't sure who to look to as he was surprised wordlessly in confusion. Trey chuckled in exasperation and lectured the young man with a small smile, "Cater. Later at this freshman. Hold back a bit."
Cater laughed aloud, "Sorry, sorry! We were talking about the dorms?"
"That's right." Lotus responded with a nod.
"Sounds good, a fresh convo!" Cater nodded with a smile of approval, "We'll tell you anything you want to know!"
"First, I want you to tell us about our dorm!" Ace stated quickly in an agitated manner, "The hell is up with those crazy 'Laws of the Queen of Hearts'?"
Lotus smirked, "Maybe a manual of the laws should be written down next time so people won't break the rules so easily. Categorize them by their topics rather than their numbers."
"You know all about the legends of the Queen of Hearts, right?" Trey began, "She created a wonderland of madness built upon strict adherence to her rules."
"Out of respect for the Queen of Hearts, those of us in Heartslabyul traditionally wear red and black armbands, just like her dress and uphold the laws that she made." Cater explained pointing to his own arm band with their emblem on the left arm.
"Sounds like a stiff place." Grim noted curiously.
"As long as you focus on study, it shouldn't be too much of a problem." Lotus sighed, "But, there are activities to be done on certain times and day. That would make it difficult for even me to follow. I have a lot of personal affairs to worry about even here too..."
"How strict we follow the rules depend on the dorm leader. Last year's dorm leader was pretty chill about it all." Caster pointed out.
"Riddle is the serious among the serious of all dorm leaders." Trey explained, "So, he follows the rules to the max."
Ace stuck out his tongue in disgust, "Blegh... What a pain..."
"What are the other dorms like?" Grim questioned curiously.
Just as Grim questioned this, Lotus felt a sudden shift in the air to which she shuddered with a scowl and started to zone out as her eyes carefully scanned the entire room. The students were bustling back and forth chatting while eating as some were having fun just standing aside and talk. She frowned and turned to Yuu interrupting their conversation, "I need to go for a bit. I'll be back, if not, just go ahead to class."
Before he could respond, she got up and walked away from the table. When she left the room, she immediately used her eyes to hide herself again. She scowled and pulled out a different pill before plopping it into her mouth then glanced around. Aside from the students, there were no other problems. However, the intertwining atmosphere just won't leave. She frowned. She had only an hour before class starts again. She has to hurry.
Knowing this, she hurriedly left through the halls to the courtyard. The place was about the size of three or four classrooms and she had little problem navigating through the space after having examined the place thoroughly before. There was an apple tree in the area, but not many picked the apples from it since it wasn't really allowed to do so.
It was only after she had treaded through the halls and hurried flew into the hall of mirrors when she suddenly crashed into someone unexpected!
"You!" Her eyes widen in surprise.
Before her was the boy with the silver hair and emerald eyes from the ceremonial event stared down at her in bewilderment. In that moment, she felt as though their eyes met and a strange feeling overcame her making her want to say it aloud at the tip of her tongue, but the words never formed. What was it that she wanted to say?
She frowned as she could feel the twisted in the air and muttered to him, "Apologies."
She then turned and was ready to make a beeline to one of the mirrors in midst of following after the strong feeling of energy when she felt her arm was grabbed and she turned back in surprise, This time what met her was a taller man in a dark and green clothing slightly different from those of the students. However, aside from the strange clothing was the two horns that stuck out from his head. She froze with wide eyes as she realized with a shudder who was before her.
The man with green eyes, short black hair down to the back of the neck. What was unusual was the green eye shadows above his lashes. Was that makeup?
Regardless, the person before her was someone her mother had slight problems with in an agitating or upset manner at times. He was Malleus Draconia. The heir to the Valley of Thorns...
She was rather surprised to have seen him so soon after having just started school here. She looked down to the hands that grabbed her and raised a brow, "Um... Is something the matter? Did I not apologize properly or something?"
The man seemed to have been slightly surprised as well with his eyes widening before letting her go with a raised brow. He answered, "No. It was nothing. Just..."
She raised a brow waiting for him to continue. When he did, she was surprised.
"You should stick around for a bit don't you think?"
Strange? Did the guy ate something off in the morning?!
From her mother's description, he shouldn't be very sociable, but, even if she didn't want to judge him as such without seeing it with her own eyes, who wanted to ask the other guy to stick around?!
No, wait! How did he know that she was there?!
She raised a brow in bewilderment before responding shaking her head, "Apologies. I have something urgent to attend to right away."
Malleus watched her in confusion before he smirked, "Oh? Is that so? Do you need any help?"
Against Nascent Soul and Ensoulment Cultivators? Yes!!!
She frowned and shook her head, "It's fine. I can take care of it on my own. I appreciate the offer, though."
Before he continued, she could feel the sudden change in the energy once more causing a nervous sweat to run down her spine. She braved a smile and responded, "I-I need to get going! See you later!"
See you later?! More like never!
More importantly, why was he able to see through her ability?!
She quickly reactivated her ability before entering through the mirror of Heartslabyul's dorm. With lunch, the only people around were a few students of the dorm painting the flowers. It was enough for her to bypass everyone with ease, but she still had to be careful after seeing that her cover was blown just now by someone so important. If her mother heard about this, she would've dragged Peony back to the forest without a moment's hesitation!
She didn't know what her mother have against those from the Valley of Thorns, but her mother's and the fairies' behavioral response was enough to tell her that they don't think too highly of them for some reason. By the way, wasn't Malleus also considered to be a fairy kind as well? She wondered why he was mingling amongst the others and humans which her mother disliked very much.
Regardless, Lotus hurried outside of the maze and past the dormitory building before finding a forest beyond the maze. She entered the forest to find that the place was covered with doors and arrows pointing to random directions!
However, what surprised her more wasn't that the doors were operable, but that there was a large black figure in the distance. With a grimace, she kept her distance and lowered her figure following the direction the downwind blew against. The last she needed was the beast to catch her scent.
As she secretly crept closer, she saw two shadowy figures grumbling.
"I'm telling you the boss wants us to silence everyone after all this is over."
"All hundred people who are less than twenty years of age?!"
"How are we supposed to know that we entered a school ground?! More importantly, we aren't in any position to feel an obligation towards the lives of the irrelevant. You should know that better than us."
"..."
"Just do your job, you hear? We can leave it behind us after it's all over. These guys are just unfortunate to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Lotus frowned as she watched the taller figure slink away into the dark. She frowned quietly and watched the shorter figure look about the place with a sigh and slumped down next to the large dark lump who inched away not wanting to touch him as if he was a parasite. Finally, she saw it.
It was a dark black figure of a horse with dark blue gleam radiating where the light hit its coat. A long magnificent white mane ran down alone the back from between the large ivory antlers on its head to the dragon-like tail. She held her breath with wide eyes as she saw the sharp purple pupil stared in her direction once before turning away. She looked away with a frown and a nervous expression.
It was a blue Violet Kirin!
Kirins are said to be one of the most powerful beasts in her world. Rather than being tamed, they chose their own masters, but it rarely occurs because of how wary and cold these creatures are. However, despite their fame, there are few in numbers and Violet Kirins are just one of the smaller distant branches of the noble lineage. They were one of the easier ones to tame as well as they weren't as powerful as one from the main bloodline. The denser the blood is of the main noble bloodline, the stronger they have a chance to become.
Though not as powerful against some bloodlines, the Violet Kirin can be said to make a good amount of chaos still and takedown ten Nascent Souls or an Ensoulment cultivator by itself.
These guys really want to kill, not just her, but the whole dormitory!
She scowled before she recalled something and pulled out a bottle from her ring. She wasn't proficient enough with potions to create what she wanted, but this by-product should be a good test of the creature and cultivator. She quickly began slinking around the perimeter careful of the wind as she sprinkled it onto the area. When she was finished, she left the place and returned to hall of mirrors where she saw the number of students returning to class.
Like a dutiful student, Lotus left for class.
When afterschool came around, Yuu and the others told her everything that happened which bewildered her into a laughing fit.
"It's no funny!" Ace groaned in anger and stamped his feet down in annoyance.
"Sorry, sorry." Lotus responded, "But, I see what you mean now. I don't know why you're going through so many misfortunes, but you're probably either paying them off or saving them for something big. It'll be all right."
Ace grumbled incoherent. Basically, after she left, they were talking about the dorms and had met with students of the dorm Malleus was in charge of, Diasomnia. It would seem that, after they left, they ended up breaking a few more rules and further annoyed Riddle who is the dorm leader of Heartslabyul. Now, to appease him, Trey, who turned out to be the baker of those tarts, offered to help as long as they gathered the ingredients for him, which is why they're currently heading for the woods behind the school campus. the place was full of trees bearing fruits.
It was too bad that she couldn't be there to witness the show today, but there was a dull silence when she thought about there being just her and Yuu and Grim or those two's despondent expressions, but would they really feel that way? They'd probably be happier being alive unlike the others.