He placed a single piece of tape from the window onto my forehead.
"Shuraina, you're just in time. Look at this question for me. I've been trying to solve it for hours, but I can't seem to find the answer."
Hylli greeted me calmly even though I had barged in. It seemed like he wasn't too taken aback after the last time it had happened.
"Hold on, Shushu's here?"
Cory was laying upside down when he discovered me. His eyes grew wide. Unlike Hylli's calm acceptance of my presence, Cory looked incredibly taken aback. Moreover, he looked slightly flustered.
"I'm doomed."
He quietly muttered with a scowl. He threw the blanket around his body onto the desk.
There was a pile of orange fur ball drawings that looked like they had been drawn by Swan, but there were also lines drawn over them as if Cory had been trying to fix them.
Cory wrote and drew with crooked lines, so the lines over the original drawings didn't help. They were still a mystery.
Cory moved at light speed as soon as he threw the blanket off of him.
He began to tear off the papers near his bed and desk. He was acting suspiciously, so when I narrowed my eyes to look closely, it seemed like they were explanations of Shunivalen's creations and the things that I had made on my own. There was a lot of crooked, ugly writing crammed together.
At his rushed movements, I stopped writing the explanation to Hylli's question and smirked with a show-offy grin.
"Wow, still?"
"…..you're wrong."
Cory's ears turned red as he avoided my gaze.
He pouted and briefly looked around the room.
There were a bunch of documents and books and small memos all around the bed and desk. His bed and desk had a bunch of clothes piled on top of each other, and the magic devices he created were all hanging off a bunch of nails he had hammered onto his desk and bed. His side looked both messy and organized.
He stared at his spot and muttered, "I should've cleaned."
Cory and Hylli both seemed to think that I had come to play with Swan. Hylli took out the game that I played with him and Cory during vacation, and Cory began to slowly crawl over my way.
There wasn't a lot of time, so I pushed the game aside and tried to get to the point. When I told them I had to talk to them about something serious, they nodded and looked at me. I briefly hesitated under their combined gazes.
If I just told them the situation and asked them for help, the two of them had a high chance of just accepting. I couldn't tell them about Noirelle the black dragon or how I came here or about the novel or Blanchielle, so I had to explain the situation while skipping all of these subjects.
I wondered how I could tell them about this situation without digging too deep a hole.
I had been frowning in silence for a moment when Swanhaden nodded towards the window.
"We don't need their help to steal the royal heirloom. Let's go by ourselves."
He put his hand on my shoulder and gently pulled me towards himself.
Swanhaden pretended to carefully open the window, but smashed it as soon as Hylli's gaze met his. Swan exited the window and stretched out his hand to help me get out too.
When I just stared at Swan, Swan quietly whispered that I needed to leave so that they would follow us.
I was awed by Swanhaden's act of just blurting out the destination and leaving. For him to use their worry of me as bait. What a Swan thing to do.
Noirelle could have already been waiting in front of the fountain, and we didn't have a lot of time. I briefly ignored Hylli and Cory's demands for an explanation at their questions about what that meant and stated that there wasn't enough time. I just asked for help before leaving.
After my shocking appearance and subsequent statement, Cory and Hylli chased after me. Cory seemed stunned, but Hylli's reaction was much larger. Hylli hated his own family, but he couldn't help but be surprised at how we said we were going to steal his family's heirloom.
Hearing them curse Swan from behind us was proof enough that they were following us.
I wanted Yves to join us, too, but he wasn't in his room.
I would've looked for him if we had enough time, but Noirelle was waiting for us. It was a bust. Honestly, it was me and my selfishness that wanted them to help Noirelle. It was easy to give up on that idea.
I was slightly disappointed, but I shook my head and headed to the fountain of the black dragon, where the principal must've been waiting.
The moon was in the center of the night sky. It was so quiet that the chirp of the bugs seemed to echo around us.
Not too long after, I could hear the sound of flowing water from the fountain.
The dragon fountain had a replica of Noirelle's true form. The water flowed from the dragon's handsomely modeled mouth.
I could see some water droplets splashing onto the chair. Noirelle hadn't arrived just yet.
I wiped off the water droplets with my fingers and gave a short summary of the current situation to Hylli and Cory.
The royal heirloom was actually a treasure that had been passed on in a secret black magician family, and that they wanted it back.
Then, I added that the black magician was the person that Cory probably saw in the mountains that one time, and that they had an incredible hatred towards the royal family. The two of them nodded slowly as if they understood.
When I completed my explanation, Hylli was enthusiastic about stealing the heirloom. The heirloom played a large part in Caradil's death, so he asked if he could participate too.
Cory didn't seem too interested until he learned that the black magician was the focus of this situation. He frowned. Cory said that the black magician could be dangerous, so he would participate as well. I felt super supported.
"A bunch of people are here? Thanks, all of you!"
Not long after I sat on the fountain, a gravelly grandpa voice rang loudly in the silence.
Everyone excluding Swahaden was surprised at the voice and flinched. They seemed to be quite serious before they turned around. To check who the voice's owner was, that is.
There was a grandpa holding a cane.
The grandpa purposefully walked with his toes pointed inwards as he skipped towards us. His mouth was wide open as he laughed like a loon. He held his cane in the air as he swung it around. His giggling laughter was the cherry on top. He laughed out loud like a child unlike his own wrinkly, haggard face.
Everyone's eyes turned towards him. The grandpa looked a bit embarrassed at everyone's gaze. She was trying to hide it, but I could see Noirelle's creepy smile escaping onto his face from time to time.
The person controlling the principal was Noirelle. She purposely moved the principal's body in the most embarrassing way possible for the hatred and disgust of others.
"Who is that disgusting being. Why are they familiar?"
Hylli looked shocked as he looked at the giddy old man, the Augran Academy principal.
When Hylli's eyes met the principal's, the principal puffed up his cheeks and widened his eyes to make a cute expression. The principal seemed to make the more ugly, disgusting faces towards him.
I, alongside everyone else, couldn't take my eyes off of the principal.
I stared blankly at the principal and quietly muttered the response to Hylli's question.
"....your ancestor..."
Hylli asked me another question because he couldn't figure out my answer. I said it was nothing and shook my head. I'm just really sorry.
I couldn't help but scowl as I stared at the wide-eyed, puffy-cheeked grandpa principal. She said that this was a kind of revenge, right? I nodded to try and convince myself of it, but I couldn't bear to look at the principal.
"Whoa? What, I didn't even expect the others. Are they all helping me?"
The principal, no, Noirelle stared at Cory and Hylli with wide eyes. Cory and Hylli seemed too shocked to respond. They just stood there, eyes blinking slowly.
Noirelle briefly stared at the two of them before scratching their noise.
"Well, it feels weird, but it's better for me. I'll activate the circle that'll teleport you to the center of the building right away, okay?"
The principal's voice was mixed with a hefty amount of cuteness.
Noirelle smacked her hands together loudly and kept rubbing her hands with the dragons left in. The principal just headed out side and asked the others to put their hands on the dragon sculpture.
We needed to make our way into the palace as soon as our hands touched the statue. I rushed our movements before Noirelle decided to take off the person's pants completely. I rushed towards Noirelle when I saw that she was trying to take off the principal's pants. Let's stop there. Please.
The principal muttered complaints under his breath and pouted. They put their feet into the shallow water and walked closer to the dragon statue. Then, they pressed their fingers into the dragon's eyes twice and pushed. The earth shook slightly.
The earth rang and the dragon statue stopped spitting out water. At the same time, the water levels in the fountain began to drop and dry out completely. A small twister appeared in the wind before all of the water drained out completely. There had been a little bit of water left in the fountain earlier, but now there was barely a puddle.
After all of the water was removed, the principal pulled the dragon statue back to its original spot. When the dragon statue was returned to its original spot, a magic circle began to draw itself onto the floor.
The circle began to draw itself out and shone brightly.
The path to the center palace was this.
"It's a one-time use mass transportation gate. I had no idea that there was a circle hidden in this sort of place."
Cory said, standing next to me. He looked amused as he looked and wrote out the transportation circle within the fountain before frowning.
"If it's one-time use only, then it'll die after we finish infiltrating the palace, right?"
Cory said, pointing his finger towards the principal. The principal looked amused at Cory's response and nodded a yes.
"The central palace takes security pretty seriously, so the entire building is made of a mineral that prevents any kind of magic. If you want the circle to stay open, you need to have more magic than the mineral in the first place. I don't have enough magic to fill that criteria."
At the principal's words, Cory's gaze went back down to the circle as he frowned.
"If it's impossible to use magic within the central palace, then why do you need a magician?"
Cory said lowly, staring at the beautiful light emanating from the magic circle.
"Then this is completely my job. And I'd be a bother if I follow you both."
He held his hand up towards the line and poured in his magic. When his magic became included into the magic circle, the light began to shine even more brightly.
It seemed like he was planning on staying and ensuring that the magic circle would stay open. Just so we could return without a hitch. When Cory began to just pour his magic without special prompting, the principal clapped welcomed everything.