He narrowed his eyes.
"First test? What do you mean?"
Tilting his head, Lieren wondered as what she meant. All this time — well, since just yesterday afternoon, actually — he thought that the black box imparted to him sort of haphazardly had been his task for the entire week. The difficulty it presented, or rather the sheer complexity of it, was enough to make him wonder:
Just what in the world was the purpose of the black cube? Which made him even more confused.
What was this first test she was speaking of, exactly?
Selen smiled, a shadow of mischievousness shading her dark face. Soon after, the smile turned into a carved grin, and Lieren could feel himself shiver under her indescribable expression.
A sigh escaped her lips.
"Sheesh, to think that you were able to see through my spell that much, and still have trouble with the most simple things. They say that there's a fine line between genius and stupid, but this sure takes the cake. Look…"
Selen pointed at him, seemingly irritated.
"You have talent, I'll give you that. Possibly even more than I possess, and that is fine with me. But that doesn't mean you should limit your viewpoint to magic only."
Then, she grabbed his shoulders and lifted him up and let him down so that they were both standing. Tired and groggy, Lieren offered zero resistance.
Looking up at the dark-skinned woman with a lazy, barely-conscious gaze, Lieren muttered under his breath.
"Why?" His voice was so low that it almost sounded like a whisper. A quiet, unheard whisper. As though he was all alone in the world, without anybody to listen to his throes.
And yet, somebody responded, piercing through that inner isolation.
"Because the world isn't nice, Lieren."
Selen's gaze moved to the rising sun. The incandescent discus of radiant light moved across the skies all the time, even when unseen and unobserved, unperturbed by anything and anybody. It seemed to have a will of its own.
"It never was, and it never will be. That's the truth. No matter how much kindness you give to others, they will never give back to you. And even if on the exceedingly rare chance that they do, it is not without cost. Everybody lies, you know that already… but do you really? Because I don't, and I'm fine with that. As long as I have those that I care about. But that doesn't change anything, instead, it only makes me more suspicious."
The world was still for a moment, as though respecting the words uttered. Silence loomed throughout the room and overtook the atmosphere, dowsing the room with melancholy.
After lingering for a while, Selen turned back to him with a somber look.
"But that doesn't mean you don't have to be. You can still be kind; you can still give back to others without expecting anything in return. You can still be a decent person."
With that, she turned around, made her way to the door, and went through it. But not before shooting him a lonesome look one last time.
A sullen atmosphere hung in the air, and Lieren — without anything to do and tired to the bone — merely stood there, silent as a corpse. There was an indescribable expression on his face, one that he wasn't even aware of.
Her words struck a chord inside him, ringing true to his heart.
All this time… ever since beginning his travel with Harita… he has always thought that it was only right to be cruel, vicious, and vengeful to the world. That the only way he was going to survive long enough to fulfill his revenge was to be as bad as his opponents, surpass, and gain even more strength. Only to repeat the process over and over again, until it becomes nothing more than a mundane spell.
But... hearing her spiel, a new thought — perhaps even a philosophy — had begun budding in him.
"Maybe… maybe I shouldn't just give up. At least not yet…"
◇◆◇◆◇
As Lieren stood alone in the room and muttered depressing words to himself, a loud crash resounded in the sunlit room. All of a sudden, the whole room was filled with the ear-piercing shriek of glass broken by a solid brick.
'What the hell was that?'
Looking down, he saw the supposed brick laying by his feet. There was a piece of parchment tied to it.
Bending down to retrieve it, he desperately tried to avoid looking at the broken window.
Mysta would surely berate him for this… even though it wasn't his fault! He could just imagine her face, silently disappointed at him. A chilling sensation ran down his spine.
Releasing a deep, exaggerated sigh, he opened the not and read it. A few simple words were written on it:
"Come here now or die."
…Quickly snatching the black cube from the mahogany desk, LLiere enhanced his body with mana and dashed toward the door, bashed his head in panic, and opened the wooden door… normally.
His body was aflame with the empowering capabilities of Augmentation.
"Sorry! I'm going to be late!"
The wind whistled by his ear as he rushed past multiple service people, maids and groundskeepers as well as a couple of butlers of the Exousia Famiglia. He apologized each time he rudely passed by one or disturbed a passerby, shouting quick words of defense.
Now, he could have just jumped down from the second story window of his room and fortified his body with mana. But that was too much of an uncertainty. Not only was the risk of breaking most — if not all — of his bones a real possibility, he would also have to face the impartial wrath of Master Feng Xing Liu, the blind woman. If the worst came to be, and he dud not die from the fall, then his body would have surely fallen from just the resulting wordless treatment that she would nevertheless inflict on him like god's judgement.
Leaping down the grand staircase and past the winding hallway where the young scion's room was located at, Lieren momentarily stopped and observed.
The red gate was tightly closed, with the feeling of imprisonment seeping from the cracks at the bottom of it's heavy twin gate. Just like he was, the chirpy and loud young lady had surely been doing her own kind of training.
Shaking his head, he focused back to the major task at hand; try not to get killed for as long as possible. The thought that he merely considered to be a lucky charm or motivating quote, however morbid it seemed to be, felt all the more real and terrifying at this very moment, and possibly to the next.
Opening the door to the outside, Lieren peeked out and shielded his eyes from the morning sun.
'Ugh, so bright! Why does the sun have to be so bright…'
Squinting his eyes, he felt the strain of continuously pumping mans into his channels to keep Manavision for hours on end. He hissed and covered the sun with his hand and looked for his Master.
Luckily, she was not very hard to find, letting Lieren spot her easily. He tilted his head.
"…Huh? What's she doing?"