'Oh, fuck!'
Zenon quickly left the register on the table while brainstorming ways to make it malfunction or whatever.
He switched between the metal piece and the Leviathan while trying to think about anything. Suddenly, his familiar groaned and launched itself toward the thimble, not letting Zenon catch him.
"Hey!" He unconsciously shouted at his familiar, gaining some weird looks from the people inside the shelter and from, well...
"The fuck going on over there?" Harbor asked.
Zenon mumbled some incoherent words before coughing and saying, "Fell off my fingers, got startled."
"Hope you can manage a mere register, else the Layer Beasts will make you their personal ball to scratch." He joked, making most of the warehouse burst into laughs.
'The fuck you idiots laughing at...' Zenon hid his face in his hands before switching his sight toward the familiar.
His embarrassment quickly turned into curiosity as he saw the Leviathan trying to mess with some thin veils inside the thimble. It was a sequence of four strings that connected with each other and then snapped apart.
Repeating it over and over again, he noticed that the Leviathan either tried to cut the sequence or maybe i-
"Hey, what the hell are you doing?"
Zenon sighed before looking behind him.
There, a man proudly stood with his arms crossed, giving him the nastiest look Zenon has ever seen in his life. He wanted to give a proper answer but something was tingling deep inside him and... it wasn't good.
"What the fuck do you think I'm doing?" Zenon said with an aggressive look… and while cursing his Familiar's existence.
He didn't miss a single beat.
"Haha, we got a funny one here boys!" The Enlightened sat beside Zenon, making him somewhat uncomfortable, "I think that you are stupid enough to not know how to use one of those.
Who knows? Maybe you don't want to do so because you are scared of revealing something?"
Zenon subconsciously shivered.
Why did he want to protect a lie so much? Saying that he had a Supreme Elemental Soul would solve so many problems, yet why was he hiding it? Perhaps fear? Fear of what, exactly?
It did bring problems but it also solved some of them, anyways.
"Do us a favor, and just put the fucking register on your finger. That way you can show everyone how weak you are."
Zenon peeked at his familiar, who was still adamant about trying to break that sequence. He knew that such a proud creature wouldn't move a muscle unless the situation needed... no, demanded it.
So for him to be so stressed about breaking those veils, it must be really import-
*Slap!*
'Huh?' Zenon's cheek suddenly ached as his head moved to the left. He heard people gasp and some murmurs here and there, yet still didn't comprehend what happened.
Until a second later, when he saw the Enlightened with his palm wide open and crossing his face. A sudden whirlpool of rage was violently created inside his chest as he looked at the Familiar.
'Don't say it, don't say it. Just this one time.'
"Don't you know that's impolite? You should always look at someone when they are talking to you, especially a low-life like you, an outskirts rat. Can't believe you got chosen with a Lineage, it's disgraceful."
Zenon's breathing became agitated as he gritted his teeth, all of this while trying to battle against Leviathan's will to bash the shit out of the Enlightened. So far, it is more of a curse than anything else.
'Remain calm, remain calm, breathe... in, out, in, out...'
Slowly but surely, the slight pinch turned into pain. Zenon's mouth twitched on his own yet before he could say a word a hand was placed on his shoulder.
"Enlightened Shalev, I believe we have talked about your behavior to the Unseens before. One more time and I won't let it pass."
Harbor confronted Shalev, gaining a tongue click from him before getting up and walking away.
"Serves you right... fucker." He muttered in the lowest possible voice, relieving his chest from some of that weight.
That sensation of pure pressure inside Zenon's chest slowly went away as he took deep breaths.
He looked at Harbor who was currently walking away from him. Zenon sighed and looked at his Familiar who finished doing whatever the hell he tried to do.
He picked up the register and thought, 'What have you done, exactly?'
Leviathan talked, or at least tried with groans and other sounds, which Zenon somehow understood.
Basically, he analyzed other of those thimbles and noticed that said pattern was a code that read his Runes. How did he know this? Perhaps intuition?
So, he inverted it to show the opposite side of anything that could exist on a scale, such as a Tier.
Or at least that's what it was supposed to do.
'Let's pray to the angels then.'
Zenon put the register on his index finger and felt a slight pinch. Suddenly, the metal of the register beeped twice, showed a green light, and opened a hologram.
[Database: Profile created.]
[Welcome Unseen Zenon.]
As expected, the hologram had overall information about him, and based on what it said earlier, seems like it's stored inside the shelter's database. Where was it?
Good question.
Luckily, his Familiar's intuition turned out correct, and it showed his Tier as First-Tier, not Seventh-Tier.
'Thanks... holy shit, that was tense.'
"Great, every single one of you is now logged in. You will now receive the timetable for the only course you can assist, which is pretty much an all-in-one."
Suddenly, a new message appeared in the corner and Zenon didn't wait for it to open by itself. As Harbor said, it was the message with the timetable.
'Damn, you can stay there for five hours... I don't know if I will be able to endure them. Well, two hours are optional anyways.'
"The first day is introductory and will last for an hour. There will be lessons every day except for Sundays, which you can use to read a fucking book once in a while. Now, enjoy the party, damned kids."
---
After some more chit-chat, partying, and motivation from a drunk Dan to challenge the First Layer, they were left free and Zenon quickly made his way toward his room, where he locked himself. He was, to be honest, exhausted from that meeting and party.
The atmosphere was completely different from the outskirts and the sudden change made something feel weird. He didn't know if it was the people, the place, or whatever the hell; it was a completely different experience.
He let gravity do its job and lay on the bed while closing his eyes. He thought of turning on the TV, but the reminder that it was around 2:00 AM already was enough to stop him.
'Still, before going to sleep, I want to do something else.'
He got up from the bed and sat on its edge while looking at the bathroom. He gave a deep sigh, walked inside, and opened some cabinets until he found a pair of scissors.
Standing in front of the mirror, he took a big portion of his hair and cut it clean.
Feeling the hair leaving his head didn't feel so good, but he knew it was something that must be done.
He started playing barber and trimmed his hair until eye's length from the front, and got some off the back. He applied some water and put all of his hair backward, and was surprised by the result.
'Damn, I don't even look half bad.'
Though his Familiar said otherwise, as it began laughing. Zenon just chuckled with him, swept the hair off the floor and took a quick shower to get rid of those tiny, irritating hairs stuck between the clothes and his body.
Now he was ready to sleep and begin a new day.