"And what about you, are you going to join the adventurers guild once you turn sixteen?"
The one asking the question was Emilia and the question was for her friend who was sitting beside her on her bed.
"Um…I don't really know, but even if I wanted to, I doubt my parents will allow me to do it."
"Why's that?" Emilia asked.
"Well, if it isn't already obvious to you, I'll tell you, they still treat me like a child especially my Father and I don't like it." She expressed before shaking her head.
"Isn't that because they care about you?"
"Yeah, I am aware of that but they don't have to be extreme about it."
"Oh," Emilia said before slowly putting her head down.
"Anyway, what I'm saying is their answer is probably going to be no, they may allow me to sign up when I'm older but a part of me still doubts that."
Emilia was about to say something when her door was suddenly pushed open, and as expected, Devon came walking in.
He was about to call out Emilia's name before he saw Sofia and in that moment he quickly rephrased his words before they came out.
"Oh, hey sorry I forgot to knock." He said.
"Hello, Devon."
"Yes, you did. Is anything the matter?" Emilia asked.
'Now this is the part where I make up something.'
"Um…yeah, just wanted to check if my sword was here." He said sounding as convincing as ever.
"Your sword?"
"Yeah, I can't seem to find to find it in my room so I just wanted to see if I might have left it here last night." He stated.
"Um…I don't think your sword is here." She uttered before shaking her head.
"Oh, well then I'll go check somewhere else." He declared before slowly opening the door. "Hi, Sofia, bye Sofia."
Emilia was definitely able to see through his lies and now she was wondering what would make him rush into her room like that.
She was so lost in her thought with her gaze on the door that she didn't even hear Sofia call her.
"Emilia." She called again.
This time she made sure to give her a nice little shake just to snap her out of her daze.
"What are you even thinking about?"
"Oh, um…sorry." She stuttered.
As soon as Devon left the room and shut the door, he rested his back on the door before letting out a sigh.
"I wasn't expecting to find Sofia there." He muttered.
"I suspected that you would make your way here."
He was aware of who owned that voice and just as he turned his gaze to the right where it came from he spotted Erina who had her back against the wall. She seemed to have been waiting for him there.
"How did you….?"
"So, there really is something that you're hiding." She surmised before he could finish what he wanted to say.
As soon as she said that, he quickly cornered her against the wall and placed his finger on her lips.
"Sh….keep quiet, we don't have to talk about that here."
'So, you're saying we take it outside?' She brought the question right to his mind.
Devon almost jumped up after suddenly hearing her voice in his head but then he realized that this was something she had always been able to do.
It had been quite a long time since she last used her telepathic abilities on him so he sort of forgot how that worked.
'Yes, that's what I'm saying.'
'Okay, you said you wanted to go get some pizza with me, how about we head over there right now?'
'Okay, that sounds good.'
'Cool, let's go.'
There was no one up at the orphanage, so the two were able to leave the building without having to answer any necessary or unnecessary questions.
"So, what is this thing that you two saw, was it something dangerous and what does it have to do with using abilities without having an ability mark?"
She got quite excited as soon as she exited the building with Devon and all those words just came flowing out.
"You agreed that we would get the pizza first, remember?"
"Oh, yeah, I got curious and forgot about that, sorry." She apologized.
"It's okay, look we're almost there."
There was only one pizza restaurant in the kingdom of Audaznimo.
It was a little distance away from the main city so there wasn't usually any crowd around the area.
There would still be a crowd in the area regardless of the location because of how popular it was in the kingdom but the price was quite the turnoff.
Just as Devon got close to the pizza restaurant, he spotted someone who looked quite familiar sitting there reading a book.
As soon as he got close enough, he was able to confirm that it was indeed someone he knew.
"I was wondering when you were going to show up." The boy said as soon as Devon entered the area and took a seat.
"Huh? I don't remember having any appointment with you today."
"Wait, you came with Erina?" He jabbered ignoring what Luis just said.
"Oh, hey, Victor." Erina greeted before taking a seat beside Devon.
Victor was one of the students who had the privilege to be in the academy just because he had an ability.
He was a boy about the same age as Devon, he had a rectangular face with brown eyes, a concave but small nose, and thin red lips.
The mark on his neck was four lines of wave which was the standard hydro ability mark but the mark wasn't glowing in any part.
Finding an academy student in the kingdom was pretty easy because all you needed to do was find someone in a brown shirt and trousers for boys and skirts for girls.
Their uniform had black outlines everywhere an outline is supposed to be and of course, they had that flame badge, the badge of Audaznimo. That was the uniform Victor was putting on right now.
Every single person in the kingdom between the ages of twelve to twenty-five at the very least was in the academy except for Erina.
This was the reason why she always covered her neck with something whenever she went out and right now, she was putting on a dress that had her covered.
"Hey, Erina, it's been quite a while, you look even prettier than I remember."
"Uh, just keep quiet," Devon grumbled before he went ahead to order some pizza.
"So, how are you doing, Devon?"
He had to change the topic because it seemed Devon didn't like the idea of him talking to Erina.
"I'm okay, and I can see the academy is really feeding you well." He remarked.
"Hey, you know you don't have to drag in the academy anytime we're talking."
"And why's that? You don't like talking about your home?"
"Hey, you know you don't always have to be so negative."
"Negative? I don't recall making any topics that can be classified as negative, I just made a harmless comment." He expressed. "Anyway looks like our pizza is here and by our, I mean me and Erina."
After hearing him say that, Victor let out a sigh before raising his book to continue from where he left off with his reading.
'Hey, you know you don't have to be mean to him like that.'
She wanted to say something the whole time but this was the best she could come up with.
'Calm down, I'm just teasing, you know he's someone who can't take harsh words, truth or not, and runs away from them that's why he's always out here instead of in the academy with everyone like him, I'm just trying to get him to stand up for himself, at least that's how I see it.'
'Oh, well then why don't you just tell him that instead of doing things like this?'
'You think I haven't tried? I told him and he said he was too weak to do it, now things are like this between us.'
'Oh.'
After having Devon explain things to her, Erina turned her gaze to Victor, and that was when she spotted the cover of the book he was reading which immediately caught her attention.
It was a red cover with a drawing of some kind of demon with an ugly face and numerous teeth.
"What book is that?" She inquired.
"Oh, this? It's called the forbidden child." Victor replied.
"Forbidden child." She said sounding quite intrigued. "What's it about?"
"The summary says it's about an unstable child born with condensed forms of elemental energy that makes him dangerous like a walking bomb, this caused quite the stir up among many kingdoms so a witch had to be employed to take care of him, in what context, I don't know yet."
"Interesting, this sounds a bit familiar, I know I've read something similar before."
"I'm not surprised, they say this was a real-life occurrence even though there are many who think it is just a myth, I sort of took this book from the library's restricted section to read it and judge it for myself." He articulated.
Devon was focusing on his pizza without giving a thought to what they were saying but once he mentioned that last part, his attention was piqued.
"You really did that?"