The three nobles widened their eyes at this person who was no stranger to them. Solaria and Moonra couldn't hide their amazement either and Iris stood up.
"Tch... So you really did it..." Oddegürd groaned.
Behind the dean's couch, Midgard delicately caressed the dean's head, a smirk on her lips.
"It's so nice to see you again, how long has it been? Ten years? Twelve?"
"Of course... Midgard... You couldn't just be a school nurse right?"
Midgard chuckled and walked towards Dora.
"Ah? You are the Sloth Avatar, dearie, staying patiently in a cage forever is your thing."
She passed next to Iris who looked at her like a ghost.
"... You... You are Miss Midgard? The Miss Midgard from the infirmary?"
Midgard glanced at her with a mocking smile. As a disciple of the Dean and best student, Iris had been selected to participate in this meeting and had therefore been informed of the transformation of what was once a young nurse with tired eyes and a cynical tone.
Midgard smiled at her in response and sat down between Dora and Zuri.
Mercy looked at the snake woman from head to toe.
"You... You were the girl from this Rift... Who are you?"
Midgard chuckled and placed her hand on Dora's shoulder.
"No one important, just the owner of this boy."
Everyone looked at her with confusion, which had the gift of amusing her.
"It's a life form called Player," Candace replied. "You already know the mystery of the Avatars, consider it the tip of the iceberg. Now, however, we will talk about the hidden side."
She coughed to clear her throat and looked at the door.
"Come in, my Joker."
The door opened, releasing a delicious scent into the room.
The gazes, initially intrigued, froze when they turned towards the door.
Dora continued to stare at the Dean and opened his eyes wide as he felt an aura he hadn't felt in several months.
"Well, there are more people than I expected." Elizabeth Balder closed the door.
****
Hope shuffled down a hallway, hands in his pockets.
He looked around and noticed a few students going about their business.
Two girls walked past him and he managed to hear a little of their conversation.
"What if he doesn't?"
"He created many weapons when he defeated Thomas, I'm sure he can master the katana too."
"No, I mean, what if he refused to teach me? I heard he was..."
Their voices faded as they entered a classroom.
Hope smiled and walked away.
"It seems like no one talks about me anymore."
He reaches a wide staircase and notices a whole crowd of students jostling each other, barely held back by the council.
"Hm? Oh, yeah, Dora might be near... I guess I could use the library."
He turned his back and started walking, but as three students passed by him, he had to step down slowly and manage to hear a sentence.
"I also want to see Lady Elizabeth, hurry up!"
He stopped walking, frozen like a statue.
In the meeting room, Elizabeth sat next to Candace and Iris, who were shaking with excitement.
"It's good to be back home... Good to see you too, Professor Oddegürd."
The professor nodded with a proud smile.
"It's always nice to see you, sorry for making you move."
"Oh no, please, I'm always available for anyone, especially if it's an order from my lovely teacher." She said leaning towards Candace who was coughing with blushing cheeks.
Elizabeth looked at the sofas opposite with a warm smile.
"What a wonderful cast, I'm happy to see how much you have grown, Prince Moonra and Princess Solaria."
Solaria fixed her hair and nodded, while Moonra placed a hand on his chest.
"Thank you... It is an honor to meet in person one of the greatest emissaries in the history of our kingdom."
"Haha, thank you very much, you can give all the credit to my wonderful teacher." She leaned towards Candace again and bumped into her.
She then looked at the chair next to them.
"Nice to finally meet you, Lady Freya, you are even more impressive than your reputation says about you."
Freya nodded and looked away.
"I don't listen to what people say about me, but I appreciate it coming from the strongest person."
"Hahaha, please, I'm definitely not the strongest as they say, the strongest would be this little lady's teaching." She bumped into Candace, her chest thrusting forward, almost knocking her over.
"E-enough already! Stop licking my foot, you little pest, I won't give you any special treatment!"
Elizabeth laughed softly as Candace grew redder and redder.
She tried to regain her composure and glanced at someone who was piercing her with his burning gaze.
"And the best for last, my old best friend! Hi Dora."
She gestured to the boy whose aura had begun to spread around him.
"You…"
She stood up to hug him, but Zuri leaned in front of Dora with a serious expression.
"Eh?... Oh, yes, my apologies, I haven't forgotten you, Lady Zuri and Lady Mercy, but I couldn't resist any longer."
Mercy looked at her and then at Dora successively.
"You guys know each other?"
"More than I should... She's the cause of all my troubles." Dora frowned.
"Huh? Don't be so harsh, I really missed you, future best friend."
Elizabeth sat back and smiled at Mercy who flinched and looked away slightly.
Candace coughed to ask for silence.
"I know you'd like to chat more, but we need to stay focused on the subject. So, like I said, Elizabeth will be my joker, so let's get back to business, let's talk about another layer of Avatars: the Player."
She looked at Midgard who was busy counting her fingers.
"As you have been told, we, Sin, are also called Avatars, but the origin of this name comes from this evil woman's people. No one knows where they come from, but Players are creatures of another world looking for emissaries with Sin in them. Think of us as a person with a parasite, and this parasite gives us access to the abilities according to their essence.
She closed her eyes when she opened them, her irises were glowing a bright white.
"It is a signature of Sin Avatars, these Sins manifest in us in the form of an artificial intelligence, or System, giving them missions to accomplish according to our Sin. It is the incarnation of Sin, its primal form. From our point of view, it's a bit of what the new generation calls video games, RP... RPD?... Well, whatever, you get it! And so, they call us Avatars as the character they're going to play."
Her eyes returned to normal, she glared at Midgard and sighed.
"The stage is yours, old snake."
"Thank you, my broken toy," Midgard smirked. "So, it's almost true, except for the example. The Sin is not a parasite, or it could just travel from one person to another. Gluttony used this expression because she wants to dissociate the monster of the human, but the truth is that a Sin is basically the true form of the Avatar, it is your hidden power, your pure form, which is why the ultimate stage is called awakening."
She crossed her arms and glanced at Dora.
"The value of a Sin Avatar is something you will never understand, it has been a thousand years and the seventh appeared just sixteen years ago. Each Sin manifests as a System giving specific missions following its blessings, for example, Greed is the eternal desire to acquire goods, so its system will focus on obtaining all types of skills, their functionality, and their concepts, Gluttony, on the other hand, is the eternal appetite for everything, and would give it the power to acquire any skill, but unlike greed which is also thirsty for knowledge, Gluttony is content to eat and will not have the same mastery as Greed ."
She patted Dora's head proudly.
"Ah, I got so lucky... I got the Avatar with the best potential. You're the one with the hardest requirements to improve but in the end, you will be unstoppable."
She laughed, not paying attention to the stunned looks of the people around her.
"Are you sure about this?"
Candace interrupted her reverie.
"Ah? Oh, I forgot that you and the Mad Queen shared this fear for that other girl... But I do not doubt that my Avatar will surpass you all."
Candace sighed heavily, and Elizabeth began to massage her shoulders.
Freya, whose brain was starting to function like a supercomputer, didn't miss this little deviation.
"Girl? Are you referring to the Elf Queen or the General of Fenrir?"
This time, Candace and Midgard shared a worried expression.
Dora felt the snake woman's grip tighten on his hair.
"Like I said, the power of a Sin varies according to the very concept of Sin, beyond the description. Gluttony isn't just the hunger for food, it's the hunger on a conceptual level, for knowledge, tool, people, feelings, without a need to understand them, just having, it works like that. Greed is similar but will perfectly assimilate them in all their aspects: Gluttony takes blindly, Greed takes also the knowledge. The third Sin that we know comes from observation only."
She stared at Eryl whose smile had disappeared.
"In the undead rift, those who have been touched by the black crystals suffered the power of Envy's pressure, the mage boy lost focus on the battle and only wanted to be healed, the maid forgot her mission and focused on her hate for Envy, I suppose that Envy can affect people's minds... But that's also something that others Sin can do relatively, like when Dora's made this astrologer forget his fighting purpose and focus only on a hypothetical greed for recognition."
Iris flinched for a moment and looked at the ground.
She remembered the strange behavior of Thomas who was deliberately attacking Dora's weapons and not Dora himself.
"So it was that..."
Midgard's grip tightened, alarming Dora that a heavy revelation was coming.
"Now concerning Pride... I was already trapped in this school when she met Gluttony, but from Sloth's description, I may have an idea."
Candace was twiddling her thumbs like a child who had done something stupid.
"D-Dean... You knew her?" Oddegürd murmured
"No!... Not exactly... I was under the training of the old witch when they met... So I just got her explanations, well, more like complaints. She said something weird about Pride's power."
Very embarrassed, she lowered her head and spoke in a very small voice.
"Even I have more skills than Pride."
They looked at the dean as if she were a national liar.
She was known as the weakest among them, she admitted that how come she was stronger than someone who terrified the queen?
"Wasn't she just upset?" Solaria shrugged. "Mother can be very salty when she's angry."
"Yeah, I mean... No offense, but didn't she also say you were disappointing? Dean?"
Mercy added.
Midgard laughed, drawing all the attention to herself.
"That's what I said earlier, with Sins, always take the words literally. Gluttony didn't say that Sloth was stronger, but that she had more skills than Pride."
She leaned back in her seat, stroking Dora's hair.
"Pride possesses only one skill, and with that, she is biologically the strongest Avatar."