The two stopped in the middle of the forest. At first look, one would see that the place was just surrounded by trees and nothing was out of place. However, there was a magic barrier and illusion magic cast on the place so that no one would see the hidden community of the Faerie tribe.
At first, they were just a bunch of outcasts and misfits taken in by a small family of Faerie descent. The head of the family was a half-faerie and he was cast out for his dark skin, sharp ears, and black eyes. Though half-human, he was treated worse than a monster so he started living in the middle of the dark forest near the academy.
After a few generations, their community grew in number and the children of the family married the humans living with them. They started to call their community the Faerie tribe since most of them carried Faerie blood. Since the Faerie blood wasn’t as concentrated as it was before, their chosen leader would be the one who inherited a Faerie’s characteris
After the day-off, the elite class was back to their house as they were supposed to but they didn’t expect a sudden change because of what happened at the ball. “What are you doing here, your highness?” Dio asked when he saw Andriel in front of his room. “Don’t be so cold to me,” Andriel said with a slight smile. “We’re close enough to share secrets, right?” Dio couldn’t believe his ears. Andriel used to be a very warm and mature prince, but the Andriel in front of him looked bothersome. “What do you want, your highness?” he asked as he smiled awkwardly. The eyes of the other elites were on him, curious about the secret that the prince mentioned. “Since I took a liking to you, why don’t you start calling me by my name?” Andriel suggested as he pulled Dio down to the receiving area where all the elites were gathered. The real reason why Andriel was there was to personally give them an announcement. There would be an announcement posted
Since that day, everyone in the elite class had been training for the midterms examination. They all knew that once they failed the midterms, they would be replaced by the top scorer from the general class so they needed to keep their positions as elites. “Dio, can you assist me again this time?” Mika asked as she prepared the cloak that she would use for the enchantment trial. “Are you serious?” Dio asked as he chuckled. Though he didn’t want to be subjected to another experiment, he wanted Mika to have a great contribution to the exam. “Yes. You don’t have to train like the others, right? You already know how to deal with those bunnies,” Mika said with confidence. Dio laughed. How could she be so confident that he would be able to hunt those monsters without worries? “Don’t just laugh at me, dear brother. Are you in?” Mika said as she pulled out her enchanter pen. Dio shrugged and followed her to the backyard. Since he got nothing be
“Is the place for hunting that far?” Amery asked Dio who kept his eyes closed during the travel.He snuggled closer to Keila and tried to act as if he were asleep so that others wouldn’t disturb him but Amery was persistent.“Dio?” Amery called out to him again.“Lady Amery, let’s just let him sleep for a while,” Cassandra suggested but Amery pouted.“Mika, your brother is flirting with Keila. Can you stop him?” Amery turned to Mika who had her head leaning on the window.Mika smiled drowsily as she closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, my lady. I don’t think I can.”Amery then turned to Kael who sat between Keila and Raymond. “Kael, don’t tell me your siblings get nauseous during carriage rides?”“No, my lady. It’s more like they spent the night making the cloaks so they needed the rest.” Kael looked at Dio who seemed to be
“Dio!” Amery shouted.Dio moved his hand to cut the bunny that was about to attack him with its claws. Amery let out a sigh of relief when she saw that Dio was fine.“Don’t space out,” Primo told him with a serious tone.“I’m not spacing out. It’s just that these bunnies seemed more like a mob of lower-level monsters than high-level ones.“What do you mean?” Primo asked in surprise. The monsters they were fighting were already strong enough to keep everyone busy yet Dio was saying that they seem like lower-level? Just how strong were the high-level monsters could be?Dio suddenly ran towards the casters and cut through a few bunnies that were about to attack Keila. After killing the monsters with his dagger, he turned towards Keila.“Are you all right?” His eyes were full of worry just like his voice. He crouched and held her shoulders to check if she was truly fine befo
The elite class was silent as they went back to the academy. Mika held Dio tight while Kael was the one putting pressure on Dio’s wound. Everyone was worried about him but all they could do was watch over him on the way back.Arthur lowered his head. He couldn’t stop blaming himself for his weakness. He was so weak that Dio had to protect him. He was so weak that Dio did not even consider asking him for help. He was so ashamed that he was so weak and he had to be protected by someone younger than him.Outside the carriage, Limuel was in deep thought. He didn’t know what kind of monster was that but he sensed that it was a high-level one. Knowing the other elites, Limuel chose to protect the others while risking Dio and he ended up with an injured student.It’s okay. Dio wasn’t badly hurt, and one injured was better than having all of them injured. He tried to console himself but his inner voice refuted him.Dio wasn&
Dio was sure. Though they were different from those with the serpent tattoo, he knew that they were accomplices when he heard them call him His Imperial Highness. Aside from him and a few others on his side, who would’ve known about his identity if not the enemies?Dio clenched his fists. Just a little more rest and his mana would’ve recovered enough to take care of them. Professor Croix, Caspian, and Arthur just needed to endure a little more and he’d take care of the rest once his mana becomes stable.Once his healing magic kicked in, he felt revitalized though his left arm was still bleeding. Dio stood up and walked towards the door when he heard the girls stopping him from moving. However, he was determined because he knew that the enemies outside were much powerful than how they seem to be.“Dio, no!”He heard them, but he refused to look back. If he was swayed by their worried tones, the other guys outside would meet th
Since that incident, the atmosphere within the elite class had a significant change. They became more caring about Dio and treated him as someone special in the group. The girls would always look out and care for Dio while the boys would always ask him to spar with them.Though Dio couldn’t understand the reason behind their behavior, it relieved him that nobody treated him negatively after pulling such dangerous stunts.“Dio, have some refreshments with us,” Cassiel invited him as soon as he entered the house.It was their day off and the others went to the market and Dio just arrived from training with Blur in the forest. Dio looked at the smiling prince across Cassiel and bowed his head. He could remember how close he was with Andriel before, but he couldn’t stop himself from being annoyed by his clinginess.What if the others noticed the difference in his treatment of him? It would expose his identity, and he didn't want that.
The news of the duel between the most powerful ice mage and the mint-green-haired elite spread like a wildfire inside the school grounds. Every student was looking forward to that day and there had been a lot of expectations for both parties. Some placed their bets on Carter since he was well-known and they were confident in his strength while others placed their bet on Dio who was like a dark horse that caused a commotion as soon as he set foot in the academy.“You really did it this time,” Keila said with a grin on her face.It was the night before the duel and Dio was in the backyard, watching the stars and thinking about how his life turned to how it was at that moment.When Keila saw Dio outside, she went to accompany him and talk to him. She wanted to congratulate him for going that far. She felt so proud of him because she was one of the people who was given the privilege to watch his growth. From being the capricious adventurer to being one o
“You finally decided to show yourself,” Absalom chuckled when Amir, Joe, and Vince went towards him. The stars and their masters’ were confused about what was happening between the captain and him. The crackling sound from Dio’s lightning dagger was heard by the others. Though some couldn’t accept the truth that Dio was a multi-element mage, there were people who genuinely wished to see him not holding back. Dio’s vines grew around the area to attack Absalom but the other three captains moved to protect him. “You need to go through us if you want to hurt him.” Dio couldn’t stop himself from laughing. “So there are also people you wanted to protect?” It was a sarcastic laugh filled with bitterness. There were people whom he failed to protect: his mother and grandfather. Those were his family who loved and cherished him, but he lost them because of the midnight serpents. He continued to live on for the sake of revenge and because of that, he fou
Cassiel merged with her phoenix guardian while Andriel merged with his thunderbird. With fire and lightning, they merged their powers and created attacks that were supposed to be hard to dodge. However, Captain Joe and Captain Vince were veteran fighters so fighting them was hard for the two.Cassiel cast a fireball and Andriel merged it with his lightning bolt. The ball made of fire and high-voltage electricity crackled as it went on a straight path towards Joe. The speed of the attack was too fast that Joe didn’t fully dodge it and left a small cut on his shoulder.“Not bad, you two. However, I’m not your only opponent,” Joe smirked when the two realized that Vincent was nowhere to be seen.Suddenly, a black whip covered with high-voltage electricity came to attack the two and they barely dodged it. They looked around and saw Vince a few meters away from them, holding the base of the whip. He laughed evilly when he saw the anxious expre
Dio pulled Lewis’ shirt when he tried to step back. He also used his dagger when Lewis tried to slash his hand and smirked. “Let’s finish this.” Lewis, with all his strength, pushed Dio away from him. He kept his distance from him since he was informed that Dio’s strength was his melee fighting, though he also needed to be wary of his casting. However, he didn’t know that the information he received was taken when Dio was still an adventurer. As a student of the academy, Dio honed his casting skills and practiced them by helping the other casters in the elite class. Dio used his vines to capture Lewis who always dodged his attacks and his attempts of getting closer. Since Lewis was naturally fast, it took him a lot of time just to catch him. He set a trap and drove him to the way he planned for him to go and there he created a pit deep enough so he wouldn’t escape. Dio held the mouth of the hole and ice spread from his hand down to where Lewis stood.
Almost hundreds of monsters inside that dungeon surrounded Dio. Though he knew they outnumbered him, he let everyone leave him alone so that he could use his power to his heart’s content. “Bree, can I trust you to watch my back?” Dio looked around and created a plan in his head. “Sure, master!” Bree twinkled brighter in excitement. “I wish Blur was here too.” “It’s okay, Bree. Blur would assist the others at school.” Dio put his dagger back into its sheath as Bree took care of the monsters that attacked them. After he put the daggers in his space ring, Dio created an electric dagger with his right hand and an ice dagger with the left one. “Now, let’s do this.” Dio helped Bree with cleaning up the monsters. With a single slash of his dagger, the small monsters were cut in half. And since Dio embedded poisons in his daggers, those who were cut and wounded weren’t able to regenerate or heal their wounds, so they end up dying. “I like your eyes an
After their introduction and a few exchanges, the groups went inside the dungeon led by Caspian and Arthur. The other group was silent for it was their first time to enter a dungeon so the elite class tried to reassure them by having conversations as if nothing wrong could happen. Yet, deep within them, they were also afraid because they had a bad experience from a dungeon before. “Don’t you dare act on your own again, Dio.” Keila reminded him. Cassandra walked beside Dio to make sure that he wouldn’t let himself get behind. If they wanted him to behave, they needed to monitor him closely. Dio wouldn’t hesitate to jump ahead if it meant to protect them so someone had to be beside him to stop him if ever. “Are you also worried about me?” Dio chuckled when he realized that almost all the elites were watching over him. He turned to Cassandra with an assuring smile. “I told you not to worry. I won’t do something dangerous again.” Though Dio seemed believa
“Dio and Kael, though I know that you already know him, let me introduce Carter von Claude.” Professor Croix gestured his hand towards Carter. “He was promoted to the elite class last week and he will join you in today’s excursion.” Dio bowed his head to Carter. Though he was sad that Mika had been replaced, he knew it was no one’s fault and that the world would continue moving, even after her death. That thought hurt him a bit, but he had to accept it. Those who were left needed to continue leaving. Just like how he did it after his grandfather’s death, he would live his life to honor those whose lives were lost because of him. He had decided. He would talk with Andriel if they meet again. The group went into the carriage large enough to fit fifteen people and settled down. The atmosphere wasn’t as comfortable because of the new member but they lifted the mood. Dio was seated beside Keila and just like their midterms exams, he snuggled close to her and close
Dio and Kael went back to school after a few days of being on leave. It was so sudden and everyone was surprised to hear the news of the Armani Massacre and Mika’s death. Dio couldn’t even smile out of guilt. He couldn’t forget how he promised to go home early just to end up being late and not being able to save her.It was the afternoon lunch break and Dio chose to hide at the back of the building under the shade of the tree. He still couldn’t get over his sister’s death.How could he? All he did ever since he met her was to make her worried about him! Mika gave him a warm welcome, she made him feel that he belonged in the family and treated him as a precious little brother.He hadn’t done anything for her yet. He still had a lot more things to do with her. There were more memories to be shared, but it was too late. He couldn’t make her happy after all the love he received from her.Dio buried his face on his kne
“Our master’s prediction was right. He really came.” A girl wearing black revealing clothes giggled as soon as he reached the second floor. “Hey, boy, do you want to play with me?” She even licked her lips after looking at him from head to toe.He smiled seductively and let the girl touch his chest before she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Was it okay to play with a boy like me?”He scoffed internally. How could she act so shameless right after they planned to kill his sister?The girl licked her lips and looked him in the eye. His eyes never left hers and soon enough, her lips touched his and he had no choice but to open his mouth so that her tongue could have her way.They were both panting when they finished the kiss. Dio smiled and whispered, “That’s one down for me.”The girl’s eyes widen as she held her neck. She was gasping and chasing her breath but the more she struggled
Blur entered the slums so Dio just followed him. The people living there eyed him suspiciously because of his bloodied academy uniform, but he chose to ignore them. Nothing was more important to him than the annihilation of the people who massacred his family. As long as those people wouldn’t stop him, he wouldn’t have anything to do with them.Blur entered a dark alley and Dio moved to follow him. However, a voice of an old man was heard before he could enter the alley.“What’s the business of a young man in there?”Dio stopped in his tracks and looked at the old man who was hiding in the shadows. He smiled innocently but there was a hint of danger in his eyes. “Someone indebted to me is in there so I came to collect the payment.”“Take care. That place is dangerous.”Dio nodded and continued to walk inside. He found Blur waiting for him a few meters away and as soon as their eyes met, Blur con