Horizon's Edge

by TurtleMe

  “Rest assured, the student is not the type to let this information out so easily. I will be sure to make it of utmost importance that he keeps the information he has a secret.” I answered back at the Council who were all waiting for me to respond.

  After I was escorted out, Lady Eralith followed along and pulled me aside, away from everyone’s view. “Director Cynthia. How’s my Tessia? I’ve yet to hear back from Father-in-law,” her voice quaked with concern.

  I shook my head. “I was not updated with the situation either. However, Tessia has both Arthur and Virion looking after her. She should be okay, Merial.”

  “Mm, I hope so. I’ve barely been able to focus on everything going on because of Tessia’s condition. Let me know as soon as you’re updated. This way, at least Alduin and I will have the peace of mind to focus on this mess,” she says while handing me a sound transmission scroll.

  Sound transmission devices were exceedingly costly so most did not have access to one, but the Council always had these in stock to send and receive information quickly.

  “I’ll be sure to tell you as soon as I find out.” I give her a reassuring smile before letting her go back to the meeting hall.

  _________________________________________________________________

  Five silhouettes could be seen waiting in the dimly lit chamber on the bottom-most floor. Although the shadows covered the fives’ faces, their voices could be clearly heard.

  “Heh… So Alea died already?” a well-built man leaning against the back wall with his arms crossed scoffed.

  “Bairon… watch your tone,” an authoritative, icy voice rang from a proportioned slender figure sitting with one leg over the other.

  “It can’t be helped that I’m irritated; her dying so pathetically is trampling on the Lances’ name,” the man replied.

  “Umu… Poor Alea. Mica feels bad for her,” a sweet voice chimed from a figure whose body resembles that of a child.

  “Aww~ I’ll miss sharing cream puffs with Alea...” sighed a woman, whose seductive figure could not be hidden by the shadows.

  “Bah! If she died, that just means that was her fate. It was her fate by the deities since she wasn’t beautiful,” a muscular figure shook his head in disappointment while stretching.

  “Old man Olfred, Mica really doesn’t get your sense of beauty, Hmph!” the child-like figure pouted back.

  “Well I can tell you with certainty that you are indeed the ugliest.”

  “Urk! OLFRED YOU MEANIE!”

  “Now now, don’t pick on our cute Mica~. How can you say that she’s ugly when she has a face cute enough to eat?”

  “ERRMPH! Aya, your lumps of –Mmmmph–fat are choking Mica!”

  “Stop acting like hyperactive children! As the strongest in this country, this shouldn’t phase us!”

  “Oh my~ Bairon’s cranky again today. Even though you’re just a Bairon~”

  “Tch… says the cow that has no sense of time, getting here the latest.”

  “Enough. What did the Council say our next course of action was?”

  “Bah! Those ugly old farts are still discussing what’s going to happen in there. They can’t compare to my dear King, Dawson Greysunders! Now he is a true beauty.”

  “Eww… Mica likes strong pretty boys. King Greysunders is more like an old uncle to Mica.”

  “Why you ugly midget of a… How dare you insult our most noble king! He is the one that blessed us with our powers! King Greysunders, like myself, does not age! We merely ripen like a fine wine. The Goddess of Beauty has blessed us after all.”

  He thinks he’s so tough and special when Mica knows he’s not even the strongest.”

  “What the hell did you say? Do you think that I, Bairon Wykes, next head of the Wykes Family, and a Lance personally chosen by King Glayder will stand for—”

  “Everyone~ let’s all get along. Let’s not make this older sister get mad, hehe.”

  ““…””

  “Sorry…”

  “Tch…”

  Chapter 78: Meanwhile

  ARTHUR LEYWIN’S POV:

  “Hey, Art. I thought we were heading back to your home; where’re we going?” Elijah looked at me after noticing we took a different turn on the way back to Helstea Manor.

  “There’s a place I need to stop by first. Don’t worry, it’ll be a quick detour,” I answered as I sped up with Sylvie on my head.

  “Ah! Wait up!”

  When we reached the destination, I couldn’t help but let out a disappointed breath, my shoulders dropping.

  “I thought so…” I mumbled to myself.

  “Xyrus Elixirs? Did you need to buy something from here? It’s almost midnight; of course it’s closed.” Elijah cupped his eyes over the front glass door, hoping to spot someone inside.

  “It’s nothing. Let’s head back home,” I let out a sigh. As I was about to turn away from the building, a shiny object caught in the crevice of the aged alley leading to “Xyrus Elixirs” caught my attention.

  As I kneeled down to retrieve it, my eyes narrowed. It was an orb similar to the one used on Tess, except, instead of rainbow speckles inside, there were golden flakes floating within. Attached to the small marble-sized orb was a crudely written note saying:

  “Your little Princess will probably need this”

  “What are you staring so intently at?” Elijah leaned over my shoulder to see.

  I crumpled up the piece of parchment and put the orb inside my dimension ring.

  “Let’s head back home first, Elijah. I’ll need to tell my family that I might have to miss a couple more days of school after. Go back to school tomorrow and tell everyone that I’m okay and safe,” I patted my best friend’s shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile in response to his concerned expression.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you about everything after I’m back.” With that, Elijah gave me an accepting nod back.

  ___________________________________________________________

  The day after~

  KATHYLN GLAYDER’S POV:

  After finding out what happened down at the dungeon from my brother, I was shocked. I almost wanted to blame him, to blame Professor Glory, to blame someone but I know it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Why do I always feel this way when it came to Arthur?

  Besides, he already had the Student Council President. Well, I’m not sure of that, but I just have a feeling that there was something going on.

  I shook my head. Why was I placing more importance on his love life than his actual life?

  Arthur is going to be okay, right? He’s just that type of person. No matter what situation arises, he always manages to come back with a nonchalant smile on his face that always calms me.

  I’m confident that he’ll be okay!

  I’m sure of it…

  “Ugh…”

  Surprised that I let out an audible groan, I quickly covered my mouth, hoping that no one heard something so disgraceful. After checking that I was alone, I exhaled a sharp breath of relief.

  It had been rather stressful these days being a disciplinary committee officer. I assumed things would stay quiet after the formation of the Disciplinary Committee - almost to the point of wondering if we were even needed - but recently some unforeseen circumstances have been brought to our attention.

  Claire Bladeheart, our leader, pulled each of us aside a few of days ago. While explaining the cause, she implied that Arthur was an undeniable factor that led to this.

  I wanted to rebut then, but I decided to hear her out. Claire had been secretly gathering information with Kai, who specializes in stealth. It seems that there was a radical group that was dissatisfied with the direction the Academy was heading towards recently.

  This group was made up of only humans, and from the few faces that Kai was able to catch a glimpse of, they were all from rather high up noble families.

  One particular noble that was spotted was named Charles Ravenpor. His father was on rather close ter
ms with mine, but strictly business. Father would always grumble in dissatisfaction after having a meeting with Mr. Ravenpor because of how ill-mannered and self-centered he was.

  While I was jealous for Claire’s unwavering confidence that Arthur was still alive, she was also relieved that Arthur wasn’t here at the moment because he was actually one of the main reasons this radical cult-like group started. There was a big faction from this group that thought Arthur did not belong in this Academy because of his humble background. The fact that he was a professor on top of having the privilege of taking upper division classes fueled the already built hatred that some of the envious royal students had.

  We weren’t allowed to confront them as of yet because of the lack of evidence, and the fact that they haven’t really done anything bad, but from the looks of it, there were even some professors of this Academy supporting them, making it all the more difficult to rashly make a move.

  It wasn’t until yesterday, however, that some of the radical group members started to act.

  It was one of my classmates, Denton. We had the same second period together under Arth—Professor Arthur. He was actually one of the students that strongly opposed Professor Arthur teaching a class that was so important in building foundations as this. However, he warmed up to him, rather he looked up to him now.

  Denton… was found battered and naked while hung upside down from one of the statues in our campus for all of the passing students to see.

  Director Goodsky was still away so her assistant, Tricia, and Professor Glory ended up pulling him down and making sure he was okay.

  After being questioned, it turned out he had been taken to one of the narrow alleys between the buildings in the back and beat up by the radical group. From what Claire told me, they wanted to “teach” him how to properly use mana, since they didn’t really think Arthur would be good enough to fulfill the “potential” that he had.

  My classmate ended up becoming a target dummy for various spells after resisting. After he finally passed out, they left him hung upside down, stripped naked, with a note covering his private part that he should drop out of the plebeian’s class if he didn’t want this to happen again.

  Since then, having no choice but to act on behalf of Director Goodsky, Tricia has been trying to quell the anger from various elven and dwarven parents who thought this had to do with racial discrimination since the victim was an elf.

  Needless to say, that student is taking a break from school for the time being.

  Why was this happening? What was the point of doing this? What good does dividing students like this do? Did these students have such a low self-esteem that they needed to bring down anyone that they thought was better than them to feel better about themselves? Why was it that the more power and privileges someone had, the greedier they became?

  Is it naive of me to wish for everyone to just work together for our continent?

  A dark and gloomy atmosphere clung to the Disciplinary Committee room since the accident with Arthur. Claire and my brother didn’t speak at first, the both of them blaming themselves.

  On top of that was the frustration of our actions being so restricted. Everyone was on high alert, as all of the DC upperclassmen were out for surveillance during the morning and afternoon while Feyrith and I took watch in the evening, with one of the upperclassmen helping us out instead of going to class.

  Kai tried to find out their meeting spots but as soon as he had a lead, those places would always change. It seemed that they would relocate for every meeting, sending each other some kind of code for the new location.

  The professors were useless. Most of them were all talk in front of the dissatisfied elven and dwarven parents, saying they’ll do their best to find the culprit, but not being able to take direct actions because the human parents were also dissatisfied due to their children being accused of racial discrimination.

  The professors were too tied in their little game of tug of war to be of much help. When they try to be on both sides, they end up being on neither.

  That was the problem with a school so heavily funded by the parents of the students. The only one that had the authority to oppose them directly and openly was Director Goodsky and she was nowhere to be seen.

  It seemed as if her disappearance had allowed this radical group to now openly make a disturbance… because she wasn’t here to stop them.

  I made it to the Disciplinary Committee room and walked up the stairs listening to Claire; the seat where Arthur usually sat, empty

  “Things are escalating faster than we thought. I had a feeling that this was the case - the group is trying to create as much of an uproar before Director Goodsky gets back and then go into hiding temporarily after,” Claire announced while leaning forward with her arms on the table. The dark bags underneath her eyes told me she hasn’t rested since getting back.

  I took a seat after everyone acknowledged my presence with a nod, too frustrated to verbally greet me.

  “I talked to multiple professors about the situation like you asked, but it seems you were right. None of them were willing to actively help in finding the crux of the problem. They’re turning a blind eye to all of this because of our ‘lack of evidence’,” my brother reported through gritted teeth, running his fingers through his hair.

  “We already know who one of the members of the groups are so why not just take that twerp and interrogate him? I doubt he has the balls to last even a couple of minutes before spilling out some secrets,” grunted Doradrea while leaning back on her chair.

  “Already tried that but Charles Ravenpor is never by himself these days; he’s always surrounded by at least 5 lackeys. It’ll be impossible to take action secretly with them there. Besides, we need to think about our actions from the entire academy’s perspective. No matter how many things we could get away with, it wouldn’t look good if a student was just taken in by us without proper reason,” Kai solemnly shook his head.

  *Thud*

  “What the hell is the point of having something like the Disciplinary Committee if we can’t do anything in cases like this?” Theodore pounded his fist on the table, tipping over a cup of water.

  “It can’t be helped. We know too little about what this group is planning on doing and more importantly, what they’re capable of. We have too little information on them and it doesn’t seem like there’s only a few of them,” Claire sighed as she sat back down.

  “…We need to wait for Director Goodsky to come back,” I said.

  “Of course that would be the best thing to do, but we have no idea where she is let alone when she’ll come back,” our leader responded.

  “If only Arthur was here…” I mumbled aloud.

  My brother’s expression turned crestfallen when I mentioned him. They were both there and they were trying to stay strong. After getting the students back to the hospital, my brother told me that Professor Glory was planning on going back down with a reconnaissance team to look for Arthur. She said that there’s a high probability that he’s still alive if he survived the fall because most likely, all of the mana beasts in the dungeon were on the first floor.

  “Kat...I’m sorry but we just can’t factor in Arthur as an element.” My brother tried his best in giving me a sympathetic smile.

  “…He’ll come soon.” I must’ve said this aloud by mistake because everyone, even Theodore, gave me a pained look.

  “...”

  “Umm, excuse me?”

  Every one of the Disciplinary Committee members, including myself, whipped our heads at the unexpected voice coming from the first floor of the room.

  It was Arthur’s best friend, Elijah.

  “Ah, you’re Arthur’s close friend, correct?” Claire, who had a pained expression on her face, motioned him upstairs.

  “Yes, I’m sorry for intruding. I got to school a bit later than I expected but it’s great that you guys are all here. Listen, I know you guys are worried about Ar—”

  *BOOOOO
OOM!! * *BOOOOOOOM!!! *

  Chapter 79: Meanwhile II

  ELIJAH KNIGHT’S POV:

  Holy crap…

  What the hell was going on? All I did was miss half a day of school; suddenly Denton gets hung up, butt-naked, and now a building was on fire?

  We had all just rushed out of the Disciplinary Committee room after hearing the explosion. I thought that it was a spell gone wrong or something of that nature.

  This… this looked more like a purposeful act of terrorism. Who would do this? Why would someone do this? What is going on?

  “Fuck! it’s them again,” I overheard Theodore say as if he predicted this.

  The ‘them’ that Theodore was talking about, was he possibly referring to the same people that beat and humiliated Denton?

  KATHYLN GLAYDER’S POV:

  I remember one time being lectured as a child by my home instructor. I have little memory of why I was chastised, but from what I was told, I had refused to participate in class with some of the other nobles’ children; apparently, my mother had thought it was a good idea for me to make friends while I was learning.

  That hadn’t work out as smoothly as she had hoped it would because I had ended up throwing a tantrum on the first day saying that I didn’t want to make friends with them because they weren’t princesses like me.

  Ignoring the kindly knitted words of discipline from the home instructor, I had barged into my room and slammed the door shut, refusing to come out.

  Later that afternoon, after the other noble children and home instructor had left, my mother knocked on the door even though there was no lock.

  She sat down next to me on my bed and ran her fingers gently through my hair; even though I couldn’t remember how I responded, what she had said to me left such a lasting impression that, even as a six-year-old, I can still almost recall her exact words:

  “My little Kathlyn, I know you think you did nothing wrong; everyone gets angry and fights for what they believe in. What I want you to know, my little baby, is that before you are a princess, you are a person. It doesn’t matter if it’s a king, a servant, a powerful mage, an elf or a dwarf. A person is a person.