Elias walked into the cafeteria, feeling a little irritated at the rush of voices as teenagers dined and talked over meals while humanoid constructs moved and served between tables.
Walking to a table himself, Elias sat on one of the chairs, looking lazily at the tablet device in front of him.
It contained the menu.
[Place your order:
Main Dish:
Chicken Marengo
Seafood Paella
Truffle Mushroom Risotto
Stuffed...
Side Dish:
Mashed Potatoes
French Fri....]
He grinned, selecting his preference. He had close to no idea what most of the main dishes were all about and had never heard about them until now, but he was sure they would taste great.
Why, you ask?
Because it's all free!
He leaned back against his chair, looking at the girl sitting at his side, currently holding a selfie stick and talking into her phone.
Doing some kind of blog.
"Hello, Cherries!"
She raised a perfume bottle to the screen.
"I bought this perfume today because the bottle was pretty. And it's kind of regrettable because–"
She stuck out her tongue.
"Blegh! It smells like fish oil mixed with sour grapes, a very, very horrendous stench that isn't fabulous at all! However–"
She brought the bottle even closer to the screen, almost as if she wanted to shove it in the face of whoever was watching.
"Look at it. Look at it reaaallly closely. You have to admit it looks fabulous, right, RIGHT?"
Elias looked at the bottle skeptically. Its glassy surface was colored brown and couldn't have been any more plain.
He leaned his head against his knuckles, muttering quietly to himself. "Is she okay by any chance?"
The irritating sound made when sipping loudly with a straw made him turn his face to the last person at the table.
It was a boy with silver hair falling roughly down his shoulders, a wistful look on his face as he kept drinking his juice loudly.
Elias had had enough.
"Can you both keep it quiet!"
They both turned to look at him with varying expressions on their faces.
The girl pouted, flinging her hair at him.
"It's a not-fabulous person, Cherries. Ignore him! Ignore him!"
The guy threw himself right at his knees, clutching his leg while sobbing like a child who had his candy stolen.
"Belle broke up with me! After I bought her cookies and took her to the movies and–"
His nose turned runny, Elias already feeling exasperated when he felt his trembling hands tighten around his leg.
"Never trust women and learn from my mistakes, brother. A monk! Becoming a monk is the only way!"
Elias slapped his hand over his head, wincing under his breath.
"Should have just shut my stupid mouth. Dammit."
***
Moments later, a semblance of order had returned to the table.
Elias picked at his food, watching the humanoid construct that had served him walk mechanically to the kitchen at the end of the large hall, probably to get the dishes for the next order.
Sighing from pleasure when the warmth of the chicken melted against his tongue, Elias turned to the silver-haired boy who was now eating his own meal with poise and elegance, none of the earlier playfulness present in his expression.
His eyes seemed to be glinting with something rather close to amusement.
Elias raised his fork at him, pointing lazily.
"So let me get this straight, you live in the room a few doors away from mine at the D Wing, and we are supposed to be neighbors?"
The boy chuckled, extending his hand for a handshake. "Actually, I first saw you when you arrived along with Syndicate Valerie and your little sister. Wanted to say hi, but uhh... I am a little scared of crowds?"
He shook his head.
"I believe that I haven't introduced myself properly. I am Dorian Aragus, it's a pleasure to you–"
"Wait a minute," Elias cut in, leaning his head leisurely against his knuckles. Now this was getting interesting.
"You are an Aragus?"
That name brought a lot of things to mind, stuff that they were taught when learning history back in school.
After Earth was hit by the apocalypse, certain awakeners had been at the forefront of humanity, stopping the advance of Echoforms into human territories and braving the dire peril of Mirrorths while the rest of the world was still shivering in terror of the unknown.
These awakeners were known as the oldest heroes.
Among them, Aragus was the most insane.
But to be fair, almost everyone that had taken that title actually had one or two screws loose. After all, it took a certain kind of madness to fight those vile monsters while the rest of humanity was still reeling from the calamitous invasion that had swallowed the world.
Yet... Aragus was the craziest of them all. Or at least, one of the craziest.
People that saw him usually described him as an eccentric man, and those who witnessed him battle claimed that his teeth tore through the flesh of Echoforms more times than his sword cleaved through them.
Yet he had still fallen about two hundred years ago, when a...
Elias shivered slightly.
...Purple Graded Mirrorth made its first appearance in Central Europe, along the borders of former Germany and Poland.
Elias didn't know the gist of how he had died, yet the oldest heroes, both those still alive and long dead, were given the title of dukes with innumerable resources to their name, lording over territories they had once protected in the past.
Aragus was one of the nine Duke families, lording over a dozen cities that made up the region of Central Europe.
Elias turned back to Dorian, looking at the silver-haired boy skeptically.
So how does it make sense that a direct descendant of a Duke House had ended up in the D Wing? Was this guy pulling his leg?
Oh wait, he did pull his leg. Ugh! They are not the same thing, dammit!
The sound of a giggle made him turn to the girl, who had long dropped her phone and was now eating leisurely, her legs crossed.
Her dazzling blue eyes seemed to guess exactly what was running through his mind.
"Hey, it's exactly what you are thinking. This haughty guy is the weakest Aragus to ever exist on the planet. But the idiot would rather die than admit it's true."
Dorian turned to her, his head raised slightly upwards.
"That's because it isn't, Cherry Plum!"
"Ugh! Don't call me that!"
"Or what?"
"Or I will kill you!"
He pouted, turning his face away from her without speaking a word.
Elias raised an eyebrow at the banter, half amused.
The blogger was named Cherry, and obviously, she and Dorian seemed to be really close friends. Yet with the way Dorian was so obedient, Elias couldn't help but feel he was secretly terrified of his bestie.
Elias couldn't help but ask, his voice curious.
"What's your awakened ability?"
Dorian's lips curled, his face smug. "As long as my resonance strings are active, I tend to get extremely lucky."
Cherry clicked her tongue, biting into her fries.
"Must be some luck that only works when you flip coins, and most of your predictions are incorrect like... more than half the time!"
He shook his head like she had uttered something blasphemous.
"These coins are an inaccurate measure of my capabilities, okay. It works better on actual people!"
"Shameless liar. That's not fabulous at all!"
"Not shameless, but handsome. Say it after me, HANDSOME."
"Shut up!"
"You guys should quiet down," Elias cut in, feeling a little exasperated now.
They both turned towards him, wagging their forefingers at each other.
"She started it first!"
"He started it first!"
Elias slapped his hand over his forehead.
'Who knows how long they will banter if I don't interrupt them.'
While he would rather take advantage of this to entertain himself on any other occasion, he still felt like there was a lot about the Concordia Labs and the candidates that he had yet to learn and would only feel comfortable when he did so.
For example, why were the Concordia Labs training candidates, and exactly why did Families of noble origin send their children over here to train?
Was it to make them learn how to forge artifacts, or to ultimately enable them to join the Skyward Faction before the Entry trials to the academy began?