Death, Devotion, Dissonance

Evin was surprised at the mention of his name and was most of all worried. Publicly being called out like this never went well for him, and as a force of habit, Evin couldn't help but wonder if this was the Chairman's doing.

His gaze on the Cosmic turned deeper as he tried to glimpse whatever emotion she might be feeling inside. The Cosmic looked mostly like a large white cat, with random patches of black and orange mixed in her fur. One notable feature of hers was that her face was mostly covered in white fur, except for a black streak trailing down from the bottom left of her left eye, which made it look as if she had a teardrop running from her eye.

Evin wondered if Cosmic Felines could deliberately change the colors of their furs, but decided against it, reasoning that they wouldn't look so random if that was the case.

But aside from her weirdly melancholic fur pattern, the Cosmic looked quite professional. She was wearing a servant's suit like the rest of the Cosmics, and she wore two small earrings of gold on one of her ears.

But the way she behaved alarmed Evin a lot. The way she searched through the crowd suggested that she knew how Evin looked, which made him silently put himself behind Leanne. The Cosmic was also acting quite prideful since she came here. She never bothered to spare another glance at the rest of the confused Cosmics, and she would look at the crowd with a weird mix of politeness and pridefulness.

"No? No Evin here?" the Cosmic asked again, searching through the crowd with inquisitive eyes.

"Evin?" Leanne asked as she leaned slightly closer to him.

But this small gesture of her couldn't escape the Cosmic's eyes, as she quickly flew over to Evin and Leanne's head, "You must be Evin?"

"Yes," Evin blurted out, despite himself.

"Good, good. Very good," The Cosmic said, but Evin felt worse and worse. "Please follow me through the portal. Although it costs pebbles to maintain now that it's already made, but pebbles still cost money. Hurry."

At this point, Leanne intervened from the side, demanding explanations from the Cosmic, "What is this all about? You can really expect him to follow you through a portal without a single word of explanation, right?"

The Cosmic faced Leanne's glare for a second before relenting, "Of course. That was quite rude of me. But something tells me that you wouldn't want my explanation to be public…" she said, stealing a few glances towards the ten other Cosmics who were staring towards the three. "Can you put a Silencing Veil of some sorts around us?"

Leanne took the hint and did as the Cosmic asked. Leanne held out her hand and whispered her Chant. A surge of visible Hard Air emerged from her palm and turned into a cocoon that enveloped the three. The surrounding noise died out completely, leaving only silence inside the space. Evin looked around himself and found only blurry figures and judged that he too must look like that from the outside.

"Thank you," the Cosmic curtsied a formal bow and started explaining, "I don't intend to do anything sinister to Evin here. I was only searching for the best Imagination Caster among the students."

Understanding flashed by Evin's mind and he resolved himself for whatever trial that would be put in front of him, 'So it is the Chairman's doing.'

"Why?" Leanne asked.

The Cosmic hummed in a quizzical, yet almost delighted way, before speaking, "The shortest answer would be politics, I suppose. Do you want to hear further?"

The answer made sense, but it also didn't in Evin's ears. The Chairman's interest in Evin stemmed from politics, but was he so powerful to pull even the Cosmics to his cause?

"Please tell," Leanne said, looking at Evin with heavy eyes. "If you can, try to shorten the story as much as possible."

"Well, King Seth Arcwall made a deal with the Cosmics. For reasons unknown to us, he now believes that the humans have the talent to learn the World of Space, Therae. They always have been the race who was the most diverse in their use of the Worlds of magic, and as you probably know, it was the prime reason they stand at the top of the world. From this year on, the Cosmics shall teach the most promising Imagination Casters of your Academy first-years the mechanisms and technicalities of the World."

These words immediately changed Evin's outlook on the situation. If he wasn't wrong, he could become a king's mage if he followed this training. Seth Arcwall, the person who allowed Evin this chance to become a mage, son of the most respected king in the history of the Kingdom, apart from the founding king Judeus Arcwall.

"Why can't they teach the High-mages and the other talented graduates?" Leanne asked before Evin could agree.

"They're too old. In fact, we were opposed to even teach the Nobles first years, considering how they practice magic years before they come to the Academies… but luckily, one of the nobles mentioned Evin. Bellaslayn Borna was her name. Told us that there's a commoner who absorbed his first World Shard two months ago, but was a better Imagination Caster than all the first years there," The Cosmic said, glancing at Evin.

"Why can't you teach the newborn noble children then?" Leanne asked, but something about her tone seemed to irk the Cosmic.

"Why are you so opposed to having us teach this boy in the first place?" the Cosmic pointed out. "We've already finished the deal with the King. He has paid the proper amounts for the education of the students and we, as proud and trustworthy members of the Elmes Group, shall do our utmost best to uphold our end of the deal. Nothing more, nothing less."

"I will take the training," Evin said with unparalleled confidence.

He looked towards Leanne and gave her an assuring nod. She looked back with an expression of worry, but relented and sent back a small nod.

"I'll follow Evin as his guardian, if that's okay," she said to the Cosmic.

"Of course," the Cosmic shrugged. If she saw the wordless exchange between the two humans, she didn't bother to make a comment on it.

Leanne dispelled her cocoon, and under the curious eyes of the other students and the ten Cosmics, made herself and Evin float with the World of Weight, Qanatohm, and the World of Air, Seyethe. Without giving Evin the time to enjoy the feeling of flight and the anticipation of traveling through a space itself, she followed the Cosmic into the portal. But just as he made contact the weird wavy layer inside the golden circle, he went unconscious.

Evin didn't know what happened to him exactly, but his mind came back to him, right when he was vomiting his lunch on the ground. He saw bits and pieces of chewed bread, which was colored in the pink of the sweet wine. They definitely didn't smell the same as how they did when Evin ate and drank them previously, forcing him to gag again.

Disoriented and confused, he tried to look around his surroundings, but evidently, he was too dizzy to even command his body.

"Are you awake?" the female Cosmic was asking from his side. She then put a cup of water in front of him and Evin could see a tattered yellow leaf in it, "Here, drink this. It'll help with your dizziness."

Evin tried to say he couldn't move his body, but thankfully, Leanne picked the cup up and helped him drink. Evin probably should've been prepared for something to happen by consuming these weird, yellow leaves, but nothing in his life could've prepared him for the unthinkable bitterness of the drink.

Evin immediately spat out the drink, his face scrunching up from the unpleasant experience that befell upon him. Evin then gathered up the remaining saliva in his mouth and effortfully spat towards the ground once more, not knowing where he drew the strength to do these feats.

"Are you feeling better?" the Cosmic asked from the side, and Evin could also hear the Voice's outrage that came from inside his head, <Stop drinking random shit like that!>

"I am…" Evin replied to the Cosmic and had Leanne help him to his feet.

He looked around and found himself standing in the courtyard of a manor of some sorts, with a few people dressed as servants running towards him. They noticed Evin and Leanne and the puddle of vomit on the ground and scrunched their brows in a distasteful manner.

"Lady Cosmic, what's going on here?" one of the servants asked, trying his best to hide the outrage he was feeling inside.

"Sorry, I had to bring these two through a portal, and the kid wasn't accustomed to it. Sorry for the mess," the Cosmic shrugged and then asked the servants to clean up the vomit. "We'll have to head to where Countess Carew is waiting. She's expecting us."

'Countess Carew?' Evin thought in his head with shock, realizing he was at Decatur's house.

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