Death, Devotion, Dissonance

With those words, Evin turned his back and started walking out of the room. The five started screaming at him to come back, but Evin was already bored of their antics. The assholes long had it coming for them, anyway. But on his way out, he randomly glanced at the rat that bit his face and felt a sudden pang of pain pulsating from his cheeks. As he carefully massaged the wound, he realized something.

<You let that rat bite me, didn't you?>

<Nope,> a reply came, though Evin notice hear that its tone of voice was filled with glee.

<You did, you fucker!> Evin raged in his head.

"Hey, you change your mind?" Kolin interrupted him from behind. "I'm sorry I acted rudely towards you, just, please… get us out. We won't tell anyone about you."

Evin spat out a curse and walked up the stairs and slammed the iron door behind him. Thankfully, there wasn't anyone trying to ambush him this time, so he could properly focus on his own matters now.

<You probably could've killed that rat the moment it fell down the hole, right?> he asked again. <After all, you instantly took control over my body when you realized we were being ambushed, so you should've been able to do the same with the rat. But no. You wanted to see me struggle against a rat. You wanted me to hurt.>

<Wrong again. I was just more careful when we were ascending those stairs, so I could react instantly,> the Voice replied calmly. <In fact, I'm more surprised at how you were able to stay so unperturbed after what that rat did to you. Stop being childish. Now if you just wanna argue with someone, you can go back to Kolin again. Personally, I'm more interested in what's behind that door.>

Saying those words, the Voice stopped imposing its mind over his. Oddly, Evin felt calmer without its effects than with it. That eerily murderous mood was also gone from his head. Due to that, he immediately regretted how he dealt with Kolin's group. Maybe locking them up with a bunch of rat carcasses was a bad idea. Sure, he knew they would be safe, because at the end of the day, the teachers should save them before anything unsavory happens.

But it wasn't like Evin was never going to meet with the five ever again. He would still attend the same school, and they were definitely going to talk about how Evin treated them. On top of that, he did all this while the teachers were watching. Surely, this incident was going to affect whether he was going to be picked as Helm or not. A bad feeling came over his heart…

'And why did the Voice's mind feel so murderous when he was sharing it with me?'

But before Evin could think about it, the Voice urged him once more.

<You gonna stand there all day?>

'My cheek hurts like hell, so I should take whatever's behind that door and leave before anyone else comes. Then I'll visit the infirmary or something.'

But if there were enemies behind the door, Evin would still need to rely on the Voice to deal with them.

<Do you want me to switch to Seyethe's energy?>

<Sure,> the Voice replied warmly, acting as if the previous disagreement never happened.

Evin got out of the ketricite room and absorbed three lodestones' worth of Air energy. He then brought out the key from his bag and opened the locked door. He was met with another non-ketricite corridor, which only led to another door at the end of it. Evin walked over and opened it. Honestly, he half-expected another fight to occur inside so when he saw two tier-2 rats waiting for him, he wasn't that surprised. He wasn't very scared either, as the Voice already had its accelerator at the ready.

The Voice instantly killed one of them with its usual tactic, but when it shot an air bullet towards the other one's eyes, unexpectedly, it wasn't able to penetrate it. The air bullet deflected off its eyes, making a clinking sound, and the tier-2 rat angrily hissed at Evin.

It became evident that this rat had become a tier-2 by strengthening its own eyes and feet, rare as it was. Rats weren't really the type to use their eyes, relying more on their other four senses to get by. The most common strengthening objects for rats were their fangs, their feet and their fur.

<Buy some time,> the Voice said and immediately began working on blades of Hard Air.

Evin dodged to his side, making sure to keep his eyes on the enemy at all times. The rat immediately changed its course and ran at him once again. Evin managed to land a kick on its side, but he still desperately wished he'd kept one of the sticks that Kolin's group was holding.

As he was preparing for the next attack, the Voice finished casting and Evin felt three invisible blades materializing in the air. Immediately, they started hacking at the rat and a few seconds later, it fell dead on the ground.

Evin sighed at the victory and took a proper look around the room. Aside from the dead rats, Evin only saw another door in the room.

'Is it another series of rooms? By the Empress's mercy, when will this maze end?' Evin thought annoyedly and opened the door.

But contrary to all his expectations, he saw a child inside the room. The child was wearing a white, cotton dress, so Evin could tell that it was a 'she'. But the more interesting thing was that she was bald and dark-skinned; with large, golden eyes, indicating her origin as an Easterner. Evin never saw an Easterner before, so this random encounter shocked him more than it should have.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" he muttered.

Evin slowly remembered the contents of his social studies class and skimmed through them for information of the Easterners. The first thing he remembered, was of course, their skin color. Unlike the pale skinned Westerners and Northerners, the Easterners all had dark skins. It wasn't obsidian-black, like the skins of the Colossi, but had a more brownish hue to them.

Most of the Easterners were mostly rice farmers, who utilized the abundant waters and the green lushes around the various oases to plant rice and other plants that required lots of water.

But aside from the rice farmers, the easterners were also quite famous for the merchant caravans. Aside from the Tower City in which the Empress resided, they were the only country in the World which had friendly relations with the Southern Islands.

Only through the eastern merchants could the rest of the world enjoy the various goods and wares that the South exclusively produced. But those wares were quite rare in the Western Kingdom, considering the fact that they were at war with the South now, and also because the kingdom didn't share any borders with the East. They could trade with country through Tower City, but the extra border tariffs and taxes weren't really encouraging for the two countries to try hard enough to make this work.

Noticing that his mind was wandering, Evin focused his attention on the girl. The latter didn't seem to mind Evin's paused stare that much, but she did seem to be thinking of something.

'Now that I think about it, where is this Island anyway if there are easterners on it??' Evin suddenly thought.

"W-welcome, conqueror of the tunnels… I thank you for finding the key to this room and saving me," the girl said in stiff imperial, seemingly reciting something she had to memorize beforehand.

Evin pushed down the urge to smile at the girl's act and asked, "I could've never guessed that I'd find another person behind these doors. Who are you?"

"I'm the, um, the daughter of the Ruler. I was caught by the… nefarious people and locked up in this place. If you could bring me back to my father, our island will be eternally grateful to you."

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