A Sinner’s Chance

The Elven man kept his head touching the floor as he began to speak. "I am Kavir Soluna, chief of the Yin-Yang Clan, on behalf of my daughter and the entire Yin-Yang Clan. I sincerely apologize for the egregious wrong we have committed against you. I am prepared to offer reparations for the pain and suffering the secret of our clan has caused, however we have a good reason to keep such a secret."

I knew he was referring to the Unworthy Burning Yang curse, but I couldn't understand why he wouldn't talk about nor mention it. It was possible that even learning about Arya's Sacred Yang Body would trigger a similar curse and while I felt that would make a too coinvent excuse I wasn't about to risk the lives of my family over it. While I would be fine since I had both my Flames of Yin and the Yin from Yang Skill, neither of those could be applied to others. "I understand the position you are in, and I'll leave it to my father to decide what kind of reparations you should provide, but I want to know why no measures were taken against such an incident?" I asked, refusing to believe that they had simply relied on every Elven student never changing their schedules to allow Arya to attend.

"There are measures in place though for some reason they were not triggered by you. Our clan helped build the Elvish dorms so that we could install those countermeasures. There are three wards in place in order to prevent any incident. The first is an alarm, letting those with my daughter's condition know of anyone getting close to the bathing area. The second is an illusion meant to subtly dissuade people from taking a bath while she was, while the third should turn her invisible should someone enter the bathing area. There are few reasons why the wards wouldn't trigger, and I believe the reason none of the wards functioned was because of the restriction placed to keep their mana cost down. Either you are a Dragon, a Forsaken, or you don't descend from a sentient race."

The whole time he explained he kept his head down, which was probably a good thing since both Marian and the headmaster were glaring at him with daggers in their eyes. If the restriction he spoke of was true then it made perfect sense while I hadn't triggered any of the wards and I could understand why she decided it was better to put a quick end to my misery since she thought it must have been too late for me anyway.

While I didn't really take his words as truth, I didn't really want to pry into the secrets of his clan or get involved in their affairs since it seemed that he wanted something from me, I only had one condition that I wanted fulfilled. "You are correct in the assumption that I don't descend from the sentient races, so I'll say that this was just an unfortunate accident. That said, I would be grateful if you could include some study material on Yin related subjects for me in the reparations."

Kavir lifted his head and looked at me with a look of both gratitude and glee, as if what I had asked him was exactly what he was hoping to hear, before lowering his head once more. "I am thankful for you lenience and will do my utmost to arrange your request."

Despite the fact that the incident was resolved and both my father and Kavir seemed to be happy with the result, for some reason I had a headache, as if there was some important piece of information that I was missing.

My fears appeared unfounded as my life essentially went back to normal. After a week or so of testing and questioning both Arya and I were released. Since the incident had been kept as quiet as possible almost nothing had changed in my life. The few differences were rather minor, the first being that I now had some scrolls related to the matter of Yin, along with techniques for what the Elves considered training. It was rather complex and I was having trouble getting the hang of it. It was similar to mana control, but the Elves called it cultivation, a means of balancing one's physical, mental, and spiritual self to enhance yourself. The largest problem was that I had no information on even the basics of Elven culture so many of the words and rituals evaded my understanding, it was frustrating to say the least.

The second difference was that I was now known throughout the school, mostly due to the headmaster granting me free stay in one of the highest ranked rooms. Rather than a room I felt it was more appropriate to call it a home, or an apartment at worst. Besides a bedroom, there was a training room, a meditation room, a personal kitchen, bathroom, and even a detached hot spring. Even better was that I could have a single personal servant if I wished, this of course meant that Reine and I got to spend much more quality time together.

I had wondered why Arya hadn't gotten a room like this until I learned how expensive it was. It took nearly half a million merits to rent one for a year, and there were cheaper shared options that were just as good so most of the personal rooms were actually unoccupied. Since Arya was posing as a regular student it only made sense that she couldn't afford to spend that much just to keep a secret safe, especially when extensive work had gone into the communal dorm to protect that secret anyway. 

The fact that I now had a personal room meant that I wouldn't see Arya unless I bumped into her, but that was unlikely because as far as I was aware, we shared no classes and while I was still near the Elvish dorm our schedules were different and while I thought of seeking her out for help with the Yin scrolls, I had ultimately decided it would be better if I didn't see her.

At least that was what I thought until she showed up on my doorstep with a bag full of luggage.

Poll Info

These are the next three arcs I have planned and I'm interested in the general public's opinion for which should be first. This will not effect what comes next, as that is a privilege reserved for Patreons. I am however very interested to see what you all think.