House of Amarin

By the following day, Lia was already on her way, leaving alone, piloting a small, flying ship by herself for the first time. It was surprisingly easy to do, and she enjoyed being in complete control. Her small vessel was fast and nimble and changed its course at the slightest turn of the helm. Looking down from it, she could see the snow-covered landscape; luckily, it was a calm morning. The sun shone through the holes in the clouds above her, painting a beautiful image while traveling toward the north.

"Winter is nice…." She murmured, watching the changing scenery, but soon her thoughts traveled to what she had learned about Olivia and her family's past.

The previous night, she requested all the available information on it from the System, and to her surprise, she was given access to everything because of her family's name. Reading through it from her bracelet, she was surprised to learn that the Horth family had their own Sub-Realm and that they were experimenting on the Undead. It listed everything; how their experiment grew, from simple research, keeping a few Undead around to having hundreds of them, kidnapping people, and turning them into one.

"Were they… manipulated?" She asked out quietly, bringing up the images again, looking at them from behind the ship's helm.

She saw records of dozens of dead bodies, from young, barely ten, to old people, clearly simple mortals, without any magic. They were taken from who knows where and killed, and they waited to see which of them would rise back up. Sometimes they experimented with what kind of damage prevents someone from becoming undead. Those experiments required hundreds of souls just to produce a few Undead as it seemed utterly random why they turned.

"Is it really random?" Lia murmured, furrowing her brows, bringing up the details of their experiments, never questioning why the System had such detailed access to it in the first place. “I feel… that it isn’t…” She bit her lips, flipping through the thousands of pages worth of data. "The fact that anyone from the Six Houses is guaranteed to turn into an Undead upon death is already a clue. Why do we return as Undead for sure, and why do others come back seemingly randomly? There has to be a connection! Something that we missed…."

As she was thinking, reading, and checking the data, was when something caught her mismatched eyes. Returning to the start, she studied the number of successful experiments of theirs in creating Undead. At first, their success rate was abysmal. From a hundred 'specimens,' only five turned. As the years went by, the rate at which they produced them started increasing. They never let an Undead kill someone as it was a guaranteed turn. They always did it by themselves, recording the process in gruesome detail.

"The year before Mom and the others cracked down on them…." Lia whispered, amazed at what she saw, "They were turning 90% of people into Undead. And it had a sharp jump…." She flipped backward, reaching the seventh year since they started their experiments. It went from turning a handful of people to Undead to almost changing half of their daily quota. A change that happened in one. Simple. Day. "It is as if someone… something noticed what they were doing… from then on they managed to turn more and more, every year… Was it the method they used?"

Looking it up, she quickly threw that idea out. Even when they changed methods, they still turned them. They turned no matter if they were killed by magic, simple weapons, or poison. Even worse, they managed to produce intelligent variants. That was the tipping point when they no longer used criminals and bandits and went on buying slaves from the black markets to kidnapping people. It started spiraling into pure madness so fast that the Houses finally noticed what was happening. The fact that the Horth family was considered a longstanding, loyal subject, an ally of the House of Marduk, made it possible to act with much more freedom. But they took it to the extreme.

"Something happened here…" Lia murmured, watching the data laid out before her, especially the year when they went from making Undeads randomly to creating them in droves. "It was not a method, it wasn't magic, it wasn't that they found something out… it is as if… the Undead noticed them? Their experiment? No… that… can't be?"

She felt her thoughts become confused; she knew she had found something but didn't know what or what to look for. It was as if a thick fog was still hiding everything from her. It was starting to annoy her, but then her ship trembled, and she realized that she was nearing her destination and the wind was picking up, forcing her to focus her attention on driving the ship.

"What did Olivia think about her parents?" Lia asked herself as she descended, looking for a place to land, already seeing the sea of silver fir trees on the horizon. "I can't help but agree with the others!" She sighed softly, "They deserved what they got! Only if Olivia could see that too… but… I don't know how I would have felt in her place either!" She shook her head, knowing there would be no chance to ask her. Everything happened already, and nobody could change the past.

After finding a place to land and disembark, she decided to shake out the heavy thoughts from her head and concentrate on her current task. Hopping into the thick, immaculate, untouched snow, she abruptly sank to her waist in it.

"Ah… Oh…” She twitched her mouth, feeling the coldness quickly circulating through her mana, producing fire and melting it away around her. "Ah! That is no good!" She remembered Lucian's words, dispelling the fire, grumpily taking out thick winter clothing from her holding bag and dressing up. "I can't use fire, or maybe those flowers wilt away… this is so annoying!" She groaned loudly as she started to make her way toward the forest in waist-high snow, leaving a visible trace behind her.

…
….
……

By the time it was noon, Lia was deep in the forest, listening to the snow being crunched below her boots, echoing between the thick trunks of the trees.

"There is nothing in here… not even beasts!" She murmured, feeling that she was tricked by Lucian. He said there were territorial beasts in here, but she didn't even see one. Not even a squirrel or a bird. "Haaah… that silly fox played a prank on me!" She groaned, following the route her map was showing. If not for it, she would feel like being completely lost.

Just as she spoke out, the earth rumbled around her, and she heard trees falling in the distance as if something big just awoke and noticed her presence.

"Did… Did I jinx it?" Lia gulped, summoning her blue fires around her hands, looking towards the noise and listening to the wind, bringing a deep, sleepy male voice to her.

"Who comes to my forest?"

"Your forest? This is the Academy's!" Lia answered reflexively, but her mouth remained open as she saw a humongous head raised above the treeline. It was as big as a house, covered in silvery scales, dripping from snow and earth. Some trees were still growing out from its head, giving it a weird hairline. It was blinking its deep, blue eyes, refocusing them on Lia's minuscule figure, acting like someone waking up from a nap.

"It is my forest! Always has been!" It spoke, his voice making the ground shake while it shook its head, getting rid of the trees atop it.

"A dragon…" Lia gulped, amazed and also afraid of what she was seeing. "That silly fox really wants to kill me?!"

"Silly fox…" The dragon repeated, tasting the word, before chuckling, "That is true… why isn't he coming this time? This forest is off-limits to everyone else but the current Headmaster! So… get out of my forest!" The dragon chortled, opening his mouth, and to Lia's horror, she saw it gathering crimson fire, breathing it down on her without hesitation.

"Wait!" Lia screamed, but the fire had already enveloped her. To her surprise, it was not that powerful, and with her blue flame, she could battle it and erect an icy shield, diverting the flames away until it stopped its attack.

"Oh?" The dragon leaned forward, plunging Lia into darkness, obstructing the sunlight, "Your fire is weird smelling. You are kinda strong or something. Not bad, kiddo, not bad!" It laughed a little, watching the trembling Lia with glee, clearly enjoying how it managed to scare her. "Hmmm…" It sniffed multiple times, making Lia wobble, feeling the air being sucked away, almost lifting her up from the ground. "You smell familiar, kiddo."

"Probably the silly fox's smell! I will complain about this a lot! Just wait! Hmph! He sent me here!"

"He did? He didn't tell me…."

"Grrrr!" Lia was sure if Lucian was not hiccuping right now, she was going to come up with a spell that would make him do so and cast it on him every occasion they met. "I am here for the lilies! The ones that Somia Marduk managed to discover!"

"I guess." The dragon said, tilting its head, its body still buried underground like some kind of overgrown mole, "There is no other reason to come here. And if you know about it, it means he told you. Not even the teachers are notified that they are here. Okay, sure, who cares? Take them!"

"R-really?" Lia gulped.

"No."

"What?"

"What?"

"What?"

"What?"

"STOP!" Lia shouted, getting dizzy from the weird conversation, flaring up, literally, as she released a big blast of blue flames from her body.

"There it is again." The dragon leaned close again, and Lia could hear him climb out from the ground, shaking off the trees and earth covering its body. A moment later, she was standing in a clearing, facing a 50-meter-high dragon. It wiggled a little, stretching like a cat, standing on all fours, arching its back. As it was doing so, it unfolded its enormous wings, fluttering them, creating such strong winds it blew Lia away.

"STOOOOOOOOP!" She screamed, but it was not listening to her, and Lia could do nothing but hold onto the nearest tree with all her strength.

"Mhmm… that was a good nap! What year is it?" The dragon asked, lying down, folding its wings and its legs.

“Almost 4E339…” Lia answered, attempting to find her footing, gasping for air, trying to regain the strength in her arms that felt numb after holding onto the tree.

"Ah… Damn… I napped for 200 years? Again? I bet I missed a ton of things… argh…."

"Huh?"

"Huh?"

"DON'T START COPYING ME!" Lia shouted again, losing her temper, "If you know about that silly fox and all, you weren't even sleeping anyway!"

"I was napping! That is… not sleeping! It's resting! I can still know what is going on! Kinda! Interact when someone comes by without climbing out of bed!"

"What bed?!" Lai looked around at the partially destroyed forest. "What if you squashed the lilies now?!"

"Naaaaaah, they are further in. I wouldn't sleep where Somia put them; I am not a jerk!"

"You could've fooled me!" She grumbled, but then the dragon opened its mouth, gathering flames at the tip of its red tongue.

"...!" Lia was immediately surrounded by blue fire, which made the dragon reclose its mouth, sniffing intensely.

"Hu! That is a weird but familiar smell! Your mana is very familiar… kiddo, what is your name?"

"What is YOUR name?"

"Don't start copying me."

"..." Lia opened her mouth to say something but then gulped back everything, taking a deep breath, closing her eyes, and speaking so softly it was barely audible. "Lia Amarin."

"Hmmmm…"

"..."

"Hmmmmm…."

"..."

"Hmmmmm…."

"WHAT?!" She shouted again, making the dragon blink its eyes, confused.

"I was waiting for you to say your name."

"I just did!"

"Oh! I did not hear that." It said, lowering its head and placing it straight before Lia, who was only as big as one tooth of the dragon. "Repeat it; you were too quiet! My ears are not what they used to be!"

"My name is Lia Amarin from the House of Amarin!"

"Hah!" The dragon roared, forcing Lia to fall over, holding her ears, hearing nothing but ringing for a few seconds. "You are Erias's girl? Why not say so from the start?!" He laughed happily, and while sitting up, Lia could see its body light up, shrinking, and soon an old man stood before her. It wore a luxurious, silver-scaled robe. His skin was white as the snow surrounding them, and his bald head shone brightly. He was wearing a crown made from its horns as it caressed its goatee, walking before Lia with a grin. "The hair and the eyes… at least one of them, do check out! No wonder I felt your smell familiar! You managed to combine fire and water, yes? Like Erias!"

"Y-yes." Lia nodded, feeling weird, climbing up to her feet and looking at him, her eyes traveling up and down on his tall, lean body.

"Finally! I bet he is going to be ecstatic about it!"

"He is dead."

"Is he?" The dragon stopped laughing, looking at her, confused, troubled even. "Oh… yeah, he is. I forgot."

"..." Lia wanted to say something, but every word was stuck in her throat, and she only managed to mutter a sentence after a minute of silence. "Like introducing yourself…."

"Oh, yes, yes! Aa..aah…aaahaa..ahh... ALBERT!" As he was stuttering, veins were popping on his neck, and his blue eyes bulged as if they wanted to pop out of his skull.

"What?"

“Aaa.. Allll… ab..b.bbbb… aabbbbb… ALBERT!”

"What's wrong with you?" Lia asked, her face devoid of all expressions and her tone feeling like she was not there mentally.

"Sorry. It is hard to pronounce it! Dragon names hold power, you know! Speaking it out loudly could release my aura, which would not be good for you! You see, I need to speak it without killing you with it."

"..."

"So that is my name. Remember it because I won't speak it again! So… child of Erias, you are here for the lilies, huh? With your mixed element, you will be able to pluck them." He nodded, walking circles around Lia, checking her out from every angle, "No wonder Lucian sent you here. It will help you practice the fine control of your fire while plucking them!"

"..."

"Can't believe it… your smell is truly similar to his! Probably because of the fact that you mixed fire and water."

"You knew him well?" Lia asked, getting curious, replacing her initial frustration and anger with something else.

"Sure I did! Me and many other dragons! He was a friend of my kind! An excellent and loyal friend! He was closest to Arcus as they fought side by side many times, but I also knew him well! Especially when we went and courted girls! Bwahahaha! I helped him get one of the Nerifit princesses pregnant! Pft! The look on old Nerifit's face was glorious to see!"

"Stop, stop, stoooooop! Stop! STOP!" Lia said, waving her arms and legs around like someone who was about to blow up. "Start over! From the beginning!" She yelled, her eyes twinkling.

"Huh? Well… That would be a long story…."

"I have time!" She insisted, waving her hand, summoning crimson flames, producing a small fire, and getting chairs out of her holding bag and starting to brew tea for them.

"Well…" Albert sniffed, licking his lips, "It was such a long time ago I had something nice… sure~ I can tell you all about it!"