After some time passed since the start of Ariel’s rest, he was woken up by a melodious, young voice. “Ariel get up, the results are already in.”

Opening his eyes, he was surprised to see the familiar Sarah and Brendon standing in front of him who he hasn’t seen for the past week. Although he wasn’t hiding, but he went to quite a hard place to find, so he hadn’t been expecting to be woken up by other people.

Ariel slowly got up as he opened his mouth and asked in a slightly interested voice. “How did you two find me?” Hearing his question, Sarah only made a proud expression, before speaking. “Of course because I know you like desolate places like these, how many years do you think we have known each other for?“ Even saying this she didn’t take her eyes off Ariel, who had a very cute sleepy, look on his face.

This time Ariel was even more surprised, only now he remembered that they had already spent a lot of time together without him realizing, he felt that time went by very quickly. Even the best friend of his last life didn’t spend that much more time with him than these two.

Thinking about how well these two understood him, made his chest warm a little as he spoke again. “I see. So what were you saying before?” Not wanting to get too emotional, he decided to change the subject.

Looking at him for several moments, in a dazed look, Sarah didn’t respond. Thankfully Brendon quickly continued her words. “The results are in, don’t you want to go look at your score?”

Hearing his words, Ariel only shrugged his shoulders, before replying. “I passed, haven’t I? What is the point in going to look?” Ariel was already perfectly sure that he has passed, so he didn’t see the reason to go waste his time.

Hearing his answer, Brendon only smiled together with Sarah, who has just snapped out of her daze and was turning completely red. After a few moment of calming down, Sarah started to speak again. “Its just like you to be so confident that you have already passed. However, the whole school is in an uproar, not because you just passed, but also got a perfect score!”

Ariel was slightly surprised, but this wasn’t out of his expectations, considering the easiness of the test the only mistakes he could have made were that of carelessness, but talking about it here is little annoying, so he spoke out once more. “Let’s, maybe go somewhere more comfortable, standing here is a bit tiring.”

Nodding at his words Brendon spoke. “Let’s go to the cafeteria, we can get something to eat while we talk.” Ariel agreed and when he gave his confirmation, the twins lead him through the winding corridors to a wide door, which had a smell of food coming from it.

Walking inside, he could see that the cafeteria was very spacious, and had a tranquil atmosphere. A lot of seat weren’t taken, since many students have most likely went to check out their living quarters, as well as classrooms

When the three of them went up to take something to eat, Ariel decided to take something sweet and light, because he didn’t feel like overeating. Sarah and Brendon also seemed to have been thinking the same thing, since they only took some, light food.

Sitting back a little further inwards, Brendon, finally started on the topic. “So Ariel, how did you actually get, a damn perfect score?” As he spoke, it seemed as if his eyes were slightly sparkling.

Ariel wasn’t so proud of it, and just told them the truth. “For me, it really didn’t seem that hard, I would even say it was quite easy.” His answer left, even the composed Brendon open mouthed, as he didn’t know what to say. Usually you would think he was just bluffing, but Brendon knew from long time ago, that Ariel didn’t joke about these, type of things.

From his side, his sister Sarah began praising Ariel in an excited voice. “You’re truly amazing. I can’t believe your father thinks you are useless, I think he might actually be blind.” When praising or talking about Ariel, Sarah most of the time became this childish girl lacking all of her usual maturity. Worst of all, Ariel never knows how to deal with her, when she is like this, most of the times he can only give up.

After some time, Brendon coughed while finally speaking out again. “Well enough about that, we always knew you were smart, only, not this smart. Anyways, maybe you want to ask something? We have been here few times with our father, so if anything caught your interest, we can try to explain it.” Trying to end this topic, Brendon brought up a subject about the school, which was completely fine with Ariel.

He started to think if there was anything he wanted to ask. Suddenly recalling the sight he has seen entering The Academy, he spoke out. “If you’re offering to teach me, then I will definitely accept it. I actually only have a single question I want to be answered. What is the job of the golems outside?” This was something that interested him a bit, since Brendon offered he decided to ask away.

Brendon seemed to be in though for a bit before exclaiming. “Oh those, they are for protection.” He answered as if a matter of fact.

It seemed simple, but it made Ariel a bit confused. “How do they actually determine which people are dangerous?” He asked.

Looking at Ariel for a while in surprise he soon remembered something, before starting to talk again. “I forgot they were quite new, so it is not strange if you don’t know about them. Those golems are actually remote controlled ones, have you heard anything?” Listening to Brendon’s words, he came to a realization.

The remote controlled golems were created not so long ago. They let people use them as their own bodies, letting the golems be of more use and be capable of being controlled to do any tasks a human could. However, it also comes with an extra weakness. To receive the information, the golem has to have a core, and if that core is destroyed, the golem is basically dead.

Remember the information about it, Ariel responded. “I know about them, but I didn’t think that The Academy would use such expensive things, so it escaped my mind.” The new technology is always expensive. Currently it is less costly to just hire a normal powerful person to guard the school than station a golem. Although, the golems do have their own perks.

As they finished their dialogue, Sarah started speaking on a subject quite close to the previous one. “I heard that the Hevorin family has been doing strange things, including buying a whole bunch of those remote controlled golems.”

Hearing what she said, Ariel lost himself in thought. ‘From what he has learned before, Hevorin family is a duke household just like the Whitestone house, but they are much more ambitious, and have been trying to reach the archduke level for decades.

Unfortunately for them, they could achieve that only if one of the already existing archduke households gets destroyed or if they make a tremendous contribution to the kingdom. They have not accomplished either of these two conditions yet, but from what he was hearing right now, the Hevorin family does seem to be trying to.”

While Ariel was thinking, Brendon started commenting on the subject at hand. “They are probably planning something big, and most likely it won’t be anything good. Maybe we should tell father to look into it a little.” Hearing her brother’s words, Sarah simply nodded in agreement.

When the twins took this outlook on the topic, Ariel felt that he didn’t have to worry that much about it anymore. Soon they started speaking about other less serious things which they have experienced since their last meeting. Although later on, it was mostly the twins telling Ariel about all of the gossip around the capital.

Like this they spent several hours in the cafeteria until they finally ran out of things to speak about. Since the talk came to a close, he decided to take the opportunity to suggest going back for a rest, because even after the afternoon nap he was still slightly tired from the long journey. “I think we should go back to our rooms for the day, tomorrow will quite a difficult one.”

Sarah and Brendon, hearing his words quickly agreed, since they too were a bit tired and wanted some rest before tomorrow.

Going out of the main building, Ariel and his friends went down the road, leading to the dorms. The boy and girl dormitory were quite giant, from what he heard both of them were 4 story high, separated into 4 levels, each for their respective year, it also gets more exquisite the higher you go.

Both dormitories are built facing opposite of each other, so they could be considered quite close. When they reached the intersection, Sarah spoke with somewhat lonely expression, while looking straight at Ariel. “It seems like we have to separate here, have a nice rest, although I will be quite lonely by myself.”

Brendon, while listening to his sisters words, and seeing her expression, started laughing out loud, before speaking in a joking manner. “From what I see, it seems you will only be missing Ariel.” From Brendon’s, provoking words, Sarah instantly turned red as she turned around and started running towards her dorm, while shouting something incomprehensible towards them.

Acting as if he hasn’t seen any of this, Ariel turned around and went to the boy dorm. At the same time, Brendon finally stopped laughing and caught up to him.

As they entered the receptionist area, they went in front of the work desk and asked for their key, while stating their names. The middle aged man quickly complied and gave them their room keys.

As Ariel looked at both of their numbers, he was surprised to see that they were the same, before casting Brendon a scrutinizing gaze. Brendon looked back before saying. “What? What is the problem with using a bit of influence, to be roommates with by best friend?”

Although, he was slightly pondering if a royalty should use their authority for such petty things, but he was still happy that Brendon took the effort to get them the same room.

Quickly coming up to their room 309, the two of them opened it and saw a simple, but quite comfortable room, which was at the level of what a low rank noble would use. However for Ariel it was perfect, since he didn’t have much of a need for more lavish rooms.

Thinking that they should go to bed soon, both of them took baths in turn and went to sleep on the comfy beds, having many expectations for tomorrow.

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If you want to read further, visit https://verathragna.wordpress.com/ I will always have an extra chapter there