Luz gulped as he watched the tip of the knife hover over his dark pupil. Sighing, the girl withdrew the knife before demanding Luz to answer the following question: "Tell me how you got the parasite."

'Why the hell is she staring holes in me? Is it so weird that I have parasites?'

"I... I was willing to participate in a magic experiment if it would allow me to keep my magic talent," Luz answered with a gulp and an anxious look.

'Hopefully, that will be enough for her to satisfy her curiosity.'

"Let me tell you one thing. I'm considering everyone who ended up in similar circumstances as me as my brothers and sisters, so please tell me the whole story," she told Luz, moving closer to him.

Luz felt her breath against his ear as she whispered: "Tell me so I can judge you accordingly. If you don't tell me your story, I will assume that you aren't one of my potential siblings."

She paused for a second as her warm breath sent shivers running down Luz's back before continuing with: "and everyone who isn't of my siblings tends to end up a head shorter."

After saying it, she started giggling while holding her hand in front of her mouth. Her expression would have melted the hearts of many males seeing her face if it weren't for the not-so-sweet pair of blades floated behind her.

'Shit.'

Luz told her his whole story.

He began with how the siblings escaped a dragon after Luz used a teleportation spell, sacrificing his magic talent and future in the process. His mana core ended up being full of cracks, and if left untreated, he would have died sooner or later.

The girl listened carefully with her eyes closed and the daggers lying on the ground, being vulnerable for any kind of attack coming at her.

Luz seeing her showing him vulnerability, grinned.

'Nice try, weirdo, but I'm not attacking you. I know damn well you only feing vulnerability, and you're merely testing me. I won't fall down for that.'

Luz continued his story where he was caught and sold to a master. Upon ending as a servant, he had to make a choice.

Do you want to live as a crippled mage, a mere mortal, and never be able to find your siblings since you're a talentless villager who never studied any profession, except for maybe hunting?

Or do you risk it all in a magic experiment just to be able to retain that thing you almost lost? What is the difference between the first option and the second option? The second option has a path for salvation if you are maybe lucky.

In the end, he became something flawed, fighting for his sanity daily against the parasites' unending chattery. With his soul contract that bound both parties, he tried to suppress them, but that wasn't enough.

But hey, at least he still has a chance of finding his siblings, even if he hasn't had the time of journeying the country in search of them.

She only smiled and felt his problems.

"I feel you, brother. Our circumstances may be completely different, but you would still fit in with us," she answered with a genuine smile that almost made his heart melt.

Luz merely shook his head, reminding himself of his own situation.

"Sister… I neither know about your circumstances nor your goals, but please, I can't die yet. I abandoned 4 siblings, and I don't know where they are... My soul cannot rest until I know what happened to them…until I know they are safe now… and until I reunited with them," Luz pleaded with big dilated pupils to get his pity.

'Hopefully, that's enough to get her pity.'

"I know that you're trying to tell your own story as tragic as possible, but  I still pity your siblings, my dear brother. I now also get why you neither have control of your parasites nor can use their potential to the fullest," she remarked with a smile.

"How can I gain any control over them, and how can I use their abilities the same way as you?" Luz asked curiously.

"I or rather everyone here can help you with it, but it will take some time, and I think it would be better to tell you our stories, so you can get an image of what you should look out for," she stated.

'I've come to a point where I'm unsure what to think about my situation. Do I want to escape my situation? Do I want to stay here for the time being… in hopes of finding a way to control my own parasites?

I don't know. I can only hope that the story about her life makes me confident in siding with any of the two options instead of remaining uncertain.'

"Are you actually listening to me?" she asked while snapping her fingers in front of his nose.

Luz got thrown out of his thoughts and answered with a smile: "Sure, I'm curious about your story."

"Good, every one of the kids here has ended up as a guinea pig in the Magic Institute for Research through one way or another. For them, we were just guineapigs and no actual human beings deserving of any kind of respect. All of us here were in the research for future symbiote parasites.

They wanted to find the best parasite for every category compatible with humans. The best mana parasite, the best physical parasite, the best occult parasite, name it all. They wanted to catch them all…" she narrated while closing her eyes, trying to recall these fond memories.

But before she could continue, she was interrupted by a knock on the door.

The two in the room turned their heads to the door, and she said kindly, "Enter."

A 13-year-old girl entered, who had iris heterochromia. In other words, she possessed two different eye colors. Her right eye was brown, but her left eye was weird. It consisted of two halves. One of the halves was blue like the ocean, while the other half was red like fire. Interestingly these halves moved every second slowly. A strange but also a beautiful sight, to be honest.

"Am I disturbing you two?" the little girl asked while looking at Luz in wonder.

"No, not really. You can join us if you have nothing to do," the older girl replied.

"I'd love to, Sister Liv," the girl replied, jumping between the two of them on the couch before snuggling up to her older sister.

"Why did you end up at the Magic Research Institute of Biology, anyway?" asked Luz starting to feel sympathy for Liv and curiosity.

Luz began to question himself if he had Stockholm syndrome. If it existed in his world, it wouldn't be called something else, which Luz wouldn't even know as a former villager.  

'Do I feel sympathy for the girl who kidnapped me!? No…maybe? I'm not really sure anymore. At least I'm sure of one thing. I still want to get out of here as fast as possible.'

"Well, everyone ended up there differently. For example, Sarah was sold by her father to the institute. They couldn't feed her or her siblings and therefore sold her. Hoping that the money would be enough to feed the rest of the siblings. A tragic choice, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes, to be honest," she stopped her narration for a second to take a deep breath.

She continued with: "I fled the village of my abusive parents after I couldn't take it anymore. But unfortunately, I ended up getting captured in the depths of the forest, wandering in an emaciated state around by slave drivers. Since I hadn't lost my will to survive, at the time of getting sold, someone from the institute bought me."

Sarah just played with Liv's hair as she stared at Luz.

'Is there something wrong with me, or why is that child staring at me all the time?'

"Sister, why doesn't he have full control of his parasites yet?"

'STOP ASKING THE SAME QUESTION. I'M JUST LACKING BEHIND OK..."

unknownking

Unfortunally university continues tomorrow. Let's see what will become out of my upload/writing schedule, since I have to focus on my exams (5th-semester chemical engineering). I'll prob upload like twice/three times a week while also editing old chapters in the meantime……