Pale calves were seen as the blue light elevated as Ardor soon saw his love appear. Her eyes filled with nervousness eased after seeing his face and, as she smiled and took a step forward to hug him, an uncontrollable urge appeared.

An uncontrollable urge to puke.

Her eyes now widened in panic as she was too close to him, close enough to dye him with her stomach’s contents. Ardor had a relieved smile on his face all this while. As she approached him, he walked closer to her.

Just before she was about to give him an unforgettable greeting, he swiftly held that bucket up and covered her face with its opening. She puked. Like a normal person, it wasn’t anything good to smell at.

No matter how much Ardor liked her, no matter how much she helped soften his stone cold heart and brought that unknown feeling of love in his life, he wasn’t interested in delaying his departure for another moment.

After letting her hold that bucket to let her stomach calm down, he walked past the older man, most likely his senior, who was currently staring at him in amazement, and stood with the others present.

Even Edgar’s group was giving him weird glances, but remained silent.

Ardor finally had the capacity to look around him and see beyond that vomit stained small elevated stage made with blue tiles. He observed his surroundings.

There was a small opening laid out with light blue tiles covering about 20x20 meters, and on all sides beyond it lay multiple small gray pillars made of gray blocks with joints forming arches on their tops. 

He saw one door in the center of the buildings beyond those arches in each cardinal direction and the corridor, half-formed by the arches, that opened up to other places.

“You expected this?” Jeanne asked after throwing away that bucket in disgust and approaching him. Her eyes held gratitude as she otherwise imagined puking in that vomit pit. “Ugh!” She groaned at her thought.

“I did,” Ardor replied while wondering why the academy was letting them see such an ugly sight at their arrival. Surely, they weren’t planning on disgusting them into leaving the academy, were they?

“Relax,” he said while sliding his hand over her back repeatedly to calm her down. His eyes held faint anger at the treatment, but it was quickly suppressed and he returned to his apathetic, rational self. ‘They must have a reason,’ he thought.

They waited for a while and, seeing nobody appear, the older man in a gray robe grit his teeth in immense disgust.

They saw him walk up the small stairs and stand in the center of the stage. He took out his wand from its pocket inside his robe and closed his eyes to focus.

Ardor saw him murmur many words while waving his wand in a certain way. The man’s body shook as throat moved and his cheeks swelled. With a great struggle, the man kept his lips sealed and swallowed whatever was trying to leave his mouth.

He tried again and again and again. At the fifth try, a red light shone from his wand.

Ardor could swear he saw sparkles of joy in those weary eyes. The man quickly aimed his wand at the ground and, like a flamethrower, but slightly better, it blew fire like a drake and burned up all the disgusting residue on the ground.

The man kept turning, walking in a circle and took care of all the mess.

All this while, Ardor’s emotions had gone from doubt to disdain to once again amazement. He truly felt magic would solve everything, perhaps even give him a key against the owner of that pale hand who forced the system on him.

“Okay, we’re done. I’ll bring you to the hall,” said the man after coming down. He didn’t wait for them and walked straight towards his destination.

Ardor and Jeanne looked at one another and followed behind him while Edgar casually came along with his group while taking a glance at the areas he was passing through.

They walked north. At least, that was what Ardor understood after seeing a signpost erected in a corner. 

After a couple of minutes of crossing multiple buildings, seeing men and women in different colored robes come and go, they finally approached an enormous door about 4 meters high and 10 meters wide.

Ardor wondered how many minutes they’d have to wait here for the mage to cast a spell and open the door. But his worry was for nought since it opened inward by itself as they came closer.

Everyone walked into a gigantic hall with all sorts of wall paintings that were moving, showing scenes of great inventions and greater battles. There were also chairs lined up in a corner on their left.

“Keep your luggage on the side. Sit on those chairs,” the man they had followed spoke while pulling up his sleeves and checking something like a watch.

Everyone nodded and obeyed the walking flamethrower and sat beside each other while keeping a gap between the two groups.

The Mist Twins initially wanted to sit closer to Ardor and ask about their aunt, but Ardor noticed Edgar’s glare was enough to shut them up.

‘Why are these duke sons and daughter listening to a single marquess? I mean, does their background even matter here?’ he thought.

As everyone sat down, they noticed a faint smile break across the gray-robed man’s face that was staring at his watch. He waved his hand with a genuine smile for the first time. “Sit tight and don’t fall!”

Before the others could question him, he had already walked away, and in the blink of an eye, he was out the door and it had closed after him. Everyone looked at each other, then at the moving paintings decorating the walls, roof, and even the floor.

But before they could get comfortable, their chairs suddenly jerked.

“Yahoo!!!”

“It’s that time of the twin decade!”

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!!!”

Immature, scrawny voices sounded and Ardor looked around, then behind him to see the chair’s backseat become longer, grow higher, and two eyes opened on it. A horizontal crack soon appeared just in front of his face.

“No. Is that?”

His fears came true as a mouth opened up and a tongue rolled out, longer than his hand, and licked his face wet.

“Aaa!”

“Let me go! Don’t you dare hurt me!”

“You stupid monsters! Let go!”

Ardor saw the other group struggle, and unlike his chair, their chair’s arms literally rose, extended and caught them in a lock. No matter how hard this group of Peak Apprentice Warriors tried, they could not break those thin twigs.

He instantly looked at his side in worry, but was surprised. Just like his chair, Jeanne’s chair was instead licking her, and she seemed to look amused.

“Who are you?” he asked his own chair.

Its eyes took a long, close look at this human who didn’t freak out after seeing him nor called him a monster. Instantly, it had a better impression of this human.

“I’m an Enchanted Chair. No name, just a talking, grumpy, scary chair,” it replied, then looked at him expectantly.

Ardor somewhat understood what he was facing. But he still didn’t understand why they were left here. Were these chairs going to be their magical teachers?

‘Hmm, that doesn’t sound too bad. I mean, they’re enchanted. What kind of wonderful abilities do they have?’ Ardor thought.

“Then how about I give you a name?” Ardor asked, knowing it was always good to have more friends than enemies.

“N-name?” it stuttered.

There was silence from the other chairs as well, and Ardor saw them insert the twigs inside the struggling student’s mouths to silence them while only Gabella and Lewis Mist, who had long stopped resisting, were spared. 

The students were sometimes choking and the twigs slightly retreated, then quickly went back in after they attempted to make noise.

14 shocked puppy eyes looked at him, and he looked at his chair.

“Yeah, a name,” Ardor repeated. “Don’t you want one?” he asked.

His chair’s eyes held panic for the unknown, with faint expectation mixed within.

“B-but th-they already gave us all a name,” it said while looking sideways.

Ardor showed a slight frown.

“So, were you lying to me?” he asked with some disappointment.

“N-no. What I meant was I don’t have a single name, but my kind was given another name by them,” it said.

While wondering the identities of ‘them,’ Ardor asked, “So what is it?”

Ardor saw that wide mouth with well spaced teeth shut as he felt faint malice from his chair. The stiff chair’s arms even showed movement as the other chairs inserted the twigs deeper in the student’s throat. He saw Jeanne’s situation was similar to his.

He knew he had stepped on a potential landmine.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “I won’t judge. Not everyone can appreciate interesting creatures such as yourself,” he said.