Chapter 23: Chapter 22 – Dusted

"Here!" Opparu said after the group walked into his workshop. Pointing at his main table. On the top of it, seven completely identical little brown holding bags were resting, looking like common little pouches.

"That's it?" Raufon asked, surprised as he never saw genuine holding bags before.

"Awesome!" Lia jumped forward in the meanwhile, looking at them and reaching out. She could feel which one was tailored directly to her mana. Grabbing it, she hastily tied it to her waist, posing proudly.

"That is it." Opparu nodded to Raufon's question, watching them come closer and choose their pouches. All of them instinctively knew which was theirs, getting from them a kind of familiar feeling. "It has 60 cubic meters worth of space inside, so it should be enough for you all, especially while you are here in the Academy! They have multiple formations inside, so you are the only one who can open them! But note that some people in or above the Speciali level can force themselves into it!"

"And don't let it be destroyed!" Ceiline added, looking at Raufon and Keily, who were unfamiliar with it but still trying to figure out how to open them. Everyone else had already tied them to their waist, watching the two fiddling with them.

"It will spill out?" Keily asked, unsuccessfully trying to pull its mouth open with his fingers.

"Nope." Koadriana chuckled in answer, "The things put inside will be gone along with it! Lost into No-Space!"

"Into what?" Raufon asked, first to hear something called like that.

"She is right." Opparu nodded, "Thousands of years ago, before the Dark Ages, mages discovered that there is a subliminal space between our reality and a plane that is assumed to be where souls go after death."

"Souls…?" Keily picked his ears up.

"We don't truly know." Ceiline continued for Opparu, "It is hard to research it, and there were very few successful attempts at trying to influence it and get clues… one of the results was the discovery of this space they called, well, No-Space. It became the basis of the holding bags later on."

"Researching souls is deemed dangerous and heretic. In the land of the Six Houses, they are even outlawed." Aurora wrote with a severe look in her eyes, "Too many times did it result in Undead risings! There are rumors such experiments were what brought them into existence in the first place!"

"Doubt it." Sion interjected but said no more, just shrugging when they looked at him.

"What you need to be aware of," Opparu drew back their attention, explaining it to the two beginners, "If your bag is destroyed, the link between Reality and No-Space will be lost, and your items will be gone too! Whatever you put in there will be preserved in good condition... just don't do it with living beings!"

"We could?" Keily asked, opening his mouth in surprise.

"If you want to be evil." Koadriana scoffed a little, making Keily pull back his head, "You put an animal into it, and its soul gets obliterated. What comes back out will be nothing but a corpse. Maybe even an Undead. Nobody survived going into No-Space. So yeah, don't do that."

"I won't!" Raufon and Keily answered in a union, gulping loudly.

"Plants also wither there." Ceiline commented, "So don't keep them in it too long! A day or two at maximum! Food can last longer, especially if you put them in an already sealed container. That way, it can go from days to even months, remaining fresh."

"Exactly." Opparu agreed, "To place things into it, you need to focus your mana, let it flow through your palm, carrying your intent and thoughts. Imagine what you are holding going into it, which will be transported into your claimed No-Space. To get it out, the procedure is the same! Place your hand on it, imagine what you want to draw out, and it will appear! Simple, and it requires very little mana!"

"What if I try to put something big into it?" Raufon asked, "Like a barrel."

"One hand on the item, other on the bag, and hard focus! You need to learn it, experience it, then it becomes second nature!" Opparu clapped, clearly ending the conversation, looking at Lia with one eye.

"I sent a letter back home." She said, noticing his gaze. "The moment Mom replies, I'll come."

"Mhm." Opparu nodded, asking no more of it, trusting the young girl.

"Let's go!" Lia giggled, looking at the rest, "Our tower is not that far from here, half an hour of walking! I'm so excited!" She laughed, slapping her new bag of holding, skipping towards the door while Opparu watched them leave, forming a very slight smile on his old, wrinkled face while they left their shop.

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The group, even if they didn't want to show it, excitedly approached where their new base was located at. Coming to the city's edge, there were much greener sceneries here than in its center. The cobblestone roads were under the shade of big cherry trees, and the houses were built much further apart; some even had tall, 2 or 3-meter-high stone fences erected around them.

"Huh… this looks like a fancy part of town," Raufon said, watching the stone carvings before a walled-off house they walked past.

"It is in-between," Ceiline said, more interested in the trees planted alongside the street. "People living here tend to have some kind of noble origin. Not rulers or heirs to powerful families but nobles nonetheless."

"Half-snobs then?" Raufon chuckled, receiving a look from everyone except Sion and Keily. "Don't need to look at me like that! Most 'nobles' I met were annoying and full of shit!"

"They can be." Sion said before the others could speak up, "But not all of them. Depends on their upbringing. I come from a low-ranking noble family with little to no background. Some merchant families I knew of were way wealthier than us. Even though they were not nobles in the true sense of the word, they were assholes, alright! Yet my family never were labeled as such!"

"It's not the nobility or their titles that turn someone into a bad person." Lia said suddenly, "Neither is it their wealth! All of those are simply the things that bring their true personality up to the surface. Their souls were corrupted from the start; power only enabled them to act on it!"

"Did your parents say that?" Keily asked after mulling over her words.

"No." Lia grinned, looking back, showing a V sign, "It was my brother, Solren!"

"He always said that people's true self shows when they face the Undead. Their simple aura washes off all pretenses. Then you will know who you can trust your back to and who will leave it vulnerable." Aurora wrote, sending it to everyone's bracelets.

"Sounds like you respect him greatly," Sion said, smiling, and Aurora nodded instantly.

"He is someone I look up to. I like all of my brothers, but Solren is the one I respect the most." Aurora said, looking into his eyes.

"She loves him, I tell you!" Koadriana chuckled, but Lia just smiled, chiming in.

"Not like that~" She only looked at Aurora with her red eye, receiving a slight smile and a nod. "If you meet with my brother, you would know! He is good to a fault! Easy to like! But... He never lied in his life!"

"Nonsense!" Raufon scoffed at the idea, "Nobody can live like that! You would make enemies left and right!"

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"He did aggravate my mom many times!" Lia laughed happily, "I also couldn't count on him in some pranks… but I do love him! Even my big brother said, given enough time, Solren would best him in combat!"

"Is your big brother good?" Keily asked, not knowing he already knew the answer to it.

"He is!" Koadriana answered instead of Lia, sighing loudly, "When I was little, and he was visiting us… I honestly fell in love with him! I wanted to be his bride! He is dashing, kind, and firm; his body is muscular but not overly so, just the right amount of tones and shapes that- Ouch! Don't kick me!" She yelped out as Aurora aimed a well-placed kick into her butt, making her jump up a meter at least.

"You started to drool. Stop it. It is disgusting." She signed with her hands while Ceiline translated with a deadpan voice, matching Aurora's look.

"Hmf! He is an awesome man, okay? Plus, he beat my grandpa! Hehehe serves him right!"

"Eh…" Keily and Raufon flinched, trying to imagine what kind of family the three had come from… it sounded way too chaotic.

"Big bro is strong." Lia nodded, as she was thinking for a little, "But I think he is differently strong than Brother Lala or Solren! Hehe, luckily, we love each other, so there won't be any fighting between us!"

"That is good." Ceiline said with a tinge of sadness in her voice, "In my House… it is not so peaceful as you paint it to be."

"I thought the Six are the most unified front we have!" Sion said, honestly surprised by it.

"Outwardly, yes." Ceiline nodded, "But… well, let's leave it at that. I can't air out the dirty laundry, or there would be consequences."

"We won't tell!" Raufon whispered, licking his lips. It looked like he was much more open to gossip than any of the others in the group.

"You will have time to listen to stories~ In our new base!" Lia cut in with a loud laugh, rushing forward as they could see a tower at the top of a more minor hill. A narrow, stone path led up to it, sneaking along and through the tall grass that greatly needed a trimming.

Their new base of operation was more significant than expected in person as they soon stood before it, looking up in awe.

"Wait… this costs only 1000 CP per month? Are you sure?" Sion asked, furrowing his brows and looking up at the multi-story stone tower with giant windows and the private observatory at its top.

"Yep!" Lia replied, clearly trembling from excitement to enter it.

"Something is fishy here…" Sion murmured, now echoed by Ceiline too, gulping as this was even more well built than her own tower she called home since coming to the Academy.

"It will be fine!" Lia laughed, waving away their negativity, rushing to the main door above a slight flight of stairs, pushing on it with two hands, moving in the 3-meter tall, heavy double doors made of dark oak wood. It opened up with a loud cracking, and as soon as the interior was exposed to the outside air, a grey dust cloud blew out from the inside, rushing forward as if it was being sucked out.

The rest of the group stopped in their tracks in sync, watching as Lia was washed over with the sudden duststorm, leaving her there, frozen in the middle of taking a step forward. After slowly putting her raised foot down and turning, she looked like a ghost, painted utterly grey.

"I can't see…." She murmured, trying to spit out the dust filling her mouth and blowing it out from her nostrils.

"You look like-" Koadriana tried to stifle a laugh, but before she could continue, Aurora elbowed her. "Ugh… Okay, okay…" She gulped back, probably a really perverted metaphor.

"When was this last opened? A century ago?" Raufon waved the residue of the dust cloud while Aurora walked forward, taking out a handkerchief and helping Lia wipe off her face.

"Multiply it," Sion answered, walking forward, sticking his head in, and getting caught in a coughing fit. "Damn! The air is stale as hell!"

"No joke!" Ceiline agreed, walking in, and every step of hers left dust clouds rising from the ground; she walked towards the big windows, opening them hurriedly.

"Too nasty!" Keily moaned, holding the end of his ears, pulling them before his mouth and nose, using them as some kind of filter.

"This is worse than in the pictures!" Aurora pulled her shirt up, constantly waving her hands too.

"ACHOO!" Raufon let out an earth-shattering sneeze, resulting in another blowup, filling the bottom floor with a thick cloud of dust and obstructing the sunlight from coming in.

"FUCK!" Sion said with teary eyes, barely able to breathe, "Now you have done it! Nobody has wind as a secondary element?! Tell me you do!" he tried to rush out, barely able to breathe.

Sadly, nobody had it, and nobody could answer because of the blizzard-like swirl of centuries-old dust. In the end, they had to crawl out, and Ceiline cast a spell, taking control of the hanging vines on the side of the tower to grow long strands. She made them sneak in and open all the windows on all levels.

"I think we were sold something… worthless." Sion moaned, blowing his nose that he felt was stuffed with clumps of cotton.

"It's just a bit of dust!" Lia coughed, letting Koadriana wash out the grime from her hair while Keily was already waiting in line as he was also looking like a grey snowman now. He managed to stand right in front of Raufon when he sneezed.

"I don't want to see what you deem a lot of dust then!" Raufon replied, transforming and shaking his body like a dog out of water.

"It looks as if it's on fire," Aurora commented, watching their tower smoke from the opened windows, letting the dust out like a chain smoker made out of stone.

"I wouldn't be surprised if only by burning everything in it could it be cleaned down!" Ceiline joked, shaking her red hair.

"Haaaahhh… If you bring me water and a lot of it," Koa sighed, looking at the rest, "I'll wash it down, in and out! I need to practice a little for the upcoming competition anyway!"

"Yeah, about that!" Sion clapped, finding it appropriate to tell them, "I have some news… let us talk about that first!" He said with such a serious voice Lia's pupils shrank into the size of a pinhead.

"Someone is out for her? For… us?" Lia asked, already guessing, and Sion just nodded, involuntarily making Aurora summon a sword of darkness.

"Relax…" Sion raised one hand, calming down not just the three but everyone else. "It's not that serious. Still! You better listen so we won't walk into something nasty." He formed a small smile before retelling everything Lorin had told him.