Chapter 5: The Knights

"What? I don't believe this!" The knight with mottled hair slammed the table, his cold demeanor had completely vanished. "He isn't dead!"

"It was officially announced this morning. Both the first and the second prince are now contracted spirits of the crown prince." Legs trembling, the messenger withstood the knight's pressure.

"Contracted spirits? The third prince was a shaman?" The knight's anger vanished as he sat back down. "If that's the case…heh. I got it, you go back."

The messenger quickly scurried away.

"Captain, what do we do with the snake? From the merchant's words, he should be turning soon." A burly man wearing a knight uniform popped out of the entrance.

"If the crown prince wants the snake, we'll have to give him what he wants. If the crown prince doesn't mention him, we will take the snake in. Didn't Lanae always want to raise a child of her own?" The knight's one eye narrowed. The other was permanently closed due to a scar.

In the box, Ciel listened carefully. 'I should escape at the first chance. I didn't escape one palace just to get shipped to another palace. If the shaman third prince that just became crown prince is the one I know, he should be the third harem member, the rich man. Knowing him, he'll definitely want the winged snake eve.'

Winged snake eves were rare since they were reclusive, solitary creatures. Many creatures could only become eves because of their eve tribesman imparting knowledge and resources to them. Plants could only become eves if they have survived for a long time or had been taken care of by someone. As solitary predators who had avoiding contact with other sentient beings etched in their very DNA, winged snakes rarely turned into eves. However, when they did, they would be very powerful.

–It had to be known that the harem member loved collecting and using useful figures such as that winged eve. Though the winged snake eve wasn't ever mentioned in the novel, Ciel just assumed that the eve was probably away on a mission and hadn't shown up to the protagonist yet.

After all, he hadn't read much of the novel before throwing it away.

Ciel waited until it was nighttime before moving. His body was stiff from maintaining the same position for a long period of time—he couldn't even use mana because the knight group had a mage whose mage rank was far above his own and they would immediately sense him.

It was a good thing his mana senses didn't use mana directly.

'Peeking' out of the box, he noted the window right next to him. He didn't know what brainless person put the snake's box right next to an open window but he thanked them in his head as Ciel quickly jumped to the tree right outside the window.

A shiver suddenly ran through his spine, Ciel had a bad feeling in his chest as he turned around. The one eyed captain of the knights who were in charge of the serpent stood right behind him, a pitch black muzzle gun pointed at his head, subtle pressure emanating from him.

"Caught you. Make a single move and I'll shoot."

Ciel slowly raised his hands silently. 'Oops.'

"Lift up your hood." Ciel followed his instructions. His pure white hair shone a brilliant silver under the moonlight. Good thing his eyes were still blindfolded.

"Why were you in the serpent's box?" The captain asked.

"I wanted to get to Anatol." Ciel answered honestly.

"Why?"

"To sightsee."

"So you sneaked into a poisonous winged serpent's box because you were avoiding someone?" The captain frowned in disbelief. Ciel nodded.

"Well,  I didn't know it was poisonous. Dull colored snakes aren't normally poisonous."

"Then how did you know the merchant caravan was going to Anatol?"

"I didn't." Ciel didn't elaborate any further.

"So what's the verdict?" The captain looked down. Ciel also looked down. At some point, another silhouette had arrived at the bottom of the tree.

The new arrival had short brown hair and sharp greenish yellow eyes, with half of her face was covered by a mask.

"She's telling the truth."

"Hah. Follow me. If you play any tricks I'll immediately shoot you. Got it?"

Ciel nodded, resisting the urge to smile. 'It's been a while since I had been threatened by someone.'

Entering a small room, Ciel was greeted with three people playing cards on a small wooden table.

'Cards!' Ciel was instantly fixated on the playing cards. He still remembered his card affinity.

His blood and card attribute affinity had made him an dual item affinity user; someone who could infuse their other affinities to the item they had an affinity for. Usually, people were born with one affinity. This made those who had an item affinity become exceptional combatants rather than mages.

In this world, there was also another respected occupation other than mages. Unlike the uncommon people who could only become mages with open mana veins, anyone could become a combatant—someone who used weapons or their body to fight. Though combatants still required talent and hard work, if they could or could not become one was not determined by birth.

Item affinity users would generally have a high talent for the item they had an affinity for, so even if they could use magic, this affinity was generally called the 'combatant's blessing'. A large majority of them didn't advance their mage rank unless they really wanted to infuse other attributes into their item.

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Because Ciel had never found any cards in the tower, he hadn't had a chance to practice his card affinity yet. Adding on his previous life's obsession for cards, Ciel's senses became glued to the cards.

"Huh, is this thing a girl or a boy?" One of the people who were playing cards turned around, diverting Ciel's attention. The young man looked around 25 years old and had grayish brown hair with startling gray eyes.

Looking at Ciel's blindfold, he grinned, "What do you think we want to do?"

"Kacha my head off after torturing me for information?" Ciel made a slicing motion towards his neck. Ah, but he had no information to reveal, so they would be disappointed.

The man snickered, "Nice humor kid! But that's not it, we want to… hey captain, why did you bring this thing over again?" He looked at the one eyed man.

"We're lacking a servant. She has good nerves and she's too weak to run away from us. She also has no choice." The captain yawned lazily.

'Servant? That's not bad.' Ciel thought as the man who had asked the question broke into laughter. He didn't bother correcting their misconception of his gender. It didn't matter whether he was a boy or a girl anyway.

The man was still laughing, "You're really funny captain! Look at her small stature. Can she even do anything?"

"Better than those cowards who run away at the very sight of me. She's not afraid of us. " The captain replied. "Teach her the rules. I'm going to sleep." He yawned again, walking away.

"Hey! You can't just leave her to me!" The man shouted. "Irresponsible captain! Come back!"

The woman who had been playing cards with the men slapped down her cards, "Royal flush. I won. I'm also going to bed."

The bulky brown haired man next to her slowly took the cards and shuffled them into a deck before leaving Ciel and the man alone in the room.

"You all are fake friends!" The man shouted one last time before turning back to Ciel.

"How old are you?"

"Guess." By now, Ciel had completely relaxed. He could sense no ill intent from his surroundings. 'This group of people are quite interesting. My senses tell me the days ahead will be fun.' He sat down on the table, taking the deck of cards.

"Listen here now, just because we didn't kill you doesn't mean we can't. Any of us can twist your little head off anytime, got it?" The man's gray eyes glinted. A slight pressure rose from him.

Ciel resisted his urge to yawn. "Got it. So what should I call you?"

The man looked at Ciel with interest, "Captain was right, you really don't fear us."

"Why should I fear you?" Ciel tilted his head, "Because of that slight pressure?"

"Slight pressure? Hahaha. This thing you call 'slight pressure' has made all of our assigned servants resign." The man's pressure rose again. "Never mind that, as long as you don't mind it. You can call me Mason. The woman who just left is Lanae and the other man is Ivan. The masked woman is Kierra. As for the captain, just call him captain."

"So do I get a wage?" Ciel asked. "Are my meals and room provided?"

"Probably, if you do well." Mason shrugged. "I don't manage the money, Kierra does. But this was a very last minute whim the captain had, so I don't know."

'....ok.'

Ciel asked again. "So what do I do?"

"Just do what we tell you to. For now, go back and sleep with the serpent." Mason waved his hand, walking away, muttering, "Just why did you have to sneak out in the middle of the night, we all had to wake up to catch you."

'Obviously because I wanted you guys to be asleep.'

Ciel rolled his eyes, walking back the way he had come from, and jumping through the window before settling next to the snake he was now used to.

Joining a group of knights was a good way to start over. He wouldn't be confined in one place anymore at least. And since they were going to take him in as a servant, they would have to take care of the troubles that came his way or let him go. They didn't seem like the type to kill children anyway. So either way was good for him.

Ciel laid down on the snake, when the always steady breathing of the snake suddenly quickened. Ciel jumped out of the box in a hurry just as a big 'bang!' sounded from inside of the box.

Black mist rose from the opening of the box. Through the mist, a human silhouette slowly took shape.

'The snake's turning into a eve!' This was the first time Ciel had seen something like this and he stared with interest, even taking off his blindfold.

The newly formed eve looked about his age. Moonlight reflected off of the smooth black hair of the eve, and as its eyes opened, Ciel realized that they were a bright crimson red, his favorite color. He had never looked at the snake's eyes clearly before since it was always dark in the box—even if the snake had slept with his eyes open.

The eve spoke, "Little sister?"

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