Tear tugged on her skirt once more. “Lilian... it’s no good, it won’t budge.” If she pulled any harder, the delicate fabric would definitely rip.

The bunny-eared girl folded her legs and stared at Tear from across the room. She looked very comfortable sitting on Tear’s bed, munching on food and getting crumbs all over... Lilian combed a hand through her hair and responded with,“Get it tailored.”

“No!” Tear cried out. “That’s so embarrassing.” She gently tried to pull the skirt up more, but it was still stuck on her rump. Tear, for some reason, had ordered one of the smallest sizes possible. The shirt had fit her, but the skirt didn’t have enough stretch to get over her thicker lower half.

Lilian sighed. “I don’t understand how it’s embarrassing, having to get clothing tailored is normal.”

“I thought it would fit, but it didn’t. Could you imagine how the tailor's would laugh and think ‘Hah, what a stupid girl, she’s trying to show off a small frame she clearly doesn’t have’?”

Lilian raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

A dangerous gleam appeared in Tear’s eyes. “Lilian, you’re good at sewing, right?”

Lilian stopped chewing on her cookie. “I think that I have a decent amount of talent. Would you like to see some of my Lord Erebus dolls? I’ll even give you one.”

“Of cour--wait, no! Not now, that’s not what we’re focused on. Could you, please, please, please fix this skirt for me? It doesn’t fit me, you see~” Tear smiled innocently.

A sonorous male voice came from the doorway, “That’s what a pig gets for trying to squeeze into something it obviously couldn’t fit.”

The moment Tear heard this voice, a shoe seemed to magically appear and her hand, which she threw with enough strength to kill someone. The shoe, sadly, was caught easily. “How dare you walk in on a maiden changing, Vyne?”

He blinked slowly as if he was astonished. “Sorry, I didn’t realize that you had any dignity.”

“Stop it, you two,” Lilian intervened before Tear could start. “What did you come here for?”

Vyne twirled the shoe in his hand. “Lord Erebus sent me to find out if Tear was ready since we’re supposed to be leaving soon. We’re both ready, but apparently, Tear isn’t.”

Vyne was wearing an outfit similar to Tear’s: a blue, velvet robe over a white button-up shirt with a tie, black, formal pants, and a golden emblem on his left breast pocket.

In other words... a school uniform. It was simplistic in its design, but somehow, it gave off a feeling of luxury.

The uniform belonged to one of the most prestigious human institution, Opinum Academy, it was a place where the talented would gather to train with hopes of joining the kingdom’s famed army.

Although it wasn’t guaranteed you would get into a good squadron, most of the graduates became great people.

For one very important reason, Erebus, Tear, and Vyne had enlisted in said academy as freshmen. Since it had a variety of age-groups in its student body, their ages weren’t really a probably. There were people as young as eight and as old as sixty enrolled in the academy.

Erebus claimed that he hadn’t joined the academy for the sole purpose of entertaining him, but rather, there was something that the Dragon Council needed him to investigate within the school. And since the easiest way was to either become a teacher or a student in the school, Erebus did so.

But, becoming a teacher required background checks while for students it was more or less ignored, they opted to become students.

Normally, Erebus would decline the troublesome task of gathering intel, but, since he might be able to meet fun people, he decided it was fine to join.

From what he heard, even though it was a human academy, a variety of races joined. If it was just the humans, Erebus probably wouldn’t have been as eager, but when he learned that there would be other races there, too, his eagerness multiplied.

So, he readily accepted this job from the Council!

In all honesty, they hadn’t wanted to send Erebus since he liked to stir up trouble, but at the same time, he was the one who had spent the most amount of time with the members outside of the Dragon Continent, so he was more accustomed to blending in with the masses. If it could even be called blending in...

They had ordered Erebus to lay low, but everyone knew that probably wasn’t going to happen knowing him.

Anyway, this time, when Erebus had come home from being abruptly called to the Dragon Continent, he was in a surprisingly good mood. When Magnus had asked why, Erebus said it was because he got to do something “very entertaining” and continued on his merry way.

So, that was the story behind Tear’s struggle on fitting into the skirt. She had finally managed to shimmy into it, but the button looked like it was ready to burst at any time.

Other than that, she looked nice in the school uniform.

Lilian’s eyes zeroed in on the quivering button and a small frown formed on her face. “On the carriage ride, with all that bumping, it’ll pop off, won’t it?” she muttered.

Tear was too happy that she managed to get it to fit, so she began to jump around excitedly. “Ha, what do you think of me now, Vyne!” Tear shouted, stopping and pointing at him. But at that very moment, the button that had been clinging on for dear life finally released its grip and flew off, hitting the mirror on Tear’s vanity and shattering it.

Vyne’s lips shook as he tried to restrain himself from laughing, in his eyes, obvious tears were welling up. “I think that you’re an idiot,” he managed to push out the words before bursting into peals of laughter.

Tear’s face flamed in embarrassment and she turned towards Lilian. “See! This is why you should’ve mended it for me.”

Lilian shrugged, her eyes now drifting over to the shattered mirror. “You should fix that.”

“Never mind that.” Tear stamped her foot indignantly. “My skirt, my skirt,” she wailed.

“I’ll help you so please be quiet.” Lilian plugged her ears. “Vyne, can you tell Lord Erebus that Tear will be ready shortly. I’m going to work my magic here.”

Vyne nodded his head then left. He navigated through the myriad of dark hallways and down a couple flights of stairs before he arrived at the entrance of the castle where Erebus was.

Their master was standing up straight but his head was hung over and his eyes were closed. Since Vyne had taken so long, Erebus had gone to sleep.

“Lord Erebus,” Vyne said, kneeling down on the ground and bowing his head to the sleeping man.

Erebus’ eyes opened, Vyne was surprised for a quick second before he remembered that Erebus had used minor magic to change his crimson eye to a green one that matched his Eye of Void. It hadn’t been necessary, but he had also hidden the red streak in his hair so now all of it was uniform black. Even though the rest of his appearance had remained the same, with simple transformation magic, Erebus had turned into an unfamiliar person to Vyne.

According to Erebus, quite a few people had seen him when he visited the king one time, so, he decided to alter his appearance a little bit so he wouldn’t be easily recognized.

He had even cut his long braid of hair so that it was now it no longer reached his waist but was a few inches shorter and it also fell freely around his face. When Tear had mourned over the loss of his glorious hair, Erebus responded with, “It’ll grow back in no time, in fact, dragon’s grow hair irritatingly fast. I constantly after to cut it.”

Still, she thought it was a tragedy. Tear had even tried to say that people would notice Erebus was using magic, but Erebus countered with unless they were as skilled as him, they wouldn’t be able to separate his use of mana from the constant flow in the university.

Vyne hadn’t cared so much about the issue, but it was strange seeing Erebus like this.

“What is it, Vyne?” Erebus asked his silent servant, he had been waiting for Vyne to continue, but he hadn’t, so Erebus took it upon himself to ask Vyne what the issue was.

“Oh, apologies. I was told by Lilian that Tear would be ready soon, apparently, some alterations need to be done on her skirt.” Vyne chose to withhold the information of her popped button because he felt as if she would derive pleasure from Lord Erebus looking down upon her.

Erebus clicked his tongue. “I’m so bored, I want to hurry up and get to the academy.”

“It will still take at least a couple day’s worth of travel in a carriage, arriving by foot is too strange, and you cannot fly there,” Vyne said. “There is no way for us to ‘hurry up’, my liege.”

“You’re a real party-pooper, you know that?”

Vyne bowed his head. “Forgive me.”

“Whatever.”

Erebus was about to close his eyes and go back to sleep, but a female’s voice called out, “Lord Erebus, I’m ready!”

Tear was running towards Erebus and waving excitedly. The sight of a woman of Tear’s caliber happily running towards them with her hair flowing behind her and a picturesque smile on her face would normal give anyone a sense of serenity, but Erebus only responded with, “You’re late, be faster next time.”

Tear dropped to her knees, but her momentum allowed her to skid until she stopped in front of Lord Erebus, she clutched her heart while looking up at him with hopeful eyes. “Scold me more, please.”

Erebus’ face scrunched up. “No.”

She appeared to be saddened. “Anyway, Lord Erebus, I am ready now for us to leave. All of our belongings have been packed already by the maids. They have also informed me that they have attached magical beasts to the carriage instead of horses, so our trip should be faster albeit there will be more shaking and bumping.”

Erebus waved it away. “That minor amount of disruption won’t affect my sleep at all. In order to wake me up, you’ll have to throw something stronger at me!” Erebus proclaimed before laughing heartily.

Tear stared at him with admiration in her eyes while Vyne wore a face of indifference.

Their master cleared his throat. “Ehm, anyway, let’s get going. It’d be sad if Weryn and Magnus found that woman before I was even ready to give her any information,” Erebus said.

“May I ask, who is that woman?” Tear asked a chill seemed to appear.

Erebus, who was either immune to or chose to ignore the sudden coldness responded with, “I guess you could call her an old friend? I don’t know if our relationship could be called an actual friendship. It’s more that we mutually use each other.”

“Her name?” Tear pressed.

“I don’t know. She’s probably changed it again and she’s had multiple names over thousands of years, telling you one of them is completely useless.”

“It’s better than calling her ‘her’ and ‘she’.” Tear pursed her lips.

Erebus sighed and scratched his head. “The last name she went by was Mira. That was a few hundred years ago, so I’m sure that it’s changed. We aren’t that close for me to bother to come and find out her name every time she switches to a new one, you know?”

Tear smiled, the coldness dissipated. “Is that so?” The beauty wore a pristine smile that lit up her entire face and made her eyes sparkle as if they were jewels. But within that smile, there was a certain ugliness.

Vyne, noticing this, frowned. He thought that he was the expression belonging to a greedy pig.