Noah looked at the ceiling above the bed he picked out for himself, when he suddenly realized something important. A small detail that they seemed to have completely missed. He shot up and stared at Mari for a moment.

“Didn’t you say today was your free day?” Noah exclaimed, and Mari turned around confused, “Yeah, so what?”

“That means you have work tomorrow?”

“...Fuck!” Mari shouted, “Well, I’m gonna be fired. Great!”

Ayden looked at the two of them with a light squint, “Mari, didn’t you only work there to get money while trying to figure out how to get up here? Also because you lost your money, which you now got back?” He pointed out, and in unison, Noah and Mari looked at Ayden.

“But it’s rude to just not show up to work anymore. And they seemed so nice there!” Noah replied immediately, while Mari furiously nodded her head, “Exactly! Do you think I can just quickly run down there and let her know?”

“You want to just ‘quickly run down’ a mountain like this? It took us all day to get up here. We left at dawn. It’s dusk now.” Ayden told Mari, who couldn’t help herself but smile wrily, “B-But...”

“Well, you could always just ask one of the sages to send somethin’ like a spell down there to let them know. That’s probably possible, right? Like... it has to be... right?” Noah suggested, and Mari turned toward him, “Ooh, yeah, that’s true!”

Noah smirked lightly as he stared at the small barrel standing on one of the beds, “Or we can just have our mighty dragon quickly fly down there.” He said. A moment later, two tiny clawed hands appeared on the rim of the barrel as Ness slightly peaked his head out of it, “N-Ness is just barely a hatchling! Ness don’t have his wings yet!”

“Just barely a hatchling? So is that barrel your egg or something?” Noah smirked, and Ness lightly pulled his head back in there. The only thing that could then be heard from inside was a bit of clattering and rumbling. And a moment later, a small metal ball came flying out of it, landing perfectly on Noah’s bed. A lot could be said about Ness, but he did have good aim.

“So, what’s this, now?” Noah asked and slowly picked the metal ball up. At that point, Mari realized what this small object was. She rushed over toward Noah’s bed.

“Wait, no, don’t touch that!” Mari exclaimed, but it was too late. The small metal ball, not any bigger than a golf-ball, was laying comfortably in Noah’s hand. And the next moment, Noah felt a surge of electricity run through his body that made him throw that metal ball away immediately.

“What the fuck!” He exclaimed instinctively, “Shit, that really hurts!”

Of course, Noah didn’t receive any substantial damage, it was just a shock at the level of those prank-toys so he didn’t even lose a single point of his health, but it still stung quite a bit. Noah held his hand annoyed. The worst part that his hounds still weren’t healed by anyone like Almanac suggested, so this hurt even more.

“Jesus christ, that’s annoying...” Noah groaned as he rubbed his thumb over his other hand’s palm.

“Urgh... Ness, I told you to stop that already. Nobody ever thinks that’s funny.” Mari sighed as she picked up the deactivated metal ball before bringing it back over to the barrel.

“Oh, no, I found it fucking hilarious, don’t get me wrong.” Noah told them as he slowly stood up, quietly sneaking up to the barrel. Any cluttering going on inside of the barrel stopped as Ness’ head once more peaked out of it, “The human really thinks so..?”

“Fuck no.” Noah pressed his hand into the barrel and grabbed Ness by the back of the neck to pull him out, like Noah knew animals often did to their young, and then looked at the Kobold, “It was just kinda a bitch move, in my opinion. Like, I’m injured because I got your fucking barrel back. At least wait with that until I’m healed, and don’t make it as obvious then. Like, put it into my shoe or something. Sure, I didn’t know it was gonna shock me, but I figured something was gonna happen. Like, make it unexpected, and not an actual bother for anyone.” Noah explained swiftly.

Ayden let out a slight sigh while Mari and Ness both seemed surprised, “Here we go. ‘Lord of Pranks Noah’ is back.”

“Hey, I didn’t give myself that title, it was the other kids that called me that.” Noah pointed out, and Ayden shook his head, “I’m pretty sure the other kids used to call you ‘dickhead’.”

“The fuck’s that supposed to me-“ Noah exclaimed, but he was interrupted when Ness straight-up kicked Noah into the jaw.

“Unhand Ness right now, human!” Ness exclaimed, pulling on Noah’s hand while pressing himself away from his head with his feet.

“What are you-“

“Mari, help Ness! This fiend clearly has something planned for Ness!” The kobold exclaimed, and the young girl rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“Could both of you just stop already?” Mari asked, and surprisingly, at that moment there was a knock on the door.

“Come in.” Ayden said, unbothered by the chaos created by his friends. The wooden door opened up and an aide stood there, “The sages are now ready for you. Please come with me.”

Noah glared at Ness and let go of the Kobold, dropping him down onto the bed, “Then let’s go.” He said, taking the lead as he walked toward the door.

Ayden, Mari, and Ness soon followed as well of course, as the aide started leading them through the halls of the building. This place somehow seemed like a mixture of cultures. In parts, the buildings were made of stone bricks, seeming like some sort of classic medieval european castle. And in other parts, it was made of wood and had a vibe to it like asian shrines often did. Those sorts of styles flowed into one another naturally so that one barely noticed it, but if one looked at the big picture, it certainly seemed a bit weird to the group of four.

And then, once they turned a corner, they could already guess where they were heading first. There were shelves set up with numerous pieces of scrap-metal, gears, springs, pipes, and the sort laying in them. It was clear that this space wasn’t supposed to be used this way, but the ‘Artificer’ Goblin that they had met earlier most likely didn’t care.

However, at that point, Noah saw something else in this space as well. His eyes sparked up and he was able to see dozens of small things he couldn’t before. Floating dismembered hands, flames or electrical sparks coming from small metallic creations.

This was the first time that he was able to see this sort of thing with so many objects at once. They stepped through this cluttered hallway, and the wooden door at its end opened up. And there he stood, the Goblin Brokhau, “I have been waiting.” He said, and it was the first time that a slight accent shone through his somewhat robotic and mechanical voice. It sounded nearly german, but it was barely noticeable, so it was hard to tell.

“Come in.” Brokhau told Ness, who swiftly ran into the room. He looked back just once to wave at Mari before the door was practically slammed shut.

---

Ness stood in the center of this room, looking around at all the mechanical creations covering the walls. Many of them were far larger than anything that Ness had ever been able to create, and were many times the size of his body, so it was a given that he grew excited.

He ran through the room on all fours, and was trying to pick up one of the smaller creations to get a closer look. But before he was able to touch anything, Ness felt something wrap around his tail as he was pulled away from where he was at a rapid speed.

“Do not touch anything, lizard.” Brokhau said in a grumbling voice. It sounded like it was created through gears scraping against one another. The Goblin let go of the object he used to pull Ness closer toward him, and then looked down at him.

“I am personally sceptical whether you have what it takes to be an artificer. So, tell me of what you have made so far.” Brokhau instructed Ness, who quickly jumped up and placed the barrel on his back on the ground, “Ness will not tell! Ness will show!”

In a hurry, Ness climbed right into the barrel and disappeared within it. A few moments of constant cluttering later, Ness’ head peaked back out of the barrel as he held up a few small metal objects. He came back out and looked at them with a broad grin, “Ness made these from leftover trap parts! This is a shock-ball. Use this to have fun and prank silly humans. This is a hot-ring. Mari puts it around pots to cook food!”

“Really? These were made from traps?” Brokhau muttered. He picked up the ‘shock-ball’ first, pressing his thumbs against a small part of it. It was like he immediately understood the object’s structure, and was able to remove the outer plates easily.

And there, in the center, he saw something surprising, “You reused a part of a trap that was meant to stun people using electricity? How were you able to extract this from the trap, while still keeping the effect intact?”

“How?” Ness asked, his head tilted to the side, “Ness read the runes. This was the only one that I wanted. The others just spread the shock around, but only this part made it!”

“...That does sound like the enchantments on rudimentary beginner dungeon traps...” Brokhau muttered, before he looked at the Kobold in front of him again, “Does this mean you can even read these runes perfectly?”

“Ness can read anything.” He replied. Realizing what Ness’ ability ‘language comprehension’ really entailed, Brokhau couldn’t help himself but grow excited.

“This will be more interesting than I thought it would be.”

One after another, the students were left alone with their teachers. They were nervous but excited at the same time. And the teachers in question similarly so.