On top of the myriad of lessons that Noth had been taking, he’d also been spending much of his free time reading. The boy was curious by nature, and he planned to use that fact to his benefit as much as he could. Luckily for him, the manor had an impressive library, and when his father found out that his son seemed so enamoured with books, he stealthily tried to add in more and more, so as to hopefully catch a glimpse of his son happy one day.

Noth had also made use of that same curiosity in another way. He was determined to grow accustomed to his angel-given powers and grow even stronger, strong enough to stand on his own two feet and protect himself. The boy had decided to practice and grow his skill at making wishes by focusing on his abundant inquisitiveness. He often found himself wanting to know about the people he would pass by in the hallway, or meet for his lessons. A part of him wanted to simply understand others around him. He’d whisper the wish quietly once he believed he was out of earshot, and strangely enough, his angel would always lean down and whisper the information that he wanted to know back. His bracelet would still tingle, and a small crack would still form, so he believed this still counted as practice, but a small part of him still told him that something seemed off. He’d noticed that the cracks forming in the bracelet seemed much more minute than they had a year ago, or at least he hoped that was true, so he figured he’d keep doing what he’d been doing and see how far it could carry him.

Most of the time when he’d hear what the passing servants had for [Gifts], they were quite predictable. All different tiers of [Maids], a sprinkling of [Labourers], a [Butler] or [Stableboy] here and there, even one or two [Coachmen] mixed in. And of course he’d find a smattering of [Chefs] or their variants occasionally, even if he rarely ventured near the kitchens. But what really surprised Noth was when he’d find someone with a rare and confusing [Gift] wandering around. A [Technician] was a find that the boy wouldn’t have expected to see amongst the servants, even if it was something he could easily rationalize, but the finding of a [Lesser Beloved of the Verdant] was a [Gift] he’d never heard of. Luckily the angel took pity on him and quickly explained that it meant they were a type of earth mage, and Noth couldn’t help but look at the person with a little bit more interest than before.

The Earl had made him promise to both report to his office once a week, and to also eat dinner with him 3 times a week, under the guise of keeping track of the boy’s progress and any important news. Noth had honestly wanted to refuse the order, not liking the feeling of being kept under any form of watch or control, but when his angel nagged at him that it was just the ‘clear ploy of a desperate father hoping for time with his son’, he relented. He didn’t particularly like his father, but he still had that small shred of a desire for normalcy that burned inside of him. Besides, he might get valuable insight into the life of nobility that books couldn’t teach, if not valuable insight into the life and mind of monsters. It was always easier to study something in a controlled environment than out in the wild, and Noth was acutely aware that he was nowhere near done having to deal with monsters in his life.

One special day something annoying happened. After doing his typical weekly report, Noth bumped into someone in the hallway. The man was lanky, pale, and particularly oily seeming. The look in his eye was obviously not well-meaning, and his smile looked far too practiced to be anywhere near genuine. Noth immediately knew he was dealing with something disgusting, and the almost cooing purr that slipped through the lips of the angel that had been following behind the boy alerted him that something had caught her attention.

“I’m so sorry, young master, I didn’t mean to get in your way-”

Suddenly, in the middle of the man’s introduction, his angel grabbed the boy by his shoulders from behind, her lips almost kissing his ears as she loudly whispered.

“-Jeck Felitt, your new teacher.”

This was important. His angel rarely ever just offered up information like that if it wasn’t important, and she especially seemed to not issue warnings to him unless things were particularly dangerous. The time she’d warned him of his father’s upcoming murder attempt flashed through his mind. Did that mean this man also had designs to kill him? 'Jeck Felitt the Snake' was firmly cemented into his mind as his next monster from that very moment. This new monster may have come into his home, but that didn’t mean that the boy was as safe interacting with it as he was interacting with his father. This monster had come in from the wild, and Noth was too smart to let himself be caught without a plan against an unknown monster. Before the snake could hiss another word in his direction, the child decided he had to put an end to this attack and retreat.

“It’s great meeting you painter, but I’m in a hurry here, and I’m neither kind enough nor sociable enough to keep humouring you with a conversation.”

It would be a lie to say that Noth didn’t revel a little in the stunned look on the man’s face, but he couldn’t let himself stay around for too long, so he’d just have to save that moment in his memory to enjoy later. And with that he made a hasty exit. The boy almost passed by a servant a few hallways later, but stopped just short before a mischievous look crept onto his face. He’d decided to play a little prank on the snake, and see how it would respond. Half an hour later, Noth had run around the whole manor, snagging any servant he could find and giving them whatever difficult or far away task he could think of.

~~~

“So that monster’s name was Jack Felt?”

The angel let out a small laugh at the boy, not sure if he’d said the wrong name on purpose or not. Noth was sprawled out on his bed in the villa, like he always did whenever he had something he wanted to think over. The spirit sat on the edge of the bed and stared down at him with an amused look.

The child let out a small exasperated laugh, realizing that the angel was no longer in the helpful mood she’d been in earlier.

“Alright, yeah. I wish I knew more about that snake from earlier.”

The vision turned and let herself drop down next to him on the bed, her face inches away from his, and as his bracelet started to tingle, she softly spoke to him.

Noth frowned. The more he heard about the man, the more he knew that there was no way Jeck had entered the manor for a good reason. Why would a man of such renown be so willing to become the teacher of a child that hadn’t yet been conferred any kind of noble title whatsoever? Was he doing this to get closer to Noth’s father? Perhaps it was one of those ‘favours’ the angel had spoken of? The boy thought of his father, the first monster he’d ever had to conquer, and then of Jeck. While both may be monsters, Jeck seemed to somehow be clearly higher up in the monster food-chain than the Earl. If the man was a snake, then his father, being the cowardly mess that he was, was… A mouse? He couldn't be a rat, that would be too far on the rough side, but maybe perhaps more of a ferret? Something from the rodent family for sure. Whatever he was, there was no way the law of nature would let his father win. Would he have to step in and intervene then? He still needed his father, and if there could only be one or the other, he’d easily choose the lesser of the two evils.

Something was bothering the boy about all this however. Going off of what he’d heard from his father during his weekly report earlier, a teacher would be coming for him that Ruth Kieran had known since he was still a child. The man had even called them ‘friends’. If Jeck was that man, then it was unlikely that there was some connection the Earl had that he hadn’t already reached and plundered over the years. So then why? What could he possibly receive from doing a favour related to the man now? Or, could it be, that the favour wasn’t about his father, but targeted at someone else? If that was the case then things got a lot more dangerous, especially when he remembered that his angel had actively gone out of her way to warn Noth about the snake. The boy’s face grew impossibly more grave.

“What kind of… I wish I knew what kind of favours Jeck usually does.”

The spirit's face twitched a little as the wish started to take effect.

When Noth gave her a grim nod, she looked away from him and turned onto her back, crushing her wings. He was staring at the side of her face so hard as he received his answer, that it would have been impossible for him to miss the fact that even though he could hear her clearly, her mouth never moved the whole time.

“Wait, go back! Children? Why would anyone want to buy children? You mean like for adoption?”

The angel looked at him out of the corner of her eye, her face twisting in an emotion that Noth couldn’t identify. She sighed before she answered, her voice coming out very strained, even as her mouth continued to stay still.

Noth was baffled for a moment that such things actually existed, but outrage quickly overtook that emotion. Such awful things could really happen in the world? And they were happening to kids of all people?! The boy’s own trauma added more onto the heaping helping of utter loathing and contempt he felt for such an awful realization. How many monsters must the snake have had dealings with if such things were a common enough occurrence that they made it to the angel’s list?! And just as bad was the man actually helping people to do such horrible things! The boy already held a bad opinion of Jeck Felitt from the start for being an obvious monster but now? NOW?

Noth hated Jeck Felitt.

Such a hideous thing like Jeck Felitt didn’t need to exist in the same world as Noth.

Noth would REMOVE Jeck Felitt.

It seemed that everyone else lived like such an abominable thing like him wasn’t running around freely, but Noth could do no such thing. There was no way he could just ignore and accept such a man. If no one else was brave enough to fight and end such a snake, then that left no one but himself to do it. And by the God-dess he would do it. Nothing else in his world mattered to him right now as much as stopping Jeck did. Sure, Noth knew there must be people out there who were actively trying to find a way to end his own life right at this moment just because they didn’t like who he was, but that whole affair would just have to sit on the backburner for now. Were his current thoughts for Jeck far too similar to his own assailants? That didn’t mean a thing either. Noth Kieran was just a small child who had no choice in that matter, whereas Jeck Felitt was a grown, evil monster. The difference was as vast as opposite sides of the world to the boy.

The feeling that Noth had had before, when he was forced to face his fears and go against his father, returned to him; The idea that you needed a monster to defeat another monster once again pervaded his mind. The child was of course no monster, it’s true, but, as he’d had to accept, he was half monster on his father’s side, and that would have to be enough. Lesser monster though his father may be, Noth had gotten plenty of time to study the monster that was his father after he’d come back here. If he could use any of what he’d previously learned in his attack against Jeck, then he’d be sure to make use of it. And even if he couldn’t, that was fine too, his prey wasn’t going anywhere, and this would give him lots of valuable time to study this much bigger beast.

He’d keep a keen eye on his target, he’d make a plan, and when the conditions were at their best, he’d strike.