The second day of the trip was silent. There was nothing to be said. Not even the crow made any noises.

Klavor was still a good distance away, about another day, but now was a good time to rest, so they unloaded their supplies.

Suddenly inside the wagon the bird went crazy, disrupting the silence.

One of the crew members was about to bang on the wagon's door and tell the bird to shut up, when Regan stopped them, "Let them mourn."

The crew member reluctantly nodded their head, and the crow continued with the noises for a good ten minutes.

The whole group avoided looking in that direction, but because of that they missed something very important. A green light began shining through the windows of the wagon, and after it disappeared, the crow settled down.

The following day the crew packed up their belongings and continued on their way.

"Is that... Monar?" One of the group members asked, pointing at a ruined city a few miles away from them.

"Yes." Regan replied.

"Do you guys really think a demon did that? Do you think they're actually capable of destroying a whole city without leaving a trace?" Another member of the group asked, there was an obvious bit of suspicion.

"I don't know, but we shouldn't get involved with these types of things." Regan's voice was stern, and it ended all conversations about Monar.

A few hours passed, and Klavor was finally in sight, Regan clutched the reins of his horse tighter, but he continued onward.

Topaz was waiting at the entrance of Klavor, he couldn't go back to the Ayuna residence without Cronix.

When Regan saw Topaz, he gritted his teeth and dismounted his horse.

"How was the ride here, hopefully nothing bad happened." To Topaz what he said was simply a joke, but when Regan and company heard him, their faces darkened.

Topaz frowned, their reactions were off putting, "Nothing happened... right?"

Regan sighed, "Follow me."

Regan took Topaz to the wagon holding the bird and what remained of Cronix, "Open it." Regan ordered, and Topaz followed his command.

He opened the wagon door, and his frown deepened, "Why is his clothes all burnt up?"

Regan was a bit confused, "That's all you want to say?"

"What do you want me to say? Well I have to admit, you guys did scare me, I thought something actually went wrong." Topaz casually said.

Regan only became more confused, he shove Topaz out of the way. There he saw Cronix's body, but there wasn't anything wrong with it.

He was speechless, he personally saw how Cronix looked before, but now he looked completely fine, there were no exposed or destroyed bones, and no burnt up skin, the only thing wrong with Cronix was his messed up clothes.

Topaz gave Regan a weird look, "Why do you seem more surprised than I do?"

Regan didn't answer him.

Topaz didn't bother with Regan anymore, he took both Cronix and the bird cage, then left for the Ayuna manor.

"Boss, didn't that kid die, why does he look perfectly fine?" One of the crew members asked.

Regan could only mumble, "I don't know."

...

Topaz walked into the Ayuna residence without any worry, completely oblivious of Cronix's previous state.

The first thing he did was drop off the crow inside his room, and ordered the servants not to let anyone enter.

There was something peculiar about these servants, while they looked like humans, they all had some type of animal characteristic about their appearance.

For example, all of the servants didn't have human ears, but animal ears that were usually paired with the tail matching the same animal their ears resembled.

Topaz didn't pay any more attention to the servants and went straight to his father's office. There waited his father, and the two boys, Onyx and Riley.

It wasn't a surprise that they were also there, even among the servants it was well known that these two always stayed near their father whenever they could.

And since they were the two of the most talented kids of the younger generation in this branch, their father let them do whatever they wanted.

Topaz entered the room, Onyx waved at him, and he nodded in response. Topaz then proceeded to completely ignore Riley's presence and go straight to his father.

"Father, this is the one who killed Tornic." Topaz threw Cronix on the floor in front of the middle aged man's desk.

Both Onyx and Riley looked at Cronix, Onyx's brows knitted together, and Riley pinched the bridge of his nose

The middle aged man raised his head from the letter he was reading, "A demi-human? Please tell me this is one of your bad jokes."

Topaz shook his head, "I'm sorry father, but this isn't a joke."

The middle aged man massaged his temples.

"Father, I propose we kill this demi-human to set an example." Onyx said, looking at Cronix.

"An example to who?" Riley quickly interjected, "Father, if we kill this demi-human things are only going to go bad. It's going to end up getting out, and our enemies are going to question us.

"If we give them no reasons people are going to doubt our morality, the general populace are already questioning if keeping demi-humans as slaves is right, and if we give them the real reason, demi-humans who hear of this are going to start acting out on their own. It's already bad enough after what happened at the main family, things are only going to get worse."

"Are you saying we should let the demi-human go?" Onyx challenged.

"No, what I'm saying is the best thing to do is to keep this quiet, maybe we make him a house servant." Riley answered.

The middle aged man was silent as he took everything in, "Get some servant clothes prepared." He ordered.

"Father!" Onyx wanted to argue, but a glare from Topaz shut him up.

"Father, what do I do with Tornic's body?" Topaz asked.

"Bury him next to his mother." He answered.

Topaz nodded, he was about to leave when...

"Topaz! You forgot to take his magic bag." Onyx said while pointing at the bag falling out of Cronix's cloak pocket.

"I've completely forgotten about that! it only had a space of 36 cubic feet, so I didn't think it was worth taking, but I probably should." Topaz said, taking the magic bag.

If Cronix was awake, he would've been very confused about what he said about the size.

"Yeah, you shouldn't forget those things," Onyx laughed.

...

Cronix didn't wake up until an hour after the meeting, and what he saw before him was another unknown wooden room. This room was small and plain, but surprisingly clean.

The only things in this room were three beds lined up next to each other with only a little space in between, and one drawer, he was occupying the bed on the far left. Further down on the foot of the bed were a pile of clothes.

The clothing consisted of a white dress shirt, a black tailcoat, black pants, white gloves, long socks, black dress shoes, a black tie, and a pocket watch.

Cronix looked away from the pile of clothes, and tried to checked his own supplies, but his whole body was dore and it hurt to move, but he persisted.

I still have my cloak, and pendant, but my magic bag is missing. And why are all my clothes messed up?

Cronix's frowned, but his breathing quickly became hard as he remembered the events before everything went dark,

I should've died, why or how am I still alive...?

Cronix suddenly heard a sound from across the room. That's when he noticed a boy about 12 years old with curly sky-blue hair and stormy grey eyes.

But the most noticeable feature he had was a long white bushy tail, and pointy animal ears of the same color. He was also wearing the same attire as the clothes on his bed.

"A demi-human." There was wonder in his voice. Cronix has been called a demi-human plenty of times, but he has never actually seen one before.

The demi-human seemed nervous, and his eyes constantly darted to different parts of the room as if he's searching for something.

"Where am I?" Cronix asked the kid, but it was like he was stuck in a world of his own.

"Excused!" Cronix raised his voice which caught the attention of the boy, "Where am I?" he asked again.

The boy looked at Cronix, opening his mouth to respond but before he could say anything, he was interrupted by the sound of an older boy, "Lapsa, are you ready yet, we have to go!" The door opened and a boy also wearing the same clothes entered the room.

This new demi-human was a young man about 15, he had a ring on each of his ring fingers, dark eyes, and shoulder length hair of a peculiar color scheme.

The center of his hair was white with the tips of his hair black. He had a short bushy black tail, and his ears were small and round, they followed the same color scheme as his hair.

His hair reminded Cronix of the crow.

But the most surprising thing about him was his five star Caster strength.

"Oh, you're awake." The weird haired demi-human said looking at Cronix, "You should get ready too, unless you want to get whipped on your first day."

Cronix frowned but nodded.

"I'm almost ready, but I can't find my tie." Lapsa said, throwing the little coverings the bed on the far right had onto the floor in his search.

The young man sighed and undid his own tie. He approached his fellow demi-human, he stopped him from messing everything up, and tied his own tie around Lapsa's neck."Here, now stop worrying, and let's go."

"But, won't you get..." Lapsa trailed off, unable to finish his sentence. "It's nothing I can't deal with." The young man reassured him.

The moment was interrupted by a yelp, and mumblings, "No...No...No..."

The young man looked at Cronix, "You good?"

Cronix didn't answer him, he couldn't hear his question over his own heartbeat.

"Their gone... How the hell are they just gone!?"

The problem stemmed when Cronix was putting on the clothes obviously made for demi-humans, which had a hole on the pants for the tail.

There was something big missing from his body, which were his wings, who gone without a trace.

Cronix suddenly jumped when he felt a tap on his shoulder, it was the weird haired demi-human, "Hurry up, we'll be late at this rate."

Cronix was barely able to manage a nod and continued putting on his dress shirt, but he only discovered more misfortune, this time in the from of his pendant.

The green gem which only had one crack, now had a second larger crack...

One my only connections to my past is slowly being destroyed...

Cronix suddenly started laughing, these laughs were full of bitterness and resentment towards a very specific man wearing a white cloak and riding a unicorn.

The other two demi-humans didn't have any weird reactions towards his laughing, in these types of scenarios, who haven't laughed like that?

The weird haired demi-human tapped on Cronix's shoulder again "Are you ready?"

Cronix nodded, putting his pendent under his shirt.

He didn't even noticed that if his wings were still there, he wouldn't have any method of putting on his dress shirt and tailcoat.

The first thing Cronix saw when he left the room were fields.

These fields were being kept by demi-humans, but these demi-humans looked different from Lapsa and the weird haired one.

Instead of only having the ears and tails, these demi-humans also had different features, like arms or legs that were also animalistic. Some even looked like animals with a more humanoid form.

"Is that the type of work we're going to be doing?" Cronix asked.

The young man shook his head, "No, we're house servants. According to the Ayuna's we were lucky to have been born with more... 'pleasing features.'"

"Is that so?" Cronix mumbled.

It didn't take long for the three of them to reach a manor. It was large and majestic with multiple stories, yet it seemed so lifeless. There were people coming in and out, but there was no humor or warmth in any of their faces.

The manor gave Cronix chills just with its presence, and this wasn't just him, but Lapsa too. Even after being here for more than two year, it still gave him goosebumps.

The young man seemed to be the only one indifferent to all of this. He casually led them in, the inside was the same as the outside, only that there were more people inside.

The young man guided them into the entrance of the manor where the imperial staircase was located. There stood a human man, with a stern expression, and a whip on his belt.

The scariest part about this man was his Core Creation strength. In front of this man was a line of other demi-human house servants

The weird haired demi-human joined them in the line, and Cronix stood on the left side of him and Lapsa on the right.

The man scanned the three boys, "You're late." Lapsa's face paled, but the young man took out his pocket watch, "Actually we're right on time." He muttered.

His mutter didn't escape the stern man's ears, and in a quick motion he took out his whip and slapped the young man's hand. The young man winced but didn't make any sounds.

The stern man frowned, and that's when he noticed the young man's neck, "Cayden, where's your tie?" Lapsa's face at this point was chalk white, and he looked at the young man with guilt and horror.

The young man now known as Cayden shrugged his shoulders, "Lost it." The man's frown deepened, "It seems like since you've been allowed to keep your fifth star longer than usual, you've become complacent." He walked up to Cayden and flicked his forehead.

But this wasn't a casual flick, but a flick backed up by his Core Creation strength, and Cayden's body was launched back 15 feet. Cayden's five stars appeared behind him, and the weakest one began to vibrate.

By the time he hit the floor there was a large red mark on his forehead, his head felt like it was splitting, and he was getting nauseous. The star's vibrations became faster and faster, and a few seconds later it collapsed on itself.

Blood appeared at the corner of Cayden's lips and Lapsa ran up to him with complete disregard of how the stern man would react. As for Cronix, he was still observing the situation, but when Cayden's stars appeared, he frowned.

All of Cayden's stars looked blue, but not the flawless star type of blue, but the fifth star blue. If he focused on any one of his stars, he could easily reach the flawless Caster stage.

The other servants didn't have any particular reactions, they all looked used to this.

The stern man ignored the two, and addressed the rest of the servants, "In three weeks it's going to be young master Onyx's birthday, and we're in charge of preparing it. We are also preparing a very small funeral for Tornic."

The stern man didn't even bother showing any respect to Tornic.

"Seriously, that trash died? Took him long enough." Despite his already injured body, and collapsed star, Cayden still didn't hold back his tongue.

Cronix had a thoughtful expression, he learned a bit from this interaction. The stern man shifted his attention to Cronix, "You're the demi-human brought here by young master Topaz?"

"Topaz...?" Cronix has never heard this name in his life. The stern man took a step closer backed up with his Core Creation stage strength, it made the air around Cronix suffocating, and his knees instantly failed him as he fell onto the floor, the pressure was way stronger than both Arthur and Williams back in Alktarsha.

"It's not Topaz, it's young master Topaz." The stern man corrected, "You are to address everyone with the respect they deserve." After saying such words, the stern man turned his attention back to Cayden, "Show him around, and make sure he knows the rules."