Cat-like jade eyes stared back at Damien, lowered and calculative as if gauging his worth.
Green, curvy hair waves flowed down her back like webs laid out to catch stray prey, and she, the smirking spider, was amidst it. Her nose was sharp like the rest of her facial features, the jawbone, the canines, and even her oval face that ended with a sharp corner to her chin.
Pulling the curtain all the way until her bed was in the show, she sat up straight and looked at Damien, her white pajamas reflecting the morning light every time they made contact with the rays.
"You're finally awake, stranger," the girl grinned even wider, her teeth glinting. "I thought you'd die for sure with how your bones were cracked and all."
'Vampire,' Damien thought to himself, watching her smirk, which reminded him so much of Lucy.
'I wonder if she's noticed that I'm not home yet,' the boy thought to himself, smiling just when the girl sitting across from him cleared her throat to draw his attention.
"Not a ladies' man, I see," she accused, her grin fading.
"Hmmm," Damien nodded, finally giving her the desired attention. "And I suppose you're quite a charmer yourself with how open you are towards me?"
"You got that right. I am, after all, a princess."
Damien's eyes widened a little. "You're royalty?"
"Finally, you're showing some kind of reaction," she smirked again, her eyes slanting upwards.
Damien couldn't help but think her expression matched that of foxes he had seen on TV back home—cunning. And yet, there was an edge to those green eyes that made him believe she wasn't dangerous, well, maybe a little, considering she was a vampire.
"Name's Eden Bloodhorn, and like you, my dear sir, I have a recessive aura flowing in my body too," she pointed at Damien, the practiced accent in her voice not missing his ears.
He was about to speak when she raised her hand to stop him.
"No need to introduce yourself. I already know who you are, hell, the entire Gibbous probably does, too. Your father was a celebrity hero after all."
Unlike when he heard the entire thing from Ahara, Damien wasn't surprised this time. However…
"I don't have any aura flowing in my body, recessive or whatever. I'm just…human as it is."
Eden tilted her head to the side. "You were able to sense the council's aura, right?"
"Umm…yeah?"
"Then that means you have some aura within you, except it might be recessive, just like mine." Eden's face dropped a little, but she was quick to cover it with a smile.
When she noticed the confused look on Damien, however, she snickered. "It means your aura is still in its baby stages."
"So you're saying I have aura flowing in me?"
Eden shrugged. "Maybe. Wanna test it out?"
When Damien nodded in agreement, the girl peeked at the door before pulling the small bag in the corner of her bed. Then she produced a see-through gemstone tablet.
Damien frowned.
"It's called an oblong," Eden explained. "It's what we use here in Gibbous for communication, and..." She took Damien's hand, smiling smugly to herself.
"It can also be used as a portable aura value detector. Watch."
Opening Damien's palm, she placed the oblong on it and moved away, shrieking excitedly. Damien frowned deeper.
'How is this supposed to detect aura?'
Then he stopped.
A clear light akin to that of the sun's rays glowed from the oblong, making him cover his eyes.
"It's happening," Eden beamed, protecting her eyes from the piercing light, too.
Just then, the oblong stopped glowing, as large black numbers flickered on its middle. Starting from 1000, they began dropping fast like a timer all the way until they reached 50.
From then on, the speed slowed considerably, as if the oblong was nearing Damien's final result.
"...40,39...30,29,...20…13, 12,11,10...10.
Then it stopped.
The gem turned clear again, the number 10 flickering on it nonstop.
Damien raised his head to look at Eden, whose mouth was almost wiping the floor with how wide it had opened.
"Ten?" She shrieked, blinking furiously between Damien's face and the gem.
"Your aura value is ten? That's the same as a newborn Gibbits, no, that's an insult to Gibbit babies. A human could even contain aura better than yours."
"But my sister told me humans don't have aura?" Damien interrupted.
"Not the type they can tap into, dummy. It's more like their bodies are aura reserves, that's why rogues attack them. Feeding on a human body could make an E-ranked Gibbit ascend to B in an instant."
"Oh," Damien's face dropped, but he quickly scrunched his brows again.
"Wait, so if humans are aura reserves, then why aren't they strong?"
Eden sighed. "Does a food reserve become stronger because it stores food?"
"Right," Damien's face dropped again. "So humans are more like food storage containers."
"Oh, don't start sulking on me. I was just telling you the facts, but it's not like every Gibbit feasts on humans, you know. Some of us are desperate for aura, but we value life more. Besides, I was just joking with you, your aura is definitely better than humans, but here, it's still recessive...just like mine."
Damien could feel the sadness behind her last three words. Putting on a gentle smile, he returned her oblong.
"Maybe it's not recessive but waiting for the right time to shine," he cooed.
"Ugh! Can't it happen anytime soon? Gibforge is enrolling mext year's students next week, and I haven't even qualified for E-rank yet."
"Isn't that where Principal Twiller is from?"
At Damien's question, the young lady looked dreamily up at the ceiling, hands clasping her cheeks as she smiled.
"Oh, to be a student at Gibforge. They say no one leaves that academy without becoming an A-ranker at least. And don't get me started on the type of students they recruit. Ambitious, powerful, egoistic, royalty, and handsome, it's a whole new level of characters there from E to S rank. As long as you pass their test, you can snag a place there."
That managed to grab Damien's entire attention.
'An academy that can help me become stronger, huh,' he wondered, staring at Eden, who was still rambling on and on about the school.
He had tasted immense power before thanks to the gem. Even though he hadn't been able to control his body then, he remembered the feeling very well. The feeling of knowing he could protect Ahara and the others. The feeling that he could finally enact his revenge on Kaos.
Revenge.
The word lingered in Damien's mind as the thought of his parents' killer lurking somewhere out there, rang in his head.
'If I become stronger, I can finish him off,' he thought to himself, his face turning grim in an instant.
"How do I enroll as a student at Gibforge?" He blurted out, much to Eden's surprise.
She stopped daydreaming, her eyes landing on Damien's. "You want to become a student at Gibforge?"
"Hmm."
At this, a snort escaped from her, but she immediately covered her mouth, laughing silently. Damien could already guess what she was about to say before she even said it.
"I'm sorry, but with that aura value, there's no way Gibforge is taking you in, even with your Dad being the former Numen and all that."
"Then what do you propose I do?" Damien's expression and tone were serious enough to make Eden stop laughing.
"You...you seriously think you can make your aura value rise from ten to fifty in a week?
"Is it possible?"
Eden couldn't help but be amazed by him.
She had lived her entire life waiting for her aura to increase naturally like it did with her peers over time, but thanks to her fragile condition back then, it didn't, and she couldn't perform any strenuous activities that could help her increase her aura manually.
Now that her condition was better, though, the heavy exercises seemed to be working slowly on her aura, probably because her body had grown over time. But because she had a dream, straining herself was something she could handle, even if it meant sleeping at the hospital every night.
"You think you can handle it?" Eden asked, raising her brows at Damien.
The boy nodded, not even bothering to ask what it was that Eden meant.
"As long as we don't have to eat any human flesh, I'm down for anything."
"Even if it might leave you feeling sore all over?"
Damien chuckled. "I've had the bones in my body turn mush once, what's a little sore sensation got in comparison with that?"
The familiar wide smirk returned on Eden's face, this time less foxy and more friendly.
"I like you," she beamed, standing as she took Damien's hand into her's. "Let's make this work and become students at Gibforge together, okay?"
Damien shook her hand back with as much vigor. "You bet we will, but first, shouldn't we be worrying about increasing our aura value?"
"Oh, right, there's that," Eden's cheeks turned a bright pink as she snatched her oblong from the bed.
Then she concentrated on it. Hard.
The tablet flickered a strange blue before Damien could hear what sounded like voices coming from it.
"There we go," Eden muttered, bringing it to her lips.
"Tell father I'm bringing a friend home for training," she ordered before the oblong turned clear again.
Letting out a deep breath, Eden threw the tablet on her bed and turned to Damien, who looked confused once again.
"It needs aura for me to communicate," she notified him, and his face cleared in an instant.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Get up and follow me!"
"Yes, ma'am," Damien immediately rose from the bed, his leg muscles zinging with pain, but he gritted his teeth.
"I'll need to notify my sister before we leave," he announced to Eden, forcing his legs to move.
"That's reasonable. I'll be waiting for you outside the hospital then. Oh, and don't forget to tell your sister you're tagging along with the Vampire queen's daughter just in case she might think you're getting kidnapped."
Damien paused. "You have kidnappers here?"
"Umm, yes? Does the human world not have them?"
"Oh, we do. Plenty of them actually," Damien replied, slipping into the flip-flops with manga prints placed next to his bed, smiling to himself that Ahara remembered to bring them.
"You know, you should stop sounding like a human when you're here if you don't want the strong kids bullying you. You are, after all, a Gibbit now that you have aura flowing in you," Eden murmured, opening the door.
Damien paused, considering her words. She was right. There was a slight chance that he wouldn't be allowed to return home by those council people now that he had aura flowing in him.
"I'll take note of that."
"Good," Eden beamed, stepping her foot outside. "Meet me outside once you're done with your sister, and don't make me wait too long or I'll leave without you."
Without waiting for a reply, she dashed outside, leaving a creased bed and her oblong behind.
"Isn't she afraid of thieves?" Damien asked himself, following her outside to look for Ahara.
He didn't even need to look far because right when he opened the door, sitting on benches in what looked like a waiting room opposite his were the two people he was looking for. They seemed to be deeply engrossed in some discussion that had Ahara focus on Twiller as if he were telling her some foreign secret.
"Well, here goes nothing," Damien blurted out.
Taking a deep breath, her braced himself and limped in their direction.