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"Wait, Luke, you have a mentor?" This was news to Elise Hargrove and Lily Fairchild both, and even the cool-tempered Serena turned curious. Just who could Luke's mentor be?
"I do." Luke's answer came clipped to two flat words, though, and set every girl at the table rolling her eyes.
They knew he had one. The question was what kind of mentor could take on a monster like Luke and not feel the strain.
"Then back in the Dark Purgatory, why didn't you say so?" Iris chewed her lip. Selene's words had come back to her, the part about the mentor being stronger than her aunt, which pointed to someone very likely at the Sovereign realm.
And even at Celestial, Sovereign-realm mentors numbered pitifully few. Iris still couldn't put a name to this one, and didn't dare hazard a guess at a power of that rank.
"You never asked." Luke's reply stayed as terse as the last. He could hardly tell her the truth, that he'd wanted to see the look on Iris's face once she learned how he and Selene were connected.
"Though from the looks of it, my senior sister left that part out." Watching how Iris had reacted a moment ago, Luke felt a small twinge of regret.
The words sent Iris's blood pressure spiking anyway, and in that instant a fierce premonition seized her. Luke had absolutely done it on purpose.
Her body moved before her mind could catch up. Iris couldn't hold it in another second, and bit straight down on Luke.
Nice bite!
The sight left Elise and the other two speechless, yet each of them privately rooted for Iris. This wretch Luke could stand to be taken down a peg.
"Are you part puppy?" A faint sting bloomed on his shoulder, and Luke's mouth twitched. It carried him back to the Dark Purgatory, and drove home how badly he'd underestimated just how fierce Iris could be.
"Sorry to say, but I happen to be quite fond of puppies myself." Iris's answer came out a little muffled, her teeth not yet unclenched.
Close to twenty years of hard-won composure, and Luke undoes the lot of it, the girl thought, seething.
Sss. Is everyone in my senior sister's family this savage? Or is Iris just in a league of her own? Luke took in the small, smug look on the girl's face, and without the slightest hesitation his hand came up with a crisp smack.
Niece of Selene or not, Luke had no intention of indulging her, all the more since in a way he still counted as her martial uncle, a full rung up the generational ladder from her.
"Ow!" The blow landed, and Iris finally let go, springing back like a startled bird. Heat spread through the struck spot, her face going red, and she stared at him without a word.
Lucky for her they'd taken a corner seat, screened off behind several partitions, or Iris would surely have gone looking for a table to crawl under.
"Still glaring? Want to find out if I'll do it again?" Her red-faced glare didn't faze Luke in the least, and he even lifted his palm a fraction, which sent her head whipping the other way.
One more smack, and the last scrap of her dignity would be gone.
I knew it!
Elise and Lily caught each other's eye, both with the look of a suspicion confirmed. Neither had come off well against Luke before, and this time Iris had brought it on herself besides.
Serena kept her cool expression, but quietly scooted a little farther from Luke. She had no wish to be a bystander caught in the blast.
...
"Well? Any progress on that Dragon Renegade?" In the Celestial Head's office, Tobias Wren set his documents down and lifted his eyes to Moira Ashwood.
Some time had passed since the return from the Dark Purgatory, and the search for the mole who'd traded with the Renegade was work Tobias had handed to Moira to run.
"That Dragon Renegade is tougher than we expected." Moira studied the file and gave her report. "Still, with Dragon's Valley helping, tough as he is, he's already given up everything he knew."
"Trouble is, all he knew was that the mole running the trades is a mentor somewhere inside Celestial, and nothing past that. The Renegades plainly kept a card back on that end."
"When the Renegades made their move, they clearly factored in the chance the Dark Purgatory would fail." Tobias let out a cold snort. "For them to close a trade right under our noses, they've got some real skill about them, whatever else you say."
"Celestial treats its mentors more than fairly. For this one to dare throw in with the Renegades, the nerve is almost beyond belief."
"Should we put the youngsters in the Student Council and the Discipline Committee on it as well?" Moira nodded. "They'd have an easier time moving around than we would."
"We can." Tobias mulled it a moment, then agreed to Moira's suggestion. "Keep the particulars from them, though. Just have them watch for anyone acting suspicious lately, nothing more. No sense tipping our hand and scaring the mole into hiding."
"Understood." Moira took his meaning readily enough. "There's one more thing. The monthly hunt's two weeks out, and the site's been settled. This round it's the Sanctum Plane."
...
"The monthly hunt's coming up in a couple of weeks. Wonder which dimensional plane they'll pick this time?" After all the roughhousing, the group finally circled back to the real subject.
Celestial held a hunt every month, one of the standard ways students earned credits once formally enrolled. Freshmen were required to join their first, and after that, whether to take part in any given one came down to the student's own needs.
Still, the vast majority of students joined every time. For them, there was no such thing as enough credits, and no such thing as too many.
"Word from Mentor Moira is that the plane for this one's the Sanctum." Elise sipped her drink and let the inside scoop drop.
"The Sanctum? They say that plane holds a city up in the clouds, and rumor has it there are fierce beasts of the angel race inside that Cloud City." As she spoke, Lily glanced toward Luke, who happened to have an angel-line card spirit of his own, Angewomon, one whose combat strength was downright absurd.
"Angewomon is fundamentally different from the angels you're all picturing." Catching their looks, Luke only shook his head and left it at that. Though if the chance came, he wouldn't mind seeing these angel-beasts for himself.
If his memory served, the genuine angels of his previous life were no handsome men or lovely women. Every last one had been a grotesque, misshapen thing. He simply didn't know whether these angel-beasts looked the part.
EXTRA CHAPTER FOR EVERY 500 POWERSTONES.