"Hmm, so that's what usually happens around these parts. So, how long have you been here?" I asked the girl.
"My family has resided here for about a hundred years." She answered.
Oh, so you're either loaded, or you're about to fall off; judging by your behavior, the second option seems to be the most believable option of the two.
She had just explained to me what happened out here; it's an all-out war between the rich families, the true nobility, and the many other rich and powerful individuals who managed to buy a spot up here in "heaven."
It's not an uncommon occurrence to see an entire family disappear, and since this place has had all of its islands inhabited for some odd reason, within just a couple of months a new group will have filled its place.
Right now everyone was talking about the family who managed to reclaim a spot for themselves in heaven.
It was a much bigger deal than Leo let on, not only because in such a short time they were able to get back on their feet after being put on the brink of ruin, but also because they somehow survived being sent back to the surface.
"Is that all?" I asked her.
Surely not, right?
"I think… as of late, a lot of chaos has—" She suddenly stopped; she gasped in shock when she saw the student in the black uniform from before return with a missing arm and a missing eye.
Ugh… I want to mess with him so bad… Fuck, but I do feel a bit bad… That really was an incredibly unpleasant moment; I just hope that… Wait, if you're here, does that mean you left your mother alone with mine? Are you nuts? Didn't you just see what she did to you?
"You shouldn't stare so hard, Luca; it makes people uncomfortable." Leo reprimanded me, slamming his tiny fist against the back of my head.
"So many things to care for… why should I? It's not like he's going to do anything. If he dares even breathe the wrong way, I'm sure my mother will turn him either into a corpse or a torso deprived of all limbs." My protest was met by a cold glare by Leo.
"Life was so much easier on the surface; there I didn't have to care about others' opinions and whatnot; it felt much better than this." I complained.
"Life on the surface? What's the surface like?" Shia timidly asked me.
"The surface? It isn't anything special, to be frank, kind of like the Fracture. I mean, they are less technologically advanced and overall a lot poorer than the people here, but it's not like they live in filth." I explained to her.
"Do you wish to see it with your own eyes?" I then asked her; she quickly turned around and never answered me.
As we were heading away, I noticed someone was following, exuding a unique and unpleasant scent. Leo too was aware of him; he was glancing in that direction every once in a while but didn't seem interested in intervening.
Are you sure this is the correct choice? Shouldn't we make him bow or humiliate him or something? He's clearly glaring at us when we did nothing wrong to him. He should learn a thing or two about respecting his superiors, and didn't he get into our class to get close to us?
In search of an empty space, we came across a small room filled with bricks. It wasn't under construction, it wasn't used for teaching, and it simply had a lot of bricks stored in there.
It reminded me of the kid carrying a bunch of bricks a while back; he was certainly carrying them in a hurry over here, surely, but why?
"What's the purpose of this room?" I asked the girl as I entered the room to inspect it further.
Suddenly the atmosphere tanked; the two of them got real quiet as I began inspecting the bricks.
There was nothing special about them; unlike the usual bricks I saw, which were hollow, these ones were full to the brim, and because of that, they were much heavier, which would've easily explained why they easily broke my and the other guy's foot.
I tried breaking it apart to see if maybe there was something hidden inside, but I found nothing. I checked a couple more, and the result was pretty much the same.
But why?
So I pushed the bricks away to see if maybe they were hiding something beneath them, but to no avail.
"So? Will you tell me or not? Why are these bricks here? Is there a special reason or not?" I asked, annoyed. I was starting to lose my patience.
"It's to bully those from weaker families, to make them carry bricks as if they were bricklayers." The girl responded, intimidated.
See, it wasn't hard to tell me.
I was a bit taken aback by the creativity and childish level of bullying others. It was probably just some sort of inside joke others didn't pick up immediately, and even if they did, it wasn't big enough to make a fuss over it.
Actually, this seems pretty genius.
"We can't do that." As if reading my mind, Leo immediately interrupted my daydream with a stern voice.
"Why not? This seems like a light enough punishment that won't really harm him." I jokingly complained.
"It'll mess with the hierarchy. If you stir up too much trouble, then—"
"Whatever, Mom will deal with this. I can't get more in trouble than this, so I might as well go out with a bang!" I cut him off as I began gently picking bricks to bring back.
No wait, if I'm the one carrying them, then I'll be looked at as the slave…
"Oi, I know you've been listening up until now, so why don't you show up and make yourself useful for once?" I then yelled at my invisible bodyguards.
Nothing happened.
"I promise after this one I'll be a good boy and stop putting myself in trouble. Just this one last time, I just need you to carry these bricks for me; it's not a big deal. I'm sure they weigh little to nothing to you since you're all so strong." I pleaded further; Leo sighed at my futile attempts to win them over while the girl looked at me perplexed.
Then from the shadows a figure emerged, completely covered by a dark cloak. Lots of metal sounds could be heard from underneath the cloak as it stepped forward in my direction, and as it removed its hood, it revealed itself to be the cat-like maid.
"Will you promise to stop causing pain to the madam?" She asked me.
Pain? To whom? Mother? What a joke! Who do you think she is?
The statement irked me. I wanted to lash out. I had all the proof in the world. After I escaped from that house, not once did she try to reach out to me; she ordered the other servants to stop following me and kept giving all of her attention to that annoying girl.
Instead, I clenched my fist and bit my tongue until I could finally start thinking clearly again.
"Yes." I boldly lied. "Yes, I promise I'll be a good boy again." I repeated it to her to sound more convincing.
She stared directly into my eyes for quite a while before she sighed, mumbled something to herself, and lifted a large amount of bricks using her bare hands.
I couldn't stop myself from smiling in anticipation. I didn't really care if the guy carried the bricks back here or not; all I wanted was to shatter this image of invulnerability he still had. I wanted for them to see how even part of the true nobility bowed their head.
I didn't expect my revenge to be delivered on the same day… mhh… but who said that I was going to stop today? I promised to not hurt my mother, not this guy.
"You're incorrigible." Leo commented.
I ignored his comment and immediately headed towards the classroom. I was in such a hurry, I even let go and forgot about the other girl completely and anything I wanted to hear about this school and the people studying here.
I rushed back to the classroom, only to see the noble student in the classroom; unlike everyone else, he was content with reading a book in the quiet and solitude of the classroom.
"What do you want?" He asked me with an extremely annoyed look in his eyes; he was still as fierce as ever. He wanted to keep up appearances, but I could tell—no, I could smell, to be more precise—all the unbottled negative emotions he was feeling.
It was an overwhelming amount of flavors forced in my mouth all at once, so addictively so that it made my head spin. It was the first time I could taste so many new flavors after many months spent tasting nothing but the pure sweetness of chocolate.
With each step those flavors were growing ever so slightly; I could feel the gazes of the students watching us from the hallway.
"I've got a small task for you." I said as I heard the loud sound of a ton of bricks suddenly falling behind me.