Ice Mountains

Now looking right at this group, they just look like normal kids who just suffer a lot of pressure due to their position as members of such an important house.

Luther was a tall, fat boy. Kiel was a short, thin boy while Xander was as tall as Luther but as thin as a toothpick and wore glasses. Yuno and Mary were only slightly taller than Kiel, Mary also wore glasses but her lenses were larger than normal.

'When I got here I was scared of having to deal with people judging me for being a commoner, but these kids are just going through too much pressure to even worry about the fact that I'm a commoner.'

After we returned to the great hall, our group did not split and in fact, only increased with the addition of Hely and Edward. These children are under pressure because each generation is becoming weaker than the previous one, and the power demands are the same. As soon as they are unable to meet the expectations, they are simply discarded by the family itself.

Just by looking up, it was easy to see people watching us as if we were being tested right now. The party itself only lasted a few hours, and soon we returned to the rooms assigned to us.

When I got to my room I could see Marquis Joseph Ranseur waiting for me in front of the door.

"You have fulfilled your part of the agreement, now I will fulfill mine, but even I will need details and due time to organize a search in my territory." The Marquis spoke.

I explained to him everything that happened and everything I knew about him, facial description, the mercenary company he worked for, and even tried to describe the people I saw during the attack.

He heard everything clearly as he wrote down certain details in a small notebook.

"Now it makes sense what happened to Tuska, the evidence pointed to bandits, but still would need a very large group for an entire village... I'm going to hire people to investigate and look for him, but what do you want to do about the nobles who took action on it? You know that my position is not very advantageous yet to do anything against someone with a high position." He spoke.

"To be honest I didn't think much about it, but if they're noble then it must be impossible for them to hide like Scullery. I will deal with them myself"

"Understood, as soon as I have details about him I will contact you, try to stay alive until then."

I nodded with the head while he was leaving, I entered the room and finally rested after all these stressful hours.

'The sensations I feel since that day are not the same, as if a switch button was pressed on my head at the same time that I absorbed the entire village. Maybe I will feel something again when I see Scullery, at least I hope so...'

---

The next day started with one of the castle guards knocking on my door.

I woke up, washed my face, and followed him as instructed by the guard, I was directed to a glamorous carriage with the symbol of a red dragon. Each house had its symbol and this was of the Viridian House.

Malior House had the symbol of a golden lion, Plynty had the symbol of sunflower and Valzor had a tree under the rain as a symbol.

Inside the carriage was the same group as before, although we were at 6, there was room for twice as many people inside.

We traveled towards that famous Viridian House, a house that was on top of a hill bordering the precipice. Although this trip is much bigger than any other trip I have ever taken, it was relatively quick to arrive due to the enchantments that the carriage and horses had.

During all this time I had the chance to learn more about the current conditions in which the mages were in.

The great heroes of the legends who made magic possible for humans were classified as SSS rank mages, but since then no one has been able to reach that level, in the last century two great SS rank mages emerged but they isolated themselves from society a few decades ago and nobody knows why, not even knowing if they are still alive.

The S rank was only reached by the leaders of the houses and some of their subordinates, but the rest of the magicians end up reaching the A rank only in old age if they try hard during that lifetime.

At first, the 3 big houses were formed by only one family, but with time they soon grew and branched out, a few centuries ago it was noticed that the bloodline was getting weaker and weaker, in an attempt to preserve the bloodline they decided that it would only be allowed relationships between families belonging to the same house, this prolonged the strength of the bloodline, but they soon realized that it was not enough and started to expel members from the major houses.

This happened during the formation of the Empire, these members expelled together with several other incredible mages were attracted by the promise of gold and so the Malior House was formed.

Not even one member of Viridian House has been expelled, yet their numbers have also decreased, which makes it obvious that the way adopted by this house to preserve its knowledge and supremacy over the fire element is severe. It also explains why they were so scared in front of the Grand Master.

We arrived with just a few days of travel, calling the place a house was a little rough considering that the area itself was as big as a city and had a huge castle on the top of the hill bordering the cliff. Still, the place was different from what I expected, we were on a snow-covered hill with extreme cold.

'This was not quite the place I expected from people who dominate the opposite element.'