A Serpent's Tale

Chapter 409: Getting Situated?

Upon exiting my room however, I found on of the Sect Acolytes waiting outside my room, dressed in a frilly maid outfit. They bowed the moment I exited.

"Good morning mistress. Breakfast will be ready in half an hour. I take it your companion won’t be joining us?" The servant greeted with extreme cordiality and absolute servitude.

"Uh, yeah, she had her fill last night. What’s for breakfast. Actually, how do you have breakfast ready so soon anyways? Didn’t you arrive here like yesterday evening?" I questioned.

"Simple, we woke up early and got some supplies this morning."

"Uh... Okay." I decided to ignore this behaviour for the time being. I knew that this was probably normal for them and that I would likely get used to this in the future anyways.

I headed down to the ground floor and headed to the dining hall. It was a room that wasn’t too big to make it feel empty in here even with only a few people here, but not small enough to make it seem half crowded in the same situation.

When I entered, I found Ash and Asty already waiting there, talking about their new home. Upon seeing me, they got up from their chaises and eagerly urged me to take a seat next to them, which just so happened to be one of the heads of the table.

"Good morning you two. Is Shirayaa not awake? Or is she just not joining us?" I greeted back.

"I think she’s just not joining us. She doesn’t seem to be doing well since sometime yesterday." Ash expressed her worry as she laid herself back down on her chaise.

"Yeah... I’m... I’m sure she’ll get better soon enough. Just needs some time to herself. And maybe a teacher to help her with her powers." I said with my gaze shifting off to the side with a low smile.

"Are you okay?" Asty asked as she looked at me after my somewhat shady response.

"Yeah, I’m fine. I just... I don’t know, I think she doesn’t like me anymore, and I don’t know why." I began explaining. "She said... She said something that was really unnerving to me. She said that we’d met before, but I don’t ever remember seeing her before I got to the Orphanage."

"O-Oh... I see..." Ash fell silent for a few seconds before speaking up again. "W-Well, let’s move onto another topic."

"Yeah, lets." I agreed, eager to get away from this depressing mood that I’d created.

"So, now that we live here in the capital, what exactly do we do? I mean, it’s not like we have a life anymore. Not after what happened." Ash pointed out

"Well... I could maybe ask the Sect to perhaps get us a recommendation to enter the Gilded Ophidian Institute. It’s not much, but it’ll at least get you something to do whilst you figure the rest out." I suggested as one of the Acolytes started to bring breakfast out.

At first, they simply brought some water and some juice out for us. A pitcher of both for each of us.

"I think... I think that’s a good idea. I mean, we’re all still technically children after all. We probably should get educated." Ash agreed with a pragmatic attitude as they finally served something to actually eat.

It was just some simple toasted bread slices with a selection of spreads for us to choose from at our leisure. I took the provided knife and slathered one with what appeared to be some jam and took a bit.

"Ehh... I don’t really wanna go back to school though." Asty mulled as she just poked her toast with her knife.

"Why not?" I asked in confusion, "I thought you were excited when we first started?"

"Yeah, but it wasn’t what I thought it would be like." She responded a little gloomily as she rested her head on an arm she laid up the table. "Just boring lectures and rewriting what the teacher told us."

"Well, I know that I can most likely guarantee getting us in, and I can likely ask for you to get a specially curriculum suited for you and your wants and needs. Besides, you need to go otherwise you’ll just be here alone. You’ll have the Acolytes, but nobody that you’d actually know." I argued, trying to persuade her otherwise.

She grumbled lightly and sat back up as breakfast was fully served.

"Fine..." Asty agreed reluctantly, taking a bite out of our breakfast.

Speaking of breakfast, it had a wide range of items. There was a small pile of sausages, a small stack of bacon, some fried eggs with salivating golden yolks, a big juicy cooked tomato, some more slices of toast, though slightly less toasted that the previous slices. And finally some beans in a rich creamy tomatoey sauce.

With it came a knife and fork to eat it with. As for the previous knife, they took those away since they weren’t good for cutting through half these things.

"Thanks for the meal." I expressed my gratitude absent mindedly. But the response I got was something I was a little taken aback by.

"Y-Your praise is unnecessary. We’re simply doing as we should, serving you and your guests."

"They aren’t my guests though. They live here with me now." I explained as I began cutting my food up, mainly my tomato and sausages so they could cool off. I wouldn’t be hurt by them being hot or anything, they were just nicer when they weren’t scorching hot.

"All the same, we exist to serve." The servant bowed before promptly leaving, leaving the three of us alone in the dining room with another maid off to the side in case we needed anything.

The three of us began eating, the conversation about school having ended abruptly, and none of us spoke up after, since we didn’t really have much to talk about.

When we finished the servant came over and stacked our now empty plates atop one another and left, leaving me in the room with just Ash and Asty.

"So, what now? We could go exploring the city I suppose? But I don’t really feel like doing that today." Ash questioned somewhat disinterestedly.

"Well, firstly, I’m going to go and wake Lily up if she isn’t already, and also fetch Shirayaa, then I can finish off the tour, showing you all the basement as well as this floor." I suggested with a light smile.

Asty perked up and expressed her desire to see the rest of the manor, "Oh yeah, I wanna see the rest of the house."

I chuckled lightly at the happy mood returning and got up, slithering over to Asty and petting her on the head. "Don’t worry, I’ll make sure my little sister gets the best tour of my home. Which is a Manor, not a house."

She stared at me blankly as she asked, "What’s the difference?"

Shrugging my shoulders, I answered, "Size, I guess. Anyways, I’ll go and get Lily and Shirayaa now and then we can start the tour."

"Wait for me at the entrance hall, okay?"

"Will do." Ash nodded as I left.

I then headed back upstairs and got Lily, who was in what was now my personal study for some reason. When I asked, she just said to come back later. I shrugged and asked her to head downstairs and wait with the girls while I went and got Shirayaa out of her room.

And as I had been expecting, getting her out was far more difficult than it otherwise should’ve been, simply because she refused to leave her room.

I sighed as I tried to convince her to come out, "Look, I know that you’re not exactly happy about being around me, but you can’t spend all your time locked up in there. Eventually you’re going to have to leave, especially if you want to learn [Time] magic."

That clearly got to her as I heard something moving from within her room before she finally open the door. And the moment she did so, I felt as if the darkness within started to spill out and swallow up the light. I think she either has an affinity for [Darkness] or is at the very least developing one.

I flinched slightly as it poured out, almost reaching my scales. I then tried to regain my composure and looked at Shirayaa. But when I did, I saw that she was in an even worse state than she was last night.

For one, she was incredibly pale. She also looked incredibly famished, the flesh on her seemed to have disappeared overnight. Leaving her rather skinny. Her general complexion was just generally sickly.

"Oh my Goddess... Are you okay? What happened to you?" I cried out in both shock and horror upon seeing her condition.

Her eyes, which had been closed opened. And what I saw was horrible. They were sunken into her head for one thing, and they were also dark. Like, physically dark, not just metaphorically because they were sunken.

I could see her veins turning an unnatural colour within her sclera alongside her pupils turning pale. I couldn’t actually remember what colour they were before as I’d always made note to avoid her for so long that I think I subconsciously didn’t remember much about her when time had been altered.

Either way, she did not look good. And she hadn’t responded either, which was even more worrying.

"I... I think you need to stay out of your room for the day, just for your own good." I suggested somewhat fearfully."

In response, she just nodded and slithered out of her room and closed the door behind her.

After that I took her to the entrance of the manor, and she seemed to get a little better along the way at least, which was a good sign.