The following day went as the first Veronique tried her best to stay attentive and calm, but it was hard to keep her building rage at bay.

  It was as if it had just stayed there from yesterday and keep becoming stronger, probably if she didn’t have to think about Bos and Mos she would have already exploded.

  Today instead of bringing her book she had a small shoulder bag.

  “Didn’t feel like playing pretend today?” Alexander had to point out the book’s absence

  “The book was annoying to drag around, but I got notes to rehearse what I have already read” Veronique informed him of the contents of her bag.

  “Miss Hawkings told me you are larking in basic history, perhaps you should put this much effort in mending such gap in your knowledge first” the Duke had commented, causing Alexander to give out an infuriating smug smile

  “With all due the respect if I don’t train Mos and Bos now they will develop bad habits, which will be harder to mend in the future” Veronique had to protest unable to keep her emotions in full check

  “Veronique got a point, it might be for the best to wait for her to finish her lessons with Miss Hawkings before giving her more stuff to learn” Duchess Lucretia intervened in Veronique’s favor “After all there is no rush”

  “History is still an important subject, I will select a few books for her to read to prepare before calling for a tutor” the Duke rebuked but allowed a compromise

  “…Thank you for your understanding” Veronique had pull out those words out of her mouth, she didn’t really get why she felt so angry after all it was a decent middle ground ‘I need to calm down’ she thought trying to focus on Mos and Bos to distract herself, that was when her mind wandered to something else that Duchess Lucretia said yesterday

  “Wait if all languages but one died out, how come Duchess Lucretia knew what the names Phobos and Deimos mean?” Veronique suddenly said

  “You really are ignorant” Alexander commented and the only thing stopping Veronique from leaping at him and scoop out his eyes with a spoon was Rhea accidentally dropping water on his pants

  “Sorry!” the child would say trying to act innocent, and she was so good at it that Veronique was questioning herself if it was a deliberate move or not

  “It’s kind of a fun story” Duchess Lucretia started explaining “You see Latin had been considered a dead language for centuries, but it was still used by intellectuals and taught in schools, a few scholars had survived and passed on the knowledge of it but full books in Latin had never been found”

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  “I don’t get it, how is it possible that no one of the survivors knew other languages?” Veronique had an hard time wrapping her head around it, since she did remember studying another language in school even if she couldn’t remember what it was and had been terrible at it.

  “It’s not hard to understand, the people back then had prioritized their survival and discarded the need of passing down their own history, then it was simply natural the most spoken language and most common traditions would end up taking over in a small community” the Duke inserted himself in the conversation “The remains of such thing is still affecting us today”

  “Remains?” so there was something left

  “Names, it’s the only thing of the other cultures that stayed with us, even if we don’t know the meaning of them people kept passing them down to honor the deceased so those names became integrated with the current society”

  ‘this explains why there was a quite variety of names all around but I couldn’t point out a foreigner’ Veronique thought over this new information ‘After all Alexander was a clear English name while hers was French, then she was quite sure Lucia was an Italian one’ then she wondered ‘was the world depicted in this story some kind of post apocalyptic one based on the world she came from after all?’ she saved that thought for later as there was another thing that wasn’t sitting right with her

  “Something else must have been passed down as well, it seems impossible for all of it to be gone” Veronique found it hard to digest such thing, how could it be possible that in whole world only a select number of people could be saved by a single person, surely there must have been more survivors and even if by some impossible chance there weren’t how come none of them thought of passing down their native language or didn’t know more then one?

  “As I said People back then had different priorities, it was said that most had been blinded by the treasures of the Labyrinth and the power they could gain with skills” the Duke started explaining “they left behind a lot of knowledge right within their reach before the calamity even hit them”

  “Treasures?” Veronique asked

  “Yes, it was said the last floor of the Labyrinth had a treasure of inestimable worth” the Duke continued “It is my speculation that’s actually the cause of the calamity, someone had disturbed the Labyrinth too much and caused a backlash”

  “…how exactly was this Labyrinth stopped?” could something so powerful to wipe out humanity even be stopped?

  “We didn’t, one day it ceased to be and the Undead boxing us in gained sentience and joined us” “their help in driving out the monsters had been crucial in allowing us to leave the Circles” the Duke must have caught on Veronique’s growing confusion “You will learn this and more from the books I will assign you”

  “…are you sure this Labyrinth is gone?” Veronique asked mostly because this sounded the start of one of those stories where the lost great evil suddenly comes back, which seemed off to her because this didn’t seem at all like that kind of story

  “It is gone, there is no trace of it when it was and no signs of it being present anywhere else” the Duke sounded sure of it “It is supposed that its power had extinguished over the centuries and in few hundreds of years it will leave us too”

  “Leave us?” now Veronique was getting more confused

  “Our skills, they came with the Labyrinth and are slowly fading without it” the Duke clarified what he meant and added to it “Today’s skills are nothing compared to what people were able to do in the past and it is better this way”

  Remembering Miss Hawkings’s reaction to the question Veronique bite her tongue from outright asking what a skill was.

  It was fine she will know in a week anyway and if she got too curious it was safer to ask Lucia while they were in the privacy of her room.

  I knew more then one person that was more proficient in Latin over English in my school.(I am Italian if you didn’t know)

  We are going to get over coins in the next chapter.

  Hanging Jaw - the Dead with the jaw just barely attached

  Little Drag - the Dead with just the top half that keeps dragging itself around Veronique in circles

  Handstand - another Dead with just the top half, but instead of dragging its body it walks on its hands.

  Clashing eyes - the Dead with the eyes danging from its orbits.

  The Decapitated Friends - two Dead that seem to be talking while holding on their own heads

  Disarmed - Dead who uses its own severed arm as a club, another of the same appeared.They started a mock sword battle using their own arms.