❝poisonous fangs can only reap poisonous fruit.❞ Nerluce - named for light - dwells in darkness. It was forged from the shadows of the great beasts, who flash their cruel fangs and crueler insults, who seek to choke the light from his chest with their iron chains, who despise all who are not like them. Disdain for gods and men is made in dim places. Hunger for ruin is cultivated on a starving stomach. Power for destruction is rarely given but when it is, oh, the world will burn. CONTENT WARNINGS (16+) Profanity, violence and gore, alcohol usage, neglect and verbal abuse, self-destructive actions and suicidal ideation, minor character death, and morally-questionable people doing morally-questionable things. [[WORD COUNT: 150,000]] COVER BY APHRODITE270

Volume 1: Pickpocketing Living in secret and stealing to eat is a hard life , but it's all Kuro has ever known. Fear and necessity honed him from a young age into the finest young thief in in the wizard kingdoms. Nobody can hide forever, though, and a run of poor luck lands Kuro in a place where his quick hands and quiet feet count for nothing: Avalon Academy, school of magic. Out of his depth and unable to escape, can Kuro find a place among the other misfits at the school, or will his past return to ruin the one chance he has to leave his life in the shadows?