[Eon's POV: ]
"Uriel! It's already time! We will be late!"
"Yes, yes. Almost finished."
"Finished what?! You are just polishing your scythe from the last hour! It's clean and sharp enough to cut a bunch of paper with a simple touch! Let's go already!"
"Relax dude. It's still an hour before our class starts. And we can just reach the academy with shadow travel in an instant. What's the rush?"
"What is there to not rush? Only an hour is left for the class to start! Just an hour!
How many times have I said it already?! Many things can happen between the academy gates and the classrooms!
Many, many things!
We can miss our very first class ma'am! That can't happen!"
She was too relaxed right now but I couldn't help but worry about what would happen if we were late.
This was the first day of our school and she was humming cheerfully, polishing her secondary scythe that she wasn't even going to use anytime soon.
She was relaxed and I couldn't help but look at her with an anxious expression.
"Uriel!"
"Yes."
And without listening to my desperate requests, she just continued her usual work.
[[ Hehe. ]]
The clock was ticking, the sky was blue, the sun was bright, and we were late!
"Uriel."
"Yes."
"Uriel."
"Yes."
"Alright, come there by yourself. I'm going."
"Yes. Try it if you want to."
"Ughhhh!"
I knew she was doing it to tease me. I knew she was doing it just to see this reaction of mine. I knew she didn't care about the first day or being late, I knew this moment was fun and she wanted to have more fun but! We were still getting late!
"Huuu… alright. Do whatever you want."
I just sat down beside her and calmed myself down, took out a book… no. This wasn't going to work.
"Ok, then I will be waiting outside. Come out whenever you like."
-Swish.
And without waiting, I used my shadow dive and vanished from the place, reappearing outside of our dorm room, and continued reading that book as I stood there.
-Click.
-Thumb!
"Bastard."
Not even a minute had passed when she pushed open the door, came out, and slammed the door behind her.
"It's not my fault. You had your fun, you were greedy, you wanted more, and we were getting late."
"There are still 54 minutes left!!" She shouted with a red face and I offered her a water bottle.
"'Just' 54 minutes."
"Hump!"
She stomped her feet, swiped a triangular key on the door, took the glass bottle from my hand, drank half of the water from it, grabbed my hand, used her shadow travel skill, and took me to the area before the academy gates.
"Happy now?!" She shouted and suddenly attracted the attention of all the nearby students that were also going inside the academy.
And though there were many eyes watching us right now, I firmly just shook my head at my angry bird.
"No, I'm not. We are still outside. Reaching the (I) classroom would still require a long, long time."
"5 minutes! That class is five minutes away if we run! Just five minutes!"
"That's a whole five minutes, ma'am. We can get late-"
"Shut up! Just shut up and let's go!"
And then, she started dragging me inside.
…
-Shwaaaaaaaa!
"Ohh! Did you hear about the house captains? They say everyone is not only unexpected but strangely they all are mysterious too."
"Hello, friend~. You do know how to play."
"Hello? Are you Derek?"
"Student council president is hot! I wonder if he has a partner yet."
"Well of course the teachers are amazing. This is the best academy after all."
"Hey everyone! Which class did you get?"
"I wonder who will be our homeroom teacher."
"Rol! Rol! I heard Master H2O was playing yesterday! I heard they broke into the top hundred."
"Damn fucking hell… did you watch BTW's stream yesterday? It definitely looks like they are adamant about reaching the high rankings!"
"Kyaaaaa! I'm in the same class as my ideal master Alfred!"
"Alright, so how can I get the Maginet? I want to play this <Nexus Origin> too."
"I was playing duo yesterday. In randoms. Met a strange player that didn't say a word, carried only the basic and low-level cards, and still, they managed to wipe out almost half of the lobby single-handedly."
"I think… I'm in love."
"Alright fuck. I have cursed luck."
We were passing through the cheerful garden area and there were many student groups, new friends, new circles, and many loners who still didn't know anyone or had any acquaintances.
But they will find someone, hopefully, and not foolishly think that they can do everything all by themselves.
This wasn't a comfortable place that one can pass from that easily after all.
In the academy, there was only graduation or expulsion.
And the graduation rate of this institute was far higher than any other institute in the world. However, the expulsion rate was also some of the lowest in this place.
Their work here was to create and nurture aspects that could contribute to the world and they mostly managed to do so after their strict schedules, rules, freedom, and secret techniques.
This was a unique place… and being dragged by my collar wasn't as bad of an experience as I thought.
"Uriel! Lucifer! Wait~!"
A voice called us in a unique language and in this garden, there was only one person that could call us that way.
"See! Even Quin is here! We are late!"
"Now what does that even mean…?"
She shook her head and looked at me with an expression that didn't find my attempt to joke even a little bit funny.
"Hello, Quin~. Did you have a good sleep?" Rein asked and wrapped her hand around my neck.
"I…"
She looked at me, then looked back at Uriel, asking what she was doing and that I might get hurt if she did that but she didn't respond and Quin understood it must be something common that she didn't know about so she just shook her head and continued.
"I didn't sleep. I was reading the book that Lucifer gave me. It… was unbelievable. And beautiful. And thrilling. And more fun than anything I had ever read."
There was a warm smile on her face and then she looked at me and held a book before us.
"Thank you for this. And, was everything in this book really about my grandpa?" She asked with a curious and hopeful expression and I nodded at her while asking Uriel to take the hand away.
But she didn't do that and though confused once again, Quin nodded with that same warm smile while looking down at that simple-looking book.
[[ She looks happy~! ]]
The title of this book was [The adventurer who saw the World] a biography that caused a grand controversy at its release, was banned by all of the Western continent nations, and then was confiscated and burned.
Well, the one in her hand was a copy of the original one that I had read back in our tower library and I can make a copy anytime I needed so I didn't need this one.
"You can keep this one Quin. And yes. It is about your grandpa. He was that much of a special person so, read it again when you feel lost. It will help."
I was telling that from experience as the protagonist in that book, her grandfather, was one of the most iconic and my personally beloved people that had ever existed.
'And considering his connection with Lady Sarah and mom, well, he is naturally one of my favorites.'
I smiled at her, and it was a little unique smile, that though Quin didn't notice at all, wasn't something that could escape Uriel's attention.
[[ "What's the story?" ]] she asked with a curious voice and increased the strength behind her grip.
[[ "Will tell you when the time comes. It is a funny one. You will like it." ]]
[[ "Tell me now!" ]]
[[ "I could have. But we are late because of you so no. Now wait till the right moment comes, stars align, the moment mentioned in the ancient prophecy arrives, and my heart thinks this story is not top-level confidential information that could cause a war." ]]
[[ "Tsk. Bastard." ]]
And after that clicking sound, she not only quieted down, but she thankfully also released the grip on my neck, letting a little bird like me fly freely.
"Thanks, Lucifer…"
She was happy, and it was getting late!
"Ok let's talk as we walk. What classes did you choose Quin?"
I grabbed Uriel's hand and started walking, and Quin answered while following beside her.
"I chose the Language of past and present class which people call [Adventuer] level something? And the [Supirior] level business management as you suggested.
Aside from those two, I chose [Exploration] level spirit bonding class, the [Basic] level deeper understanding of the world, [High] level class of political science, and [Intermidiate] level class of laws of individual countries."
Hmmm. It was good.
And though it might seem like she just chose one class from each level of difficulty, she made the best decisions that would be helpful to her in the future.
And more than that…
"Yei~! I took the spirit bonding classes too~! We will be together there~!" Rein hugged her while saying, no, shouting that, and everyone around us looked at us, no, looked at these two girls hugging each other.
And though there was no particular reaction from them to their beauty, the two of them were house captains so the ones from their house as well as the famous people from other houses sure were very surprised to see something like this.
After all, two house captains who should be each other's opponents were happily greeting and hugging each other right now. And this fact was more unsettling for many than the all too well fact that I, the vice-captain of the [Wisdom phoenix] was her fiance.
'And if someone knew that our house captain was my little sister, Quin's house captain was my big sister, and about Chry, Alf, and Prince Alph, things would be a lot more complicated than it is right now.'
It would be difficult and I didn't want complicated things like that just yet.
So that was that and Uriel and Quin had a common class.
'Uriel and I have three common ones and all three of them were superior classes.'
We had decided this a long ago so this class choosing was easy for us and aside from the superior magic engineering; superior magic and weapon training; and superior alchemy classes, she and I will have to spend three of our lectures physically separated from each other.
She was going to go to a [Adventure] level weapon understanding class, a [High] grade energy beast research class, and the [Exploration] grade spirit bonding class.
On the other hand, I would go to a [Exploration] grade cooking class, a [Adventuer] grade high magic theory class, and a special basic course called all energy utilization taught by a certain person that though not famous, was a core figure of this academy.
So we will be away from each other for some lectures but if possible, both of us knew that we would accompany the other to their lectures.
After all, in this academy, you can attend any class of any grade you wanted even if you weren't part of it.
The selection of the classes was only for exam purposes and if someone chooses all six of their subjects as basic ones that they have a full grasp over then even if they played around in some other fun classes, they all would be perfectly fine.
And, our goal was to attend each class of this academy at least once in our three years of time here. And considering there were hundreds of classes that went on at the same time in different parts of the academy, then one can just think how difficult it would be to attend them at the same time maintaining your own attendance in the subjects of your exams.
And there were six compulsory classes for everyone too. We can't possibly attend all the classes in a short period of time.
But we had a long time to do that so, as the very first footstep toward our goal to achieve the wish of having attended every single class at least once, we said our goodbyes to Quin before her classroom (C), and, stood before our own classroom (I), looking at the class that we would see almost every single day for a long time, for the very first time...
