CHAPTER 23: YOU’RE ELYSIA?! P3
~23.3~
*****
The atmosphere lightened up a lot after Kye told the group about her past. They asked her about various things. Zen seemed especially interested. They spent hours talking about her past lives. There was one in particular that they were interested in.
Elise Arbelle.
So she began telling them a story. It was when Elise was twenty years old, only a few years younger than Kye was then. She had two cousins the same age as her, each with different parents, so none of them were siblings. One was a girl named Chloe Arbelle, and the other was a boy named Claude Arbelle. The three spent their childhood together and started going to a university in the capital city. They grew up in a city, but it was tiny compared to the capital.
“Welcome, cousins, to the capital of the Tristan Empire! I present you, Aristide!” Elise was a cheerful blonde. She did not have any of her past life memories, so she didn’t have a wealth of knowledge to pull from. Even so, her growth was still significant. It was a world with the system enabled in full. It had stats, skills, spells, level ups, and plenty more. Weapons, armor, and other items had stats and such, too.
Before they left, her father gave her the family’s heirloom weapon. It was a katana handed down to them that was originally given to the Arbelle family by a visitor from the far east. One of her ancestors had saved that person’s life, and they were very grateful. Its name was Kuro, Blade of Black Lightning. Apparently, it was forged by a blacksmith in ages past that found a black furred Thunder Wolf in the wilderness and nursed it back to health. That was all the visitor told them about its origin.
“Yeah, yeah,” Claude said. “We know you’re excited, Eli.” Despite his uninterested tone, he was smiling.
“We should head to the academy and get settled in first,” Chloe said. She was pointing at a tall building toward the center of the city. “Then we can go exploring!”
Elise grinned. “And explore we shall!” Her cousins nodded, and they entered the city. Elise was all but skipping. As they made their way through the markets, she had an idea. “Oh!” She flipped around and skipped backwards. “Chloe, Claude, wanna make sure we take at least one elective together? I figure there’s a fair chance we won’t be assigned the same classes. Damn upper nobles and the royals have a run of the place, so we lower nobles are kinda just put wherever.”
“Oh, yeah, sure.” Claude said.
“Eli, watch out!” Chloe tried to warn her, but it was too late.
Elise bumped into a large man in a military uniform. “Huh?” He turned around and saw Elise getting up from the ground.
She apologized immediately. “Sorry, sir! I wasn’t watching where I was going. It was completely my fault.” She curtsied.
“Ugh,” he mumbled. “More little wenches and shits coming in from the boonies, I see. Why don’t you lot scurry back where you came from? Aristide is busy this time of year, what with the academy’s new term starting.”
“Oh, that’s why we’re here! We’re new students. We’re from the Ar-”
“Ah, for crying out loud. They let a bunch of country bumpkins in?” The guard drew his sword. “Alright, come on. Show me what you’ve got. I’ll send ya packing if you ain’t strong enough.”
Elise cocked her head to the side. “Sir, shouldn’t you simply accept my apology and let us go about our way?”
“Back talking little-” he brought his sword down, but Elise was unfazed. She simply held out her hand and caught his blade. “W-What?!”
She smiled, hiding her exasperation. “Please accept my apology. I don’t wish to fight a knight of our great empire.”
“How the hell?”
“Oh, this?” She glanced at the sword stopped by her hand. “Uh, yeah. My level is waaaaay higher than yours. Someone your level would need an epic-tier weapon to have a chance against me.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Behind her, Claude and Chloe sighed. “This again?” “How does she always get into fights?”
The man retracted his sword and sheathed it. “Hmph. Clearly, you’re strong enough.” He gestured toward the academy with his head. “Go on.”
Elise curtsied and apologized for the trouble before leaving with her cousins in tow. Further down the street, she said, “That was exciting! That man had no idea how outclassed he was!”
“Why are you even going to the academy?” Claude said. “Chances are you won’t learn a damn thing there.”
Elise shrugged. “You never know. I’m the right age for it, so may as well.”
Chloe giggled. “That’s our Eli for you!”
*****
The next day, they had their first class together. The Arbelle cousins had sword training, mana training, and a few written courses together. The first class was at eight o’clock. They met up at the training field, swords at their hips, ready to learn.
“Eli! Chloe!” Claude greeted them as soon as they arrived.
“Hey, Claude!” Elise replied with a smile. “Sleep well?”
“Well enough. My roommate snores.” He shrugged. “How about you? You ended up together, right?”
“Yeah, we slept like babies!” Chloe cheered.
“What do we have here?” came the deep voice of a rather large, brawny student. “Bunch of country-”
“If you can’t think of anything better than ‘country bumpkin’, then don’t even bother,” Claude said. “We’ve been hearing that since we got here. It’s already old. Can’t you do better?”
The brawny guy smirked. “Got a mouth on ya, huh?”
“Now that won’t do,” said another more normal sized guy. “Go on, plebs, introduce yourselves.”
Elise was the first to curtsy. “Greetings, I am Elise Arbelle, granddaughter of his lordship Baron Arbelle. These are my cousins, Chloe Arbelle and Claude Arbelle. It’s our pleasure.”
“Arbelle, eh?” the smaller of the two said. “So, you’re nobles, if only lower ranked. I see.”
“And you?” she asked. He shrugged, turned away, and started to leave. Elise placed a hand on his shoulder. “This is where you return the greeting with your own introduction.”
“Introduce myself to the children of a barony? No thanks.” They walked off to mingle with some of the other students.
The teacher, a black-haired, blue-eyed woman, saw the whole scene. “Tch. Arrogant upper-ranked nobles. Whatever.” She clapped her hands loudly to get the class’s attention. “Listen up! I’m Professor Zoey Campbell. You may refer to me as Miss Campbell or Miss Zoey, I care not which. I’m not much of one for long-winded introductions, so we’ll skip that. I’ll get to know each of you in class. Right now, your names mean nothing to me. Let’s get right to it.” She picked up a metal pole, and it began to glow blue with mana. “Line up. One at a time. This is obviously a test. If you can damage this, you pass. If you can’t, you fail. There is no in between.”
“Oooh, interesting,” Elise whispered to her cousins. She and the others quickly got in line and it moved rather quickly. The teacher held the bar out for the students. One student would step forward, swing their sword at the bar, and fail to even budge the bar, much less damage it.
The big brawny student that approached them before stepped up and managed to put a small chink in the bar, earning a slight reaction from the teacher. “Your name?”
“Victor Bard, son of-”
“Thank you. You may go.”
He left, mouthing to himself. His normal-sized friend stepped forward next. After swinging his sword, he put a slightly larger nick in the bar. “Your name?”
“Taylor Boswell.”
“Thank you. You may go.”
Next up was Chloe. Both she and Claude put large cuts in the bar, each earning the teacher’s attention to give their names.
Finally, it was Elise’s turn. When she stepped forward, she asked, “Do I need to use my sword?”
She caught the teacher off-guard. “Pardon?”
“I was told to show restraint, so I’d prefer to use my hand if that’s okay.”
“Huh. Very well. You only get one try.”
Elise nodded, reached forward, and crushed the bar in an instant, earning gasps from the entire class. “Sorry, I meant to only squeeze it a little. I thought it would be harder to damage than that.”
The teacher held the disfigured end of the piece of bar she was still holding. “Huh. If that’s you showing restraint... Well done, Lady Arbelle.”
“You already know my name?”
“I’ve heard a lot about you from my sister. She is a sword instructor. You’ve met her.”
“Do you mean Lena Varnett?”
“Yes.”
“Oh!” Elise had stars in her eyes. “Miss Lena was excellent! I learned quite a lot from her!”
Zoey smiled. “I’m glad to hear that. She told me there was an Arbelle child that had a monstrous amount of mana. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”
Elise nodded and curtsied. “Elise Arbelle.”
“Very well done. I look forward to having you in class.”
Elise nodded again and made way for the next student. Zoey had to get another bar to continue class, but she had an extra on hand, knowing ahead of time that she had Elise Arbelle in her class, having requested that herself.
“Chloe! Claude! Can you believe it? She’s Miss Lena’s sister!”
“That’s amazing!” Chloe cheered.
“Yeah, pretty cool,” Claude added.
Back in Allison’s office, Kye was wrapping up that part of the story. “And so, the Arbelle cousins began their first year at the Aristide Academy. We actually did end up in a lot of the same classes. The start of the year was a little rocky... but I’ll save that story for another time.”
*****
Revision: 2024-8-15