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24: Back to School

"Not a big fan of her," Dianna shook her head as the six members of the crew gathered outside of the Zailiens, hopefully well out of the way of Cetus' ears.

"Raised more questions than it answered, that did," Lawrence shook his head alongside her.

"Why was she being so shifty? What could possibly have gone on between her and her old crew?" Simon shook his head as well.

Mina glanced at the three of them, then started shaking her head too, and the four of them kept shaking their heads in a circle outside.

"You four are fucking weird," Chix groaned.

Simon and Lawrence stopped shaking their heads and started laughing. Dianna finally caught on that they were making fun of her, and Mina hesitantly chuckled along with them.

"But for real though," Simon finished laughing, "I don't like her attitude."

"I don't really want to be flying with a copilot that doesn't wanna spill her secrets," Lawrence coughed. "But we don't got a lotta other choices."

"We don't," Simon said sternly. "Pretty much, we either ignore all the secrets she's hiding from us, or we don't fly. And at that point, might as well have handed the whole thing over to Dagon."

"Agreed," Dianna nodded along, "and if I had to pick, I'd much rather fly with the spy."

"I'm hoping we can convince her to tell us more," Mina added enthusiastically, "at least someday."

"Good point," Dianna nodded. "She said she was a person's soul, meaning she could probably be convinced one way or another." Dianna smiled sinisterly at the end.

"Let's not try and waterboard an airship," Simon put his hand on her shoulder, "and focus on what's in front of us. First of all: where to next?"

"What do you mean?" Mina asked. "Aren't we going to my village?"

"We can," Simon replied, "but after all that dream mumbo jumbo, are we sure that's the move? I mean sure, we can head back to your village- what's its name again?"

"Muldrotha," Mina answered.

"We could go back to Muldrotha, but then I think we should definitely investigate these places from our dreams."

"Investigate?" Dianna asked. "How so?"

"I mean, our dreams were all of places we've never been before, and we all remember them so vividly, no?"

"I sure do," Dianna shivered.

"I think they might exist in the real world- and that we're meant to find them."

"But where do we go?" Mina asked.

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"That's the thing," Simon shook his head and put his hands on his hips. "No idea. We got some starting points, though- Mina, yours was in Kagami, and I know my grandfather died fighting for Ludencrest, so he's probably buried there."

"Your grandfather?" Mina inquired.

"Didn't I tell you about my dream?"

"You just talked about everywhere you saw," Mina explained, "nothing about your grandfather."

"Well, at the end of my dream, there was a memorial to my grandfather, which I'm pretty sure is important to the whole meaning of the dream."

"That would've been good to add," Lawrence chimed in. "You ever visit this memorial before?"

"No," Simon answered, "I haven't been able to leave the country for the longest time. While I was a baron, I was way too busy, and as an adventurer I've been too broke, plus I don't have my license to leave the nation. We weren't allowed to attend grandfather's funeral, since he was technically a traitor to the family when he died, and so I've never even seen the place."

"So how do you know that's the real memorial?" Lawrence asked.

"I don't," Simon answered blankly, "but I see no reason to doubt it."

"You're putting a lot of faith in one dream," Lawrence sighed. "But I see no reason not to make a quick trip. I don't have anywhere urgent that needs visiting, after all."

"You mentioned something earlier," Mina spoke up, "about a license to leave the nation- what is that?"

"Do you- do you not know about licenses?" Simon stammered.

"N-no..." Mina replied sheepishly.

"Mina..." Lawrence shook his head.

"Basically," Simon sighed, "now that the High Court is in place, making laws for all the nations together, you need to have a valid reason to be outside your homeland. The easiest way for us, as adventurers, to do that is to get an professional adventuring license, which allows us to travel anywhere on Hoenheim. It's the most versatile license, because high-ranking adventurers often have to travel far for their quests."

"That seems easy," Mina clapped, "how do we get one."

"A professional adventuring license is only issued to adventurers who complete a program at one of the three adventuring colleges."

"And those are?" Dianna asked.

"The closest one is in Auhgrens, Montgomery Dahlia's Academy for Greatness. Besides that, there's Jericho's Convent in Rydelsphere, and the Sakura Estate in Kagami."

"Let's go to the closest one, then," Mina nodded her head.

"We'll have to write ahead, and get accepted. I'll try and leverage my family for that," Simon smiled. "We should get a notice back within two weeks. 'Till then, we should probably stay in one spot so their couriers can reach us."

"And after that?" Mina asked excitedly.

"Normally, at Monty-D's-"

"Monty fucking what???" Lawrence busted out laughing.

"It's what everyone calls Montgomery's school," Simon chuckled. "I love the name, personally."

"Me too," Lawrence kept laughing, and showed no signs of stopping.

"Anyway, Monty-D's actually a school meant for youths, so you have to complete four years of general education in addition to your adventuring classes."

"Blech," Dianna gagged. "Let's go somewhere else."

"We don't have to, since we're adults. We can just take an expedited course to get through and get licensed faster."

"Will all our classes be full of kids, then?" Lawrence asked disgustedly as his laughter died down.

"Everyone's gonna be younger than you, that's for sure," Simon joked back.

"Watch it," Lawrence smiled.

"And it will, but there's sure to be others around our age too. The college accepts people of all ages, so every pro adventurer this side of the Felgores are going to be there."

"Guess that'll do, then," Lawrence nodded.

"Great," Simon smiled, and turned to walk back into the Zailiens. "I'll start working on the letter, then. Chix, Al, how many should I say to expect?"

"Five," Chix said.

"Five," Alphonse nodded. "I won't be doing any adventuring."

"You'll still need the license, though," Simon replied.

"Shit, you're right. Six, then," Alphonse nodded.

"Good," Simon smiled. "We can pay a visit to Mina's village while we wait. Then we'll wait at my former castle for the reply, since it'll be easier to get mail there than a remote village."

"That sounds nice," Mina said enthusiastically.

"And one more thing," Simon hastily added as he climbed the ladder up onto the back of the Zailiens. "College ain't cheap- I'll be pulling our tuition from our group funds."

The other five gulped.