After all of that, and the impromptu class experience, Reiki could finally get some space to himself. That was a given. He had been lodged away in the building adjacent to the academy, where he would be learning about how he was to become a proper adventurer. He hadn’t learned anything useful from the class Sapphire had got him into, but it was interesting; “Alchemic Resonance in Cooking”.
With his mind on the present moment, he took in the room. The room was small, with bare walls and a basic bed. However, the filtered light coming through the thin curtain that covered the window made the room glow with a soft warmth it apparently needed. The bed had a thin layer of some kind of silky cloth, but upon touching it, he noticed it felt like more like cotton.
‘This is an odd material… It’s surprisingly cosy in here, despite the lack of personality and much needed furniture.’ He thought as he started to make his way around the small room. ‘I hope that I get something to keep in here later.’ A knock came at the door after he’d spent a short while atop the bed.
‘Reiki! It’s me.’ Came a familiar voice, muffled a little by the door.
‘Be there in a–’ He zipped over to the door and swung it open enough to see who it was. ‘–n instant.’
There was Sapphire, holding what appeared to him as a small picnic basket, with the occasional leaf still on the interwoven branches used to weave it together.
‘I brought you a “new roomie” gift.’ Her tail wagged side to side as her ears were at attention. ‘It’s apparently been a tradition to gift ’
‘... oh, thanks, Saph.’ He accepted the gift, and let it sit on his bed.
‘You do know there’s a desk in here, right?’ She said, a finger raised and pointed at what appeared to be just a blank wall to him.
‘I… You know what, I didn’t.’ He replied, letting out a huff of air through his nose as his shoulders drooped.
‘May I show you where it is?’ She had kept out of his room the entire time they were chatting with each other, which he had only just picked up on.
‘Sure, I guess… Come on in.’ He felt defeated, to not know that there were indeed more pieces of furniture in his allocated room. ‘I wonder if the students need permission from each other to enter their rooms?’ He added in an afterthought, with a slight curiosity on how the room system worked.
With the permission to enter, Sapphire made her way to the opposite wall from his bed. She lent over a little and traced her fingers along the edge of the wooden extrusion from the wall. With a “thmk” of her nail catching something, she traced a finger up to the extrusion line, and pressed into the wood. With brows raised, and eyes widened, he was speechless. The sight of the panel flush with the wall folded down and upwards, away from the wall.
Watching it fold out, the underside had revealed a pair of wooden legs that kept the surface perfectly level once she had pulled the large wooden surface up to a horizontal position. The sight of a table now present in his room made a thought appear.
‘Wait, how long have these been a thing?’ He asked, as he pressed down with a firm pressure with his free hand.
‘How do you not know?’ She turned to look at him as she then pried a section of the wall beside the bed away to reveal a smaller side-table.
‘Well, it was probably because of what my life was like before meeting you.’ He replied, as he felt his face shift into a more sombre position, probably due to the fake backstory he’d used just a week or so earlier. ‘So… my parents were attacked by some dog-like monster, I didn’t have any other relatives and I got away from it with only a few scratches. I’d been walking for ages before I was kidnapped by those bandits I saved us from. I’ve been out of the loop for months, due to being on the road.’ He added a rough estimate of what he could remember, when he felt a buzz in the back of his thoughts.
Reiki could sense something about his backstory data growing in the back of mind. Most likely from how his personal system interface tracked some of the information he focused on. He could still sense the mini-map in his mind from days prior, but he knew that he couldn’t access it in front of his friend without looking at least a little weird.
‘...I see. That must’ve been hard for you.’ Sapphire brought him back into the moment with her response, as she sat on the bed.
With her ears lowering sideways and her tail resting flat against it, he went and sat beside her.
‘Hey, it’s okay. I just wish I’d been faster back then.’ He replied, as he felt bad for lying to her about what really happened in his past.
She didn’t reply, but at that moment of silence between them, their friendship had grown just a bit closer. It wasn’t until she facepalmed, with an audible thwack of her palm on her forehead, that she remembered why she was there in the first place.
‘Oh right. I just remembered…’ Her ears lowered as her head tilted forward, as she started to go through some of the pouches on her person with hesitant, shaky hands.
‘Hmm..?’ His curiosity peaked at what she was actually there for. ‘I hope she’s not in trouble with that guy from earlier. That would be rather cliché, but it’s probably too late to stop it from happening now.’ He kept that comment to himself, as he wanted to, but resisted resting an arm over her shoulders.
Without a word, she handed him a note. It was written with a rather scraggy, but somewhat legible handwritten message. He couldn’t make heads or tails of it, though, which meant she had to read it out for him. Her voice quietened as the message was revealed to him. He felt a pang in his chest for asking her to read it out. …and wished he hadn’t in the first place.
‘Hey newbie. I see that you’re close to that stupid Beastal. You should come to the third arena. I saw your performance out there earlier. I think it’ll be easy to take you on. You can’t even protect yourself, let alone her. Meet me out there by late evening. That … is mine. If… if yu-you’re late, I’m taking that … by force.’ He didn’t hear what she said the note had called her, twice even, but he could easily tell that it was either a racial slur or a derogatory term, like what studs used when trying to get a woman’s attention back in his home reality.
‘Hey… I’m… I’m sorry you had to read that out.’ He said, his voice laced with an unexplainable emotion for him.
He looked up at her from where he’d been listening, with his face lifted from resting in his palms. A glint of light bounced off of her face. More specifically, her cheeks. Then another. He looked closer and saw she was holding back tears. He sat up and pulled her in for a hug; a much deserved wall of comfort for her.
After calming herself down, he learns that the letter is from the arrogant youngster from earlier. She was being bullied by that guy and his few “companions” to get together. Until her kidnapping, they’d been harassing her with relentless remarks about becoming a mate to their leader. Turns out it hadn’t stopped once she returned to the city. He knew that something since his arrival was different inside him, emotionally, but he decided to let the feeling become part of his new life.
Once again, she needed a hug, and he let her initiate it this time. It was a long few minutes of silence between them, as his shoulder was dampened by her emotional side. Something he didn’t want to see on what he had noticed was most likely her natural face. The tears didn’t ruin any make-up, for there was none that had been soaked and spread by her tears. He’d been in thought during their emotional silence, until she relaxed and composed herself once again.
‘...Tell you what, Saph.’ She looked at him, her eyesight ruined by the blob of tears threatening to fall down her cheek. ‘If you can tell me anything that I can use against him, I’ll try and make sure he won’t go near you again.’ He had left an unintentional cause of fluttering in her chest and stomach with his words, while brushing away the blob of tears from both her eyes.
‘... Thanks.’ She replied after a short while. ‘If anything comes to mind, I’ll let you know.’ She let a gentle smile creep onto her face, before dusting her academy dress he hadn’t noticed her wearing.
‘Oh, and you may want to get your new academy clothes out of the floor’s laundry room.’ She added as she began to leave the room, but peeked her head back in for a quick moment. ‘Your current clothes may need washing, based on my reaction.’ She let a soft smirk fight her downcast eyes as she turned away.
He could guess what was going through her head after the countless anime and manga he’d read, but he decided not to double-check with his Telepathy. After all, he had to think about how to handle this other person before anyone could figure out what he was going to do. Without him knowing, Sapphire had already started on a plan after she realised he would help her.
She knew it was a high risk, but now that it involved her new friend, she could get the next step under way. She just wanted to confirm with her memory of everything that he was tied to who she was avoiding.
* * *
While Reiki was settling into his new academy life with Saph by his side as his guide, and as a friend, something was happening further south. In the port-town of Wynsel.
Something was going down. Several visitors and residents were looking at their hip-bags, either wondering why their money was running low, or straight up missing. A gust of wind or a faint blurring of movement always accompanied these situations. Often causing some to hide their bags. While others speculate if there’s some kind of entity that wants their money. Little did any of them know, except a certain group of bandits, about who was already behind these acts.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
After her morning “task”, some tourist pickpocketing, Teela’s cheeks glistened in the light as she looked out of the tiny window. Her lips shaking like she was cold, despite the warmth of the sun on her healthy yet thin, exposed arms keeping her from feeling cold.
‘Hey, girlie. Yurr needed at de Boss’ meetin’ room.’ A burly yet lean man said, as he placed a bowl of a clumpy, oatmeal-like substance that sloshed unnaturally like a non-Newtonian fluid.
‘...’ she said nothing, but also took note of the guy’s less-menacing demeanour.
It was much of a difference, but she noticed it. Her eyes squinted as she expected him to berate her like all the others. She was uncomfortable with how they treated her, but at least they kept her fed. She used to be so defiant, but in the short time she was kept to doing their dirty work, her tendencies to try and ruin their plans reduced considerably after hearing how they treated her mother and little brother.
‘Tch. ’ she mumbled, using her “mother tongue” as she tucked her tail along the underside of her arms after pulling her legs in to hug them. ‘Mieta, seim yae uwa’i.’ She whispered to herself once the man left the room, her words laced with emotion as a glistening line rolled down her cheek as she stared out of the window she was sat beside.
She knew that her next task was coming, but didn’t realise how soon until she saw the note underneath the bowl. Her instinct was to rip it up, but something about it made her step down and open the paper instead. She couldn’t quite read the words on the page, due to the language they were in, but she did notice some drawings.
She felt that if this were to go down, she wouldn’t be able to see the last remaining people of her family again. With a scratching of her arms, then in the furry edges of her hybridised cheetah legs, she hesitated before pocketing the note somewhere within her tattered clothes. She began to gulp, her nose twitching and her brow and face scrunching up. She had to stop herself from gagging and heaving up her previous meal, just from the foul odour of the bowl of slop.
A few hours later, she was forced by her collar to take part in something she had no idea was happening until she was ordered to join them. The slight sign of it shifting against her neck, exposing some partial redness on her neck. Her blunt-nailed fingers pried with a gentle force to ease an itch caused by her resistance to the spells imbued into the collar.
While she let her gentle touch work away at the edge of the collar against her neck, she snapped her hands away from her neck. She sped up, trying to peek around at the feeling she was being watched with malice. She glared her fanged teeth, but to no-one in particular, as she let her quiet action be drowned out by a voice.
‘Men, tonight, we must raid the Lord’s mansion. Our target will be there right this minute.’
She had no idea who was talking to the gathering of numerous people clad in strange hoods and cloaks. But she did duck down a little. She thought that the one who handled having her present was the one talking, but the tones in his voice were different.
‘Our target is the Head of Postal Management for this crap coastal town.’ he hollered, the cacophony of various voices and sounds from the variety of people there cheering in return.
‘Lezgo get ‘em!’/’I wanna steal me some loot!’/’Let’s burn ‘is place down!’ were just some of the various voices the young Beastal girl heard, as she noticed a window of opportunity.
‘
Without a second thought, she zoomed into the room. Papers started to slowly lift into the air at her sudden arrival. She found some open crates and looked inside. They looked like postal documents. But she felt they weren’t just any normal postal documents. Her thoughts raced, when her collar started to slowly grow in intensity. Her body slowing down. She kicked the stack of boxes over, their movements slow with how fast she was moving, while ripping up a few pages in arm's reach floating through the surrounding air.
Her nails slicing through, some like butter, others like they were being pinched from the sides before tearing. In her last few relative seconds, she nodded, before racing back to where she had left.
‘Where did you go?’ a gravel-like, nasal voice asked her. ‘Tell me now.’
‘ yae yt basé’syí!’ She yelled at him, a few heads turning her way, to reveal many a face adorned with masks or face coverings beneath the hoods.
She shrunk her posture a little, as the collar kicked in. Not only that, she felt her throat trying to produce sound. However, she instead held her mouth shut as long as she could, her hands covering her mouth, before she had to catch a breath once the collar was shut off.
‘I saw her run off towards the Boss’ quarters, but the toilets for useless idiots like her are in the vicinity of that place too.’ The guy who gave her the note earlier said something she didn’t quite understand, but the way the others reacted to a word she knew, that being “Boss”, she felt an immediate confusion before the collar felt like it was burning her neck again.
It also caused her to crumble to the floor as she started to yelp like a feline from the pain. A glowing trail curving its way up and down her neck. A sign they had turned up the intensity of the spells within the collar she wore.
‘Did you do anything in the Boss’ room?’ One of then said, a scratchy, but an octave or two higher than the guys she knew.
She shook her head, the smallest movement she could do, against the spell that was trying to force out of her; what she felt as a big nod of her head. Once she nodded with a meek manner to the toilet question, the collar’s obedience spell came to an immediate halt. She let in a large intake of air into her lungs just before she collapsed on the ground. During everything going on around her, the large group of people spread out into the various alleyways and tunnels.
To her surprise, she found herself alone in the alleyway. The oddly cloaked people who were once there, all vanished to do something tasked only to them. She wanted to leave the place, but her instincts told her to hold on just a little longer. She didn’t know the reason why, but she knew that if she wanted out… She had to be just a bit more patient.
* * *
Reiki was wondering the halls, working out where a certain class was being held… when a door almost opened in his face. He shifted instinctively into his superspeed, dodging the door as it swung open as slow as it could. The moment he dropped out of it, he covered his ears when the door swung further than expected and slammed into the wall.
‘
A pig-tailed girl with her shoulders held high stormed out of the room until she noticed him covering his ears.
‘Oh, sorry…
Her voice trailed off as she walked away, her pigtails contrasting against her dark features. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but with a double-take, he looked back over to her and saw a thin tail extrude from her lower back from under her shirt. It ended with what looked like two curvy arrows, which appeared to mirror each other and intersect. On top of that, he saw her turn to look across the open space, exposing a short, dark red horn on her forehead.
‘Well, at least she apologised.’ he kept to himself, shaking his head from the slight ringing in his ears.
He pulled the door away from the wall, with there not being a single indentation. Despite the force of the swinging door, there wasn’t a single scratch on both the handle nor wall. He pulled out a note, as he held the door. He heard a mature voice continue speaking inside, as he checked the number on the door compared to his note. This was the room.
‘Um… Excuse me,’ he asked, his voice echoing into the small lecture room after knocking on the still open door. ‘Could you tell me where I can find the room for …um, General Linguistics and Writing?’
‘Oh, sure! It's a few doors down to your left, buddy.’ they replied, after checking something on their desk. ‘Room Dee-Seven-Three. You can’t miss it.’ they added after looking up.
‘Thank you, uh…’ he said, his eyes not meeting the Scholar's face as he didn't know what to call them.
‘Oh, you must be new here.’ They said, a fun and bouncy tone layered into their voice as a few students started murmuring. ‘I'm one of the leading Scholars here. Ghuttanomo Tewaiffé. But you can call me Mister Gutter… or simply Gutter, if you want to be that informal.’ The last bit they added with a playful chuckle, making some of their students giggle.
‘Oh, thank you.’ He gave a curt bow and top a few easy steps out of the classroom.
The Scholar was indeed right about the room. As he left, he did a quick practice of what he called a “Surface Scan” with his telepathy, and was taken aback when he saw what Mr Gutter’s thoughts were of him; a shy new lad who had felt and looked a bit out of place but welcomed with open arms. He didn’t know why, but he knew that this Scholar was somebody he felt he could trust with anything. But he didn’t want just anyone knowing his big secret.
After arriving in the room, he got a similar vibe to the previous Scholar. Following that, the start of the class was simple enough. His internal System, for lack of a better name, was storing information like a sponge, somehow. Only when he wasn’t able to keep up with the discussion about how the different languages worked. The list on his piece of rough paper, which was handed to him by Sapphire, told him exactly what classes to attend and when the right times would be to attend them.
While learning the basics on how to write the normal symbols, he quickly discovered Something interesting. While writing them out, a brief and fuzzy change happened to the symbols when they made a complete word. He didn’t want to bring attention to himself, being in the middle seats while against the wall closest to the door, but he couldn’t help but look at the page after writing a few symbols of what they called the native tongue of humans, but also the most common language used by many; Engali.
In a discrete manner, he started to look closer at the page. His curiosity getting the better of him. The words he wrote didn’t appear to have any type of magical hologram, or floating window over the top of them.
‘Huh. I thought it was like Google Translate, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.’ he thought, as he bent the page and the translated texts he’d written, the font even being in his own writing style back in his previous reality. ‘This is more like only I can see the live translation.’
While he was glad to finally learn the basics of how to read and self-study his writing skills, it wasn’t until he discovered an issue when learning the other languages. His thoughts drifted towards how unique his System was. He was very annoyed with the window that popped up, which told him the stupidest thing. It was a gentle warning screen, written with text that said he would only earn upwards of very little experience points by learning a language.
‘Seriously?! I earn little, if any XP from this?!’ He kept to himself, after rubbing his ear with a subtle gesture. ‘I wish I could just learn more languages, but even then, I’m limited to how much XP I’ll earn.’ he let out a quiet groan, which almost went unnoticed.
Despite his internal struggle, somebody near the back of the room had their eyes locked on him. Reiki was so caught up in his small window of sadness, that he failed to pick up on the gaze that bore into the back of his dark, auburn hair. However, he knew that since his work was starting to go well, his thoughts wandered towards something different.
He pondered whether there was a way to earn a passive income, while being at the academy. Including if it was allowed, or even encouraged, for those like him.
A Future Adventurer.