It's been a week since me, Aura, and Rose went to the waterfall and had the chance to relax. I haven’t seen those 2 since, today will be the first time in a week that I see them.
Never a dull moment with them.
I waved to Mom and Dad. This is the last time I’ll see them for a while, unless we have weekend breaks or something.
I walked out to the magic circle. I haven’t seen the other students here since the day before the attack.
Oh well.
I waited for the teleporter to turn on, which it finally did. I met up with Aura at the entrance of Mr Willowsky’s class in the line that formed in front of the door.
All of the homerooms were lined up in the hallways vertically. Rose’s homeroom stood next to ours. Aura ran out of the line and wrapped her arms around Rose and held her tightly, so tight it looked like she was going to pop her. It’s funny seeing Aura act like that, she’s usually so reserved and cold that you forget that she loves her friends as much as other people do, maybe even more. After Aura was done hugging Rose, she let her go and they started chatting. I looked over and noticed Rose watching me. Rose and I locked eyes and stared at each for a while. I shook my head and looked forward. Aura came back and stood behind me after they were done.
“Dom, you know what all this,” she stretches her arms out to show the other lines of students, “is?”
“No, I don’t,” I answered.
“Is it about the dorms?” She asked.
“Now that you mention it, it probably is.”
“QUIET!” A short elderly woman shouted above everyone else.
The halls went quiet as clacking grew closer and closer. A handsome man who wore a matte black suit towered over the elderly woman and a beautiful woman, who wore a purple dress with a black blazer, with long dark hair that poured down to her hips emerged from behind the woman as they walked forward with grace and elegance. Her heels and his loafers clack on the ground was the made their way forward.Their energy surged above everyone who stood in that hallway.
Aura was getting goosebumps, as well as most of the other students.
“WELCOME BACK, STUDENTS!” The man’s voice boomed throughout the hallways.
He got an outstanding ovation from the teachers and students.
“As you all know, the dormitories were being constructed for the safety of all of the students in attendance at this academy. We asked for your homeroom teachers to line you all out here so the trip here wouldn’t take as long as it would have if you remained in your classes. And due to the number of students in attendance, there will be 2 homerooms to a floor on each building. Please step forward when we call your homerooms,"he announced.
“I wonder who we’ll be bunking with,” I inquired Aura.
“I don’t care,” she responded, aloof.
The next 10 minutes went by and classes left by the bulk. We were one of the last ones remaining and so was Rose’s class. Aura and Rose have been talking this entire time. I twiddled my thumbs as there was nothing else to do.
“WILL MR. WILLOWSKY’S CLASS AND MS. ALTERI’S CLASS PLEASE STEP FORWARD?” The elderly woman shouted at the top of her lungs.
All of us marched forward, as if we were a part of a battalion, as Rose’s class moved in stride with us. Aura and I looked at Rose who looked at us. Those two, their faces lit up like a light as they realized our situation.
The principal and assistant principal led us to the building that towered over us. We looked up as the beige building stood mighty.
“Boring color,” A student murmured.
The principal turned around and faced us. He released a portion of his magical aura. The students started sweating.
“I mean, it’s so… unique!” The student corrected himself as to get the principal to stop or he’d probably shit his pants.
“The principal really doesn’t take criticism well, does he?” Aura whispered to me.
“It doesn’t seem like it,” I responded.
We all walked in through the front door. He pointed us to the receptionist,
“You will all be given IDs later on. In order to enter the dorm area, you must present your ID to the receptionist. Boys will be on the left side while the girls will be on the right side of the buildings. Past this receptionist is the common room. Please follow me,” he continued walking.
We walked into a room with velvet walls and abstract carpet. The pool table was in the middle of the room with a TV on the wall behind it. The TV played TWL, the Terrain War League, with the remote sitting on a shelf that was below the TV. There were brown leather couches on either side of the room. They had also installed arcade machines, air hockey, even a fridge with snacks that would get refilled every night after we were in our rooms for the night.
“As you can see, it’s appearance and ‘vibes’ as you young folk like to say, match the energy similar to an arcade. This seemed to be the most comfortable thing for students such as all of you,” he beckoned for us to follow him to the door on the left side of the room.
“This door leads to your rooms, I will be showing the boys around while the assistant principal, Vice Principal Desena will be guiding the girls,” he pointed to her. We all walked in through the door and were met with long rows of doors on each side. We all walked behind the principal as Desena separated her class from ours by heading in the opposite direction.
The principal walked us past the doors, showing us the nameplates beside each one.
“Fancy,” Josh walked up next to me and whispered to me.
I jumped backwards with my hands ready in a fighting stance. I looked and saw Josh standing there.
“Oh, it’s just you,” I said, diffusing.
“At least you’re quick..?” He said, confusedly.
He began walking next to me and we chatted the entire time and we’d stop whenever the principal turned around and looked at us.
That is one scary ass dude.
The tour itself was your standard tour, he showed us the inside of the rooms and he introduced to all of the staff on duty. He also pointed out that there were cameras that were watching us so no sneaking out after curfew.
“Any questions?” He flipped around and asked.
Josh raised his hand.
“When is curfew?” He asked the obvious question.
“10:00 PM,” the principal replied.
Groans emerged from the crowd.
“I think 10 is perfectly reasonable,” the principal reassured.
He brought us back to the office where Vice Principal Desena had been waiting for us to return.
“That concludes your tour, please return to the class that you would be at during this time of the day,” Ms. Desena said in a monotone voice.
Me, Rose, Aura, and Josh walked together behind the students that were with us on the tour.
“So how were the boys’ dorms?” Rose asked me.
“They’re really cool, I’ve always had a really small cramped room with my older brother when we were younger so having more space is great,” I replied.
“The girls’ dorms are the same way. I guess it’ll all depend on how everyone decorates them,” Rose responded.
“I’m going to paint it black, Rose,” Aura said to her.
“No, you aren’t painting our room black,” Rose said, flicking her in the forehead.
“You guys are sharing a room?”
We split up to let the group, which was walking towards us, get through.
“Yeah, it’s really lucky that we did because the only other people I talk to are you and sometimes Josh,” Rose replied.
I found that hard to believe just because of how beautiful she is.
I shook my head to clear my head of those thoughts.
“Are you all good?” Josh looked at me.
“I’m fine, thanks man,” I answered.
“No problem,” he went back to talking to those two.
We walked to Josh and Rose’s homeroom first which was Magic Gardening. Josh tried to make conversation with Aura but she wouldn’t answer him. He gave up on that endeavor and went back to talking to me while Rose and Aura talked the entire way there as well.
After a few minutes, we arrived at their class.
“This is us,” Josh announced.
“Nice of you to let the whole school know, Josh,” I told him, as his voice literally echoed throughout the hallway.
“Anytime, Dom,” I sighed as he finished that sentence.
He held out his fist. I bumped my fist against his.
“Later, guys,” Rose said.
Aura and I began to leave.
“Hey, Dom,” Aura said, questioningly.
“What’s up?” I responded.
“Why do you like that Josh guy?”
“He helped us out a lot, don’t you remember?”
“I remember but we barely know him, like I just have this bad feeling from him. We need to be careful with him,” She said, holding a serious expression and a serious tone.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“If that’s what you think,” I answered.
“Oh, look, there’s the library, that means that our class is just around the-” I was cut off as I felt someone lock their arms around me.
I turned my body around to see Rose’s scarlet hair facing down as she held me.
I looked at Aura who wore the same shocked and confused expression as me. I pointed at her and mouthed to Aura,
“What is going on?”
“I have no idea,” She mouthed back.
Rose looked up at me. I never noticed it before but she has freckles that are hardly
noticeable. I was mesmerized by her sapphire eyes. As if instinct, I wrapped my arms around her and held onto her too. She tugged a little tighter as if she was waiting for this. We stayed there in each other’s embrace for a good 2 minutes until Aura cleared her throat.
“Oh!” Rose jumped back.
“Yeah..” I slowly let her go.
“Um… bye!” Rose said, nervous. She gave me the most sincere smile I’ve ever seen in my life before she took off.
I turned to Aura.
“Aura, what in the actual hell was that?” I turned to her, expressing my surprise.
“No idea…” she said, mouth agape.
“Ok, um.. So we should just go..” I put my hands in my pockets and walked ahead of her.
“Yeah, I’ll be there soon. Tell the teacher I’m going to the bathroom,” she said.
I held out a thumbs up and walked away. It took a few minutes longer until Aura returned back to class. Mr. Wilowsky glared at her as she ignored his stares.
He sighed and returned back to his lecture about how magics’ uses have changed throughout the years.
The class trudged on for what felt like forever until the bell blessed our ears with the sweet opportunity to depart from this boredom. We grabbed our things and left.
We met up with Rose as we headed to our next class.
I couldn’t even look her in the eyes as shivers kept going down my spine every time our eyes met.
“I’m gonna go,” I hurried down the hall towards Magic Rituals. Eventually, I made my way into the classroom and sat my bag down on the table. I laid my head down and fell to sleep.
“Dominick.”
I looked around. A darkness enveloped my field of vision as if they were some sort of impenetrable curtain surrounding me in nothing but the empty void. I couldn’t find a person, much less the source of the voice that uttered my name.
“You will not find me no matter how hard you look,” the voice responded.
“What?” I looked around, confusedly.
“Something’s coming. As you are now, you are not strong enough, everyone will die. You must become stronger before he- ” The voice was cut short by someone else.
“DOMINICK!” Ms. Quinn smacked her ruler on the table.
“Huh?” I jolted upright. I turned my head side to side to see every student staring at me.
I stared at Ms. Quinn.
“Huh?” I yawned.
Ms. Quinn sneered at me before walking away.
“As I was saying..”
The rest of the class was a blur. I was too focused on the voice that I heard. I never got to hear who or what was threatening us. Do I really need to get stronger? What could it be-
THUNK
Aura moved forward as I bumped into her. Rose glanced between the two of us.
“Watch where you’re going,” She turned around and all of the anger washed away as our eyes met.
“Oh, it’s just you. Pay attention,” she said before walking back next to Rose.
“I just wish this day would end,” I grumbled.
“I, for one, can wait!” Rose uttered, excitedly.
Me and Aura stared at her in disgust.
“You guys didn’t hear? We’ll be training with Adventurers today in the gym instead of going to the Training Facility. I hear they’ll be at least B-Rank adventurers,” she added.
“Adventurers?” I asked.
“You don’t know what adventurers are?” Aura replied.
“Where I grew up, we didn’t have “adventurers”. It was a town in the middle of nowhere.”
“That makes sense. Adventurers are people who are employed by the Adventurer’s Guild in Silverkeep and they accept quests that are assigned a letter based on the difficulty of the quest. The scale goes from F-S, with very few people actually being able to complete an S-Rank quest,” Rose took over for Aura.
“You’re passionate about adventurers, huh?” I asked, curious.
“I’ve always wanted to be an adventurer ever since I met a few when I was little,” Rose had a faraway expression on her face.
“What about you, Aura?” At this point, we began walking to our classes while talking.
“I mean the pay is nice but I don’t think I’d make a good adventurer,” She answered.
“You both would make great adventurers. I guess we didn’t have any in Wenrich cause we didn’t have the funds,” I replied.
“Maybe, anyways, we’ll be heading off here,” Rose said, her and Aura branching into the Magic Development department.
Now I was excited to meet these adventurers.
For Counter Spellcasting, I actually was able to pay attention to the information we learned in them but like always, nothing too special to tell you guys about. The bell rang and I was the first one out of the door, running straight for the courtyard.
“Dom! We’re over here!” Rose and Aura exclaimed. I ran straight past them heading to the vendors for my fresh slice of pizza.
They stared at me, dumbstruck.
I grabbed two slices of pizza cause me and the lunch lady were tight like that. I walked over to the table that those two were sitting at.
“That was rude,” Rose said, staring at me.
“Pizza,” I said, munching away.
“Great answer,” Rose replied before turning back to Aura.
“Anyways, aren’t you guys excited about meeting these adventurers?” Rose continued her conversation that she was having earlier before class.
“Not really,” I answered.
“Why not? Aren’t you interested in learning about what they do?” She said, getting awfully close to my face.
“Could you not be in my face while I’m eating?” I asked her politely.
She backed up, blushing.
“I’m not really interested either. My dad wants me to join the family adventuring business but I don’t think I’m going to,” Aura informed us.
“Wait, your dad’s an adventurer?” I asked.
“Yeah, so are my brothers and my mom,” She explained.
“Well they were. As you know, we own a clothing store now,” she clarified.
“Woah. I’m tired of saying the word “adventurer” though so can we stop?” I said.
“Yeah, I’m tired of hearing it too,” Aura grabbed her drink and took a sip.
“Hey, Dom, we got Alchemy next, right?” Rose looked at me and asked.
“We?” I said, eyes wide with pizza hanging on by a thread of cheese.
“Yeah, I’m in your alchemy class. I switched yesterday since yesterday was the last day we could and it turns out a spot opened up in Mrs. Mera’s class.”
Aura looked at me and started chuckling.
“Yeah, I’ll show you where to go when we’re done with lunch.”
The rest of lunch carried on without a hitch, mostly talking about the things we’ve done for class and those two gossiped throughout the entirety of lunch.
I led Rose to the Alchemy class after the lunch bell rang. She stood close to me the entire way there.
I might be overthinking but I think she’s been getting really close recently. I’m not even gonna think about that right now.
Mrs. Mera introduced her to the new class and sat her down in the back 3 seats away from me. Rose seemed to be interested in the Alchemy lessons. She paid attention and jotted down notes in the smoothest handwriting I’ve ever laid my eyes on.
After an hour and a half of literally nothing but notes and sleeping, the bell woke me up with its thunderous ringing.
“FINALLY, LET’S GO!” Rose grabbed my hand in a fit of excitement.
I cleared my throat.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to do that,” She said, bashfully.
“It’s ok, let’s get going,” I responded.
We walked to the gym instead of going to Training today, because the special lesson with the adventurers was happening soon. It was more of an assembly than a lesson. At least 200 hundred students gathered in the gymnasium for it. Me and Rose found Aura and sat down. Josh joined us shortly after and sat to the right of me, next to Aura.
“WELCOME, STUDENTS!” The principal’s voiced sonorous voice boomed through the speakers as he spoke into the microphone.
He was met by mostly silence except for the few that clapped.
“I SAID, WELCOME STUDENTS!!!” His voice grew louder.
Everyone else began clapping.
“Now today is a very special day for you guys, we have special guests and they’re here to share with you all the secrets to becoming an adventurer. I, myself, was this,” he pinched his fingers close together, “to becoming an adventurer until I found that my true calling was in the educational setting rather than a combat one. Now without further ado, please welcome Glen the Vicious,”
On cue, a large man with a somewhere in between bronze and pale skin tone, well built, spiky hair, and wore a vest with camo pants and a large sword attached to his back walks in, rattling the floor with every movement.
“And Vene the Shadow,”
A smaller woman strutted onto the stage. She stood at what looked to be about 5 feet even and had a small build compared to the giant that towered over here. She had medium length hair that she had parted to the side, its royal blue shading glistening under the lights that lit up the gym. A few guys whistled as she walked in but nothing too serious.
She blew out some kisses before standing on the other side of the principal.
“Thank you all for having us here!” Vene proclaimed into the microphone.
“Today, we’re here to talk to you about the risk and reward of adventuring, you’ll be able to speak with us after the assembly today if you wish to participate,” Vene continued.
“Adventuring may sound fun but it’s all about staying safe. Glen and I constantly stick together because he covers the weaknesses I have and I cover his. I don’t know where’d I be without this oaf,” she paused as some laughter slipped out, “so it’s important to have a partner that you trust or someone who’s a great counterpart to your skillset.”
She continued on with the ins and outs of being an adventurer and how to remain safe in this line of work although it is VERY dangerous and it may not be for everyone.
“This sounds like a lot of fun,” I turned towards Aura and Rose.
“Really? I think it sounds like a hassle,” Aura responded.
“I’m kind of split,” Rose chimed in.
“YOU THREE! WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT TO THE REST OF US?” Glen’s voice boomed.
Josh never added anything into the conversation.
I looked at Aura, Rose, and Josh. They wore the same confused expression as I did.
“Us?” I pointed at myself.
“Yes, all 3 of you,” he replied.
“No, not really,” I answered, holding his gaze.
“OH REALLY?!” He was getting livid at this point.
I’m not really too sure what his problem was.
“Alright, Glen, calm down and head to the back,” Vene pushed him away from the stage.
Glen held eye contact with me before eventually walking away.
“I’m sorry about that, guys. He’s very passionate about adventuring,” Vene added.
An hour later, the assembly ended, wrapping up a strange turn of events when an adventurer almost assaulted a student.
Anger issues.
Our group of 4 walked back to the dorms, talking about Glen.
“YOU.”
Speak of the devil.
“Sir Glen? What are you doing out here?” Josh walked towards him. Glen brought his fist back and slugged him right in the stomach. He came up about a solid 5 feet off the ground, he coughed out his saliva and fell onto the ground, going unconscious right on impact with the concrete.
“What the hell is your problem?!” Aura yelled.
He ran towards her in a fit of rage. I jumped in between them and shielded her from his fist.
“GRAB JOSH AND GET VENE! NOW!” I yelled as Glen’s fist was shaking trying to make it past my defenses.
“GOT IT!” Aura and Rose grabbed Josh and ran out of there as fast as they could, being hindered by his unconscious body.
“You will not make a fool out of me, boy,” Glen unsheathed his sword and held it out in front of him.
I wish we could’ve resolved this peacefully.