Lucia and Fina quickly found their room on the 2nd floor. There were only 5 rooms on this floor so it was easy to find room 101.They unlocked the door with the key they had and quickly walked into the room. The two looked around their accommodations and exclaimed, "WOAH!"
"It's BIG!" Lucia smiled and said happily.
"..." Fina curiously explored the spacious room
A room would be an understatement. If this was Earth, the room that they entered would be more of an apartment instead. In fact, it was probably an apartment anyway. Now, it made sense to Lucia why there were only 5 rooms on the 2nd floor of the building. At first, she thought that it was a big waste of space since, in her mind, the rooms were at best only going to be as big as one of the luxury rooms from the city's inns. She didn't think that they'd be big like this. This wasn't a room, this was their own living space.
The two went on to explore the place where they assumed was going to be their house for the rest of the time they were in the academy. Walking down the short hallway after coming through the door, the two arrived at a rather large, spacious room. It was quite sizable since there was a complete dinner table set close to what Lucia assumed was the kitchen area to their right and even further in, there was a living room setup that was complete with a rug, chairs, and couches.
The small kitchen area near the dinner table setup was complete with a few cupboards, a sink, and even a cooking station that had a magic furnace and stove. There was also a balcony on the far side of the room close to the living room setup that let the light of the sun shine into the apartment and to their left was another hallway, this one was rather long.
The girls could see that there were 2 doors in the middle of this hallway that were situated side-by-side. They quickly went to open them, and the two were surprised to see it lead to a rather large bedroom. When the girls inspected their rooms, they found that there was a small bed, a long desk table, and a rather sizable wardrobe inside. The room was a little big, but Lucia thought that it was good since she could use the extra space to set up an area where she could cultivate and meditate.
The two didn't know this, but the academy only let the students in building S have an apartment with separate rooms as their living space. Every other building only had regular dorm rooms for the students. This was why a lot of the students that Lucia had passed by earlier were looking at her with envy when they noticed that she was heading towards the S building.
"Fina! I'll be taking this room!" Lucia said after she picked the one that was closer to the entrance of the hall. Fina smiled and nodded her head as she took the one that was closer to the end of the hall.
"Okay, Lulu!"
Right across from their rooms was another door and this door led to the apartment's bathroom. It was quite big and complete with a sink, toilet-like thing, and a large bathtub. There wasn't anything surprising about it except for the large space, so after the two girls looked inside, they went to their rooms and started settling themselves into their new home.
Lucia went inside her room and started unpacking. She placed all her clothes inside the wardrobe and all her personal belongings onto the desk. There wasn't much since she and Cecil have been constantly on the road for the past couple of months. They couldn't actually buy any sort of personal items other than their equipment and weapons since in the circumstances that they were in back then, those kinds of items were pretty useless.
Most of their money was spent on equipment and weapon repairs, however, there were a few souvenirs that Lucia bought with her own money from each of the cities and towns that they passed through. They were all just small trinkets and she used them to decorate her desk. The desk really was spacious. Even after placing all those small trinkets on it, it still looked pretty empty.
So, Lucia decided to take a few books out of her bag to further decorate the desk. The books she pulled out had covers that were rather faded, but they didn't seem to be ordinary books nor magic tomes. Some of the pages from these books were sticking out in different places and there were notes lodged in between the pages of those books.
During their journey, Lucia had picked up a habit of collecting cooking recipes unique to the area that they passed by. She was the party's chef because Cecil could not cook a proper meal. The only thing he could do was roast meat over a fire after adding a bit of seasoning onto it. If they ate only roast meat throughout their entire journey, they'd probably just get sick of it and go home to Mrs. Anna to get one of her delicious, home-cooked meals.
Lucia took on this important task since she did learn how to cook from her mother. She was even rather talented because all she needed was the recipe of the food she was trying to make and she'd be able to make it taste really good, at least, that's what Cecil believed. He had eaten all of Lucia's cooked food and he was certain that they tasted very similar–if not the same–to the ones that were cooked by the locals from the places where they originated from.
She had compiled a few books' worth of recipes. Most of the recipes she obtained from the places their party passed through were all compiled together in one single, neat-looking book. The messy ones that she pulled out of her bag held recipes of the strange, but utterly delicious foods that Cecil asked her to make which were from his home planet, Earth.
Most of the recipes she had in her cook books were for foods from Earth. Since Lucia was very talented in cooking and was able to make the flavor of the dishes she made taste almost the same as the ones from the places they originated from, Cecil believed that Lucia would be able to do the same with the food that came from Earth. The results spoke for themselves as Lucia had a few messy cook books on her desk that held all of those Earth foods that she managed to replicate using Alterna's ingredients.
These books also held the images and drawings of the Earth foods. Cecil made the illustrations from memory in order to let Lucia know how the food looked like after they were completed. Not only the she manage to make the food taste the same, she also made them even look the same to some extent.
There was actually a whole lot more Earth foods that Cecil wanted Lucia to make, but he couldn't remember what the ingredients was for them nor did he know the process of how they were made. It was unfortunate, but if he did know, then Lucia would have a lot more books than she did right now. Since there was also a kitchen in their apartment, she'd be able to cook her own food and even prepare Cecil a lunchbox.
'Making a lunchbox for, Cel...hehehe~ I like the thought of that~'
Lucia thought it was really romantic and quickly tidied up her desk. She placed all of the cook books together on the right side of the desk and now it didn't look so empty. After she arranged all her belongings, she took a look around her room and chuckled softly, "... I have so little, huh?"
There was a small rack near the window in the room and Lucia thought it would be a good place to put her weapons and armor on. She then took a look at herself and said, "Hrmm... I guess it's better to change out of this. It's not like I'm going into combat or anything."
She immediately started unequipping her armor and weapons. She then began arranging them on the rack; first was her leather armor, her shoulder guards, and knee pads. Then her mage robes, her worn-out travel boots, and the spell scroll belt that she had around her waist. This belt was something that Cecil had made for Lucia a while back.
When the two journeyed into the so-called Magic City of Anglaria Kingdom, Mystea, Cecil found out that spells could also be activated by drawing their magic circles on mana-imbued scrolls, something that was uniquely produced in this Magic City.
On Alterna, those scrolls were called a Quick-Cast Scroll, or just a Quick-Cast for short. After a magician drew their spell onto a mana scroll, in order to activate the spell drawn on the scroll only a short keyword was all it took. This keyword was called the 'trigger' and they would normally be words like 'activate', 'cast' or even the spell's name.
To Cecil this had so much practical use, so he bought as much mana scrolls as he could for Lucia to draw spells on. The Quick-Casts, on more than one occasion, saved Lucia from a pinch, so she used them quite often.
Of course, there was a downside to using this Quick-Cast and that was their storage. It was quite cumbersome and time-consuming for a spell caster to dig into their bag to pull a scroll out, especially during a heated moment in battle, so Cecil created the belt for Lucia so that she could have easy access to her scrolls. All she needed to do was reach behind her back, pull out the scroll, and activate it. Pretty easy and it was at least much better than having to rummage through her backpack for one.
From time to time Lucia would draw spells onto the scrolls since it became a habit, but now, it turned more into a hobby instead since she now had original spells in her arsenal.
Finally, Lucia placed her katana, which she named Shirayuki, on the rack. She kept her kodachi, which she named Butterfly, with her since she felt awkward without it. Thanks to Cecil's teachings, Lucia now had a habit of always carrying a weapon with her. Without one, she felt awkward, like she was naked or something.
"KYAAAAAAHHHHH!!"
Lucia turned around at the shout and was about to dash to Fina's room, but she quickly halted when she found Fina standing by the door covering her face. She tilted her head and asked in confusion, "Fina? What's wrong?"
Aquafina peeked through her fingers and stuttered shyly, "L-Lulu... y-your c-c-c-clothes!"
Lucia took a look at herself after hearing her words. With her armor and robe off, she was only wearing a thin shirt. Since she took off her belt; her battle skirt had also fallen down onto the floor, leaving her in her underwear. So, other than her top being covered by a shirt, her bottom was exposed. However, Lucia was puzzled at Fina's reaction. They were both girls so there should be no reason to be so flustered.
"Hrmmm... we're both girls. No need to overreact!"
"B-b-but..."
Seeing that her friend was still acting flustered, Lucia quickly went to her wardrobe and took out some casual wear before quickly dressing herself.
"Okay, I'm dressed now."
"A-Alright," Fina said and quickly put down her hands that were covering her eyes.
Lucia chuckled at her before asking, "Do we have anything we need to do for today?"
Fina cleared her throat and quickly replied to her friend, "Other than registering into our dorms, there's nothing else I believe."
"Okay! Let's go check out the rest of the campus! We'll go get Cecil too and go shopping! I'll show you my cooking skills Fina!"
"O-Okay! W-wait! You can cook, Lulu?!"
"Nahaha~ of course!" Lucia put on a victory pose, then she waved her fingers at Fina. "Without me, Cecil would be hopeless during our travels!"
"Amazing! Uhm, by the way... who is this Cecil?"
From their first interaction, Lucia had always kept on saying this name, Fina couldn't help herself so she had to ask who this was and by the name, she also concluded that this 'Cecil' was a boy.
"He's my childhood friend!"
"Ah! Well, let's go then! Since he's a boy, maybe we should go pick him up at the male dorms?"
"Good idea! One sec, let me go grab Shirayuki!"
After Lucia strapped her katana to her waist, she walked out of the dorm with Fina. Fina was naturally curious, so she asked, "Neh, Lulu... is it necessary to bring a weapon around with you? I mean... we're on campus, so there are no monsters around..."
"Hehe, it's just a habit of mine~"
"Hmmm, alright..."
Fina was observant and with the way Lucia carried herself, she concluded that her foxgirl friend was likely a veteran in battle. The aura that Lucia subconsciously let out for a split second when she touched her katana didn't escape Fina's observation.
'Hmmm... Lucia seems to be a warrior, but that sword... it looks slim. I've never seen such a thin rapier...'
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Fina had mistaken Lucia's katana for a rapier since it was her first time seeing one. However, she didn't ask about it because she knew that to swordsmen, their weapon was a very personal thing. She happily locked her arms with Lucia's and walked out of the building together and went towards the direction of the boys' dormitory.
Cecil, on the other hand, wasn't having such a swell time. After he arrived at his dorm that had a layout that was similar to Lucia's dorm, he picked the room that was at the farther end of the hall and quickly started to unpack his belongings. However, he was met with a slight problem.
"HEY! Short stuff! You listenin' ahhh?!"
Right now Cecil was currently dealing with his troublesome and loud roommate. His roommate was a lizard-kin with crimson red hair and golden eyes who sported a small horn on the middle of his head. He was much taller than the short Cecil and he had quite the build, being a bit buffer than your average teenager. If Lucia was here, she would have immediately recognized this snobby roommate of Cecil's.
As he was currently in a 'heated' argument with his rather large roommate, Cecil couldn't finish unpacking his things.
"What is it?" Cecil asked as he replied plainly to the lizardkin's rather aggressive shout.
"This is MY room now! So pack your shit and get out!"
Cecil took a look into the room that he was in before turning back to the large lizard kin boy in front of him. It was too bothersome to move places, so he just plainly replied to the boy while pointing at the other room in the apartment, "Yours is over there."
"What?! Didn't ya hear me, ya lil shit?! THIS is MY room!" the lizard boy retorted rudely while pointing at the bedroom behind Cecil that had all of the latter's stuff in it.
"..."
Cecil didn't like arguing, unless it was with Lucia, so all he did was close the door behind him, locked it, and placed a Barrier Spell on the door with one of Lucia's Quick-Casts.
Seeing him do this, the lizardkin boy was surprised because he had been completely ignored. While he was still stunned, the short guy in front of him used Shukuchi and disappeared from the spot, which made him even more stunned. He quickly turned around, but saw that his enigmatic roommate was already at the dorm's exit.
"W-What the heck? Get back here!"
He sighed and inwardly thought to himself, 'Man, I've got a rather troublesome roommate...'
When Cecil first arrived at his dorm apartment, there was no one there besides him. He took a look around and found that his dorm really did resemble the apartments back on Earth. He's never been to one, but he recognized them from the stuff his family showed him. He was rather excited and started exploring every nook and cranny of his new home.
He noticed that there were two rooms in the dorm so he took the liberty of choosing the one that was farther down the hallway. There was no particular reason why he chose it, he just wanted to. After he finished unpacking all of his belongings and settled himself in, he wanted to head out and find Lucia only to bump into his awfully rude roommate.
His roommate had just inspected Cecil's room and tried to lay claim to it, something Cecil didn't like. It was first come, first serve, so he didn't have any reason to give it up. He ignored his roommate's demands and just silently left the place. Unfortunately for him, his roommate didn't seem to want to give up.
"HEY! Don't ignore me ya brat!" The large lizard dude rushed over to Cecil with quite the speed and tried to grab onto him, but he easily evaded and replied, "I'll be going out now. By the way my name's Cecil. Pleased to meet you."
His tone was rather flat and unimpressed, but he still gave his rude roommate a polite greeting. He gave the guy a bow before turning around and leaving the apartment. Although he didn't want to deal with this annoying roommate of his, he still wanted to properly introduce himself nonetheless. He would be staying with this large dude for the rest of his academy life, so it wasn't like he could continue avoiding him or anything.
Ainz was caught in Cecil's flow and started introducing himself properly. He even copied Cecil and bowed slightly in return, but every gesture carried a hint of nobility.
"O-oh, my name is Ainz Bernstein, please to me–like hell! Open the damn door! We're swa–"
He quickly gathered himself and started flaring up again, but he was soon cut off after hearing the apartment's door open and close.
"..."
Ainz could only stare at the door incredulously before he started laughing uproariously. After which he went into the free room and started unpacking his belongings while mumbling some things to himself.
"Heh, I'll have to tell the Princess that I've found a pretty interesting dude. I heard he's the one that ranked 2nd on the entrance exams. At the very least, he's no pushover..."
After exiting the apartment, Cecil quickly made his way down to the dorm building's lobby. On his way down, he let out a sigh and thought, 'Ugh... just my luck to have a disagreeable fellow like him as a roommate.'
As soon as he exited the dorm building, he heard someone call out to him.
"Cel~!"
The nickname and voice was all too familiar and only one person on campus would ever call him that. Cecil immediately perked up and turned towards the source of the voice, Lucia. She was there together with a cute, blue girl by her side.
"Hey, Lulu," Cecil quickly walked up to her and greeted. "I was about to look for you too. You need something?"
"Not really~ but let's go sightseeing around the campus! There's nothing to do anyway!"
"Sure, but who's the girl?"
Cecil agreed to Lucia's proposal and then questioned her about the aqua haired girl clinging onto her arm.
"Let me introduce you two! Cel this is Aquafina... something something... sorry~ I forgot her name~"
"Neeh, Lulu! The least you could do was remembering my full name! Also, please introduce me properly!" Fina said while pouting cutely. Her cheeks were inflated, making her resemble a cute little animal. Cecil thought she resembled chipmunk or a squirrel.
'What's with this adorable thing?' Cecil thought after seeing her squirrel-like expression.
"I'm sorry Fina, it's just so long~" Lucia said apologetically.
Fina sighed and took a step forward to introduce herself properly to Cecil. She put a hand to her large chest and bowed a little before saying, "My name is Aquafina Oceania Neftersea, you can call me Fina for short! I'm Lucia's roommate, nice to meet you!"
Fina then extended her hand for a handshake. Cecil shook her hand and introduced himself in return, "My name's Cecil Silvaria, the pleasure is mine."
'Is this girl some kind of noble? That was one peculiar way of introducing yourself.'
"Heehhh, so you're 'Cel', huh?" Cecil's thoughts were interrupted after seeing the blue-haired girl sizing him up. He quickly replied to her and said, "Uhh, yeah... it's the name Lulu gave me ever since we were kids."
"Can I call you that too?!"
Just as Cecil was about to answer, Lucia abruptly cut in, "NO! That's for my exclusive use only~"
"Aww, no fair Lulu."
As Fina and Lucia were making a ruckus, a loud voice abruptly bumped in on their conversation.
"Can I join as well?!"
Cecil recognized the voice as the one belonging to his rude roommate, Ainz, except this time it was somewhat polite unlike before. However, it was still very loud. Lucia and Fina turned to face the towering newcomer and Lucia immediately exclaimed with hostility, "IT'S YOU!"
Ainz also recognized the silver haired fox girl in front of him. Well, he did recognize Cecil, so of course he would remember Lucia who was with him in front of the dungeon. The only problem was that Cecil, however, had no inkling to who Ainz was since he didn't pay any attention to him when they crossed paths near the city's dungeon a week ago.
"Heh, yeah! It's ME! Got a problem, brat?!"
"Pei, look who's talking?! BRAT! I can't believe a stuck up BRAT like you managed to get yourself into S class!"
"Wha'dya say?!"
Cecil sighed when he heard him.
'Didn't he sound polite just now?'
Before things escalated any further, he quickly turned towards his roommate and said, "Well, Ainz... finished packing? If you wanna join us then sure, I guess."
"WHAT?! Cel! You can't seriously be thinking about bringing along this brutish BRAT with us?" exclaimed Lucia, she emphasized 'brat' in hopes of pissing off Ainz and driving him away from their group.
"Heh! Looks like I'm coming, whether you like it or not! Brat!"
"Idiot!"
"Midget!"
"Pea-brain!"
The two's back and forth exchange didn't look like it was going to end any time soon. Fina walked towards Cecil and whispered to him, "Are you sure it's okay to leave them be?"
"...Lulu for one isn't going to stop, and I don't see Ainz giving up either... just leave 'em be, they'll tire themselves out eventually."
"O-okay..."
Fina seemed rather pensive at the idea, she turned to look at the fox girl and lizard boy who were now huffing at each other. Their back and forth had left them both out of breath. Finally, Ainz was the first to open his mouth and he said something he shouldn't have, "Granny!"
"Oh shit...." Cecil cursed and quietly activated Mana Burst and stepped forward to stop Lucia. Feeling the abrupt rise in mana levels coming off of Cecil, Fina widened her eyes in surprise and yelled, "Cecil?!"
Before she could react any further, Cecil soon disappeared from her side.
"What's that?!! I'll incinerate you! La–"
After the worst possible insult was sent to Lucia, she immediately raised her hand and aimed a Lava Bullet at Ainz. Lucia was always conscious of her white hair since on their journey, an unaware child had once asked if she was like his granny since she also had white hair. Lucia, of course, didn't mind the child, but then Cecil who was at the side had started laughing and pointing at her while saying "granny, granny".
The end result was Cecil having a couple layers of his skin burnt off and a ton of bruises on his body after Lucia beat him up and roasted him with her fire spells. Cecil could of course escape from Lucia's wrath pretty easily, but seeing as Lucia started throwing a tantrum right when he had that intent, he just let her beat him up to calm her down.
Due to this past experience, Cecil had already predicted that Lucia would certainly try to beat the crap out of Ainz after his insult. So, without a second thought, he quickly flashed in front of Lucia, picked her up, and slung her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes before she could finish invoking her spell.
"What the?! Put me down, CEL! I'm going to incinerate that bastard! PUT. ME. DOWN!!!"
Lucia started kicking up a fuss and was beating her fist on his back, but Cecil ignored her and started walking off while calling out to Fina and Ainz, "Alright, everyone, let's go and have our tour around campus now! Let's go, let's go!"
"... you almost died there, Ainz..."
"Did she almost invoke a tier-3 spell without chanting right now?"
"Yup... well, let's get going now. He's leaving us behind. I finally have a clear picture to who Lucia is now. Also, I'm Aquafina Oceania Neftersea. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"...Likewise, I'm Ainz Berstein–"
"–of house, Berstein, the only Duke House of Anglaria Kingdom."
"...I wasn't expecting a Neftersea princess to be enrolling this year..."
"I wasn't supposed to, but here I am. Anyway, let's get going."
After their brief introductions, Fina ran to catch up with Cecil and Lucia. Ainz quickly followed after her. Lucia was still angry at him and she was giving him a death glare even though she was currently being handled like a sack of potatoes by Cecil. She could still send a Lava Bullet at him with a flick of her wrist, but Cecil was constantly saying nice words to pacify her, so she ignored Ainz after a while and was let down from Cecil's shoulders.
Ainz had sensed the intensity of the spell that Lucia had almost cast at him back in front of the dorm building. It was powerful and he knew that the end result was not just some mild burns for him.
"Shit... Well, I guess she's not the number one freshman for nothing..."