Nisa stood before me as I sat on the floor looking up. Our fat friend was standing by the door making damn sure I didn’t get to run. I could always scream right? Yeah, I kept that as a last resort. We were on the second floor of the boys’ side. Surely, someone would come to my rescue, right?

Probably not.

Nisa sat on a chair, cross legged. She wore some fine clothes. Fine as in, no embroidery fine. Oddly, almost all rich folks wore hardcore embroidered clothes. The more gold you had on your dress, the richer you were. Of course, you could get mugged for wearing too much but rich people often had guards. This lady though, didn’t wear something fancy. Yet for some reason, her plain clothes screamed of elegance.

So far, Nisa hadn’t said anything. That fat kid, who I still didn’t know the name of didn’t either. He didn’t seem like he was going to hit me or anything. Nisa didn’t seem infuriated either.

“I’m not going to apologize, if that’s what you’re after,” I said, eventually. The whole ‘not talking’ thing was starting to get annoying. I still hadn’t had breakfast and it was way past lunch time too. I was not in a great mood, no.

“I wasn’t looking for an apology,” she said. Looking closely, I could tell, she was a beauty, despite being so young. Her parents were probably good looking. Most high nobles were. To them, beauty meant more than quality. At least that’s what I read in novels. I didn’t know how true they were, but for the most part those bits held up. I guess her beauty was another reason she had so many followers.

“Then what? You’re going to beat me here? I must tell you, I’ll definitely report you-”

“No,” she shook her head. “I misjudged. I hope you do not harbor ill intentions towards me and Jake. That is all.”

Huh? Ill intentions? Jake? Who the fuck was that?

And hey, you didn’t apologize! I felt like exploding again. But I wasn’t stupid. At least I didn’t think so. For the most part….

Sighing once, I stood up. “I see.”

That said I made way for the door. The fatty, moved away but he stared at me sentimentally. “How’d you know?”

Know what? Oh yeah…. “I could tell from the look in your eyes.” I spoke some vague shit like those shady fortune tellers.

He sniffled loudly. “It hurts man… they don’t love me; they don’t want me.” He howled, tears streaming down, painting his face ugly.

If he was trying to make me feel bad, it was certainly working. “Yeah, it hurts when you want people to like you but they don’t like you back. One trick is to not try too hard. Though that too fails when you really want it to succeed. Anyway, see you around,” I waved and left.

Just outside, I breathed a sigh of relief. That truly was something. I didn’t really get what was going on or rather, what I was supposed to do. She was the daughter of a Sovereign, a king of sorts. She couldn’t possibly lower her head or even say sorry. I understood that. And that’s why I wasn’t really expecting her to own her mistakes or admit she’d committed any in the first place. So, it was a shock. Her bodyguard or friend crying was another one.

Ow, ow… well, I could always worry about it later. Right now, I had to eat something. Anything~!

After calming my stomach, I thought things over. Right now, I needed someone powerful to fall back on. Someone who could shoulder the responsibility as a club leader of sorts. Wait clubs. I knew this academy had a few. But I wasn’t sure what they were. But can I start a new one? It could be something as simple as a religious club dedicated to uncovering the true meaning behind Askavan’s teachings. Then I could slowly poison them from within with logic and facts and slowly corrupt the members into eventually starting a new improved version of Askavan. If these members became the next head of their household and secured a top position in the world, they could easily influence the church to reflect said small changes to the religion. I’d read about such events in the past. Part of accepting the demons as fellow followers of Askavan was one such change. But wouldn’t that be too slow? Hmm… but it did seem effective in theory. So maybe I could create another plan, and have this as a backup? Yes, that seemed about right. Start a club, slowly poison the members’ minds and force the church to change slowly, while also establishing a different plan to influence the church rapidly. Given how the world was centered around the church and its shenanigans, it was impossible to create an entirely different religion, so why not just improvise and improve Askavan?

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But how? The slow process was… well, slow. And the fast process wasn’t something I could just come up on the spot…. While thinking, my feet moved on their own and I found myself back in the library, already putting back books subconsciously.

“You sure love working,” someone said.

“Money and knowledge are great motivators,” I said, without looking.

“I suppose. Feel free to pick up any book that fancies you. You’re free to do whatever till the evening. But you should help me before midnight and turning in.”

“Su-re….” I stared at the woman, middle aged, and… it’s the freaking librarian… She’d dropped another ten years. She was probably going to be my age before the week ended. I attempted to ask about that, but she never entertained my curiosity.

I spent most of my time in the library and then went out. Although people here often referred to the campus as non-existent or small or whatever, it was pretty big for me. Partly because I was small, and partly because I was used to not having any campus space whatsoever in certain schools I’d attended.

“Yar late. We were getting worried ya got lost,” Mike said.

“Who isn’t a little lost in life?” I cracked a joke and expected them to laugh.

They didn’t.

They just stared. Mike in particular was dead serious. “True, true,” he nodded.

They’re supposed to be kids, right? Right!?

We ran around today, playing tag. I’d never played tag, so I had no idea what ‘It’ or whatever was. But I had fun running around. It was weird to be honest. What was so fun about running around, chasing each other? I’d always asked that question watching kids play outside. I’d watch them from my window, one hand writing away while I watched the kids play. I never understood what was so fun just running around aimlessly, laughing like idiots.

Yet, I suppose I was the idiot.

There really wasn’t any point in running around, playing tag. Yet, that itself was liberating. And I didn’t even understand why. No, that wasn’t true. I didn’t try to understand. It didn’t matter. I had fun, that mattered more.

Around evening, we finished and made our way back to the dorms. I found Shia hanging around the entrance, waiting for me.

“You reek, go take a bath.”

I knew I sweated a lot but she didn’t have to rub it in like that!

That dorm wasn’t that cold. Actually, it was pretty warm. Like they had central heating or something. I was already sweating so, it made me sweat even more, to the point where I drenched my shirt.

Luckily there wasn’t a line around this time. So, I got to take a proper shower (not a bath) and be free!

Yesn’t.

I was dragged by Shia to the roof.

“So, our plan A failed,” she said, staring outside, grabbing the railing with quite the force. This dorm was pretty tall, taller than almost all the buildings of this city, but it couldn’t beat the central white roofed building. That one was too damn tall. How many bones would I break if I jumped?

There wasn’t anyone else here. Just us. I had a feeling we didn’t have permission to be here either but I opted to not worry about that.

“You have other plans?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. How about I hire some of our people to kidnap her and you go rescue her in the meantime?”

Where had I heard about that plot before?

“No, that’s too dumb. And anyone looking into the matter would find out they were ‘our’ people and thus render the whole thing meaningless and cause more rift between our families; first of all, how would a five-year-old save a girl from kidnappers anyway? Oh, and I actually met Nisa this afternoon. She didn’t apologize but admitted she was in the wrong.”

“Hmm…” Shia paused. “In that case, you have a shot.”

“A shot?”

“Go confess to her.”

“Huh?”

“Confess your love to her.”

“Excuse me?”

“You don’t love her?” She cocked her head.

“No?” I cocked mine too.

What in the actual hell was she smoking? Seriously.

“Err… I see,” she grumbled.

A shiver ran down….

“What-what did you do?” I asked… carefully.

“I might or might not have started a rumor,” she smiled. Almost like an angel, but I could see the devil instead.

“You what…”

Sigh.

As I thought, this woman was not to be trusted… I was stupid to think she was even remotely… sigh.

Well, I brought this on myself.