A few minutes later, Corvus leads Straf and Cycelia to another T-junction, then stops and turns around.

「Here are the dormitories. Ladies over here, and gentlemen there…」

He says, pointing his hand in one direction, then another.

「…Since Ms. Lia is under your care, I presume you two do not want to be separated, correct?」

The headmaster looks at them both, pinching the side of his glasses' frame to adjust them.

「Yup.」

「Yes, I'd prefer to stay with Straf…」

Cycelia nods, smiling as she briefly glances at Straf's face.

「I see… Understandable. Our dormitories are segregated, but I suppose an exception can be made in this case.」

Corvus nods back. He looks both ways as he speaks in a calm tone, with his hands behind his back, explaining the matter.

「It would be unwell to send out Ms. Lia to be quartered with the men, therefore…」

He points his hand towards the men's dormitories, then gestures them to follow.

「…Straf will join you. I'm sure there is no problem with that, am I wrong?」

「Nope.」

Straf shrugs as he follows the headmaster to the female dormitories. The previously dense crowd of students in the hallway has been replaced by a very irregular trickle of them. Some students go, some come, usually in pairs, sometimes alone… Passing a few doors with very low numbers, they arrive at one that is unmarked. Corvus pushes the door right in.

「Headmaster. How can I help?」

A rather rotund and short woman asks, lifting her bespectacled eyes up from a book while she's sitting at a desk. She sets it down, leaving it spread open exactly on the page she was reading.

「Julva, is the fifth floor's 114 available?」

Corvus asks, looking at the mostly empty key rack on the wall beside her. Straf and Cycelia walk in, looking around the room. A small stove burns in the back, leading smoke outside by a wrought iron pipe through a wall. The bare brick and mortar walls clash with the rest of the Academy's pale and uncannily uniform large stone bricks. A small bookshelf sits by another wall in the cramped room, chock-full of books. Although given by the titles, all of them very mundane, and non-magical. Romances, thrillers, and the like, so it seems.

The woman stands up from her chair with a grating creak against the bare stone floor, the same as the rest of the Academy, and she walks closer to the key rack. The woman's short stature only then becomes truly apparent. She looks up at the key rack, barely taller than the desk she had just jumped out of, looking and looking, squinting through her glasses.

「Hup!」

Jinglejingle… Thwup!

She abruptly jumps up on her stubby legs, and just barely grabs hold of a thick key with a wooden label attached to it by a little metal ring. A faint dust cloud rises as she lands, with a noise as loud as one would expect of a woman her breadth.

「It appears it is, headmaster!」

Julva says with a broad exaggerated smile, and jiggles the keys in front of him when she reaches the desk. She drops them into his waiting hand, and jumps back into her seat, nudging herself forward towards the desk.

Crrrk. Crrrrk. Crrrrk.

「Thank you, Julva. Carry on.」

Corvus nods his head in gratitude, as her chair scrapes against the stone again. He turns around, and Cycelia scoots aside to make way to the door. The headmaster slips past Straf as he refuses to budge, and they follow Corvus out.

He shuts the door behind himself, and continues deeper into the girls' dormitories. The students mumble out a greeting towards the old mage, nodding their often hatted heads as they walk past. They arrive at a stone spiral stairwell. Corvus climbs up, briefly glancing over his shoulder to see if the new student is still following him. As soon as they're up on the floor above, he disappears behind the stairs' central column, going further up. Straf and Cycelia duly follow, though by the top of the flight of stairs, she is already breathing heavily, albeit not quite yet gasping for air.

「Haa… Haa… Sure is… A long way up…」

She makes a labored remark towards the headmaster's back, as he leisurely climbs up and up with a light step.

「Hmm? Quite an exercise, isn't it, Ms. Lia? Ha ha ha… You will grow used to it. My office is on the seventh floor, what am I supposed to say?」

He shrugs his shoulders with a lightly amused smile on his face, looking at her over his shoulder.

「Seventh!?… Haa…」

Cycelia lets out a little shocked gasp with her emerald eyes wide open. They carry on. Upon reaching the fourth floor, Cycelia's breaths become very heavy, and she just barely manages to continue taking another step after step. She glances at Straf, only to realize he's still casually carrying the heavy baggage over his shoulder, calmly breathing through his nose, with his mouth slanted. Only upon reaching the fifth floor does Corvus begin breathing harder than normal.

「If you need to take a little break, it's okay, Ms. Lia.」

He calmly says, with his hands held behind his back as Cycelia gasps for air, bent forward with her hands on her knees. She quickly straightens out and waves her hands in front of herself, but is too out of breath to say anything back.

Clickclickclickclick…

「Gya!!」

She jumps up, letting out a panicked shriek and almost drops her uniform as something skitters past her boot. Both Corvus and Straf turn their alarmed gazes towards her.

「What?」「What is it, Ms. Lia?」

They ask, as she looks at them both with her eyes wide open and a tight-lipped expression on her face.

「Massive spider! Massive! Long legs!」

Cycelia exclaims, and immediately looks around her legs to see if they're safe.

「A spider?… Well there shouldn't be…」

Corvus furrows his brows, his eyes idly drift off to the ground as he thinks about something.

「…Good grief, Lia. I thought something happened. Don't tell me you're seriously afraid of spiders.」

Straf asks with an amused grin.

「I'm not afraid! They're gross!-」

She loudly explains with an indignant, upset expression, but then her eyes widen again at something behind Straf's back.

「Ah! There it is! There's one!」

Cycelia shouts, running in place as she stares at the creature on the wall. Straf furrows his brows, and looks over his shoulder. A dark yellow cube on long legs, right there on the wall covered, in shining golden channels. Minuscule runic script is engraved all over the cube, though none of the runes cross with the perfectly angular channels across its surface. The cube on spider-like legs takes off, skittering at a blazing pace along the wall, just like a spider.

「Ahahahaha…」

Corvus begins laughing with his mouth covered by his hand, shaking his other hand towards Cycelia along with his head.

「Ah!! Another! They're coming out of that hole! They're coming out of the walls!」

「Wow, nice! A natural reference, Lia!」

Straf chuckles, grinning as he watches many more of the cube-spiders pour out of a fist-sized round hole in the wall, right near the ceiling. They all pause for a very brief moment, before scattering in separate directions, some following each other in a perfect trail like ants. With his eyes closed, Corvus continues giggling. Although he's doing his best, his laughter is still far from being under control. Cycelia shuffles closer to Straf, almost hugging into him, if not for the uniform in her hands.

「Ahaha… Ha… Ahh… No, Ms. Lia, those are not spiders… Ha ha ha…」

Corvus explains after a contented sigh, stretching his palm out towards Cycelia to calm her. A light chuckle bursts out of his smiling mouth, but he quickly collects himself.

「Huh? They're not?」

She narrows her eyes, looking suspiciously at the smiling headmaster.

「No, Ms. Lia… New students confuse them for spiders quite frequently, but it's been a while since I've seen someone panic this much.」

He shakes his head, and looks at the hole up in the wall.

「What are they, then?」

「Runic automata.」

Corvus swiftly answers, smiling at her. Cycelia blinks her emerald eyes back at him, trying to understand the meaning.

「…They are like Mr. Damian's golem, Ms. Lia. Very different, however. They do little, simple tasks around the Academy. Getting rid of spiders is one of them… That's why it struck me as odd. How could there be a spider?…」

He asks as his shoulders slowly rise, before abruptly dropping them with a shake of his head, still gently smiling.

「…They hunt other insects too, of course. To make the academic experience more pleasant for our students, unpestered by flies and whatnot.」

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Corvus quickly adds, looking at the automata pouring in and out of the hole in a steady stream.

「How do they work?」

Straf asks, walking up closer to him.

「Hmm? Do you mean their creation, or operation?… They're made out of purified mana crystals, cut into small cubes, and given little spindly metal legs. And their operation is simple, in theory… Magic runes and circuits…」

「What?」

Straf says, furrowing his brows at him.

「…Ms. Lia will get to learn all about it, Straf, don't you worry. Let us proceed.」

He smiles at him, and turns to walk down the empty hallway. Faint metallic clinking of automata legs against the walls echo quietly through the halls, along with the headmaster's footsteps. The two follow, with Straf rubbing his chin along the way. They reach the end, and the headmaster turns around at a closed wooden door, numbered 114 in metal.

「…And here it is.」

Corvus declares, jiggling the key as he holds it up by its ring. Cycelia approaches him, then glances at Straf. When she realizes that both of his hands are full, she hastily takes the key herself.

「Go on and open it」

The headmaster gives her an encouraging nod. She nods back, and starts fiddling with the lock.

Cla-clack!

The old mechanism loudly declares it's now unlocked, and Cycelia presses down on the door handle. The door swings open with an unoiled creak. She steps in, followed by Straf.

「Wow, it's…」

「Small?」

Corvus asks with a little smile, and seemingly finishes her remark, following them in.

「Well… No, but…」

Cycelia fidgets with her hands, as she turns away from Corvus to take another look at the room.

The room certainly is small. There is but one small desk, two chairs, two beds on each side of the room, two small chests at the foot end of each bed, and a narrow window just large enough to let some natural light in.

「…Normally you would be in a room for one person, but this is one of the few that we hold for students who are accompanied by someone else. I hope it is not too bad. If it is, I can always arrange a separate-」

「Nononono it's fine! I like it! It's cozy!」

Cycelia quickly shakes her head and hands, interrupting the headmaster before he can finish. He raises his brows a little, before nodding.

Thwump.

Straf noisily throws the baggage onto Cycelia's bed, and drops his uniform on his.

「I see. Very well. I am sure you are aware by now, the term officially starts in two weeks. In the meantime, please take a look around the Academy and get yourself accustomed. Meet some of the workers, perhaps.」

Corvus gestures, turning to the exit as he slowly makes his way out through the narrow passage.

「There is also the option of visiting the so-called Academy Town, too. The city attracts mages from all over the world, but it has plenty of mundane shops and places to go to. There is this great pancake place by the town square…」

He stops, and halfway turns around, looking at Straf.

「…But I ramble. I'm sure you can find a way to occupy yourselves through these two weeks.」

The headmaster gently bows his head, and walks out of the room.

「Heh, yeah. Not a whole lot you can do in a room this small, though.」

Sitting on his bed, Straf scoffs with a grin on his face.

「…Please remember this is an educational institution, and keep any relations between each other purely platonic while on the Academy grounds.」

The headmaster's head abruptly snaps over his shoulder, and he looks at Straf while talking in a stern tone.

「Huh?」「Yeah, I know. It's basically college with wizard hats.」

Cycelia's face flushes and the tips of her ears turn red, while Straf simply shrugs his hands and plops down on his back in the bed with a chuckle.

「…Well. If you need anything, remember my office is up on the seventh floor, just above your room. If the direction you're headed feels ominous, it means you're going the right way.」

Corvus smiles, slowly closing the door.

「W- Why is that?…」

Cycelia blurts out, nervously grinning at the headmaster with her face as red as her ancestral dragon.

「Oh, it's just a little something the students have told me. Even when they're doing a little chore, like delivering something to me, they've said they feel like they're in really big trouble for some reason.」

He explains, shrugs, and gently shuts the door with a light, silent bow of his head. Cycelia sits down on the bed, and looks at Straf, toying with her medallion.

「Ah, yeah. The uniform. Shit.」

Straf says, sitting back up after he realizes he's laying down on his magic school clothes. Without a warning, he slips his shirt off and lazily throws it onto the bed.

「Straf!?」

Cycelia exclaims, staring at his toned back with her eyes wide open in shock.

「Yeah? What do you need?」

He asks, glancing over his shoulder as he undoes his belt buckle and his sheath.

「W- W- Wh- Why are you undressing!?」

She stammers, covering her red face with her hands.

「To change into the uniform. I might as well milk the cow for all it's worth. Why?」

He casually asks back as he throws his sheath, the pants belt and the potion belt onto the bed, before pulling his pants down.

「Right here!? In front of me!?」

She shouts, peeking at his chiseled body through her fingers.

「Yeah. I don't mind if you look.」

Straf shrugs at her covered face, and flaps the uniform pants straight.

「N- No! I'm not going to!」

Cycelia refuses, peeking through her fingers some more. He is the textbook definition of male physical health. All the muscles that can possibly be defined, are. Some more than others, but none ever reaching the threshold of being exaggerated and visually displeasing. Healthy and athletic are the two words that describe Straf's physique best, the muscles wrapping his arms and abdomen brusquely state his strength with only a singular glance required. Cycelia's face is flushed and so hot, that it is almost steaming. She hides behind her fingers again.

Straf jumps into his new pants, and loops the belt around his waist. Slightly reminiscent of olive, the muted lime green pants fit him just right when he fastens his belt. While Cycelia feasts her eyes with his back turned, he slips the white button shirt on, and quickly buttons it up, heartlessly depriving her of the show. She lets out a quiet, muffled, disappointed sigh, and Straf throws his blazer on, just ever-so-slightly darker than the pants.

「…Fuck the tie though, I'm not wearing that.」

Straf scoffs, and throws the tie onto the chair.

「So? How do I look?」

He asks with a smug grin, turning around as he places his hands in his pocket. Cycelia takes a deep breath, still covering her face.

「…Lia, you alright?」

Straf asks, and the only response he receives is a decisive nod of her head, with her hands still glued to her face. His brow rises, and he waits a few seconds in silence. She takes another deep breath, and lets out out in a quick puff. She lowers her hands, and briefly looks him over head to toe.

「Not bad, but…」

「Hm?」

Cycelia nods, and rises up from the bed towards Straf, reaching for him.

「What are you doing?」

Straf asks, while she buttons his blazer up, button by button.

「…You need to do this properly, Straf. It'll make me look bad if you don't look the best you can.」

She explains, with her gaze focused on his blazer's buttons.

「Lia, you're here on a false identity, I can't make you look bad… What's your name again?」

「Huh?」

「Your name. Say it.」

「Cycelia Redw-」

「No. Not around here.」

Straf lets out an exasperated sigh, and looks at Cycelia with a slanted mouth.

「Lia?…」

She asks, after a prolonged silence while staring at each other.

「Yes?… Lia what?」

He replies, nodding a little just as she's finished with the last button.

「Lia… V… V… Vi…」

「Uh-huh. You almost got it.」

「Lia… Vindict…」

Ms. Lia quietly enunciates, pouting as she looks aside, completely red-faced and tapping her fingers together…