A giant carriage stood in the middle of the Black Rose square. The many buildings had created the perfect grid for the Black Rose, and it was natural to use it liberally.

The point of Black Rose, after all, was to cater to the royals and nobles. Even for the catering, today might be a tad too strange.

For one, though the carriage was here for the students, I was sure none of them would appreciate the contents.

“Delivery!” The driver of the enormous carriage and one of the guards of the academy stepped out to greet me.

I welcome them with a smile.

“Please bring it here,” I said as I led the carriage over.

Black Rose’s buildings each had a clear purpose. One was the teacher’s dormitory occupied by me and god knows how many spiders; the other was the student dorms; a dorm for the staff; one to function as the school building; and lastly, a recreational building that was open to use for anything, from training to experimentations.

“Should we take it inside?”

The guard asked, hesitating. There was far too much in the carriage to carry alone.

“Nope, let’s leave it here.”

At my words, the guard and the coachman both left the cargo behind and sauntered off on their horses back where they came from.

I crossed my arms, impressed at the size of things.

This should do.

***

Today was a special day for all the students of Black Rose. They weren’t particularly excited, but a change was always welcome by kids. Especially if it seemed fun.

Classes ended and all twenty-five of the students in the classroom stepped out of the school building. At their front was the apparent true leader of the classroom. Not Elara, not even Lute-Lad Luke, but Atlas Whisper.

The humiliation from a day before existed only for Atlas, for everyone else, it had become the most amusing joke of the entire month.

“Finally today…” Elara mumbled. The group of them stepped out of the building and to the square… when they all stopped.

A strange sight unfolded in front of them.

Piled up like a lofty mountain, a peak of stuffed toys stood before them, reaching a whole floor high. The students were deeply perplexed at the sight in front of them. There were enough stuffed toys to climb and fall from without getting a single scratch.

The group of them gathered around the mountain of toys. As soon as they were close enough, the top of the mountain flew off and a black-haired man emerged from within.

“BOOO!” He screamed.

“AAAH!” Only one scared voice returned. Atlas flinched and covered his head in fear, and stopped as soon as Elara placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Huh… tough audience,” the professor shrugged.

He tossed away some of the toys in his path and climbed down the mountain, in his hand a single stone with a strange rune.

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The students all held questions, but more than the mountain of stuffed toys, they were worried that their professor was truly, sincerely a nutjob. Who else would play tricks like those?

Thankfully, the professor was not the only one, the students had a nutjob on their side too.

“Prof, what’s this?” Seren raised her hand and asked.

The professor turned to face Seren with a penguin-stuff toy in his hand. He held the toy in front of his face, much like Rosentea held her fan, and waved its hand at Seren.

“This! Student Seren! Is a takeover.”

Seren tilted her head. “What are you talking about Prof?”

“I am no prof! I am Emperor Penguin Balthazar the Third!”

The nutjob was amused. Struck by a flash of brilliance, Seren picked up a cat toy and spoke while moving it.

“E-emperor Penguin Balthazar the Third! What are we doing here?”

“What else, Kitty the Kat? We are here to take down this Black Rose Classroom, and then eventually the whole world! The stuffed toys have had enough, it is time to fight back!”

“However shall we do this, Emperor Whatchamacallit!”

Emperor Penguin Balthazar the Third turned once again and pointed at the class’ golden-haired commander, Elara Danube.

“This… this... Pfft… this class will study… the effect of our kind on different species and then take over the world… pfft… hahah!”

Elara flushed red at the sudden mockery. Her fist clenched tight. She wanted to protest but was too flustered to do so.

It was the first time the ever-calm commander of the classroom had wavered.

Needless to say, Emperor Penguin Balthazar the Third’s coup d’etat did not last long and he lost that day.

***

Today was the inception of the Black Rose Club. A club made and attended solely by the students of the Black Rose Classroom.

As described by the forms, the club’s main activity was to test the effects of a stuffed toy’s effect on one’s psyche, and as a result, the kind Glorenstein Academy purchased stuffed toys en masse.

“Take whatever you want with you to your room, the stuffed toys are now ours. We’ll move the rest to one of the storerooms in the recreational building.”

The professor’s instructions were followed by a mass movement of the stuffed toys. Most of the boys were too embarrassed to take any, and the same was the case with some of the girls. Stuffed toys were for kids, after all.

They were all fairly jealous when they saw Seren and Luke casually grab and take them away, even more so when their professor took not one but three and buried himself in them.

One might guess that the professor was trying to help them get over the embarrassment, but his kind smile fit with the toys so well that it only increased their embarrassment. As if he was claiming, ‘If you don’t look as innocent with them then don’t take any.’

After the stuffed toys were moved, Prince Ier posed a question to the professor.

“What are we supposed to do in this club?” he asked.

The professor shrugged. “Of course, the answer is whatever you want. But there wouldn’t be a reason to make a club if it was just that, right?”

Ier nodded.

The professor then pointed at Elara, who faked a cough and stepped in front of the students, standing next to the professor.

“We’ll let the club president have a word.”

Elara began a speech.

“To start with, thank you for going with my request and joining this club. There are two reasons I started this club.”

Elara held up two fingers in front of the rest of the students.

“The first is to make a space for all of us to stick together and do whatever we want. I don’t need to explain why.”

The students knew they were hostages. A collective amongst them was the only way they could make sure that they were never pressured by anyone else.

“The second is to do whatever we want while getting a lot of resources,” Elara smirked and turned to the professor. “Is it ready?”

The professor smiled. “Of course.”

“The Glorenstein Academy goes the extra mile to ensure clubs need all they require to operate, even if that thing is hard to obtain. It is one of the rules of the Empire established by the first emperor who founded the academy.”

The academy had a few sacred rules that had to be followed at all costs, and giving the clubs a lot of autonomy was one of those. Back then, with the Empire still young, the Emperor believed in the creativity and freedom of students and gave them resources, which in turn, blessed the Empire with some of the best items under the skies.

“You might think that studying the effect of something on our psyche is a little absurd, but it gives us access to another thing.”

Elara accepted a stone from the professor, a teal stone tablet, and raised it high.

“We can use this as an excuse to receive a military-grade Status Check.”

“Oooh.”

“Status check!?”

“They allowed that?”

The professor invaded Elara’s speech.

“Hey now, don’t lie. The toy bit was completely unnecessary. It would have been much easier for me to get this if you said you wanted to develop your abilities.”

Elara lowered her head with a blush.

“Anyway!” She said, “Status check! Let’s do it!”