Clean white walls, a holy than thou look, and an aesthetic that yelled: Look at us, we keep things clean around here! - is, and always has been my impression whenever I look at Pledge Academy, it went as far back as when I first played through Everlast.
Even now, 16 years after I came to this world, years after I last saw this place- well technically days since I came here during the entrance exam, - I still think that way, that this place is just so… pure, I guess.
It fits with the fact that this very school is responsible for educating a lot of the Slayers currently active in the world, those who are out there killing Demons and Monsters, or in other words, the “impurity” of this world.
When looked at from a certain angle, it makes Slayers look like glorified janitors killing oversized bacteria capable of threatening people- my train of thought grinded to a halt when Zath's gaze landed on me, we locked eyes and I asked, “what?”
“You look a bit pensive,” she pointed out and did I?..
Maybe I was? Honestly, I was just trying to occupy myself by thinking of things other than the upcoming invasion during the welcoming ceremony- which is… around half an hour from now, great, no pressure- looks like I can get accustomed to my new classroom and classmates first before I go ahead and start killing Demons and potentially even fight a Demon Duke- a type of Demon Royalty that's considered as a mid-game boss.
I'm not obligated to fight it, there are teachers for that but…
Even back in the game, the Demon Duke is actually just a background monster on the school area that the event happens in, it would occasionally get hit by flying spells or fight one of the teachers as an animation but other than that? It can't do anything to the player nor can the player do anything to it. But I expect things to be different since this is real life and like the monster horde that almost killed Lucille (which again, was my fault,) the invading Demon Duke can possibly go out of his way to specifically target the Hero which means that I'm gonna have to fight it to keep it from attacking Lucille.
And for once, I'm gonna use all of my strength since this very invasion has been the one that I've been preparing for since I know that the Demon Lord would expend a lot of his power and resources to create a portal that led to the Academy's gym so that his army of Demons can come here and start slaughtering the promising first year students capable of fighting against his reign.
After that, he'd be spent and has to spend time recovering for at least a year, and that is why, according to the lore, the Hero/Player managed to slowly grow their strength and eventually reach the power of the Demon Lord- which even by the time of their encounter with him, is still recovering, - and kill him.
Honestly, why risk this type of Gamble, I can never fucking know- why not just slowly conquer the world?
Wait- is that actually something that he'll do now that the Hero- according to the rumors, - is now dead? That he won’t pull off this gamble because there’s no need to do it?..
Wait no- of course not- The Demon Lord has an innate gut feeling that tells him of a Heroes’ existence and if Lucille is here, then that means he knows that there's another Hero, and that means that he's still gonna try to send his horde of Demons here, giving the rest of humanity time to recoup their losses, allow Lucille to grow in power, and eventually push the tide of Demons descending onto our borders back. I'm sure that he'd pull the same gamble, if he doesn't then I don't know what I'd do-
“Neophyte?” Laceresta's voice forced me to focus back on the present, I looked up and met her gaze, “we passed our classroom,”
“Oh. It's fine,” I tried to play it cool and gave her a confident smile.
I know it sounds a bit arrogant but I know what kind of effect my existence has on everyone around me, and if they see me dazing off or God forbid, start to feel anxious then there's a high chance that their morale is gonna plummet- am I arrogant for thinking that the morale of an entire student body rests on my back? Yes. Am I self aware enough to know that at least some of that is true and so doing my best to keep my current saintly image in check is the best course of action?
Also yes.
“I wanna see the Elder Tree first,” I said without missing a beat, “you know, to get a feel for the place and to also ask for a blessing, and while we're at it, how about we go to the fountain at the courtyard as well?” Because I know for a fact that the damn thing does grant wishes, even if the students here only throw their coins into it out of tradition, “I wanna ask for more strength when I eventually fight Demons,”
“Isn't that a bit too far into the future? Why not just ask for something like a better time in school or to learn stuff quicker?” Zath asked and pointed out and I… slowly nodded in reply.
“Yes but you know, more strength in fighting Demons is related to our education in how to fight them,” I reasoned badly. I didn't want to tell them that us fighting Demons is actually closer than they think, so for now, they can live with that, “you guys should wish for that as well,”
“Any increase to our fighting force helps”- I didn't dare say.
After passing 3 hallways or so, we reached the doors that led to the courtyard at the center of the school building, I pushed it open and walked into the circular plaza with my maid and the Beast King in tow and the sight that greeted us was mostly grass.
The entire thing was divided into four parts by a cross-shaped path that ran across the entire plaza, each path leading to four different doors and originating at the center, where a massive tree of pure white wood grew and covered the plaza with its shade.
I neared said tree and touched it, I silently requested strength to fight against the Demons and felt something trickle into me, starting from my palms before crawling into my chest and eventually dripping into every part of my being. Once that's done, I let go of the tree and gave it my silent thanks before turning to Zath and Laceresta, “now it's your turn,”
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Zath pulled on the collar of her maid's outfit while trying not to meet my eyes, mostly because she was looking somewhere else, “... mistress, I- I don't think I want to do this,” I followed her gaze and huh, since when have these guys gotten here?
I shook my head and grabbed Zath's wrist, is she really gonna feel embarrassed now of all times? “Come on Zath, just uh- put your hand onto the bark of the tree and wish for strength- look see? Even Laceresta is doing it!”
The Lioness grunted, “there's nothing wrong with asking for more power,” she said shamelessly, she closed her eyes and most likely did as she said and when she opened them, she stared at her palm, “... huh,” she said, “I didn't know that it was actually true, I thought you were just doing some sort of tradition.”
I nodded, “yeah, you need to be sensitive to Light in order to feel the tree's effects but if you are, you can confirm that it's actually real.”
I pushed Zath closer to the tree and she stared at me, “you're joking.” She said as I placed her hand on the trunk, I nodded enthusiastically at her and she sighed, “... fine,” she said in exasperation before closing her eyes and doing what Laceresta and I did, then she opened them again, she stared at me and the Beast King with bored eyes, “I didn't feel anything,”
“Then you're weak,” Laceresta bluntly stated with a shrug, “now come on, I want to go to the fountain and ask for more strength,”
I threw her a Gold coin, which she caught with ease, “wish, technically,” I corrected, “and you need to throw that into the basin for it to work,”
The Lioness nodded, “fair enough,” she said with a grunt.
We went to the fountain, did the same thing and then went back to the school building to go to the classroom, when we went in, we heard rumors about the Elder Tree actually being “real” and that most of the student body is actually going there to ask for a wish and in reaction to that, I only shrugged- honestly, if they want to ask for something, then why shouldn't they?
But… they should probably make sure that it's not too much- like asking for a better love life for example, - or else the tree would just ignore them.
… not that they’d notice. Of course.
We passed through the halls and eventually, we reached our classroom again and sliding the door open, we… were greeted by a somewhat packed room.
Huh. Punctual. Neat.
As we stepped in, I eyed all the people that I recognized, most of them being game characters, both the playable and the supporting NPC kind: Naviri, Satti, Charcoal, and Inferno were the few that I was familiar with but there were others that I vaguely recognized too like Zyra and her vine-whip, Yhaine and her yellow hair, Frovan and his massive frame, Garth for the same reason, Nickos because he's actually a pretty decent supporting character in game and… finally, Lucille.
The Heroine herself is sitting in my classroom, much to her shocked expression (for some reason?) her eyes landed on me and she asked, “w-we're in the same room?”
“Yeah,” I answered with a nod, which, I guess I can see why she’d be shocked. Being in the same classroom as powerful Pledge Bearers is probably a pretty big deal when her Sanguine Pledge is weak.
My reply seems to have been enough to break the atmosphere because everyone else greeted me with nods, I nodded back.
Out of all them though, Naviri's greeting was the most eye catching, she was waving at me as she sat right next to Satti, and deciding to go along, I took a seat right next to them, Zath and Laceresta soon followed and to get things going, I decided to introduce them to each other, well, mostly Laceresta, the couple already knew who Zath is after all, “Naviri, Satti, this is Laceresta, the current Beast King.”
The two nodded respectfully, “Laceresta, this is Naviri and Satti, friends of mine.”
Naviri chuckled, “we’re not special by any means but I hope that we can get along,” she said with a smile.
Laceresta nodded and offered a large hand, “I don't mind even if you're not some prophesized character because a friend of the Saintess would definitely be powerful and if you aren't then you’re most likely full of potential,” the Lioness said with a shrug, “nice to meet both of you,”
“We feel the same way,” Naviri said with a smile, she leaned back against her chair, “so… the Oasis huh?” She tried to find a topic, a common ground between her and Laceresta and based off of my own experience, asking about her home works so Naviri guessed correctly, “how's it like back there? I heard that… a lot of Omegafaunas like to live there.”
Laceresta nodded, “a lot of them like to roam the sands, but they're not really that Dangerous most of the time since the biggest out of all of them just like to sit back and sleep for years on end, pretending to be dunes as they get covered in sand until they eventually prove everyone who thought that way wrong by waking up to eat.”
“... what do they eat?” Naviri asked.
“People, mostly,” Laceresta said casually, like what she just dropped isn't the most horrific thing that can come out of her mouth, “but also other Omega Faunas, or other animals, or Wyverns, that sort of thing, if they get really desperate, they can even eat plants but that rarely happens since like you said, a lot of Omegafaunas live back in the Oasis, so plenty of prey for them to eat.”
“Do you know any of them?” Naviri asked and it's by that point that I decided to tune out their conversation to look around the classroom which is exactly how I remembered it to be; a college-like design with a stage at the center surrounded by a rising seating arrangement. The connected desks were made from some sort of orange wood and the same goes for our chairs.
At the front, a massive blackboard can be seen at the back of the stage. Meanwhile, on the stage itself is a podium placed directly at the center, there’s also a desk on the right, and a single chair behind said desk.
Mostly though, the stage was barren save for those three furniture and the tiny decorations- with the most eye catching out of all of them being this little Demon replica with marked body parts and organs on the left side of the stage, - placed on top of it.
Decorations of the same aesthetic were placed all around us, giving the otherwise dab classroom life; a flying animal there, a few bats hanging on one of the corners of the ceiling, bookshelves placed on the left and right side of the room, a few garbage bins, and then our lockers at the back of the room.
Placing the metal lockers at the highest point is probably just asking for someone to drop them on us but I've never heard of anything like that happening so far so… eh?
I pressed my hand against my cheek and looked on with a bored expression, the anxiety that I felt about the eventual Demon invasion of the school is still at the back of my mind, constantly gnawing at me and telling me to prepare but I couldn't do anything for the moment- I can't practice with my Pledge, can't use Techniques, can't do anything until it actually happens and it doesn't do anything to help me stay calm.
Meanwhile, as time went on and Naviri and Laceresta's conversation got more and more lively, the other students of the classroom started to file in and in total, there's around 25 of us here, including two of my sisters, I didn't bother looking at them though, I wasn't really in the mood for it- actually, I wasn't feeling like doing anything in particular, so I just waited for our adviser to enter the room and call us into the gymnasium.
She came into the classroom soon enough; and our teacher- Ms. Halyard, - is this tactical and stern looking woman with a perpetual “no bullshit” expression present on her face, she was tall, around 5 foot 10, with long legs that her short, business-woman esque shirt failed to hide, and had enough curves to make me feel jealous.
Or in other words, the type of idealized teacher that is ever present in Japanese media: Serious, yet caring when dealing with the main character, also, she's hot. Like really hot.
And did I mention that she's serious? Because if I didn't, then the fact that she walked to the front of the classroom, scanned all of us, and then just simply said- “form an orderly line outside, we're going to the gymnasium,” - may have discounted that.
Seriously, she then just left as if she wasn't dealing with children- okay, to be fair, students of Pledge Academy should hold themselves to a better standard so us being orderly is expected but still! We’re mostly Nobles woman! What do you think is gonna happen?!
I sighed and stood up, knowing damn well that one of these guys will make a scene for Lucille to step into and “do the right thing,” and I wasn't having any of it, we need to move quickly because the Demons aren't gonna wait, and in the rare chance that these guys do get detention, then Lucille is gonna be among them and they’re gonna act like sitting ducks while an army of Demons invade the school- and that’s not exactly my ideal scenario.
“Okay everyone! Make sure to not mess around and those who will-” I eyed a muscled boy- Vicissi, - from house Nimbusegia with gray hair who was walking towards Lucille and Zyra, two Florists, “- will be- well, I don't know what I'll do but it won't be pretty.” I locked eyes with the boy, “Try it, if you want.”
We all filed outside without any problems and I managed to not get Lucille and Vicissi punished and thrown into detention- which in game, can happen if you fail to pick the right dialogues. And in that case, you'd be down a party member but here? They’d be stuck in detention like pigs for slaughter.
I'd prefer it if Lucille is out here, capable of running.