“And that’ll be our lesson for today,” those were the parting words of Nabatea Unchast- our Techniques teacher, - to us as he grabbed his belongings from the teacher's desk and left the room.

I closed my notebook, “so do Techniques really feel different for you?” I asked Fafnir as we stood up.

Techniques was our last subject for the morning period which meant that lunch was effectively upon us! Yayyyyyyyyy- but I’m not all that excited to eat food right now and instead, I’m very curious about whether or not what Sir Nabatea said about magical creatures perceiving Light differently than us is true, Fafnir hasn’t answered my question even as we went to our locker though so I turned to her in concern and called her name, she usually doesn't space out like this, “Nir?”

“Hm?” My friend snapped the locker she and Laceresta were sharing- because she was apparently a new student instead of being part of our class already, which oddly enough, no one really bothered to correct? Isn’t there an entire rule about this? I just thought she was always a part of the class but was simply too big to join or something…

My internal rant came to an end when Fafnir faced me and tilted her head, “what do you mean?”

“Are Techniques different for you because… you know, you see Light differently?” I repeated, wondering why she didn’t hear it the first time.

“It is, somewhat,” she confirmed but then she quickly shook her head, “but also not since I also use my thoughts to turn my Light into Techniques so I think it’s not really all that different.” She shrugged, “I don't think it is,”

Someone walked up to us then, “can I join in? Your talk sounds interesting, and I think that my experties in such a topic may prove useful since no one in this class has made a Pact with a magical creature other than you and me,”

I faced Korbinian, lips tightly pursed, and wondered- is this how she always talked? Man, she sounds stuck up… I don't really remember her much back in the game but you know what? Sure, I'd give her a chance.

I nodded and so did Fafnir, “we don’t really mind,”

“Thank you,” Korbinian bowed, “I think, what sir Unchast meant when he said that Techniques are different for magical creatures is that to them, casting Techniques is instinctive,” Korbinian said, I nodded, she did have a good point, “but I also hear that more intelligent creatures like Dragons or Omegafaunas do have a series of self taught or even passed methods that don’t just allow them to cast more complex Techniques, but also makes their instinctive Techniques stronger,” I faced Fafnir after that explanation and my Dragon nodded, huh, pretty neat, “for most magical creatures though, they mostly rely on their natural instinct or need to be trained in order to properly cast Techniques,”

The raven haired girl raised her hand and with a snap of her fingers, a Shadow Crow materialized on top of it, tilting its head, the animal gazed at us with blood red eyes while perching atop its master’s index and middle finger, it tapped one of Korbinian's many rings with talons that sucked in light, “Cacaw!”

Korbinian smiled up at the corvid, “my dear Unawa is a perfect example of a well trained magical creature, as she knows Techniques that most of her peers do not,” after finishing her explanation, she rubbed the crow’s neck, making the avian coo in pleasure.

We walked out of the classroom then and I decided that since it would be weird for her to split up with us after everything, I might as well invite her to eat with us, “do you want to eat with us?”

“I’d love to,” Korbinian smiled, “anyways, I think it’s time for my familiar to go and rest,” with another snap of her fingers, the tiny crow dematerialized- which I assume must be some sort of Technique but probably not?.. I’m not really sure since Shadow Crows ingame could also disappear in an explosion of feathers to teleport somewhere else but those were fully grown, 4 feet tall Shadow Crows while the one Korbinian had just now is nothing more than a hatchling.

So I guess it is a training thing.

She did use it as an example earlier but just to be sure-

“Did you train Unawa to be able to dematerialize like that?” I asked and got a nod of confirmation in response. “Huh, neat.”

The moment we stepped out into the hallway, Prescine was there to greet and escort us again, she waved, “Neophyte,” she said to me before turning to the rest of the girls I was with, “Laceresta, Fafnir, Zathania, and you are?..”

“Korbinian Unleer,” the crow caretaker introduced herself with a bow, “nice to meet you?..”

“Prescine Crescate,” the student body president answered with a smile and a polite nod, “nice too meet you too, Korbinian,”

“Likewise,” Korbinian shook Prescine’s hand.

Honestly, I'm surprised that these two didn't know each other, with Korbinian belonging to a powerful military noble household- and isn't that a mouthful? - within the Vagran Kingdom, if memory serves me right, her father is either a Count or someone higher, Prime Minister maybe?..

One of those two.

Meanwhile, Prescine Exube is a princess who came to this school to learn to become a Slayer like everyone else.

One belongs to a family whose names are echoed throughout history and the other is one of the heirs to a Kingdom that is arguably the most beautiful in this world, I say arguably because the Hydrokith and the coral reefs that they're living in are also very nice to look at.

Anyways, like earlier, the reason for why the president of the student body came with us is because we needed protection, which she can grant thanks to her authority.

Take for example, the moment that we stepped into the crowd; students started shoving each other to run towards us and if I didn’t know that this was something that the Player could avoid ingame then I would’ve activated Maximum Speed to go hide in a hole somewhere but since I didn’t, I got to see the president raise a rectangular card.

And as per her authority, she used it so that the students who went near us would get detention by the end of the day, the IDs of the students glowed as the individual Light saved inside of them activated, “you’re all gonna get detention if you go near us,” she threatened with a sharp smile and a glare, “so if all of you can just act as proper students of this prestigious school, you’d have no problem and my council won’t be slumped with work checking the logbooks for your names-”

One student tried to go near us while she was talking and his ID glowed red and he stared at it in horror while Prescine gave him a bored look, “you just don’t listen do you?”

The now detentioned student meekly nodded before walking away in shame, since it’s so useful, I decided to ask if we’d have something like it as well, since the Player character- and now Prescine, - also have it, “wait, are we gonna get something like this?”

“Hm? Yeah.” Prescine nodded, “a week from now, after the school finishes your IDs.” She gave us an encouraging smile, “taking your pictures should happen tomorrow, when the school day is over, and after that you all will have to wait as everything gets finalized,”

“Great!” I said with a bright smile, I can’t wait until I can walk around the school whenever I want without getting swarmed by students, but I guess before that, we have to pester the president so I decided to apologize to her in advance, “sorry to inconvenience you before that,” I tried to meet her eyes, “we’ll make it up to you at some point,” I grinned.

“Think nothing of it and besides, I get something school related out of it anyways,” she giggled and I still tried to protest and noticing the hand that I was slowly raising, she sighed, “you being willing to aid my home Kingdom already made up for everything,” Prescine replied, as if those two things are somehow similar- I mean, I’m being kind when I’m offering support to her Kingdom and there’s no need for payment, it’s not like it’s a big deal after all. Meanwhile, being free for one week from being swarmed by students is kind of a big deal?..

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And… I just realized my hypocrisy- fine, I’ll allow it just this once.

“Thank you for coming with us,” I said as we took a turn into the last hallway before reaching the cafeteria.

“And thank you for having me,” Prescine replied and that’s it, the conversation ended and we walked until we reached the place where we were supposed to eat and once there, I headed straight for one of the lines of students waiting to get their food to test out my newly gotten unlimited-money-cheat-glitch (or a credit card with unlimited money provided by the school,) but was quickly stopped by a hand that landed on my shoulder.

I glared at Bismuth and he glared back, asking, “What are you doing?”

“Getting food?” I said sarcastically, no shit?

“I-” he sighed, “Neophyte we’re Royalty,”

“Uhuh, and?” I said, “Zath’s no longer a servant while in this school which means that I’m also just a regular student now let me do this-”

“That’s not how that works,” Bismuth retorted, his glare never fading.

Karsten- when did she get here? - joined Bismuth’s side and from behind me added, “the Saintess should have priority when it comes to meals,” the pious girl hummed before grabbing my hand and dragging me to an empty table- rightfully leaving Bismuth behind, -and it was one of the larger tables too, which Karsten picked even when there’s only around what? 6 of us?

Well, there’s me, Laceresta, Nir, Zath, Korbinian, Prescine- oh and Karsten- there’s only 7 of us and we’re occupying a table that can fit over 10 students-

“Neo you’re staring into space,” Zath said.

“Aren’t you guilty?” I asked accusingly, now only slightly pissed that the opportunity to use my unlimited credit card got taken away, this is more pressing anyways, “we’re taking over a large table-”

“It’s fine,” Laceresta growled out, “who cares? Everyone else is okay with it,”

I reluctantly looked around and- yeah- I guess it’s fine… No one seems bothered with it-

But what if they’re hiding it?

“So Techniques,” Zath started, picking a topic.

“Look, the servants are here,” Karsten’s small clap got me out of my stupor, I stared at Fafnir, she was pointing somewhere- oh, huh, she’s right, 2 servants pushing a cart full of food are heading for us whilst several others were coming to my siblings as well as various other noble children.

That’s… good- it’s good that we’re not looking stupid while sitting here,

“Neo, you don’t need to drool, the food is gonna get here soon,” Fafnir mocked which okay, you fat dragon.

“Am I the one who’s drooling?” I smirked, looked up, and started tapping my chin, “look, the scales on your neck are slightly more glossy, from what? I wonder?..”

“There’s a bit of bread stuck to your hair you know?” She said, face serious.

No there isn’t- I checked for a few seconds and nope, I refuse to believe that there’s a stray piece of bread just hanging in my head, the liar, “wow, I can’t believe that you’d lie like that, now look, Karsten is glaring at you for lying,”

“You shouldn’t mock the Saintess like this,” she said with narrowed eyes before crossing her arms, okay, maybe I was wrong about her priorities but the point still stands- Fafnir is the one being scolded, “Powerhouse you may be, it is imprudent to mock the closest person to the Goddess herself.”

“Right, she has a good point,” I nodded, riding along with the pious girl’s words, “see Nir?” I smirked, “you shouldn’t mock me like this,”

“Are you saying that you’re the Saintess then?” Fafnir retorted easily.

“N-no of course not!” I denied vehemently while shaking my head, “I- I- uhm, I was just playing along with Karsten’s words!”

“Uhuh…” Laceresta trailed off and I thought that she was about to join in but she quickly shrugged and faced the servants pushing the food over to us, briefly, she looked away from the servants and faced all of us, “our next subject is combat right?” She asked, “can we ask the servants for more food?”

“Our next subject is combat?” I repeated her question, genuinely confused how she managed to find this particular piece of information on her own, not one of our teachers said anything about a schedule though? “How’d you know that?”

And that somehow got all of the girls sitting with me to speak out in unison-

“There’s a schedule on the outside of the door?” Laceresta answered.

“There’s a printed schedule on the outside of our classroom isn’t there?” Karsten said with a tilt of her head.

“There’s a schedule outside the classroom,” Korbinian said.

“There’s a schedule on the right wall outside our classroom,” Fafnir pointed out.

“Usually, during the first few days of school, the advisers put up their class’ schedules outside the door of their classroom, did you guys not have that? The Academy is pretty strict with it…” Prescine said in confusion.

“Mistress, I copied the schedule on one of your notebooks,” I stared at Zath. She did that? When?

“... Neophyte? Did you not?.. Look at it earlier?” I frowned at Fafnir- so that's what it was about!

Also, they’re ganging up on me on purpose aren’t they?

“This is unfair,” I slumped, I didn’t know we had schedules! Well I mean I did but not that we had one of those on the door of our classroom!

“Well? Can we ask the servants for more food?” Laceresta asked again before adding, “I don’t want to go into training with an empty stomach,”

“... what is empty for you, exactly?” Korbinian asked, tone curious.

“Around three plates of meat or so,” Laceresta answered confidently and without an ounce of shame, “why?”

“Nothing,” Korbinian shook her head, “just curious about how much a girl your size eats,”

“Is it that surprising?” Laceresta asked, eyebrow raised.

“Not really,” Korbinian said, “I’m just surprised that you eat as much food her majesty Neophyte is rumored to eat, which are, of course, rumors, right?” She turned to me, I nodded with a tight smile, she nodded back, expression satisfied, “but yes, you can ask for more food,”

Laceresta smiled and nodded, “good, because I want to eat a lot during lunch if I want to do my training properly,”

…

“ARGHHHHH-” Laceresta’s training, as it turns out, involved pulling entire logs using rope, she’s only started and I can already tell that she’s struggling to pull the 10 trees that she specifically requested would be cut for her day-to-day training and I’m already wincing in pain from just simply looking at her struggle like this so I can’t imagine how it must feel for Laceresta.

“Neophyte,” my focus went back to the things around me and I faced Instructor Quoketh with a chippy smile, our Combat Class teacher wouldn't be able to train and torture me like back then- “you’re also doing that,”

“WHAT?!” I exclaimed suddenly, causing Karsten- how’d she get there? Also, since when had she started poking my stomach? - to flinch and fall to the ground with a yelp. I caught her arm before she reached the ground and pulled her back up, “sorry,”

The pious girl regained her calm demeanor and her widened eyes- that, just like her character portraits ingame, made her cuter, - disappeared as she fixed her white T-shirt to nod, “it is fine,” she said with a shake of her head, “it was my fault for invading your personal space to start with,”

“Yeah… about that, why were you poking my stomach?” I said while gesturing at the dents and wrinkles on that particular part of my white T-shirt.

“I… was curious about how you were able to store that much food inside of you,” she said- and poking my stomach helps with that… how?

“Oh that? My body digests food quickly, they’re gone before I shove another piece of meat into my mouth,” I replied, “Pledge Bearer bodies are efficient like that,”

“I see,” she nodded, “I’m guessing the same goes for Laceresta as well?”

I repeated her nod, “yep!” I answered happily, “her body also digests and turns the food she eats into energy rich fat very quickly,”

“Hmm…” A thoughtful look crossed her face, “thank you,”

“It’s fine, but if you want to do it, make sure that you train a lot beforehand to get your body used to that sort of thing,” I pointed out, “because if you don’t, you will get fat,” I said, “your body needs to get used to burning and storing energy very quickly before you can get to my and Laceresta’s level of eating,”

I turned away from her to listen to Instructor Quoketh but Karsten spoke again, “... let’s say that I want to eat chocolate,” she started and I snapped my head at her while holding back a grin, this is the first thing that I tested out! “Will… I?.. get…” her gaze went lower and lower with each word spoken.

“Nope!” I said happily, “you will not get fat,”

Joy quite literally washed over her features and she nodded, “I see!” She said, tone a lot more high pitched than it usually is, “thank you, Saintess,”

“You’re welcome but I’m not the Saintess okay?” I said with a smile, I’m sure Lucille is gonna pick a proper Saintess for her party but that person simply isn’t me, I’m strong, yeah, but still not on the level of the Saintesses in the past when they earn their title.

“Of course, Neophyte,” she said.

“If you two are done,” Instruc- Tea- Instructor Quoketh cleared her throat and when we faced her, she was pointing at the exercising students behind her, she then pointed at Karsten, “you-” then she pointed at the (I think 200 meter) track field our classmates are running on behind her, “- will need to join them, 10 laps across this field,”

Karsten eyed it and blinked, “so much?” She said, white hair glowing a bit, “but my Pledge is for support?”

“Yeah, and so is Nickos’, and he's doing fine for himself, also, if you want to eat all you want like Neophyte, you better do as I say because I trained her since she was a kid, now get on with it.” She clapped her hands and went over to Karsten to keep doing it until she started running, which she eventually did, “Good! Go! Go! Go!” Instructor Quoketh's grin was sadistic as she watched Karsten start running.

… said grin fell when she faced me, she gave me a nod of respect (a nigh mythical, super rare ingame emoticon by the way,) and then said, “so a Demon Duke huh?” She slapped my back and I wheezed, “good job, but that means you’re gonna have to work extra hard to become even stronger and since there’s no gravity well here, you’re gonna have to push yourself to your highest unboosted speed and run across the entire field and I’m not talking about the one we’re using.”

“... no,” I said meekly- I need to find the strength to deny her-

“What do you mean no?’ Quoketh asked, “you’re gonna run across this entire thing,” she made a gesture of both her arms going outward into… well, everything and I quickly got the message, I already did when she first said it but I wanted to make sure first because running through the entire grassland behind the school is just overkill!

What the hell?!

“Neophyte, you’re fast,” she said, encouraging words entering one of my ears and out the next, “if you’re worried about spending hours trying to run through this entire thing,-” Oh yeah, yeah, that’s the problem, yep. “- you can rest easy knowing that you’d be able to run at least 80 laps throughout the two and a half hours for this class and with that being said you can run for-”

“Uh, 20 laps right?” I started doing my warm ups while shooting Instructor Quoketh with my best ‘please don’t do this,’ smile and from the way she looked at me with disinterest…. It didn’t work.

Damnit.

“60.” She said and that was it, I had no choice but to get tortured.

I started my run by jogging and as I got further away, I heard our very, very evil teacher yell- “And remember! Jog first!”

Yeah, yeah, jog first before running immediately or else my heart would explode- I know that much. What does she think I was doing? Walking? “When you’re that slow, you look like you’re walking to me girl!”

Damnit.