With an orange skyline in my back, a leaflet in my hands and half an hour of searching for this place behind me, I could finally end the day in peace.
After we met Schwarz, there were thankfully no more surprises which I kind of liked. I didn’t want any action at this point, I rather wanted to spend time with Luna and maybe play with Schwarz a little bit. I had very little aspirations for the time being.
But it did seem as if the calmness was short lived as I noticed curses coming from one of the windows. Sighing loudly, I entered the building reserved for housing the staff and soon found myself in front of our apartment … naturally after justifying my presence several times in front of teachers.
At last though, I finally knocked onto the wooden door which was opened quickly afterwards by a rather distressed Hannah, holding a few pieces of paper in her right hand.
“Where have you been?” Hannah asked, went through her hair with her left hand and threw all the pieces of paper into the air. The room was already a mess beforehand with the floor littered with pieces of paper. Pursing my lips a little, I stepped into the room onto a singular clean patch and closed the door behind me.
“Oh, we were at the library, the arena, we ate this strange food and all in all? We had fun. How was your day?” I asked, tilted my head to the side and smiled brightly. In the meantime, she couldn’t help but express her dissatisfaction by frowning heavily.
“Horrible. The only help they ever gave me were an insane amount of manuals which clearly don’t tell me anything how I am supposed to do stuff here. It was easier as I just had to teach others how to read and write.” Certainly, working as a travelling teacher was a lot different from teaching in the royal academy, but the methods and contents of the lectures shouldn’t be too far off.
“Doesn’t every class have some kind of curriculum?” I asked and looked all over the floor to find anything in that direction. Sadly, my efforts amounted to nothing as the floor was too littered to pick out anything in particular.
“It does. But how do I teach idiots how to ‘support the frontline’ … whatever that is supposed to mean.” She said frustrated, picked up a bit of the mess and roped it to shreds in front of her eyes. Being a teacher … certainly didn’t suit her too much.
“Just punch them until they learn?” I said and picked a few pieces of paper as well. I grinned happily as I ripped them apart myself. Destruction was always a happy endeavour.
“Beating them is child abuse.” She said nonchalantly, picked up a nearby book and opened it on page 634. ‘What you should not do.’ was written there as the headline and the first point was sadly being violent to your pupils, even though pain was incredibly helpful in learning stuff.
“It is?” I never looked at it this way … but she was right. “How about you teach them like you taught the mercenaries?” They were quite skilled in their line of work and even without Hannah, they seemed to do outstanding work under hellish conditions.
“They are grown men who fought demons before I recruited them. Most of these kids would weep the moment they see blood.” She said and looked down on her hands balled into fists. Surely, she wasn’t entirely keen on teaching a few noble brats skills they would never use again as nobles weren’t really fighting on the front line.
“Hmm … Hannah, you don’t have to try that hard. The headmaster cannot throw us out so do what you want to. Just watch out for our reputation a little bit and we are going to be fine.” I proposed, interlocked my fingers behind my back and smiled sweetly. She rubbed her eyes a little and then smiled back wryly.
“Well, at least I learned something today.” She said and breathed in sharply. Despite closed windows, I felt a sudden strong gust of wind picking up. It lifted up a few pieces of paper one of which flew right in between us.
“Bang!” I said and pointed towards the page filled with notes about teaching. A few awkward seconds later in which she was completely concentrated, the piece of paper began to burn at the bottom but the fire was quickly extinguished by the wind. Fishing it out of the air, I waited for Hannah to set it on fire once more which she promptly did.
“Well, you only have to to this a few hundred more times and the room will be basically clean.” I said and waved the paper through the air as soon as my hand got a little warm.
“Or I’ll do this. Tornado …” A vortex of air appeared in between us, lifting the pieces of paper off the ground and sucking it into the middle. “Fireball.” She said and pointed towards the middle of the tornado. As expected, a fist sized fireball shot towards the papers and quickly engulfed them completely. Only cinders were left a few seconds afterwards as both of her spells disintegrated into nothing.
“Booooring.” Even though she changed the tornado spell considerably, it was still based on the original provided by the system and in the extension, me. As such, I didn’t think highly of her way to clean up the room but whatever. At least the results spoke for themselves … if one ignored the ash on the ground. “Oh, hey, I saw Sofie today.”
“And? Were you successfully?” Successful with what? Well, my intention was obviously to get on her good side for the time being.
“Yup. She’s my friend now.” I said and winked towards Hannah and walked towards the shared bed.
“… and? Will she let herself be used?” Hannah asked as I pulled my shirt above my head and threw it over a chair.
“That … I doubt I can get her or the prince to do much evil … but both of them seem pretty ignorant of the world outside these walls so they may not even question what others tell them. It’s not as if I would try to control them though … at least not yet.” I slid off into muttering on the end as I couldn’t even believe what I was saying there myself.
“Yeah. Yeah, totally. No way that’s ever going to happen.” Both of us knew how my ‘friendship’ with the others would play out. It was just a question of when I would use them for my advantage and not if I would.
“Luckily you know me better than the others.” I commented dryly and fell straight onto the bed after getting rid of my skirt as well. I had already pulled the blanket up to my shoulders and closed my eyes as I noticed the rustling of her own attire being discarded onto the floor.
“Do you know what the basics of magical combat are?” She asked just as Hannah snuck underneath the blanket and wrapped her arms around my shoulders.
“That’s simple. Water beats fire, use the best spell you have and … strike before the enemy can put up a shield.” I proposed even though I wasn’t entirely sure as these rules may have changed over time. “Oh, right. The higher-levelled person usually wins … this world has become so boring!” If all that mattered were really a few numbers, then this world had become quite boring for me. There wouldn’t be much place for scheming and betrayal in this case.
“No … it isn’t … at least not in recent past.” Hannah said sleepishly and soon began to doze off while I watched her face. She was right though … even if this world had become boring I had friends who could make it a little more fun.
Closing my eyes as well, I thought about the day and how little I actually achieved. I merely spent time with Luna and felt strangely content with this situation, even though I shouldn’t be. There were dangers on the horizon that needed to be addressed, but I rather wanted to fool around with Luna than to be productive.
Had I changed that much? That I lost sight of what was important, or did I simply set my priorities different this time? And did the answer even matter? Because I was really happy even without death or bloodshed.
Well, there was only one place I could possibly find out the answer to the questions plaguing my soul. A place where I have been before hundreds of years ago. Since then, I didn’t manage to get there once more, possibly because I didn’t need to, or simply because I didn’t have any luck to get there.
I was even rather confused at first as I opened my eyes, despite slumbering deeply. I was deep, deep in my subconscious inside a place I could only describe as a tunnel with black tar plastered across every surface.
“How did I get here?” The stars may have aligned perfectly or I may have reached an emotional equilibrium … or whatever. This place was notoriously difficult to reach, especially without any help.
“Well, whatever.” It didn’t matter much how I got there. On the contrary though, I rather wanted to leave that place as soon as possible. My own voice was booming the tunnels, making the tar vibrate continuously. Worst of all different messages overlapped, creating the worst melody I ever heard with my own two ears … not that it was any different from usual though.
“I hate this place so much …” Death was all around me – from the walls to the air I breathed – but the sounds ruined everything. “I HATE YOU!” I screamed loudly and as expected, I didn’t get any answer whatsoever. Well, at least the system knew my feelings at this point, so there was that.
Several seconds afterwards, I really couldn’t take it anymore though and decided it was time for me to get out of there. There was only one place I could think of which may not be flooded with these horrible sounds and that was unsurprisingly a library. Even I wouldn’t dare to be loud in there after all.
“Open up! You filthy …” I stopped right there as describing anything in my subconscious as filthy would be … weird. In any case, I had considerably improved my understanding of death and therefore myself over the last few years and therefore, I could easily point towards a nearest wall and parted the pitch black tar with nothing but my own thoughts.
Surprisingly though, I myself – or rather the part I couldn’t control about myself - didn’t seem to like what I was doing as it rumbled in the distance.
Annoyed, I looked towards the direction of the new sounds and noticed how the tar seemed to multiply rapidly, nearly filling out the whole tunnel in a few seconds.
“You got to be kidding me.” I really hoped I had made peace with my myself. But no, that apparently wasn’t the case. The tar rushed towards me, circling across the whole tunnel walls with solely one aim.
“How about you … I stop this?” I asked myself, sighed loudly and looked towards the wave bored. It still kept rushing towards me just like all these years ago but unlike that time, I knew exactly what it was.
Death.
And I was the master of death.
The black liquid stopped right in front of me, forming some kind of bubble around me as it squeezed past me and enveloped me completely, but never touching me, nor the door I created. For some reason, my subconsciousness didn’t want me there, but there was less and less it could throw against me.
With an orange skyline in my back, a leaflet in my hands and half an hour of searching for this place behind me, I could finally end the day in peace.
After we met Schwarz, there were thankfully no more surprises which I kind of liked. I didn’t want any action at this point, I rather wanted to spend time with Luna and maybe play with Schwarz a little bit. I had very little aspirations for the time being.
But it did seem as if the calmness was short lived as I noticed curses coming from one of the windows. Sighing loudly, I entered the building reserved for housing the staff and soon found myself in front of our apartment … naturally after justifying my presence several times in front of teachers.
At last though, I finally knocked onto the wooden door which was opened quickly afterwards by a rather distressed Hannah, holding a few pieces of paper in her right hand.
“Where have you been?” Hannah asked, went through her hair with her left hand and threw all the pieces of paper into the air. The room was already a mess beforehand with the floor littered with pieces of paper. Pursing my lips a little, I stepped into the room onto a singular clean patch and closed the door behind me.
“Oh, we were at the library, the arena, we ate this strange food and all in all? We had fun. How was your day?” I asked, tilted my head to the side and smiled brightly. In the meantime, she couldn’t help but express her dissatisfaction by frowning heavily.
“Horrible. The only help they ever gave me were an insane amount of manuals which clearly don’t tell me anything how I am supposed to do stuff here. It was easier as I just had to teach others how to read and write.” Certainly, working as a travelling teacher was a lot different from teaching in the royal academy, but the methods and contents of the lectures shouldn’t be too far off.
“Doesn’t every class have some kind of curriculum?” I asked and looked all over the floor to find anything in that direction. Sadly, my efforts amounted to nothing as the floor was too littered to pick out anything in particular.
“It does. But how do I teach idiots how to ‘support the frontline’ … whatever that is supposed to mean.” She said frustrated, picked up a bit of the mess and roped it to shreds in front of her eyes. Being a teacher … certainly didn’t suit her too much.
“Just punch them until they learn?” I said and picked a few pieces of paper as well. I grinned happily as I ripped them apart myself. Destruction was always a happy endeavour.
“Beating them is child abuse.” She said nonchalantly, picked up a nearby book and opened it on page 634. ‘What you should not do.’ was written there as the headline and the first point was sadly being violent to your pupils, even though pain was incredibly helpful in learning stuff.
“It is?” I never looked at it this way … but she was right. “How about you teach them like you taught the mercenaries?” They were quite skilled in their line of work and even without Hannah, they seemed to do outstanding work under hellish conditions.
“They are grown men who fought demons before I recruited them. Most of these kids would weep the moment they see blood.” She said and looked down on her hands balled into fists. Surely, she wasn’t entirely keen on teaching a few noble brats skills they would never use again as nobles weren’t really fighting on the front line.
“Hmm … Hannah, you don’t have to try that hard. The headmaster cannot throw us out so do what you want to. Just watch out for our reputation a little bit and we are going to be fine.” I proposed, interlocked my fingers behind my back and smiled sweetly. She rubbed her eyes a little and then smiled back wryly.
“Well, at least I learned something today.” She said and breathed in sharply. Despite closed windows, I felt a sudden strong gust of wind picking up. It lifted up a few pieces of paper one of which flew right in between us.
“Bang!” I said and pointed towards the page filled with notes about teaching. A few awkward seconds later in which she was completely concentrated, the piece of paper began to burn at the bottom but the fire was quickly extinguished by the wind. Fishing it out of the air, I waited for Hannah to set it on fire once more which she promptly did.
“Well, you only have to to this a few hundred more times and the room will be basically clean.” I said and waved the paper through the air as soon as my hand got a little warm.
“Or I’ll do this. Tornado …” A vortex of air appeared in between us, lifting the pieces of paper off the ground and sucking it into the middle. “Fireball.” She said and pointed towards the middle of the tornado. As expected, a fist sized fireball shot towards the papers and quickly engulfed them completely. Only cinders were left a few seconds afterwards as both of her spells disintegrated into nothing.
“Booooring.” Even though she changed the tornado spell considerably, it was still based on the original provided by the system and in the extension, me. As such, I didn’t think highly of her way to clean up the room but whatever. At least the results spoke for themselves … if one ignored the ash on the ground. “Oh, hey, I saw Sofie today.”
“And? Were you successfully?” Successful with what? Well, my intention was obviously to get on her good side for the time being.
“Yup. She’s my friend now.” I said and winked towards Hannah and walked towards the shared bed.
“… and? Will she let herself be used?” Hannah asked as I pulled my shirt above my head and threw it over a chair.
“That … I doubt I can get her or the prince to do much evil … but both of them seem pretty ignorant of the world outside these walls so they may not even question what others tell them. It’s not as if I would try to control them though … at least not yet.” I slid off into muttering on the end as I couldn’t even believe what I was saying there myself.
“Yeah. Yeah, totally. No way that’s ever going to happen.” Both of us knew how my ‘friendship’ with the others would play out. It was just a question of when I would use them for my advantage and not if I would.
“Luckily you know me better than the others.” I commented dryly and fell straight onto the bed after getting rid of my skirt as well. I had already pulled the blanket up to my shoulders and closed my eyes as I noticed the rustling of her own attire being discarded onto the floor.
“Do you know what the basics of magical combat are?” She asked just as Hannah snuck underneath the blanket and wrapped her arms around my shoulders.
“That’s simple. Water beats fire, use the best spell you have and … strike before the enemy can put up a shield.” I proposed even though I wasn’t entirely sure as these rules may have changed over time. “Oh, right. The higher-levelled person usually wins … this world has become so boring!” If all that mattered were really a few numbers, then this world had become quite boring for me. There wouldn’t be much place for scheming and betrayal in this case.
“No … it isn’t … at least not in recent past.” Hannah said sleepishly and soon began to doze off while I watched her face. She was right though … even if this world had become boring I had friends who could make it a little more fun.
Closing my eyes as well, I thought about the day and how little I actually achieved. I merely spent time with Luna and felt strangely content with this situation, even though I shouldn’t be. There were dangers on the horizon that needed to be addressed, but I rather wanted to fool around with Luna than to be productive.
Had I changed that much? That I lost sight of what was important, or did I simply set my priorities different this time? And did the answer even matter? Because I was really happy even without death or bloodshed.
Well, there was only one place I could possibly find out the answer to the questions plaguing my soul. A place where I have been before hundreds of years ago. Since then, I didn’t manage to get there once more, possibly because I didn’t need to, or simply because I didn’t have any luck to get there.
I was even rather confused at first as I opened my eyes, despite slumbering deeply. I was deep, deep in my subconscious inside a place I could only describe as a tunnel with black tar plastered across every surface.
“How did I get here?” The stars may have aligned perfectly or I may have reached an emotional equilibrium … or whatever. This place was notoriously difficult to reach, especially without any help.
“Well, whatever.” It didn’t matter much how I got there. On the contrary though, I rather wanted to leave that place as soon as possible. My own voice was booming the tunnels, making the tar vibrate continuously. Worst of all different messages overlapped, creating the worst melody I ever heard with my own two ears … not that it was any different from usual though.
“I hate this place so much …” Death was all around me – from the walls to the air I breathed – but the sounds ruined everything. “I HATE YOU!” I screamed loudly and as expected, I didn’t get any answer whatsoever. Well, at least the system knew my feelings at this point, so there was that.
Several seconds afterwards, I really couldn’t take it anymore though and decided it was time for me to get out of there. There was only one place I could think of which may not be flooded with these horrible sounds and that was unsurprisingly a library. Even I wouldn’t dare to be loud in there after all.
“Open up! You filthy …” I stopped right there as describing anything in my subconscious as filthy would be … weird. In any case, I had considerably improved my understanding of death and therefore myself over the last few years and therefore, I could easily point towards a nearest wall and parted the pitch black tar with nothing but my own thoughts.
Surprisingly though, I myself – or rather the part I couldn’t control about myself - didn’t seem to like what I was doing as it rumbled in the distance.
Annoyed, I looked towards the direction of the new sounds and noticed how the tar seemed to multiply rapidly, nearly filling out the whole tunnel in a few seconds.
“You got to be kidding me.” I really hoped I had made peace with my myself. But no, that apparently wasn’t the case. The tar rushed towards me, circling across the whole tunnel walls with solely one aim.
“How about you … I stop this?” I asked myself, sighed loudly and looked towards the wave bored. It still kept rushing towards me just like all these years ago but unlike that time, I knew exactly what it was.
Death.
And I was the master of death.
The black liquid stopped right in front of me, forming some kind of bubble around me as it squeezed past me and enveloped me completely, but never touching me, nor the door I created. For some reason, my subconsciousness didn’t want me there, but there was less and less it could throw against me.
