Hugh awoke with a jolt that sent the book on his face flying to the ground with a loud thump. He took one deep breath, two - (oh shoot the book!) - and quickly lifted it up to see if there were any damages. Fortunately there was none; the librarian won’t have to scold him again about accidentally destroying books. Again.
Though the dream was fading quickly, Hugh remembered that it was more memory than dream. It has been three months since he first arrived in Izgaea, enough that the season changed from autumn to winter. The chill in the air spoke to that. Yet he was still plagued by that sensation of sinking his claws into human flesh. That man survived so technically he didn’t murder anyone. But still…
Hugh snapped his thoughts away from all that by slapping both his cheeks at once. Looking at the clock told him it was still too early for a Janiga student to be active. Unfortunately his dorm room felt too small to his liking, so he decided to move his studying to the cafeteria.
With that decided, he performed his ablutions and put on his uniform: a dark blue jacket emblazoned with Janiga Academy’s sigil, a white dress shirt and a long black skirt.
Proceeding down to the cafeteria, he found that he wasn’t alone: a bipedal fox was there supping on some soup. He was not unfamiliar with this fox as it was his homeroom teacher. Beneath her large round glasses she spotted him and waved him over.
“Miss Athy,” he greeted.
“Hard at study, Hugh?” she smiled, her eyes noting the book in his hands.
“Yes, your advice to study biology-based books has been a huge help.” He took a seat opposite to her. “But it’s been difficult trying to remember all these diagrams.”
Athy let out an amused yip. “Master them one by one Hugh, don’t try to cram them all in your head. Otherwise you’ll just forget it the moment a crisis appears. Which ones are you studying right now?”
“Birds and rats.”
“Those are both smaller than your current form. My opinion is that you should start with an animal closer in height and size to you. A gorilla perhaps? But more importantly, have you been doing actual transformations?”
Her pointed look made Hugh feel a little shameful. He averted his eyes from hers, clearly speaking his lack of transformations. He heard her sigh.
“I’ll nag you about that later, but there is a more pressing concern. Hugh,” at that he returned his eyes to see hers, as her tone had become very serious. “You’re the only one in class who hasn’t joined a club yet. As you know, in Janiga Academy, 70% of your grades is your involvement in a club. It is an aspect of student life in JA that you cannot escape from.”
“I know, it’s just… nothing really fits anything I’m really interested in. I don’t know… I just don’t feel anything…” he tapered off.
“You’ve had three months to experience life here in JA, but that life is just 30% of it. Clubs here in the academy are linked to the various guilds in the city, basically providing on-site experience. Hugh,” her voice turned grave. “Clubs are the doors to the city. The Academy is a big part of the city yes, but the city itself is so much more. Imagine, so far you’ve only experienced a sliver of that when you go to buy groceries. Then about 90% of the time you’re here in the academy. Frankly, that’s a boring life.”
Seeing his guilty expression made her tone of voice lighten a little. “The other teachers and I have decided to give you one more week, or your choice will be taken away from you. I truly don’t want to put you in a club you have no interest in, so I hope you will consider my words a warning.” She checked her watch. “Now please excuse me, I have to go perform my duties. I’ll see you in class later.”
Truly Hugh knew she had good intentions, but being chewed like that made Hugh feel small. So much so in fact that he was getting smaller, his body reacting to his subconscious state.
“Whoa, Hugh, any smaller and you’ll be an ant.” A hand slapped his back lightly as someone took a seat next to him.
“Hmm? Oh, Roman, hi.” Finally conscious of his shrinkage, Hugh told his cells to go back to normal size. He turned to his roommate, Roman, and said. “You heard all of that?”
“No actually, I was buying food at the counter. But I can hazard a guess: it’s about the clubs thing right?”
“Yeah,” Hugh caught the apple Roman threw at him. “I think I’ve been at all the clubs in this school, but none of them strike me as the place I wanna be in.” Crunching on the apple, Hugh thought to ask: “Hey Roman, you’re in the Student Council right? How did you come to choose that club of all things?”
Roman paused just before eating his sandwich, then gave Hugh a strange look. “Well, I’m the hero destined to kill the demon lord right? So I thought that I’ll probably be stuck in various politics and such, might as well get a leg up and join the ‘politics’ (here he made apostrophes) club. I don’t regret the choice really, it’s been quite interesting getting to know how the school works.”
(Just like Roman to drop that destiny bombshell like he’s discussing the weather…) Hugh made a complicated face, then a huge sigh escaped him.
“Hey, keep thinking about it but don’t let it get you down. Maybe you’d want to revisit the Biology club again? You keep studying those biology books anyway.”
“Hmm…” Hugh answered with a non-committed tone. Roman smiled and fussed Hugh’s hair before returning to his sandwich.
Indeed later on in the day High did visit the Biology club. The time is right after lunchtime, when students would go to their respective clubs for work and study. The sight of so many humanoid and monstrous races dispersing from one area was one our world would not really be able to grasp, but Hugh and his classmates, who had lost their memories, only felt a little strangeness at it. After all they themselves were all one of the 10 races of Izgaea. Mostly.
Anyway, Hugh used to simply make a beeline for the library, but the one week deadline meant he had to take things seriously. Yet his visit to the Biology club at the Museum of Natural Histories yielded no profit. It would be beneficial to his type of magic if he did join this club, but Hugh wasn’t a huge fan of being looked at like a specimen. He was, after all, one of the few students in class 1-X to not be one of the 10 Izgaea races.
He did appreciate the chance to study the small gorilla exhibit though.
At any rate, that meant Hugh was free to do anything he wanted after his brief visit to the museum. He thought back again on what Miss Athy said about not knowing the city. True enough, Hugh was keeping to the school and dorm; he only made short visits to the grocers nearby the grounds. (Maybe I should just take a walk around the city, see the sights and everything…) he thought to himself.
It wasn’t exactly the right weather for sightseeing though. The sky was overcast and a cold wind blew through the streets. Sure, it doesn’t snow in Janiga City - they were too close to the equator for that - but the chilly weather meant most people were huddled in the warmth of buildings. Only a few stragglers walked by quickly, eager to get back to that warmth.
Walking down a sloping hill, Hugh’s attention was drawn to two men having an argument outside a restaurant. The sight of a tall Reptillian verbal-fencing with the smaller Swiftfeet was pretty amusing, especially since the Swiftfoot had to stand on a crate to argue. It was however getting a little heated, and as Hugh looked around he spotted two people with the Adventurer Guild’s insignia eyeing the argument in case it went south.
That was why none of them, not even Hugh, noticed the danger.
He heard a loud snap, and when he turned to look he saw that the barrels in the truck behind the Reptillian began rolling off it. They were huge barrels, the kind that held gallons of beer in it. They tumbled off the truck and down the slope, catching speed as they went.
At the end of the street was an old man, and the sound had him turn around as well. His expression of shock was what Hugh concentrated on as he lunged for the barrels. They were all heading towards the old man!
