Being an instructor at the Broad River Academy was hard, not only did you have to do a lot of work during classes you were also employed to do chores after classes. Like right now, Gwen had turned twenty-six this summer and after beginning to work at the Academy, which had been her dream for a long time seeing as it was one of the most prestigious positions in the kingdom.

She believed, she truly did that once she got the job she would be set for life. Instead it felt worse than a slavery contract, she had no free time at all, barely allowed to sleep, getting all the shitty assignments seeing as she was the new fish in the big pond. While the pay was great, stunningly so actually, she had no social life at all.

While all the other teachers were out partying or with their families, she on what should be her week of was out here in the woods patrolling the examination grounds hundreds of kilometres from the Academy.

Making sure no monsters or bandits had settled down, that weren’t supposed to be here before the students came here in a month. It was a truly thankless job, but someone had to do it, and that person was the new instructor, even though this was Gwen’s second year on the job.

Having passed through most of the grounds, Gwen prepared to return to the town nearby and then head back to the Academy. Suddenly she could hear voices, they were far, far away but having used the spell heightened awareness earlier she could pick up things from way outside what a normal person could. Hastily, she moved towards the source and what she found was four men approaching, what appeared to be a child under a poorly made net.

A small hand was stretched out and…the child used magic! That should almost be impossible for a child of that size, but she could clearly feel a small vibration in the air which signified that someone was using or had at least tried to use magic. It was only for a moment but being someone trained to detect it combined with her heightened awareness from patrolling, she could still make it out.

All the child managed to do however, was to summon some smoke, which normally would be laughable, but even so, if this child was a magical genius then she’d struck gold.

Normally it would cost a fortune to attend the Academy but there were simply too few people who could use magic inherently thus a magic student could attend at a reduced cost, and if someone was especially talented at it they would instead pretty much be forced to join the Academy.

If an instructor managed to find such a person they would be given a reward of one hundred gold coins, but most importantly…they would be given two months of vacation! This had become a matter of life and death. Gwen had to ensure that the child was safe and neutralize the bandits attempting to capture said child.

“Shadow step” After invoking the magic Gwen stepped through the shadow of the tree she was hiding behind and stepped out of a shadow by the camp. The magic shadow step only allowed one to move a short distance between shadows of inanimate objects. She pulled out her trusty sword and invoked its enchantment which would turn it invisible. While it would only hide her weapon, it was great for confusing and surprising her enemies.

After making short work of the bandits she approached the child, it was hard to make out anything underneath that pile of rope. She announced her intention and then swung her sword to cut the ropes apart, she sheathed her sword and as she looked back an angel appeared before her. It was a small boy, she had never seen such a beautiful boy before, with the face of an angel his body was slim, but seemed fit as muscles could be made out, he seemed to be working out…what a dumb thing to think about right now!

Getting his whole body in her sight she realized that he was NAKED! Completely and utterly naked! She had never seen a naked man before and she covered her face while speaking with the boy while her head was not working like she wanted it to. She peeked at him and saw that men really differed from women, the part down there was really different. Her face seemed to be on fire, while her heart was beating rapidly and it felt like it wanted to escape out of her chest.

All of a sudden, he demanded her to become his, was this? Was this a marriage proposal!? She wasn’t ready…but if he really wanted…

A tingling sensation filled her stomach, and her mind started to go haywire. Then his next few words made it apparent that it was all a misunderstanding on her part. It felt like a knife stabbed into her heart and twisting around to gouge it out. Truly how could someone beautiful like him ever fall for a girl like her.

Still, this was only their first meeting and he was still so young! Couldn’t she just make him love her? Didn’t they say love was something that blossomed between two people when they got to know each other!? He looked young, he shouldn’t be of marriageable age yet. She just had to call dibs on him from now on and keep all the bad apples away, then wait till he was sixteen summers old then he’d be hers! Yes, yes, yes this would work splendidly! Gwen, all you have to do now is to get him to join the academy then watch over him at all time until he becomes yours! Now how to go about this…