Frank was currently in the Great Leyline Academy’s school cafeteria, eating a plate of vegetables and roasted meat. The roasted meat and vegetables in particular, he did not eat the plate. He did get the strange impulse to eat the plate, but he managed to shrug it off since it wasn’t exactly a fleshwielders primal urge to eat ceramic objects.

He luckily wasn’t bullied for his looks, as he had dyed his hair black and the way Louis had tied his hair made it look a bit strange at worse. As for his appearance, he actually looked quite handsome in the male uniform, thankfully Cale was right about the fact that he only looked cute with the makeup on. However, his appearance was the least of his worries right now.

He was currently seated with three other nobles, the temporary ‘party’ that the instructor had assigned them to. Normally, that wasn’t much of a problem, but one of them was Carlos de Leon, second son of the de Leon ducal house and Louis’ brother.

Frank had read a fair amount of Xianxia novels in his previous life, and he knew that cultivators slaughtered entire clans if someone breathed the wrong way in front of their family members. Louis did not seem that type, but he was still wary and nervous of how to interact with Carlos.

The atmosphere around the four was awkward and all of them were silently eating. Frank was not interested in a conversation with them, and the three nobles were unsure of how to approach the commoner in front of them, as they could be judged if they treated him too harshly or too kindly.

“Hmm?”

What broke the silence between the four, however, was not any of them but a communication pearl that Frank was wearing as an amulet, glowing brightly and shaking a little,

On reflex, he had answered him immediately which worried him at first. Upon knowing that he only had four contacts though, he decided that it would most likely be fine.

Assuming that was perhaps the biggest mistake in his life.

“Hello Frank, can you hear me? Are you with anyone right now/” Llamiryl’s voice came out of the communication pearl, it was a bit deeper than usual and echoed out as if she was in a large room.

“I can hear you just fine, I’m in the academy cafeteria, do you need me to leave?” Frank answered, while he did absolutely hate Llamiryl, he may as well get the conversation with her over with.

“Not at all, I’m just calling to inform you about something but before that…” She paused for a moment.

“is your physical condition alright? Feeling any abnormalities within your body? I hope you’re eating well. How about your mental health? Has there been anything in your mind that’s been bothering you lately?” She asked with a tone of urgency.

“I’m good… I have been stumbling a bit but that’s pretty much the end of it. Besides you, there hasn’t really been anything that’s bothering me.” He responded, he was still not used to his new size and mass, so he stumbled here and there and he was sometimes clumsy when trying to hold back his strength. He felt like mentioning the part about his previous life and everything he had built up being taken away from him, but that pretty much came with “Llamiryl is bothering me, a lot”.

“Wuu~ no need to be so rude,” Llamiryl spoke with a sad tone.

“Anyways, have you been doing well in class? Your instructor best be treating you fairly. Have you made any friends? If you did, make sure to take good care of them.” She asked even more questions.

‘What are you, my mother?!” Frank rolled his eyes, he wanted to retort, but Llamiryl would probably just tease him more at that point.

“It’s literally the first day of class and I just had a tragedy happen to me, of course I won’t be focused on making friends.”

Carlos opened his mouth as if to say something, but he ultimately decided to keep it shut

He didn’t bother to report on his academics, it wouldn’t matter much anyways since he was already knowledgable in most of the subjects.

“I see, well that’s no good.”

“Can you just get to the point already? You’re asking too many questions” Frank said, annoyed. His patience was running thin.

“It’s only reasonable for me to be a little concerned considering the lengths I had to go through to… Nevermind.” Llamiryl sighed.

“You should attend the club meeting later on the day; the documents need to all be submitted to the office at Friday, after all. You’d better not miss it.” Her voice shifted to a serious tone.

“Yes ma’am” Frank hastily responded, he had almost forgotten how fearsome Llamiryl truly was.

“Good answer, well, that should be all. I’m a bit busy so I’ll be going now.” As Llamiryl spoke those words, Frank immediately cut the connection and fell back on his seat.

“Frank, that’s no way to treat your mother!” The black-haired noble boy that was on seat to the right of him exclaimed.

Everyone at the table gave him a sharp glare.

“Otto, that’s too insensitive, didn’t he say his parents died in his introduction? The woman was probably his caretaker or something, its best to not inquire too much about it.” Carlos spoke up.

“She’s not my caretaker, just an annoying person.” Frank swiftly responded, he knew to mind his language in front of nobles, so the sentence did come out quite different from his usual speech pattern.

“Sure.” The blonde noble boy to his left answered.

“Mhm, well about what you said earlier. You can consider me a friend, I think you’d be a great companion for adventuring, the way you took out those goblins earlier was very…  graphic.” Carlos spoke, showing a friendly smile to Frank.

Frank scoffed, if the charred corpses of merely a couple goblins was graphic for them, then they would certainly not be able to handle a battle against a mountain troll. Not everyone could just pierce through the monster’s heart like a royal knight.

Seeing Carlos acting first, Otto was quick to follow.

“I’m here for you as well; I know what it’s like to lose a parent, not to mention both of them.”  He spoke, smiling wryly.

“Since those two are joining in, might as well. We’re going to be working together for a while, so we may as well have a friendly relationship. My name is Robert Windmill, but you may call me Robert.” Robert spoke.

“Pfft, Windmill.” Carlos couldn’t help but chuckle a little.

“What? My family got their title awarded by building a bunch of windmills, so the name stuck with us. That’s why I prefer my first name instead of my last.” Robert responded, blushing slightly at the mention of his embarrassing last name.

“Well, thank you for being friends with a lowly commoner such as me.” Frank let out a fake smile; he knew that the nobles probably had ulterior motives, but who didn’t? They weren’t George and Amala, but at least they seemed willing to treat him kindly.

“Oh please, no need to thank me for something that insignificant, my father taught me that achievements are more important in judging a person rather than their background.” Carlos crossed his arms.

“I agree with that sentiment, but what may we talk about? I’m not really sure if commoners are interested about talking about potential trade deals and poetry. Are you interested in those?” Robert asked.

Frank shook his head.

“That’s a no then.”

The three thought for a moment, then Otto spoke up.

“What’s with your hair? It’s not common in Invicta I believe, seems like dwarven thing to me.”

“Ah, it’s a tradition in my family, they say a man’s hair is a symbol of his experience, so we don’t really cut it.” Frank lied, his answer was inspired by a bit of Chinese history from earth.

“Oh I see, that makes sense then, isn’t it a little impractical for combat/ Your parents were a part of the kingdom’s expedition team, right?” Otto asked.

“It is, but it isn’t detrimental enough to end an ancient tradition. It helps with your sword skill anyways.” Frank made a motion in the air, as if swinging a sword. Even if he did hit his hair, the sword would probably be the one to be cut in half.

“I see, I see.” Otto answered, satisfied.

“You seem skilled in the art of combat, Frank. Would you mind giving us some advice?” Robert asked.

The small talk continued for a while until the four had realized 20 minutes had passed, they returned their utensils and waved goodbye to each other, either heading for their next class or the library.

As for Frank, he would probably look for a quiet place to piece his thoughts together, when he first got transported to another world, it took months to get his shit together. What happened to him was basically a regression, so he probably needed some time to get over it.

As luck would have it, life had other things in store for him, such as running into one of the people he did not want to run into: Principal Willow.

The old man just happened to be in the hallway, right as he wanted to go to his destination. In fact, Frank suspected that the principal was looking for him all along. And he assumed he was right, as the man looked at him up and down, sizing him up.

“Frank Robinson, right? I know you’re going through quite a hard time right now, so as the academy’s principal, I hope you don’t mind this old man giving you a little counseling at his office.” Principal Willow spoke in a gentle voice, much to the surprise of the other students. To them, this was an incredible show of generosity by the principal.

‘I’m fucked, aren’t i?’ To Frank, the counseling would probably be more of an interrogation. He had no way to refuse as well with all the people watching.

That was until his savior came in the form of Elizabeth.

“My sincerest apologies, esteemed principal, but my good friend Frank already had a prior appointment with me today. So would it be too much trouble to move the counseling to a later date?” Her voice was tranquil, and quiet, but the meaning was very clear to Principal Willow.

“Ah, I see, I have a busy schedule so I will not be able to hold it at another time… but I suppose Frank wouldn’t need it if he had such a reliable friend like you.” Principal Willow smiled and continued on his way.

Everyone gave a glance towards Elizabeth, but her reason was good enough, so they did not think much of it.

‘Well, that was a bomb diffused.’ Frank thought.

“Thank you very much for your consideration, Principal Willow.” Elizabeth gave a slight bow, and then beckoned Frank to follow her.

The two walked for a few minutes, until they finally came across an empty classroom, to which they promptly entered.

“What is this place?” Frank looked around, the room looked quite old, the furniture was well-kept but seemed to clean for a room that was recently used, there were vials kept for some chemical substances, and there were tools for dissection as well.

“A Biology classroom, they have those in this world, but the students aren’t allowed to use them immediately, so no one will be coming here for a while.” Elizabeth answered.

Then, she relaxed on a seat, taking out her soul weapon that couldn’t really be called a weapon.

“Whew, he almost got us there, luckily I was listening in nearby.”

“Got us? I thought he knew about my fake background and wanted to question me about that?” Frank looked surprised.

“Oh that? He doesn’t care; he turns a blind eye to those who can fool the deans of the academy anyways. Principal Willow knows a lot more about the body and soul than normal people. He probably knew you weren’t human in body but human in soul immediately, and was curious about you. Luckily, he can’t immediately judge the exact properties of a soul from a mere glance. You may have been given a crash course in the Biology class within his office, well, as a test subject.” Elizabeth stated.

“Well, shit. Usually things are way worse in my head than in reality, but this time was that opposite. Anyways, mind if I stay here a while? I need a moment of silence.’ Frank turned to Elizabeth, then took a seat in a corner.

She merely nodded.

The two shared about half an hour of silence, Frank already felt a lot better than usual, so he decided to talk to Elizabeth a little.

“I know you two weren’t entirely honest about your motives, but you all aren’t hiding a plot to take over the world from me, are you?”

“No, while we aren’t helping every single reincarnator we find out there, we do help the ones we see, as long as it is within reason. Quin may have a thing for his ‘grand plans’, but he thinks world domination is impractical anyways.” Elizabeth responded.

“That was a surprisingly honest and straightforward response.” Frank almost let out an ‘eh?’ at her response.

“I never lie, I only omit truth.” Elizabeth smiled.

“Isn’t that also a type of lie?” Frank asked, but he got no response.

“Llamiryl or… Anzhelina was it? Why do you guys keep her around, isn’t she a bit dangerous?’

Elizabeth looked lost in thought for a moment, but responded.

“She’s is, but she’s not unreasonable, its best not to apply too many morals on her. The world she came from was basically a grimdark fantasy novel. I’m not asking you to get along with her, but please try not to treat her as a murderer when we’re at our meetings.”

“I’m  trying, honestly. But this isn’t some happy story where enemies become friends.”

“I know, if only this world was a happy story… too much has been going on honestly. My music has been sad lately.”

It started to rain.

Silence pervaded the room once more, but the atmosphere was more unwelcoming with the trickling of thee rain.

‘That Dai Gengrui guy is suspicious too.”

A loud crack of thunder was heard, and brilliant flash of lightning came out of the windows. Frank jolted up in shock as soon as he saw the man behind him.

It was Louis, his golden eyes shining brilliantly.

“Who’s suspicious?” He asked.

“WOAH WHAT THE FUCK MAN WHY DID YOU SUDDENLY APPEAR.” Frank exclaimed in shock.

“If you say my full name like that, I’m sure to notice. So please, don’t try to use it unless you wish to call me, luckily I wasn’t doing anything important.” Louis crossed his arms.

“What are you, an eldritch god? Say his true name and he shall appear?” Frank asked in disbelief.

Louis looked confused for a second.

“Well, I understand your suspicions, but worry not. I will not harm you unless you get in my way.” Louis spoke.

“So, you won’t kill me for looking at you the wrong way?”

Louis facepalmed.

“Why does everyone assume I will slaughter their family lineage for that reason? No, not at all.”

Frank breathed a sigh of relief, and then rose from his seat.

“Since the three of us are here, why don’t we call Quincy and Anzhelina over so we can get the club thing sorted out?”

Elizabeth shook her head.

“Quin is in Economics class, and Anzhel is uhh… probably doing Anzhel stuff. I have a class in 10 minutes now anyways. I will be going.” Elizabeth’s mp3 disappeared into numerous particle, and she walked out of the room.

“Frank, I have seen your schedule, and I’d like to let you know that you are running 15 seconds late for literature class. The instructor will most likely ask you to write a thousand word poem, add another thousand for every minute late, so you’d best be going.” Louis stated, walking out after Elizabeth.

“Oh, shit!” Frank exclaimed as he almost accidentally broke the sound barrier so he wouldn’t arrive late that day.

Unfortunately, he got lost and arrived 5 minutes late, poor soul.