“Why does everyone know who we are?” I demanded. “I’ve never stepped foot in Minua before, so are you spying on me? Can the [NSA] not leave me alone for a single goddamn month?”

 

“[NSA]?” The guy blinked. “I’m not sure what that is, but I can assure you that my intentions-“

 

“So you’re just a stalker then?” I asked. 

 

“Well if I were to stalk anyone…”

 

I beat my mittened hand into the other.

 

“No, you just made an impression yesterday.” He admitted. “I heard that a new group with an Astrian was coming in and I already knew the Mavericks and Auro. So that just left you.”

 

“Likely story. And you just knew the Mavericks already?” I rolled my eyes. “They’ve spent years in the capital.”

 

In actuality I didn’t know how truthful that statement was, but that shouldn’t really matter. From what I could gather they’d either spent their time in the capital or Cice, and neither of those were Minua. 

 

On second thought that didn’t really mean anything either, seeing as this place had nobles from all over, but it still seemed convienent to me.

 

“You also have a conspicuous feather clued to your head.” He admitted. “The runner bringing the news started his fair share of rumors about that.”

 

I groaned. The last thing I wanted was for people to think I was some weirdo. I mean that was true, but I didn’t want them actually saying it.

 

“I suppose the hat doesn’t cover it then?” 

 

“About as well as Brepolese tax evasion.”

 

“And what do you want then?”

 

“I was just passing by and saw a lost little girl. And seeing as that little girl is a part of the class I’m leading, I thought I might offer to show her around.” He bowed gracefully. “I’m Luis faln Coelric, current head of the Long Travels. It’s a pleasure to make the acquaintance of one so fair.”

 

I looked over his clothes skeptically, noting the uniform and poorly kept hair. 

 

“…You do know I’m not a moron, right?” I asked. “You’re a student or a kidnapper, not a professor. And neither am I ‘little’.”

 

I hate to fuel the paranoia. Gideon spoke up. But I can only think that this is a very poor attempt to kidnap you.

 

“Exactly right, Silst.” The drake and I both fell into combat stances. “You have four seconds before I start screaming.”

 

“Wait, you have it all wrong!” Luis cried. “I said ‘leader’, not ‘professor’! I was chosen to lead the class this week. You know, assign which lectures everyone goes to and lead in review recitation. ”

 

Assign lectures? Review? What kind of schedule did the students here have?

 

“I’m not sure I follow. Do you mean the home room class?”

 

“Of course. The headmaster told us you and the Mavericks were coming to fill out our roster soon. I’m in Fredrick’s dorm room along with Roland, while Hosi should be with you and the other Maverick. Hosi can vouch for me, I’m not a kidnapper, I promise!” He glanced to his right towards the rising sun. Behind him I could see a couple students walking about the path. “The morning chimes will be ringing soon, you know. Why don’t I show you to our classroom?”

 

Doesn’t look like he’s lying. Gideon lowered his haunches. Nor is there many places to hide a body up here. It probably wouldn’t hurt to believe him.

 

I eyed Luis for a few long seconds before I lowered my own fists. He sighed in relief at the gesture.

 

“Fine.” I said. “But I want a better explanation on how this school works.”

…

“I don’t know which I find more distressing.” I admitted. “This room or the education system you’re describing.”

 

It was a gnarled room, obviously an emergency placement after a larger student body than expected. Peeling paint, chipped wood desks, and time bleached fabrics caught my eye, and the faint smell of damp mould tickled the hairs of my nose. A ancient, weathered blackboard with a massive crack splitting it down the side hung on the front wall behind a lectern, both barely fitting in the small confines of the room. It was barely larger than my dorm, and the right desks only left a couple paces of room to walk around. 

 

To put it simply, it was a repurposed supply closet.

 

“Being the last people to arrive has its downsides.” Luis thrust his fist into the air enthusiastically. “But that just means our rise will be all the more legendary!”

 

I stared at him hard, not bothering to hide my dismay. This was the room I was going to spend four years in? Well, Saphry would, but it was hard to be anything but disappointed. I’d expected more from a college purposely made for the nobility.

 

This just looks like the delinquent’s room. Gideon plodded around under the desks. I don’t think the air’s really healthy to breathe either.

 

“Well, I wont pretend it’s the best.” Luis shrugged. “We used to be in a much nicer room, but we got swapped into here about the time they told us you were joining us. Some sort of renovation I was told.”

 

I glanced around the room again, internally wondering why the renovations hadn’t been focused here instead.

 

“You guys didn’t piss anyone off, did you?” I asked.

 

“I’ve been told I have that effect on people.” Luis admitted. “But as far as I can swear, I can’t see how.”

 

“Maybe you got too close to the headmaster’s wife?”

 

“That old hag?” Luis looked disgusted. “I only have eyes for the beautiful, and there is no shortage of them here. In fact, one of which is right-“

 

“[Fuck] off and die, please.” I said politely as I inspected the crumbling drapes. 

 

“Ah, that’s a new one.”

 

You know, you could at least attempt to be cordial. Gideon chided. Weren’t you just complaining about having to act?

 

“Limits, Silst, limits.”

 

To his credit, Luis recovered quickly.

 

“But anyway, it’ll be much easier now that you guys are here, and even more so once Fredrick gets up here.” Luis peered at me curiously. “He is still coming, right? It wouldn’t do for Roland and I to get too outnumbered here.”

 

“Once the duke gets done with him.” I said simply. “He kept him behind to help deal with the company outside.”

 

It still felt a little weird that we’d gone ahead and come up here when a hostile force wanting our arrest lurked outside the walls below with the threat of civil war hanging in the balance. Now, I knew that there wasn't anything I could realistically do to help that, but it still felt strange.

 

“Ah, good, good.” He shook his head. “By the Star, not having to attend three lectures apiece will really help.”

 

I grimaced at the mention. After his explanation on the way here, there was one thing I was starting to think the Veroline had completely backwards.

 

And that was education.

 

As the others had implied already, two forms were apparently combined to form each ‘home room’ class. All of these were assigned their own room and administered tests at the end of every week, as well as a small allowance for purchasing supplies. What they weren’t give, however, was a teacher. Instead, the students of each class would select a leader to represent them and assign each one duties. This included making sure that at least one person attended each lecture held in the building. Students assigned to lectures would take notes and present them to the class later in the day in a period Luis called ‘review’, and the. everyone would finally be tested on every subject at the end of the week. Supposedly it trained memory and leadership skills.

 

Unfortunately, it also sounded like completely horseshit.

 

For one thing, classes were normally built up of two dorms rooms, one male and one female. That made the average class eight people, which was actually more than enough to cover every lecture time with an extra to spare. But for the spare class at the end, it meant each of us needed to attend two.

 

But even then, attending two two-hour long lectures a days wasn’t bad at all. Normal students on earth did way more than that easily. The real kicker came in that your classmates were expected to teach those two hours back to their peers in review, a system that couldn’t see ending in anything but abject failure. Anyone who’d ever talked to another college student knew just how wide the net of academic achievement was cast, with the vast majority of them being just a few notches above fish and pidgeons. 

 

It practically meant that the entirety of our education would be counted as one huge group project.

 

Now, education didn’t mean much more here than indoctrination and prestige, to be fair. A noble wouldn’t be denied their inheritance if they couldn’t pass math, nor would a squire with an excellent grasp of combat wouldn’t be deprived his ascension to knighthood if he couldn’t recite the history of the Lmeri. Still, it seemed almost purposely obtuse to me, as if an actually functioning system was somehow counter-intuitive to the academy’s purpose. 

 

It was just bizarre.

 

The wooden door slid open, interrupting my thoughts. Hosi walked in first, with Breale and a moving mountain who could only be Roland right behind.

 

“So thats where you went.” Breale shook her head. “I feel the need to tie a leash to you sometimes.”

 

“So Luis found you then.” Hosi smiled sympathetically. “It must’ve been tough.”

 

I nodded.

 

“I barely survived.”

 

“Hey!” He objected. “I haven’t done anything to her! And I'm hardly the worst on this campus.”

 

“Barely.” Hosi stepped over into a desk and gestured between me and the quiet guy. “This is Roland. And that is Saphry.”

 

“It’s nice to meet you.” I curtsied, or did the best I could given the space.

 

“Likewise.” He said. His voice was deep and quiet, the smallest hint of a southern accent hidden within. “It is an honour to meet one so silver blooded, my lady.”

 

From the corner of my vision I saw Hosi frown.

 

“And what family are you from?” I asked carefully.

 

“My name is lowborn, my lady. I have come under a thaumaturgical scholarship from Lake Soll.”

 

“Oh, a thaumaturge?” I stepped closer, a sudden excitement blowing through me. “How far have you gotten? Are you learning combat magic? How much heat can you withstand?”

 

“I… certainly intend to. Combat magic is essential to be well-rounded. I am only in the third band.”

 

“Oh?”

 

According to what I knew of magic education here, spells were broadly categorized into specific ‘bands’ or groups based on how complicated they were. And with how the addition and modification of spell inputs affected the final product, the most dangerous spells all tended to be higher bands. It wasn’t a hard and fast rule, not with something as destructively simple as fire, but spells were generally taught in that order. 

 

It was a fairly natural order to learn magic too. Back on earth, I had kind of kept to the same sort of order as described in the book, at least at the start. After a while I’d gone crazy and skipped to more complicated stuff, but with the amount of study those generally took I probably shouldn’t have bothered. 

 

“How many bands are there?” I asked. “Ten? I’ve always been curious about how formal this stuff is…”

 

I felt Breale grab my shoulder and pull me backwards, and only then did I realize how close I’d gotten to him in my zeal. He wasn’t quite flustered, but I had pushed him back to the desks by the windows.

 

“I’m sorry.” She said. “She can get a little overexcited sometimes.”

 

“Oh really?” Luis smirked. “I couldn’t sworn she was just testing how much ‘heat’ Roland could- hey no violence!“

 

He stopped to block a blow from Hosi, catching her fist in his palm.

 

“Shouldn’t a knight be a proper gentleman?” Hosi asked.

 

“We haven’t gotten to that chapter yet.”

 

“You’re not a noble as well?” I asked, gracefully choosing to ignore his earlier jab.

 

A brief scowl flew over his face, but it was gone before I could blink. 

 

“Not currently!” He said with a smile. “All three of us were common-born, or at least I think we were. Hosi’s kind of cagey about the subject. But don’t be too demanding please! We might be of lesser blood, but in these walls we should be equal.”

 

“I wouldn’t worry too much about that.” Breale said. “Both me and my brother have spent ample time amongst the people. And Saphry pretty much acts like a low-born at times.”

 

“Saphry’s starborn?” Luis gasped mockingly. “I never would’ve guessed!”

 

Laughter broke out among them, but I paid it little mind.

 

Hmm, ‘currently’, huh? Was that due to some political thing, or did Luis aim for something higher? He certainly bore himself with a certain confidence that I wouldn’t necessarily expect from a peasant. Was it possible his family fell from grace?

 

I shook my head in sudden shame. How could I generalize the majority of the population like that? Maybe I’d become snobbier than I thought.

 

“But enough of that.” Luis said. “What are you two good at? Etiquette? Dance? We need to decide what lectures to put you into.”

 

“Etiquette’s a subject?” I asked, a slight feeling of horror growing within me.

 

What is this school, hell? There was no way that was a legitimate class.

 

“Of course it is.” Breale rolled her eyes as if that was obvious. “I’ll take that one, or both. Saphry would do more harm than good trying to teach that.”

 

Luis nodded and scratched some lines onto a board.

 

“And you? History? Languages? Do you speak Mornamel, Dwarrow, or Old Lmeri?”

 

I glanced at Gideon, but he shook his head violently.

 

I have way more important things to do than carry you through school.

 

Damn it. These subjects were sounding harder than I’d originally thought. How could I possibly know any of these?

 

“What about the hard sciences? Maths? Astronomy?” A thought came to mind. “Or literature?”

 

Saphry had read quite a few books in her time, and the country’s supply was only so big. So I had memories of reading most of the interesting Lmeri classics at one point or another. That didn’t include seemingly important ones like the world’s version of the bible or the dwarven texts, but it was better than nothing.

 

“Astronomy’s a guild class. Literature’s fine, you can take that. But mathematics?” Luis raised an eyebrow sceptically. “Are you joking?”

 

I shook my head.

 

“I can do Maths. Better than you, most definitely.”

 

He snorted, and I saw Roland look at me curiously.

 

“Really? Let’s see about that. The winner’ll take that slot.”

 

I smiled. 

 

You know, I almost felt a little bad for him.

…

“Could you… explain what you did right there?”

 

I suppressed a grin as the professor stared at the single expression I’d scrawled over the blackboard. The measurement tables I’d been handed lay unused on the table behind me, much to the awe of the twenty class representatives filling the claustrophobic lecture hall. Whispers broke out among them as I stood next to the board.

 

“What’d she do?” I heard one say.

 

“Arithmancy?” Another joked. 

 

“Wasn’t she that girl in Dr. Hans’s literature lecture earlier this morning?” 

 

“I think so…”

 

I couldn’t help but preen a little at the recognition. Saphry’s memories had come in more useful than I could’ve imagined already, as she had already read the book being discussed in the lecture right before this one. 

“I simply used a few Summarkan methods to deduct the volume.” I said. “The actual theory is something like this.”

 

I started going through the most basic definition of limits that I could think of, knowing full well that it was going over their heads. It was obvious that the professor had presented the problem as a long-form problem meant to start the discussion, but the flabbergasted look on his face was worth the extra attention this bought me.

 

I mean, what was the point of knowing maths if you couldn’t show off sometimes?

 

Granted, it wasn’t actually a hard problem by college standards, even if I had used the measurement tables he’d supplied. The use of calculus had just simplified it to a stupid degree so that it had taken only a couple lines. And while I had used the Lmeri numerals, I’d been forced to use Earth notation for the exponents and expressions, so it probably looked like gibberish except for the correct answer beside it.

 

“Interesting. Could you prove it then? Mathematically, of course.”

 

The professor stopped me halfway through my explanation, probably thinking that I was just lucky or cheating instead. 

 

I grinned, my hatred of proofs easily set aside in the face of such a challenge.

 

“Of course.”

…

“Somehow, I don’t think it's worth  the scandal.” I scooped another fork of greens into my mouth.

 

Breale continued to glower, unadulterated fury burning in her eyes. Around us, a dull buzz of conversation floated about the cafe, the amount of female students present far out of proportion to the others in the town. Auro had met up and recommended it as a good place for lunch. It was quaint and cosy by my standards, with a comfy fire and brightly coloured shapes painted upon the walls. Breale sat beside me, with Auro across and a window to the street to my left. It was sunny, so much so that most students walked without mittens and scarves outside.

 

“My ancient rights says I can kill him.” She said simply. “I am legally allowed to behead him.”

 

“That…wouldn’t be honourable, right?” I said, a little horrified at the implication for this kingdom’s legal system. “Even setting aside how wrong that is.”

 

“If it was a duel nobody would care. I could bleed him like a mountain fowl.”

 

I sighed. Breale hadn’t had the same success I had today and had spent all of our lunch ranting about it. Which, while understandable, she seemed a little more violent than the situation afforded.

 

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting a bit?” Auro asked. “From what it sounds like, he just asked you to put up your-”

 

“It was blatant discrimination!” Breale cried. “If I was a prince he wouldn’t have said anything!”

 

Auro and I shared a look.

 

“Breale, don’t you think it’s a little threatening to carry your sword around everywhere?” I asked carefully. “It’s a weapon, you know. And where’s at a heavily guarded school-compound.”

 

If an American’s making this argument you know something is wrong. Gideon remarked from my lap.

 

“I’m a Maverick.” She scoffed. “It’s practically part of our stellar mandate.”

 

“That seems almost heretical to hear.” Auro said.

 

“And then to have the same thing happen in dance right after.” Breale shook her head. “Prince Geffin just laughed at me! I’ll show him on the duelling yard, that pitching little…”

 

“You challenged someone already?” I asked. “It hasn’t even been a day!”

 

“I think I owe Andril a couple australs.” Auro said with a sigh.

 

“How could I not? You should’ve heard what he said! It was vile!”

 

“Just… Please don’t kill him.” I pleaded. 

 

“If he should deserve the luxury.” She muttered.

 

“Why don’t we change the subject?” Auro asked. “Have you been told about the Grand Game yet?”

 

“Grand Game?” I asked, ignoring the simmering hothead beside me.

 

“The school contest.” Auro explained. “All the classes compete for points throughout the year in academic, martial, and magical contexts. Whoever has the most at the end of the year is granted an enchanted item by the Headmage. Not to mention the prestige.”

 

“Oh? Sounds interesting!”

 

A house competition was just what any school needed to spice up something as boring as institutionalised learning. We’d had something similar back in my middle school, though the students were split up into three huge factions instead of a hundred small ones. God, the crimes we would’ve committed against each other if something like that had been done in college…

 

“Yep!” Auro nodded. “My class picked ‘Larkfire’ as our name. You should look for it on the tally in the dorms.”

 

“We have names?” I looked towards Breale. “What’s ours?”

 

“Long Travels, I’m told. Luis picked it.”

 

Ah, that sounded king of stupid. I’d have to see if we could change that once we got back to the others. 

 

“Ah, that’s what he meant earlier.” I shook my head. “It’s too bad, really. We should’ve picked ‘Gryffindor’ to guarantee a win.”

 

Thankfully, the english pronunciation of ‘gryffin’ wasn’t close enough to the Veroline translation to mistake my joke for demon-worshipping.

 

“The name’s unimportant, really.” Auro nodded to herself. “What matters is impressing the right people! My class’s in third place, actually. It took a lot of effort to keep ourselves there.”

 

“Is there that much competition?” I asked.

 

“Well, not that much. There’s only a dozen or so that seriously go for the prize.” She explained.

 

“Ha, then I suppose you better watch yourselves.” I joked. “With me and the Mavericks on the same team we’ll be flying up in no time.”

 

“If only.” Breale grumbled. “But we’ve only had three people in the class for the first three weeks, and we’re still going to be under the normal class size by two once Brother gets here. We’ll be working under a huge handicap if we want to close the gap.”

 

“Hey, underdog stories are all the rage! I’m sure we’ll do fine. Isn’t Fredrick good at academics?”

 

“What isn’t Brother good at?” She scowled.

 

I smiled awkwardly at that. It must be hard having someone like Fredrick as a sibling if you were the competitive type. He seemed to be at the very least decent at everything he did, from academics, to diplomacy, to swordsmanship. It made me wonder if there was anything Breale actually beat him consistently in. Surely he wasn’t the better fighter too, right? That’d just be cruel.

 

Breale sighed.

 

“I suppose it might be time to head back.. Didn’t you say something about a review session?”

 

“Ah, you two haven’t had a review yet have you?” Auro laughed nervously.

 

“It can’t be that bad, can it?” Breale asked.

 

“All I can say is: Good luck.”