“I held them back,” Elias said as soon as I found him with Robin and Reuben, who were both struggling behind his arms.
Mia grinned. “I reasoned with them. I said, if they try to kill the Hero of the Kingdom and the Prince for talking and touchingyou, the Kingdom will inevitably fall into chaos and our entire household will die.”
How could she say that so cheerfully? Dahlia continued to cackle while my twin knightsfinallycalmed down when their eyes focused on me.
“You attract too much trouble,” Reuben groused. If only he knew how much I agreed with him.
How would I be able to do my research now?
Chapter Twelve
The afternoon classes went a little better when my twin knights stood menacingly outside of the classroom. Not that you could see them, since the doors were closed and there were no windows. But you could feel an ominous presence from the hallway, and that was enough for me.
I couldn’t imagine going through this for the rest of my schooling. A problem for future me.
On a positive note, there were some good things I discovered with my schedule. Today, the equivalent of a Monday, had a similar schedule to pseudo-Wednesday, except for History. That was free time for me to use at the library.
Pseudo-Tuesday and Thursday had the same schedule — Rune-making, which I imagined would be like Art; Arithmetic, because calculating numbers was still important even in this magical world; and Ethics, for figuring out the appropriate times to wield magic.
Like casting contraceptive spells. Very convenient, that.
The afternoons of those days would be free time, too. I supposed I could still use the library even with bodyguards breathing down my neck.
And finally, pseudo-Friday was for special or elective classes in the morning. I only had one — External Magic, scheduled in the time slot before lunch. Another set of free time in the morning after breakfast. After lunch, though, was Physical andCombat Training. I wasn’t looking forward to that. I always sucked at gym.
The weekends were free time, too. I guessed the school didn’t want to tire out its precious nobles.
Dahlia had been a wonderful companion thus far. Aside from how she found my predicament hilarious.A free show,as she had described to me earlier when Claude kept trying to get my attention in the middle of a class and I kept ignoring him.
Elias had my back when he’d tried to make Claude stop. But as I found out, the guy was theHeroof the Kingdom, so he thought he could do anything he wanted.
What did being a Hero mean, anyway? Another thing to ask Mia later.
As soon as Elemental Magic: Air class ended, Dahlia dragged me up from my seat. “Let’s leave before they catch us.”
I didn’t need to know who she meant bythey.“It’s impossible. My knights are outside, and based on my luck these past few days, at least one would interrupt me for whatever reason.” I let her pull me out of the room anyway, ignoring Elias and Claude, only to be stopped by my twin bodyguards.
“Lady Dahlia,” they greeted her in unison.
“You have a couple of hours before dinnertime,” Reuben said, looking over my shoulder. “Do you have any plans, my lady?”
Another two hours of free time every class day. Supposedly free time was for assignments, projects or any homework, but I would argue that researching a way to escape from this increasingly annoying world was the most important project of all.
“Hang out with me!” Dahlia implored before I could answer “the library”. “At least for today. You know, let’s get to know each other as friends. What if we have irreconcilable differences? Better to know now than later.”
She had an excellent point, and I did promise myself I would earn at least one friend. “Sounds good. Where can we do that? I haven’t memorized the academy layout yet.”
“We can go to the training grounds and watch soldiers train,” she suggested unabashedly.
“I already have enough men bothering me,” I declined.
She shrugged. “That’s fair. There’s also the academy garden and greenhouse. It’s huge, with different sections for different plants. For herbalism, alchemy, and other magic components.”
Herbalism and alchemy were classes for later years. Something I would be interested in, maybe even excel at. Hopefully I didn’t have to know because I should be gone from this world by then.
“I’m okay with that.” We walked arm-in-arm towards the gardens, expecting my knights to follow me andnobody else.
Dahlia wasn’t kidding when she said the garden was huge. While the academy’s main purpose was for educating future mages and soldiers, it also served as a backup for everything a Kingdom might need, like a bank of magic components, which this garden provided.
