-=Plush POV=-

“Right then.” Said Fallis and put her hands together.

She woke up a few hours after we’d departed from Logholm, miraculously without a hangover despite the large number of empty metal cans next to her.

As you can probably guess by the whole “A few hours after we departed” thing we’d long since left Logholm, it had already turned dark outside, quite a while ago at that, and we’d traveled long enough for me to start missing the convenience of normal cars and how fast they went motorways back home.

I suppose I should be grateful it took this long before I started being homesick eh? Not sure why it took this long but I’d definitely say it’s a good thing though.

Anyways, back to what Fallis was saying:

“Since we have someone new here let’s re-introduce ourselves.”

After saying so she looked over at Ronnie who wasn’t paying very much attention to anything other than the carriage itself.

Shiona poked her with her shoulder.

“Oh, sorry. What did you say?”

“We haven’t met you before so I said we should all introduce ourselves so we know what to call one another.”

Ronnie shrugs her shoulders.

“Fair enough. I’m Ronnie.”

“Hello Ronnie, I’m-”

“Fallis right? The guy who fell over drunk while still wearing his armor is Kosei and the guy driving with a topknot is Shro. Plush and Shiona told me.”

Ronnie then stopped paying attention to Fallis again and started looking around the carriage once more.

Fallis blanked out for a second but after coming back to her senses she asked Shiona:

“Is she always this rude?”

“I heard that!” Interrupted Ronnie before Shiona could answer.

“She’s actually really nice once you get to know her, albeit in her own way.” Responded Shiona without minding Ronnie’s comment. [AN: Okay yeah I know putting an AN in the middle of the chapter like this can be distracting but I thought anyone reading might enjoy a little story, you see while I was writing this at school someone seems to have pranked me without me knowing and replaced what Shiona said here with “But are traps gay tho?”, I’m very lucky one of the readers noticed it and told me it didn’t fit when I uploaded the preview of this chapter last week. Thanks for your attention, feel free to carry on.]

“Bah, I'll believe it when it happens.” Muttered Fallis before opening yet another beer can while grimacing.

“Say, mind if I have one of those?” Asked Ronnie, grabbing a can out of the pile without waiting for Fallis to answer.

*glug glug* *gulp*

Shiona stopped moving for a second and just stared at the can like someone judging a painting.

“Fucking what even is this!? CANNED WATER!?” Shouted Ronnie, almost as if she had been personally insulted by the seemingly poor quality alcohol as she threw the can at the floor

*clang*.

“How the fuck does anyone get drunk from this!?”

“I'll have you know, missy, that us elves have been perfecting our alcohol for decades!”

“Well you've done a right rubbish job then haven't you!?”

Then, once more ignoring Fallis, Ronnie opened the door leading outside the carriage and heaved herself on top of it, leaving us all quite speechless.

Except for Kosei of course, he was still mumbling drunkenly in his sleep.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her react like that before…” Said Shiona.

“Maybe bad alcohol killed her parents?”

We all turn and stare disapprovingly at Shro.

Even Kosei looked at Shro this time, although it wasn’t a conscious effort, instead he had just shuffled around in his sleep and just so happened to now be facing Shro’s general direction.

“What? I’ve been fueled by nothing but coffee and stress for the past three days so just this once let me have my fun!” Responded Shro to our disapproving gazes before turning back to the wheel and continuing to drive while Shiona and I wracked our brains trying to figure out what just happened.

We would’ve asked Fallis & co. about this world’s ghost stories but right now we were a bit too worried about our friend.

-=Ronnie POV=-

“Geesh, you really flew out in a rage didn’t you?”

“Oh shut up.”

“Now why would I do that? Because you asked nicely?” She responded before snickering at me.

I was sitting up on top of the carriage talking to a certain flying misfit who had snuck into my clothes and followed me up here.

“You know, Shiona and Plush didn’t follow you up because they thought that since you’d already put some effort into going away from everyone, well, almost everyone, that you’d want some time alone, and right now I’m starting to think the same.”

“Some fucking genius you are.” I responded before laying down in between the sharp spikes the carriage was covered in with my arms behind my head. “If you’ve already realized I want to be alone then bugger off would you?”

“Oh Ronnie you know I’m not as needlessly nice as the people below us, so I’m staying.”

Lizz then laid down on the roof next to my head in the same posture as me.

“Well suit yourself.” I responded and resumed watching the stars, finally having some peace and quiet.

It also didn’t hurt that the temperature out here was just the right kind of chilly for stargazing.

…

…

I’ll be honest I’m not even really sure myself why I got so angry over the shitty alcohol, but if I had to guess it’s gotta be a remnant of when the slave dealers tried to train me to be a wine taster, back then they would try to get me to learn all sorts of things just to make me more appealing to any potential buyers.

‘I suppose in some twisted way I should be thankful since other than this one time this knowledge has helped me help Master and Plush quite a lot.’

…

…

…

...ZZZzzz.

-=Plush POV=-

‘Well, here I am again.’ I think to myself as I’m once more sitting on the lush green lawn around the academy, the slithering snake-way and rainbow forest both still just as present as yesterday.

After Ronnie’s outburst the mood had soured a bit and we’d decided to go to sleep, thus leading me to once more come back here when the clock struck twelve.

Not that I’ve ever actually seen a clock here, but they still seem to talk about time in hours so they should have them in one way or another.

‘Anyways, I have no idea what my schedule for the day is so I should probably try to find that out.’

Looking down at myself I saw that unlike last time I was actually wearing my purple onesie, and although I wasn’t sure why it was the way it was but I could always guess, but in addition to my onesie I also had my trusty magic book in my left hand which was going to be very useful.

Such as, maybe it’s because I was prepared for it this time? Maybe something had simply gone wrong last time?

If I tried hard enough I could probably think of loads more reasons for this to have happened but I decided not to bother since for all I know I might already be late.

* * * * *

*knock knock knock*

“Come in.”

…

…

The only answer I got when I knocked on the door to K’mill’s office was from the fake principal… Or was it the second principal? Either way K’mill didn’t answer so Simply opened the already unlocked door and entered it the room which had once more been painted pitch black.

At first I had gone to the teacher’s lounge however neither people nor schedules were there so I had to go here instead.

“Oh, it’s just you.” Sounded K’mill’s voice from inside the room before the black walls seemed to melt and form into K’mill standing in the middle of the room.

“Hey K’mill.”

“Hey Plush, shouldn’t you be having an introduction with the students right about now?”

“Well I dunno, should I?” I ask while shrugging my shoulders. “You ever gave me a schedule.”

“I didn’t? Musta missed it after you fussed so much about salary.”

K’mill then moved behind her desk and opened a drawer.

“Hey now I distinctly remember you fussing just as much about lowering my pay as I fussed about raising it.”

“That so? Well anyways here’s your schedule. Now hurry along before the students grow bored and leave the classroom.”

I open the door and exit K’mill’s room only to once more see the… second principal… still sitting at his desk doing paperwork.

I turn back to K’mill.

“At some point you’re going to have to tell me what’s up with this guy.”

“Well I could tell you now but do you really have the time?”

All things considered I sort of had to agree with her on me not having the time right now, and because of that I turned away from her once more, ignored the “second principal” who asked who I was and where I came from, and hurried out of the room to try and find my way to the classroom.

I look down at my wrist.

‘Well I’ve still got this band thing that Bob gave me.’ I thought. ‘That means the building itself is going to help me find my way right?’

I turned a few more corners while hoping for this to be true before shortly finding myself in front of a door.

In one of the corners above the door was a small metal plate which read “O-37”.

According to K’mill every room in this school, which I now realize I still don’t know the name of by the way, had a small plate similar to this one with a room number on them.

Apparently on occasions where the students had pulled all nighters and were tired the following day whatever is controlling this school wouldn’t let them leave their rooms because they would subconsciously wish to just go back to bed, these numbers however supposedly made it easier for students to concentrate on which specific room it was they wanted to go to instead of just vaguely thinking they want to go to where they’re supposed to be.

At this point I realize that I’ve been standing here thinking to myself without actually entering the classroom for a few minutes, thus making me even later than earlier, and hurriedly open the door.

“Hello? Uh, I know we have these fancy armband things that are supposed to take us where we need to be but just to make sure this is the second year magic studies class right?” I said as soon as I entered, not even looking around the room before doing so.

It was a surprisingly normal looking classroom, other than one minor thing which I’ll get to later.

It looked about the same as a classroom back home, a blackboard and desk in the front, windows on the wall opposite to the door I entered through, it was even about the same size.

“““Yes.””” Was the general consensus and response I got from the students regarding my earlier question

The middle of the classroom was as expected filled with desks and chairs, though unlike the desks back at my school which came in sets for one, two or four students to sit at these desks were made for three people to sit at in a row with five desks on each side of the classroom separated by a small path for a total of ten desks or thirty students.

Also the students had started mumbling amongst themselves, and although I only heard snippets here and there while I was walking to the blackboard I was able to piece together a conversation.

“What’s with his new getup?”

“If he’s wearing clothes now does that mean he was actually just naked yesterday?”

That comment in particular made my cotton cheeks someone flare up and turn red.

“I heard from one of the other teachers that they hadn’t been able to contact this guy before the entrance ceremony, maybe they just called him at a bad time?” Said someone, prompting me to sigh in relief at these understanding students.

“Yeah, yeah, I heard that as well!” Agreed someone else.

“Well at least that makes him better than our first-grade teacher who came here naked on purpose.”

I wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about that last comment.

Now as for the biggest difference compared to my own classrooms it would have to be that the path in the middle between the desks had been raised to be about half a meter higher than the floor below the students’ chairs.

K’mill said it was a special classroom for any short teachers they may hire in order to make it easier for us to see how people were doing and supposedly there were room which were the opposite, in other words where the floor below the students were raised instead, for the taller teachers to use.

There were a few other comments here and there as well, such as an older lady with gray hair and wrinkles saying I would make a good fit for her grandson, though personally I think I’ve been drooled on enough as is back when I still slept together with Lizz.

“Ehm, right, I’m pretty new here but according to this here schedule I got from the principal it’s arithmetic followed by… magic study before lunch and then self study wherever you want.” I look up from the schedule and towards the students. “You’ve all been here for a year already, does this sound like a normal schedule for your class?”

“Yeah.” Said most.

“We also got copies of the schedule and it matches up.” Said someone wearing half rim glasses, judging by the voice it was the same guy who defended my being naked earlier.

You’re a good guy you know?

“It’s more magic study than last year.” Said someone else.

“I’m just happy there’s no more history or religion this year…” Said yet another someone else.

’religion?’ I thought to myself.

Shiona and I still hadn’t encountered any sign of religion in this world yet despite having lived here for about a month and a half so I was starting to think they didn’t have any.

“Well then it’s math I guess… I really haven’t been told that much but apparently this is just a repetition subject in general for you guys with nothing new so you should be fine…”

“Aw, can’t we have magic study instead? Show us some more of those spells you used at the entrance ceremony” Asked an eager voice from the back which caused the class to become rowdy again.

“Er, erm, he-hello? Excuse me?” I said, trying to get the class’s attention once more. “I’m sorry but I don’t think I can do that since I’m new and don’t know the rules of this place properly.”

Most of the students complained a bit but soon took out a bunch of paper and some seemingly handwritten textbooks.

Well, except for glasses guy, he took out his math stuff a while ago.

As for the reason why I didn’t want to do anything I didn’t know I was allowed to do it was because back when I was a kid I had seen a commercial on tv of a teenager putting gasoline in a diesel car due to thinking every car just ran on “gas” since that’s what people called car fuel in general.

Now it might not have anything specifically to do with this scenario but I really didn’t want to make as big of a fool of myself as that guy had done and thus I started being a bit more cautious when I could be bothered to.

I mean, I already fucked up by being naked the first time I came here so I’d like to try and not to anything like that again in the near future.

Then while everyone were working I walked around and peaked in their books, and although it was a bit hard to read the cursive from what I could gather the things they were doing were all things I’d already done back home so at least that’s one subject I won’t have to be worried about their questions in.

While I was walking around I also saw a few interesting looking students.

As seen from the teacher’s desk:

On the left side in the first row there were three female bee-kin sitting next to each other and helping one another out.

On the desk behind the bee-kin sat someone wearing something that looked akin to a red Hawaii shirt with white flowers and wearing a straw hat and one of those flower bands around his neck.

I wasn’t really sure what he or she was, other than that they weren’t human that is.

They seemed to consist of something orange and porous, almost looking like orange swiss cheese or an orange sponge.

Glasses guy and the old lady sat next to each other on the right side of the third row and then right behind them on the fourth row sat a white frog-kin next to a very small bear-kin.

In fact it was almost just as small as me.

And finally the magic-eager guy sat furthest back on the left.

After that I sat at the teacher's desk all lesson, reading through my magic book and answering a few questions now and then-

“If I get an A in math can I give you to my grandson?”

“No.”

-until the lesson was over and the class had recess for half an hour.