When I was sent up to summon a spirit I thought I was going to fail. Yet I didn't, I summoned one. It was a young spirit, I could tell when it contracted with me. It chose to answer my summons for some reason even though the others did not. When it came I could feel its fear.

I wish that I hadn't attempted summoning, because it came and we formed a contract.

I hope that Miss Ein is wrong.

---------

I like to take walks when it's dark out. It makes me feel calm. I have nothing against the day but something about the night soothes me, other than the fact that it's when I sleep.

I'm taking a walk, but it's towards the warehouse. I'd really prefer to not go back the very next day and see Anne again but I was called by Carlyle. When I made it back into my room I noticed the scroll that my master gave me was shining. I naturally assumed it was from him but when I read it I was disappointed.

He wrote that he had something important to tell me but couldn't he have just written it? This is one of those things that my master would discipline me for. He once said, WHEN YOU ARE USING THE SCROLL TO WRITE TO ME JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU NEED BOY!

At that time what I needed was a bath. I was dirty and tired from training and there were no streams nearby so I wrote to him to come back right away. Apparently he was with a lady friend of his and wasn't happy when he came back and what I wanted was a bath. He then decided that what I really needed was more training. 50 knife throws, 50 push ups, 10 laps, and 1 beating later I learned my lesson.

Not that I'm going to beat Carlyle if he doesn't say anything important, I can't beat him anyways. I just hope that Anne isn't there. After she was done beating me up yesterday she just silently stood up and left. Not the best way to end things off for the day.

While walking I hear some whispering, not a lot but some. I turn to the sound and see a few boys pointing at me. I'm wearing my black clothing but I shouldn't be that suspicious looking right? The only thing that's different is that my mask has some blood on it, why'd Anne have to hit my nose?

The kids turn away when I stare back at them. They run away seeming somewhat excited. I guess that it's better if I move on from this area quickly.

The warehouse looks the same as always. I open the door and enter. Carlyle sits on the steps reading his book, his eyes look up as I come in.

"Yo." he puts his hand up.

"What did you call me here for?" I cross my arms and scan the room. Anne is sitting over by some barrels glancing at me, crap.

He gets up from his seated position and closes his book.

"Your master, Reinhard, is coming back soon."

My eyes light up.

"Really? Where's he been?"

"Don't ask me. He'll be here in a week."

I knit my eyebrows.

"How do you know that?"

He smirks and reaches into his pocket.

"You should know. He gave me this." he holds up a scroll.

Can't believe that I didn't get one from him.

"Thanks." I say. "I'm going to leave now."

"Bye." he sits back down and starts reading.

I turn on my heel and rush out the door like a criminal would if he saw a guard.

"Wait!" the door I just left behind opened.

I spin around slowly. Anne stands there with a nervous look on her face.

"About yesterday..." she rubs her hands together in circles. "s-sorry... I know what you were trying to do." she scratches her chin. "Th-thanks."

I give a weary smile. I've been worried about how it was going to play out.

"Don't worry about it. If you need a punching bag you can always count on me. I've got tonight off so I'm going."

"Thanks again, and see you later."

---------

The day started off pretty normal until the door opened and the adventurer swordswoman from before busted in.

"Rainen, Ellar, you two will be going on a mission, don't worry about school. What you two will be missing won't be much."

I stand up and saunter down the steps. I'm in no rush to be alone with the adventurers. I go so slowly that blue hair who got up after me and is on the other side reaches her before I do.

"Let's go you two. The others are waiting outside the academy gates."

We keep pace with her. If one were to look at us it would seem like two magician following their master. We're spread out in a way that we form a perfect triangle. We don't talk at all. It doesn't seem to be the same way with other first years though. The other adventurers are chatting away telling their stories as they would to village children, the students listen attentively.

I don't know any of the other students but I notice one girl glare at me. I can't figure out the reason why.

Outside, like the first days of the fall season, is much different from yesterday. The heat is much more dominant, the wind is blowing but the air doesn't make goosebumps appear. The weather looks nice today and it seems like it should be warm for most of the day but I hope that we bring some blankets. We shouldn't be going that far.

"OH HEY!"

Oh no. I stop my descent from the steps. A group of adventurers stand before me, I've seen quite a few during my days training with my master so I can say the look well rounded. Two swordsmen, the girl who led us here and a man wielding a katana, one magician, a lightly dressed man in a dark green cloak, a cleric, and the S-rank girl from the guild. She seems to be an archer of sorts.

"Oh! It's you!" I feign surprise. I had a feeling that I would be seeing her again.

"HEHE! Sorry about before, us S ranks aren't too common ya know." she puts her hand over her puffed out chest.

"You know him Avie?" the swordswoman asks.

"Of course Aethel! I'm always one step ahead of you guys hu hu."

"She and I just happened to meet at the adventurer's guild." I say.

"Is that so?" Aethel holds her chin. "What rank are yo- ah, never mind. I already know, you two were just registered right? F ranks?"

"We're both E ranked." I pull out my card. "I was already an E rank when I went with the class, my partner here got promoted after our first mission."

"Not bad." I hear the cloaked man mutter to himself.

"That changes things." Aethel says. "We'll be looking for an A rank mission then."

"An A ranked mission!? That's ridiculous, we're only E ranked after all." I say.

"I-I agree with him." blue hair stepped forward.

The swordsman wielding the katana laughed.

"Hahahaha. There's no need to worry. We know that you two should be capable enough to at least not be a burden during this quest. If you trust me not then I shall swear on my blade that I will protect you two with my life. That is the job of an adult after all. Hahahaha." he let out another hearty laugh.

"O-oh, um..." blue hair was taken back with what he said.

They really must be confident in their skills to be doing an A ranked quest with two E rankers.

"N-no need for that." I put my hand out. "I'm Rainen Weaver and the girl over there is blu- Ellar."

"Call me Kazuo Fukui. My companions over there are named, Alyss, Claire, and Norman." they slightly incline their heads.

Alyss is the magician, Claire the cleric, and Norman the rogue.

"Aethel, let us head off to choose a quest." Kazuo starts towards the guild.

-------

Reading over some of these A ranked quests make me worried. I might be able to do some of them alone, like gather ten eggs from a Halora, but most of these require more than my knives to deal with. I'd be okay just getting the eggs but fighting the beast would be problematic. My knives wouldn't do anything to it's scaly skin. I'd have to hit it with a few charged punches to beat it.

Aethel stands staring at the board. Her face is wracked with indecision, she reaches out for a quest but quickly retracts it. The process repeats for a while. I sit down next to blue hair, letting the party look for a quest.

"You excited?" I ask her.

"...Huh? Oh, yeah." looks like I interrupted her thoughts.

"So..." I don't really know where to go from here. Her short answer leaves me stumped on where to go next. "find any good books?"

Her face lights up a little.

"I found this one book about these people called oddities."

I freeze at the word. She read that out of all the books there?

"Oh? I've read about them too."

"I know. Mr. Reader recommended the book to me because he saw you reading it." she tucked her strands of hair behind her ear. "It was an interesting tale. People with two affinities. It only told a few stories but things didn't seem to go well for them."

"Haha, yeah..." I awkwardly laugh.

"Oh, and someone asked about you yesterday."

My ears perk up.

"Who asked?"

"Uh... it was the partner of the fourth year you battled." she looks away for a second. "His name was Marlon."

Seems suspicious enough to me. He's probably someone working for the headmaster. He better not try anything underhanded.

"Young'uns! We've accepted a quest!" Kazuo waves us over.

Blue hair and I hurriedly get up from our seats to join them by the door.

They beckon us to catch up to them. We're walking to the gates. Aethel asks us a question while still strolling along.

"Do you two have wands or staffs?" she asks.

"I do not." blue hair says.

"I do." I respond.

Aethel looks surprised.

"What kind of staff?"

"Just one made for hitting things." I say.

"Not that kind! I meant for magic."

"Oh, I didn't know what you meant."

I silently chuckle to myself. I knew what she meant. Obviously since I was from a magic academy and wasn't geared as a swordsman they assumed that I only know how to fight with magic.

"Worry not. We shall take you two to the market and you will find the finest of gear!" Kazuo says.

"Only if you can pay for them that is." Avie interjects.

We take a slight detour turning left to get to the marketplace. The people move about, women carrying baskets of fruit, men selling goods and bartering, children playing their little games. The magic shop should be coming up soon.

A voice calls out to me.

"Boy! You there, the one in the magician robes. Come over here and have your fortune told!"

A woman who seems slightly past her prime waves me over. Should I just ignore her? It would be rude of me to do that though.

"You guys go on without me. I'll catch up."

I take long strides towards the woman.

"Give me your hand."

I hold it up for her to grab.

She grips my hand lightly and runs her finger across my palm in little circles. A warm sensation starts to envelop my body, my hand is glowing. She puts her hands over mine, they're much smaller. Suddenly her head jerks back and her eyes close. When the scene is over she stares at my face with sweat dripping down her forehead.

"Be brave boy." her face is sympathetic. "Your fate is unfortunate. Your future will not hold much light."

Not much is being told here.

"So how much?"

"Haha." a weak laugh. "For you, it's free. Sorry for not telling you much. I only told you uncertain things that would make you fear tomorrow."

This time it was my turn to laugh.

"Hehehaha." I run my finger across my nose. "Fortunes don't scare me ma'am, don't worry. I don't believe in a future that is only bleak. Same goes for fates."

I run to catch up with the party.

"Good luck." I hear.

---------

Blue hair bought a wooden staff, I followed in her footsteps and bought the same one.

The party's marching to the city gates. I wonder what kind of quest we took.

"Hey." I nudge Avie.

"Hmmm?"

"What quest did we take?"

"Oh! Right! We haven't told you two yet." she hands me the paper. "We'll be taking out some giants and hell hounds. They've been causing some damage to villages by the Juron River to the east."

Giants and hell hounds, not an easy task.

"How strong are they?" I ask.

"Hell hounds are around 28, not very strong by themselves. The problem are the giants. They're at 65 on the scale. So B+ ranked monsters."