Even though this society conforms the standards of a basic medieval-like fantasy world, people here sure are smarter than we were a thousand years ago. This is due to it having an actual fleshed out educational system, and with it comes compulsory visit of any educational institution. Mostly this is to prevent any possible damage caused by inexperienced magic users.

Such as me.

So, I must go to school, don’t I…?

“Well at least I managed to talk you out of this situation”, Shelly said, as she was explaining the whole situation to me. “Unauthorized magic use comes with a high penalty. How old were you again?”

“Fourteen.”, I said.

“Oh, so my effort was unnecessary, I see.”

“Why is that?”

“I thought you were much older, sixteen, seventeen maybe.”

I get that quite often. I’m rather tall for my age, but still I think you could read my age off of my face. It’s not like I have a beard or anything. Even so, I consider my skin to be pretty smooth-looking. At least for the parts of it that I use make-up on to cover my pimples. Having older sisters comes with its perks.

Having had.

I’ll miss them.

Probably.

“Our legislation makes people accountable for magic-related incidents starting at the age of fifteen.”, Shelly continued her explanation. “I decided, that it is best to enroll you into Ataraxia academy.”

“Is it okay, to simply send me to school? I mean, I’m pretty sure according to the government I don’t exist.”

“Oh, it will be pretty easy to fake that.” Hearing a police officer talk so openly about committing crimes was quite baffling. “During summer fires happen quite often, and if I remember it correctly, one just happened to be a few towns away in Silica, destroying the townhall, and with it many important documents.”

“Don’t they have some sort of back-up?” Not having one would be pretty inefficient in my opinion.

“Yeah, no it was quite a shithole, honestly. The town was simply too small for anyone to invest money into security measures. Normally a certain type of archive magic is used, to exchange information between a town and the government or in between towns but that requires a physical spell binder, which in most cases is a book. Basically, the information is stored in that book and can be read by any person that is connected to that spell-binder, but not stored. Or at least no-one would think about storing such information, as it changes daily. No-one could provide the amount of mana to do such a thing.”

…

“Why do you know so much about this topic …”, I was quite fascinated by her knowledge even though I only understood half of what she said. Was such a thing required for being a police officer?

“Oh, the mayor of Silica, he is my brother.” Well … how disappointing. “I once thought about becoming involved in politics, but I decided to dedicate my life to enforcing the law instead. Anyway, there should be no problem regarding your … existence. We simply say that the fire in Silica broke out shortly before you were about to move to Ataraxia.”

“I feel pretty bad, doing this.”

“Come on, don’t be a coward. This office so often reeks of illegal herbs and no-one questioned it, even though we share buildings with the town-hall.”

“You … what now?!”

Enforce the law? Who are you kidding, you only enforce the law as long as it does not affect you in a negative way.

“Well, whatever.”, I decided to simply brush it off. “Let’s do this … I guess.” I stood up from my seat across from Shelly and wordlessly left her office.

The registration thankfully went without any issue. I guess next time, Shelly asks me to legally break the law I shouldn’t hesitate too much. Also, Raven who was with us during the appointment was my legal guardian now … I hope he doesn’t insist on me calling him daddy.

“By the way, I’ve scheduled an appointment with the headmaster of the academy in a couple of minutes.”

“Wow, thanks for telling me so early.” My mom used to schedule my doctor’s appointments without telling me, which lead to many situations of me having to leave a game of LOL or something similar early because of not being informed right away. Stuff like that pisses me off.

But I obliged, because what else was there to do? So we headed north for the academy. I’ve seen it from afar those couple of times I was actually able to step outside a bit and walk around the city, but getting closer to it, it became bigger and bigger, and it was the first time I actually could capture how big it was. Most of the buildings south of the academy were actually so big, they covered most of the academy’s smaller buildings from afar, making it look way smaller than it was. Those buildings were some sort of student dormitories, Shelly told me.

“Ataraxia academy is one of the biggest magic schools on this continent. Students from all around the world come to this school, that’s why these apartments were built. As far as I know the academy’s dormitories differ from those in other schools by being completely student-governed to teach our youth some independence since” – that part she whispered to me – “nobles these days can be quite spoiled, honestly …”

A broad road led up to the academy’s entrance which gave off the vibe of a noble’s mansion. The gate made of two lattice gates each bearing the emblem of the academy was wide open, even though the school was on summer break. The entrance to what appeared to be the main building was also open, either signaling that the school was indeed open, or because the air conditioner was broken. They certainly have air conditioners, without any doubt. Magical air conditioners.

We went inside the main building and approached a row of chairs lined up next to a door that was so prominently not centered on the wall, it was kinda off-putting. Though it made sense, since the center of the room was occupied by a double staircase that went up from both sides of the wall meeting in its center against the backdrop of a large stained-glass window irregularly changing its colors. Below the staircase was an opening in the wall containing a winding staircase leading into the basement I suppose. Maybe secret library. Maybe torture chamber.

We took place on the empty chairs waiting for the principal.

After a couple of minutes the door to the principal’s office opened and I was greeted by two unexpected surprises. The first was princess Abc coming out of the office, the second was the principal themself. Thing is I could not really determine a gender, as their body was entirely covered in blue feathers, their head presenting a black curved beak. The only thing indicative of a gender would be the eyes, which gave off quite the feminine vibe. When the principal opened their beak their voice was surprisingly pleasant to hear, maybe because I expected an annoying squawk, but their voice that, again, was devoid of any gender, actually came in the form a steady melodic sing-sang.

“I have high expectations of you, Lady Carelis. But that doesn’t mean you should put yourself under too much pressure.”

“Don’t worry, I will achieve the necessary score in no time at all, Principal Featherhead.”

“Kehe.” I did not quite manage to stifle my laugh. And that caused the princess to notice me.

“Oh my.”, she said with a mix of disbelief and disgust to her face.

“Ah, I was expecting you.”, Principal Featherhead said, before Princess Abc was able to comment on our sudden appearance. “Lady Carelis, good luck.”

“Thank you very much.”, she said, before approaching me, as Shelly and the principal were exchanging pleasantries.

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh, Shelly decided it would make sense for me to get some education. Well, it does make sense, considering I have no idea at all how … well anything here works, really.”

“Hmm, so you’ll be going to school next year, huh? But I wonder in which year you’ll end up.”

“Why?”

“Well, how old are you, fourteen?” She actually guessed my age right, so I nodded. “Well placing you into the same year as all those 12-year-olds would definitely be weird, to say the least, but then again, your knowledge is far surpassed by all of them.”

“Ugh, shut up.”, I said annoyed, because she was right.

She giggled.

“You know, you’re the only one to tell royalty to ‘shut up’.” She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I like that. It’s … new.”

I kinda felt as if she was complimenting me, but what kind of person would compliment someone for insulting them?

“Nathan.”, I suddenly heard Shelly say. “We, er, have an appointment.”

“Right.”, I said, and followed her into the principal’s office.

“If you need any help, I’m sure, Shelly will know how to contact me.”, the princess said, turning around. “Bye.”, she said, as she waved from behind.

In the principal’s office, Shelly explained the whole situation, or rather the lie she fabricated about the fire in Silica. As it seemed that fire also happened to destroy the school. Because of course it did.

“I see, that’s the situation we’re dealing with.”, the principal sighed in exasperation. “The thing is, as one of the most prestigious academies on the entire continent, we don’t simply take students in at a whim. Normally you would have to take an entrance exam but the regular exams already were taken a couple of weeks ago. So, I’m at a bit of a loss on how to deal with you …”

“That’s what I thought. But principal, do you still have these practical homework sorta missions over summer?”, Shelly asked.

“Of course.”

“What about making them his entrance exams?”

“That would work, but … school break has already started two weeks ago. He would without a doubt be at a disadvantage, if he were to take on missions starting now.”

“But is there really no other way?”, Shelly sighed. She really was used to thinks working out her way.

I took a quick glance around the room, before I asked hesitantly: “What exactly are those missions?”

“Oh, it really depends.”, Principal Featherhead answered. “It can be obtaining rare minerals, slaying monsters, or even fighting crime alongside the police. But as far as I know no-one applied for helping out the police, am I right, officer?”

“Well, actually …”, Shelly murmured as we gave each other a quick glance, probably having the exact same idea at the same time.

Shelly cleared her throat. “Actually, Nathan here did help me solve a series of thefts recently.”

Principal Featherhead made an interested squawk-like sound that demanded further explanation.

“He helped me solve a series of grimoire-related thefts, so if there’s any way, we can make that count …”

“Yes, I suppose that would work. I would need a full report from you Officer, then I could give him one duty point.”

“That would be wonderful!” Shelly brimmed with excitement. She actually seemed more excited about this whole situation than I was. Or maybe she was just happy to have helped me.

“Well, then you just need to fill out the application form, and you’ll be a new student at Ataraxia Academy.”

She handed me a couple of sheets, and after a few more minutes and a bloody fingerprint later, I became a student at Ataraxia Academy.