Wolf and Anna ate breakfast around midday. Then Anna asked for some time alone, and they agreed they shouldn’t see each other until breakfast tomorrow, when all five of them should meet before heading to the Mission Hall. Then they would check whether there was a combination of missions which the five of them could complete in two and a half months, which was the time they had until Barbara’s birthday.

Wolf left after the brunch, thinking about all the things and unspoken rules of high society which Anna had mentioned. In short, nobles were silly.

Even though it was obvious he’d spent a night at Anna’s place nobody would say a word. However, if Wolf was to do something scandalous in public, like hold Anna’s hand, or gods forbid kiss her, that would be socially unacceptable.

After a year and a half at the Mage Academy Wolf finally understood how pointlessly irritating the certified minders were. If he wanted to be with Anna, he would either have to suffer an old woman whose job was to observe propriety, or be in a public place where they weren’t really alone and you never knew when someone could pop up out of nowhere.

There was the option to leave campus and rent a room somewhere, but that was too obvious and once again socially unacceptable. And, unless he and Anna were engaged, Wolf could only visit her home on special occasions. Wolf didn’t mind getting engaged, but Anna being engaged to a commoner beggar was yet another unacceptable precedent.

Inwardly cursing the rotten society which was only focused on keeping appearances, Wolf arrived at the Mage Academy late in the afternoon.

In the end instead of spending a nice evening with the woman he loved, Wolf ended up discussing technicalities, propriety and all other subjects related to women with Wayde.

There were a number of norms which Wayde explained, but Anna had failed to mention.

It was perfectly fine to rent a room when you hired a whore. You’re just paying a woman for her services. However, you couldn’t do that with a noble lady. If the woman was a commoner it was iffy, but mostly fine as far as nobles were concerned. Taking a cobbler’s daughter and ruining her good name in the heat of the moment had a lot less political impact than doing it to a man who had a hundred million people under his rule.

Wolf however didn’t understand one thing.

“Why am I ruining any woman’s reputation?” he asked in confusion.

“You— I—You just are. You’re breaking the rules,” Wayde said after a moment of confusion.

“They sound like stupid rules,” Wolf grumbled, then thought of another logical question. “Wait, and how do women go to whorehouses then? To get rid of the urge?”

The question stumped Wayde. If he’d been eating pastries the way he often did, he would’ve choked to death. The young man fell silent for a moment.

“Women don’t go to whorehouses, except as staff,” he replied after carefully choosing his words.

The conversation between the two continued late into the night and early into the morning. It didn’t quite measure up to the previous evening, but Wolf enjoyed the conversation and he’d learned quite a few things. Most of which Anna didn’t want him to know.

By the time the sun rose Wayde was yawning, and his eyelids felt like they were made from lead. Wolf showed no signs of fatigue and bodily dragged his roommate, who sleepily rubbed his bloodshot eyes.

The girls were already waiting in the mostly empty dining hall. Anna and Matilda looked very much like Wayde and kept covering their mouths as they yawned. Barbara on the other hand was fresh, cheerful and excited about her first adventure ever. Most importantly, she was the only one well rested and hated the fact.

She was about to make a snide comment, but Wolf spoke first.

“Have you guys learned the four spells I asked you to?” Wolf asked his party as he approached the table.

Wayde nodded with a zombified expression. “Second Order Alarm and Protection from Elements, Third Order Endurance and Fourth Order Greater Fleet of Foot.”

“That last one was a lot of hassle,” Barbara grumbled with annoyance. It had taken her two whole months of diligent study to learn the Fourth Order spell. If not for the promise of an adventure dangling before her, she never would’ve bothered studying that much.

Even though Anna also took some seven weeks to learn the spell, she didn’t say anything. Her face was bright red as she stared at the scrambled eggs and the slices of tomato in her plate. The way she acted was shyer than Matilda and made Wolf wonder where had the bold and forward woman from the previous night gone.

Matilda nodded in answer to Wolf’s question, but when she met Wolf’s gaze her face became as red as Anna’s. She fidgeted, barely resisting the desire to run out of the room.

“You promised to help us study, to make up for the classes we miss,” she changed the subject, still unable to meet Wolf’s gaze.

“Yes, yes,” Wolf waved her worries away. “I already told you. Just bring the textbooks and have your questions ready. I’ll explain anything you want to know.”

The gang ate their breakfast and chatted. The ones doing the talking were the boys and Barbara. Matilda generally spoke only when she had something worth saying, and Anna never once looked up from her plate, even after she’d emptied it.

With the squeaking of chairs against the marble floor the group got up and headed towards the Mission Hall.

“All right,” Wolf said, tapping his lips thoughtfully. “Now we have to agree whether you guys want to take a five star mission as a group, or four four star ones as individuals.”

“We’ve already agreed we would take a five star one as a group!” Barbara said with a grumpy frown.

They had decided on this because of her birthday, and Wolf had brought it up for the third time now.

“I just think that we could also take four four star missions for you, and then you can do them like a group. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, I’ve seen people doing that in the Mission Hall before.” Wolf tried to talk them into taking the safer approach one last time.

“We’ll go with a five star one. Agreed?” Wayde said and then turned towards the girls who nodded with determination.

This might be too difficult for you, but that’s fine, I’ll watch your backs. Wolf thought, but didn’t argue with them since they were so adamant. “All right. If that’s what you want, let’s go to the five star Mission Hall.”

“Lord Mage!” As soon as the group walked in, a desk clerk waved at Wolf.

Mandy wasn’t particularly loud, but in the silent hall her call was no different from shouting. For the first time this morning Anna looked up from the floor. She snatched Wolf’s sleeve and sharply tugged at it.

“Wolf, who is this… woman?” Anna growled, catching Wolf by surprise.

Wolf turned around to face the young woman who smiled sweetly, staring murderously at him.

“That’s Mandy. She works in the Mission Hall,” Wolf explained in the most harmless, innocent and platonic way possible.

“Mandy,” Anna said darkly. “And what is your relationship with this Mandy person?”

“I get my missions from her. Nothing else,” Wolf said, pretending he didn’t notice anything strange about Anna.

Wayde told him that the best thing to do about a jealous woman was to ignore it and cuddle her. Since he couldn’t do the latter at the moment he went with the former and pretended that nothing was wrong.

“All right then. Let’s go and pick our missions.” Anna said, slowly returning to normal. However her bashfulness was gone the moment she had to protect that which was hers.

Wolf sighed with relief. Apparently Wayde’s advice was legitimate. The five of them went over to Mandy’s desk. Thankfully the woman noticed what was going on straight away and didn’t cause any trouble with her ‘Lord Mageing’.

Wolf took the apple tablet with a smug smile. He scrolled through the missions with over-exaggerated movements, then glanced at his companions. Contrary to his expectations, none of them were impressed by the magical device.

As Wolf went through the list, he found a pair of missions relatively close to one another. One was unsurprisingly a bandit slaying mission, while the other one was for picking flowers.

The area where the herbs grew was known to have Third and Fourth Order Monster Beasts, so not everyone could go and gather them. The reward for the herb gathering mission was based on the number of flowers picked, so the more they gathered before their blooming ended the better.

“Wolf, those missions have the listed deadline of three months,” Barbara growled when Wolf pointed out his choices.

“It’s fine,” the leader assured. “With Greater Fleet of Foot you move roughly twice as fast as you normally would. With Endurance you won’t get tired from marching, and thanks to Protection from Elements we don’t have to wear cold weather gear in case a blizzard surprises us.”

“Wolf, there are no blizzards in Silverhound,” Wayde muttered. “If we get five snowfalls during the winter it’s considered a very cold winter.”

“But it’s still chilly and with that spell you can dress any way you want,” Wolf persisted. “You can even bathe in icy lakes and not worry about the chill.”

Anna shot Wolf a frosty look when he mentioned publicly bathing outdoors, but he didn’t seem to notice. Must have been the spell he advocated so heatedly.

After Wolf confirmed his choice he passed Mandy five Student Cards.

The woman professionally entered the details and returned them.

“You have to go to the warehouse and get a special container to keep the Snow Petunias from withering,” the clerk explained helpfully. “Sir, the mission doesn’t state it, but be sure to take extra care. Snow Petunias are known to cause aggression and irritability in manlings and Monster Beasts alike.”

Mandy gave the group a friendly warning about the properties of the herb they’d set out to pick.

“Thank you,” Wolf said with a smile.

He already knew about Snow Petunias on account of god knows how many failed attempts at learning alchemy. While he had problems with the alchemical processes, Wolf’s ability to memorize plants and beasts was excellent.

Anna wasn’t too happy with Wolf flashing a smile to a mere clerk, but the others also nodded their heads in thanks. This woman had no obligation to warn them about such things.

”You’re welcome, please come again Sir.” Mandy couldn’t help but smile happily.

Her words and that smile elicited another cold look from Anna, but Wolf paid it no mind. Apparently, Anna was one of those jealous types Wayde mentioned. He said some women viewed all other females as a threat and predators stalking their man.

Without much fuss they left the Mage Academy and entered Matilda’s private carriage.

“How about we first go to Big brother’s and have a meal before we continue on our way? We can take the carriage as far as possible to save ourselves some time.” Wolf asked and for a moment the fatigue in his friends seemed to disappear as they vigorously nodded their heads.

Wolf’s lunch was something you didn’t miss when the man felt like cooking.

After processing Wolf’s second sentence Matilda looked at him awkwardly, her face still as red as a tomato.

“The driver said he would go for one day outside of the city,” she whispered. “Anywhere further is potentially dangerous for him.”

“Matilda, do you mind if I ask something?” Wolf looked at her with some confusion.

The young lady’s face somehow turned even redder as she shook her head vigorously.

“Does that mean I can ask, or that I can’t?” Wolf hesitated for a moment. What’s up with her?

“I— Well— No— I mean— Yes— You can ask.” Matilda’s blood was trying to seep out through the skin of her head. Her ears were practically glowing red.

“Are you feeling unwell, or has something happened? Your face has been as red as beets ever since we first met up at the cafeteria,” Wolf asked seriously.

All gazes in the carriage, sleepy or otherwise, suddenly focused on him. Everyone was looking at him as if he was an idiot. The only exception was Matilda, who looked at him with the shaky eyes of a terrified rabbit.

Anna wanted to find something to smack the blockhead with.

“Well— I— Well— Um—” Matilda was overwhelmed as she explored the limits of red. The only thing missing was steam coming out of her ears.

Unexpectedly, Wayde came to the rescue. He locked his arm around Wolf’s neck. “Wolf, the weather is really good today, isn’t it?”

The youth tried to move Wolf’s head out of the window, but his diminutive roommate didn’t budge a bit. Wayde felt a sharp stab of pain from his back. If he’d been any more vigorous he might have sprained something.

Wolf was confused. Anna was angry and wanted to bludgeon her boyfriend to death, Wayde thought himself lucky he’d gotten out of the whole affair unhurt. Matilda was having a meltdown and testing how much blood could one fit in their face.

Seeing this comical scene before her, Barbara finally burst into laughter.