Sporemageddon

Cordyceps Eleven

The cafeteria was situated in the main building in the centre of the academy. It was a relatively large room with a few dozen square tables separated into two rows. It became immediately obvious that there was one set of tables for each year group, with the tables on one side for the Dragons and those on the other for the Trolls. The other first years were already at their seats by the time we arrived.

It was interesting to see the contrast within the student body. The Trolls were more lax with the uniforms, and even the way they sat and ate was different. They were louder, messier, and less organised.

Across from them, the Dragons sat up properly, wore their uniforms with clear pride, and ate in a much quieter way, with their mouths closed as they chewed.

It struck me as very human that a bunch of kids being told that they were different would all start to act in such a way that they better fit into their cliques. As far as I could tell, most of these kids had an exceptionally similar upbringing, so the only reason there was such a difference in their behaviour had to be because... because that was how they imagined they should be.

Mister Drake led us to the far end of the cafeteria which was surprisingly modern. There were trays, there was a lunch lady behind a counter, there was lumpy food slopped into plates and bowls.

It all looked somewhat bland, and I wasn’t surprised when one of the other students in my year group piped up.

“This is what we eat?” he asked.

“Mister Milo, you will find that the freely provided academy food contains all a young man needs to grow big and strong. If you wish to eat something else, then you can arrange that yourself. Perhaps pack a lunch?” The last was delivered with such sarcastic flair that a number of students chuckled at it.

I didn’t complain, just loaded up my platter with a bit of everything while also giving Milo a few surreptitious glances.

He was a hair taller than me, which wasn’t too surprising; I was on the shorter end of the class. Milo had dirty blonde hair and chubby cheeks. He certainly seemed to fill his uniform to the brim, and I imagined he might know a lot about good eating.

He was also one of my targets.

I considered what I knew about him as I walked with Mortimer all the way to the back where the first year table was. Michael Milo was the first born son of the current Baron Milo. The baron’s noble position had been purchased by the man who would be Michael’s great grandfather, back before the great industrial boom had really taken off.

The family had once owned huge tracts of land, but they’d since sold most of those to make room for expanding city space.

Their position in the peerage was relatively young, but not so young that they weren’t respectable nobles.

They were targets because Baron Milo currently held the luxury foods market in an iron fist.

If you wanted a luxury food in City Nineteen you either bought it from him, or had it imported from outside the city. It earned the family a great deal of wealth and some influence, at least, that’s what I understood of it.

If all they did was sell food, then they wouldn’t be a problem for the Union. But of course, they had to be asses about it. Baron Milo had messed up the asparagus market.

That was such a strange thing to think of, but it was essentially what they’d done. I looked at my plate and noted that I had a few sprigs of asparagus on my plate, right next to a chicken breast and some mash.

Asparagus used to be a simple, common food about ten or so years ago. Before my time, basically. Then the baron swept through the city and made the growing of them... complicated. It wasn’t illegal to grow, but for a few years people who grew any at home would find their gardens ransacked and marketplaces had stalls attacked. A few smaller farmers had died.

And then the baron started to sell asparagus as a healthy food for healthy people once he was the only one making any. It quickly became something of a staple food on the plates of the better-off members of society. Planting and growing your own was still a risky prospect, if a commoner could even find the seeds for them to begin with. Check latest chapters at novelꜰire.net

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It struck me as incredibly petty and shortsighted.

So I sat down next to Milo and Montgomery took the seat next to mine. “Do you think we’ll get better food eventually?” I asked.

“I sure hope so," Milo said as he looked at his tray with clear displeasure.

I nodded along, then pointed at a small loaf of bread that had come with his food. “Can I have that?” I asked.

“My bread?” he asked.

“I’ll give you my pudding for it,” I said. He shrugged, and soon I had two loaves. I turned towards Montgomery. “Can I have yours too?”

“Uh, sure,” he said. “Why do you want so much bread?”

“It’s for the other first years back at the dorm,” I said. That got a few looks from the others at the table, but Mister Drake had abandoned us, so I didn’t particularly care. “What? You expect them to eat nothing but raw beans? Bread’s easy to sneak out of here, and it’ll give them something more filling to eat. Plus... they won’t fart as much tonight.”

Milo laughed. “Oh, that’s a riot. Yes, we should sneak some bread over, to keep the smell away.”

One boy who happened to be sitting across from me, sniffed. “I don’t see why we should bother. They didn’t read the rules, so they were punished.”

“I guess,” I said. “But if I were them, I’d want a loaf of bread, and maybe one day it’ll be one of us that’s caught breaking a rule.”

“Makes sense to me,” Montgomery said. “My dad always said that what makes a noble a noble isn’t just his bearing, but his willingness to help his peers.”

I refrained from snorting at that. Willingness to help his peers indeed. And to crush those beneath them went unsaid.

I didn’t have the energy to complain though, not when I had so much free food in front of me. It tasted fantastic. Sure, part of me was aware that this was just cafeteria food. I’d been subjected to it before, in my past life, and this was no better. But my current body had never tasted the like, and it was everything I could do not to just scarf it all down like a starving animal.

I finished my food first, then started eyeing that bread. On the one hand, it might win me some brownie points with the kids back in the dorms. On the other, there was still some room for more.

Fortunately, Montgomery didn’t eat all of his food and when I eyed his tray for long enough, he slid it closer to me.

“You know, eating someone else’s food like that’s not sanitary,” the boy across from me said.

“Didn’t your mom ever tell you not to leave anything on your plate?” I asked.

He shrugged, and that was the end of that discussion. These kids were... more laid back than I expected them to be. Though maybe that would come into play later on.

“What are we going to do with the rest of the day?” Montgomery asked.

“I think Mister Drake will be giving us a tour of the facilities for the afternoon, and then we have a little bit of time to ourselves,” Milo said. “Which will be the last bit of free time we get for a while, I imagine.”

“Is the course load that bad?” I asked.

“That depends. Did you go to a primary or did you have tutors?” Montgomery asked.

“Um, I had tutors,” I said.

“Then it depends on how much of a pain your tutor was. The Academy’s not supposed to be forgiving at all,” Milo said.

“That’s no fun,” I said. “But I don’t mind. I had a pretty good tutor.”

“Well, as long as we do better than those guys over there, we’ll be just fine,” Milo said with a gesture across the dining hall to where the other group of first years were flinging food at each other across their table.

Maybe the school had a point when it came to splitting us up. I wasn’t sure if I could deal with that level of immaturity.

Then again, these first years weren’t all that mature either, they were just quieter and more composed.

Well, time would tell how well I’d fit in, but I had high hopes.

***

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