Chapter 10: Still Have to Go to School
The sound of chopping drifted in from the kitchen before Uriel had fully opened his eyes. Steady, unhurried — the rhythm of someone cutting tofu.
He stared at the ceiling for a while, blanket pulled to his chin, deeply uninterested in being conscious. Then he remembered exactly how Galatina handled mornings when he didn't get up on his own, and decided consciousness was fine, actually. He was up in under a minute.
Breakfast was already on the table by the time he sat down. Galatina settled across from him, hands folded neatly in her lap, spine straight, expression carrying the specific gravity of someone about to announce a matter of national importance.
That posture. That face.
....Here we go.
"Little Uri, I want to talk to you about something."
"Go ahead."
"About school."
Uriel's chopsticks paused.
He set them down. Nodded slowly.
"...Ah," he said. "So it really is time."
He'd always known this world had school from twelve to fifteen. He'd just filed it away and not thought about it. Galatina smiled at him. "Did little Uri know?" "More or less." He picked up his bowl and started working through his congee, brain already running ahead — enrollment, boarding or day student, curriculum structure, whether there was a mana aptitude assessment —
Wait.
He put the bowl down.
"Mom," he said, carefully. "Let me ask you something."
"Mm?"
She tilted her head. A strand of silver hair slid loose and settled against her cheek.
"Lumina and the others," Uriel said, watching her eyes. "They went to school, didn't they."
"...Well, I think so." Galatina thought about it, tapping one fingertip to her chin, in the tone of someone arriving at a conclusion she's fairly confident about.
"Then why," Uriel's voice shifted slightly, "didn't I go with them."
Galatina blinked.
The air went very still.
Then she spoke, gently, in the tone of someone explaining something perfectly ordinary:
"Well, I was feeling sad at the time. Three children all leaving at once — the house felt so empty. And—" she paused, and her eyes took on a look of genuine, tender concern that Uriel could not fully parse, "—little Uri suddenly had no wife candidates. I was a little worried, and I suppose I forgot about the other thing by accident. But it's not too late now."
Uriel sat very still.
He looked at the face across from him — open, sincere, radiating complete innocence — and opened his mouth, and closed it again.
....Mom.
I’m genuinely curious: on your internal priority list, where exactly does ‘collecting wives’ rank compared to ‘your son’s basic education’?
Actually, never mind. She probably just meant playmates and got her vocabulary mixed up. That has to be it. I refuse to think deeper about this.
"I know that wasn't right," Galatina added, her voice apologetic. "I'm sorry, little Uri."
"It's fine," he said, and scooped up a mouthful of congee. "Let me finish eating."
---
After breakfast, Uriel sat alone in the corridor and thought it through properly.
School. Fine. If it was time, then it was time.
But there were things to establish first. Boarding or commuter. Tuition structure. Entrance requirements. Whether mana capacity was assessed on arrival or tested beforehand.
Better to ask around.
He stood, straightened his coat, and remembered something.
He could not bring Galatina.
It wasn't that he didn't want to. It was that Galatina accompanying him on an information-gathering errand had two possible outcomes.
One: everything went smoothly, mother and son returned home with the necessary information.
Two: something happened along the way, the information didn't get gathered, and they came back with a new set of problems instead.
He had a reasonably clear sense of which of those was more likely.
"Mom," he called, walking back through. "I'm going out for a bit."
Galatina looked up from the pile of clothes she'd been sorting through. "Okay. Do you want to take any snacks?"
"No."
"Remember to buy something if you get hungry."
"I will."
"Be careful on the road —"
"I know, Mom."
He pulled on his coat and headed out.
---
The town was wider than his usual range. Uriel walked the main street at an unhurried pace, taking in the flow of it.
He picked the busiest intersection, found an old man with a general-goods stall, exchanged a few words about nothing, and gently steered the conversation toward children and schooling. The man was a talker — kept his hands busy sorting rope while his mouth ran on freely. Ten minutes later, Uriel had most of what he needed.
The whole country had shifted to full boarding. Academies had expanded, unified intake, and moved to residential management to keep mana training schedules consistent.
"So," Uriel thought.
Bad timing.
What about Mom, if I'm boarding? Will she be all right?
The image that surfaced, unhelpfully, was Galatina sitting alone in the living room, staring blankly at a pile of odds and ends.
She'll keep busy. Busy is good. She's always got something going.
He thanked the old man and turned to leave.
That was when he noticed the commotion ahead.
He looked.
In the open space along the street: a boy, dressed at least two tax brackets above everyone else in the vicinity, standing with his hands clasped behind his back and his chin slightly elevated. Behind him, four or five others roughly his age fanned out in a loose half-circle, boxing in a smaller child who stood with head down, shoulders pulled inward, something clutched tight in both hands.
Uriel's eyes swept over the clothing. The cut, the fabric, the trim.
Nobility.
He looked at the kid being cornered. Old clothes, but clean. Nothing remarkable.
Uriel kept walking.
Not my business. Could end up classmates someday. Getting involved just makes it awkward for everyone.
He made it about five steps.
Stopped.
....
That kid looks about the same age Lumina and the others were.
He turned back around. Hands in his pockets. He crossed the space in a straight line and stopped at the edge of the group.
"This street," Uriel said, to no one in particular, "seems pretty wide."
The noble boy turned. Looked him over. Looked confused. "What?"
"I'm saying, excuse me." Uriel held the boy's gaze, unhurried. "There are a lot of you and you're taking up a lot of room. I can't get through."
One of the followers stepped up, voice dripping with condescension: "You know who you're talking to? Mind your own business."
"No idea who he is," Uriel said. "Not particularly interested in finding out."
Someone in the group sucked in a breath.
The noble boy's expression shifted. "You want to get hit?"
"Not really," Uriel said. "You should all move along."
"..."
"You talk a lot."
One of the followers stepped forward and shoved — the kind of lazy, one-handed push that says there are more of us than there are of you. Not heavy. Just dismissive.
Uriel's body reacted before he thought about it. He read the incoming force, turned into it, caught the angle, and redirected — a simple deflection, nothing deliberate, the kind of thing that had become reflex after years of training.
He'd barely applied any force. He'd been conscious of it. These were children, so he'd dialed it back.
The follower left the ground anyway.
He sailed backward two meters, crashed through a wooden market stall, and brought the whole display down with him.
The street went completely silent.
The noble boy stared at the wreckage. Then at Uriel. His mouth opened and closed.
Uriel looked down at his own hand.
....
Was there a hidden master nearby helping me out? No. That was probably... me.
Huh. No!
He looked around. No mysterious benefactor in the vicinity. Just an extremely still crowd.
The followers broke first — they were children too, after all, there on borrowed bravado. One started backing away, then another, and then it was a full rout, the group scattering in every direction, the boy from the stall pulling himself upright and sprinting off through tears. The noble boy held his ground the longest, cast one last look at Uriel, and then he also turned and ran.
Uriel didn't go after any of them. He turned back to the smaller child.
The kid stared up at him, lips moving in what might have been thank you, and then bolted in the opposite direction before Uriel could get a word out.
Behind him, the stallholder was already on his feet and making his feelings known at volume. The street noise came rushing back — whispers, pointing, the general bustle of people who had just seen something interesting and were now processing it aloud.
Uriel took a quick read of the situation.
Oh, crap. If I stay here for another two seconds, I’m going to be paying for that stall.
He left immediately.
He made it a good distance before he glanced back. The kid hadn't followed him. No mysterious expert had materialized to take credit for the assist.
You know, Uriel thought, pulling his collar up slightly to hide his face, this world really is full of nameless heroes willing to do good deeds without taking credit.
He turned toward home.
The information from today was enough to work with.
Boarding school, then.
That, at least, meant escaping Galatina's daily marriage commentary — low-grade background radiation, persistent and inescapable. Not that he was anywhere near the relevant age. But still.
He thought this.
And then, immediately, without being asked to: the image of Galatina alone at the dinner table, making do with whatever was easiest, not bothering to cook properly for just one person.
"...Tch."