Chapter 49: The New Academy
The next morning, Uriel and Tian suited up and made their way through the capital's streets toward the Academy. Half a block out, the main gates came into view, cordoned off with heavy alert tape. A few guards wearing Adventurer's Guild badges stood on either side, looking stern but not exactly on high alert.
A massive notice was plastered across the iron gates, dense with official text. Beside it stood a young clerk, dutifully fielding questions from the gathering crowd.
Uriel chatted with the clerk for a bit before reading through the bureaucratic masterpiece of a notice while standing in the cold wind.
The Academy was blown to hell. The Headmaster was dead. And the administration's first instinct? Rent out a hotel as a temporary campus and keep the classes running.
Uriel read the notice again. And again.
Were these top-level suits actually operating under the assumption that as long as a student was still breathing, classes had to continue even if the sky was falling?
On the way to the hotel, Uriel muttered under his breath about the administration's deep pockets. He'd figured an incident this massive would buy them at least a week or two off. Instead, not only were they skipping the break, they were doubling down on the grind.
The hotel was a solid mid-tier, old-school establishment in the capital. It was already swarming with students. Some were wrapped in bandages, others lounged on their luggage in casual clothes, yawning and gossiping in hushed tones about the previous night's chaos.
After checking in, they headed to their room. Just like the dorms, it was a double.
Uriel paused for a fraction of a second as he slid the key into the lock.
He'd been eating and sleeping under the same roof as his mom since middle school. Sharing a dorm at the Academy wasn't exactly a mind-blowing twist.
The room was small but spotless, basically a downsized dorm. Uriel face-planted onto the bed and immediately went back to sleep.
Half-asleep, he heard the door click. He cracked one eye open to see Tian walking in with a tray. On it sat a small soup pot and two sets of bowls and chopsticks. She had apparently slipped out at some point and actually brought back cooking gear. The hotel room didn't have a kitchen, and he really didn't want to investigate where she'd sourced a soup pot.
"There's no kitchen here, and you still went and got utensils."
Uriel sat up, his voice dripping with the quiet resignation of a man who had stopped fighting the tide long ago.
"And they actually just handed them to you."
Tian set the tray on the desk and turned to him, looking like this was the most natural thing in the world.
"I was worried you'd be hungry. If the dining hall has nothing good, or nothing you like, Mom can cook for you."
Her tone was soft and syrupy, dragging out the vowels, every single word radiating pure, unadulterated maternal logic.
Uriel opened his mouth, but the retort died in his throat. He looked at Tian's brilliant golden eyes, then at the steaming soup pot on the desk. His Adam's apple bobbed. He had absolutely nothing to say.
---
That evening, the official notice dropped. All students were to gather in the hotel's first-floor dining hall for an address from the Acting Headmaster.
It was mostly logistical filler. They'd be attending classes at the Royal Capital Fourth Senior Academy. There was also a sanitized briefing on the attack, including the tragic "line-of-duty" death of the Headmaster.
None of it really mattered to Uriel. What was actually disappointing was the complete lack of any mention of the Curse Cult or the Witch Brigade.
First week at the Fourth Academy, Uriel thought, mulling it over with a touch of cynical pride.
Relocated to a different campus, forced into outdoor lectures for a month. Is this what they mean by the prestige of an elite institution?
A girl nearby whispered, "Are they serious?" while a guy diagonally across muttered, "By the Aether, are they trying to grind our mana cores into dust?" Uriel felt that complaint in his very soul. But he kept his mouth shut, staring blankly at the tabletop as he mentally fortified himself for the hell ahead.
Tian tilted her head, catching his expression. She leaned in and whispered, "Too tired? Don't want to go to school?"
"..."
"How about we take a few days off? Mom can take you out to have some fun—"
"Mom." Uriel lowered his voice and turned his head. "Right now, you're my roommate."
Tian paused, blinking in genuine confusion.
"Roommates can take time off too."
"Two guys living in the same dorm, both asking for leave at the exact same time." Uriel paused for a beat. "Do you have any idea how people are going to interpret that?"
Tian thought about it seriously for three seconds. She couldn't come up with a single appropriate word.
Uriel turned his gaze back to the podium. "Never mind."
---
A week was enough for the dust to settle. The First Academy students had grown accustomed to the daily commute between the hotel and the Fourth Academy. Every morning, they lined up for breakfast and marched off in packs, like a flock of migratory birds that had adapted with alarming ease to crashing at someone else's nest.
It was in the corridors of the Fourth Academy that Uriel finally ran into his two troublemaker friends again.
Leo and Kai squeezed through the crowd from the other end of the hall, wearing identical expressions of survivors riding an adrenaline high. Leo immediately slapped Uriel on the shoulder, nearly sending him stumbling forward. Kai stood to the side, arms crossed, sizing him up.
"Uri, you good, bro? Where'd you run off to that night? We looked everywhere for you!" Leo's voice was loud enough to make a few passing students glance over.
"I'm fine. Found a place to hide, then slipped out with the crowd." Uriel brushed it off with a casual lie and flipped the question. "What about you guys?"
That was all it took to open the floodgates. Leo and Kai started overlapping each other, explaining how they'd teamed up with some upperclassmen to corner one of the guys in black. They'd spammed Trip and Stone Bullet, thrown in some good old-fashioned punches and kicks, and actually managed to drop the guy. Leo was practically vibrating as he acted out their tactical positioning. Kai chimed in occasionally, his tone calmer, but the smugness in his eyes was impossible to hide.
"Oh, right." Leo suddenly dropped his voice and leaned in close. "The guys in black we saw... they were a bit different."
Uriel took a sip from his water bottle. "Different how?"
"They were girls. Three of them!" Leo held up three fingers. "One had green hair and pointy ears, looked super cold. One had red hair and actual animal ears on her head that twitched, probably a demi-human. And the last one had dark short hair, super cool, didn't say a word, but her eyes were terrifying. Their moves were insane. Just shhhk, and all the black-clads were down."
Kai nodded in agreement. "Insanely good-looking, top-tier aura. And strong as hell. If I could see them just one more time, I'd gladly trade ten years of my life."
Uriel lowered his bottle. Naturally, they were talking about Lumina and the other two.
"You guys..." Uriel weighed his words carefully. "Were just staring at their faces? Acting like you've been hit with a Tier-3 Charm spell."
"A hero appreciates a high-tier waifu. What's wrong with that?" Kai shot back, completely shameless and utterly immune to the roast.
Leo went a step further. He side-eyed Uriel with a look that screamed I see right through you. "Uri, if you saw them and didn't immediately fall to your knees, your soul's broken."
Uriel stared at him, deadpan. Before he could formulate a counterattack, Kai suddenly pivoted, glancing left and right.
"Hey, where's your roommate? The silver-haired one? He barely talks and never hangs out with us."
"...He's just really quiet."
And just like that, Uriel slapped the "fragile and shy" label onto his mom.
Leo stroked his chin, nodding thoughtfully. His wiggling eyebrows practically screamed that he was onto some massive, forbidden secret.
Uriel figured if this conversation went on any longer, he was going to end up with a giant neon "CLOSETED" sign slapped on his forehead. Thankfully, the bell rang. He used the excuse to shove both of them toward the classroom, narrowly escaping the topic.
---
During an outdoor practical session one afternoon, the instructor told the students to freely practice drawing basic magic circles. Once finished, they could clock out early. Leo tossed his half-finished circle onto the dirt and dragged Kai and Uriel into the shade of the trees near the edge of the field. Then, with the air of a spy handing off state secrets, he pulled a crumpled note from his pocket.
"You guys know what's going down today?" Leo unfolded the paper. Scrawled in messy handwriting were the words: Representative of the Fourth Academy boys, officially confessing to Seraphina Waldrich after outdoor class.
Uriel glanced at the note, then at Leo. This guy's gossip-gathering stats were so high it was a waste he wasn't running an intelligence cartel.
"Let's go spectate!" Leo grabbed one by the arm and hauled them to the flowerbed on the far side of the field. A few scattered students were already loitering, pretending to practice their magic circles while blatantly eavesdropping.
Two people stood by the flowerbed. A guy in the Fourth Academy uniform, decent-looking enough, clutching a carefully arranged bouquet.
Opposite him was Seraphina. Her light brown hair caught the sunlight in a soft glow, her features delicate enough to look cut from a painting. She stood with perfect posture, hands clasped in front of her, wearing that standard, polite smile. She looked like a pristine boutique window display—flawless, immaculate, and completely out of your league.
"I bet it fails," Kai called first.
"I'll take that bet. It's failing," Uriel followed up.
Leo looked between them and threw his hands up. "Since you both bet no, I guess I have to bet yes."
The guy's confession was well-rehearsed and loud enough for everyone eavesdropping in the cheap seats to hear. Seraphina listened, gave a polite little bow, and moved her lips. The volume was low, but her enunciation was so perfect you could read it from ten meters away: Thank you so much for your feelings, but I'm terribly sorry.
A premium, gold-tier friend-zone card. Leo groaned in agony and slapped two silver coins into Kai's palm. Uriel reached out for his cut, and Kai painfully peeled off one more to share.
"You two are way too invested in this tea," Uriel said, pocketing the coin without a shred of hesitation.
"What's wrong with a little tea?" Leo rubbed his wallet, then shifted his tone. "But do you know how many guys she's rejected now?"
"Eighty-nine!"
Uriel blinked. That number was genuinely absurd.
"That many? Is she that popular?"
The moment the words left his mouth, both of his friends snapped their heads toward him. They looked at him like he'd just asked what one plus one was in advanced calculus. Leo took a deep breath and started counting on his fingers. "Sweet personality, polite, zero noble arrogance, gorgeous face, killer figure. You've been at the Academy for a year and you didn't know any of this?"
Clearly, they had completely forgotten about last week's "insanely good-looking, top-tier aura" rant about Lumina and the others.
Leo finished reciting the campus queen's resume like a devout priest, only to find Uriel still staring blankly at the field, his expression entirely devoid of mortal desires. Leo let out a long, heavy sigh, deeply mourning his friend's apparent lack of a pulse.
Then Uriel spoke. His tone was perfectly level, like he was debating between chicken tenders and a burger for lunch.
"You lost the bet. So we're making you do one thing."
"What?"
"Go confess to her."