Chapter 20
"That insufferable failure boy, Rowan, made me look like a fool again, mamma mia!"
"I must find a way to drive that failure out of this Academy as soon as possible!"
A short while after class, Professor Crowler was storming down the corridor toward his office, muttering through clenched teeth and pumping his fist for self-encouragement.
Then something occurred to him. His eyes lit up with a sudden gleam.
"Come to think of it, the students have physical education this afternoon, don't they?"
A plan was forming.
A beautiful, satisfying plan. He would use this opportunity to make Duel Academy completely uninhabitable for that failure boy Rowan, and drive him straight to withdrawal.
Ohohoho!
...
Back in the lecture hall, most students had already filed out for lunch.
Only a handful remained, Rowan among them.
"That was incredible, Rowan! You know the theory stuff just as well as the practical!"
Jaden looked at him with open admiration.
"Even better than I do," Syrus added, genuinely surprised.
He had assumed that anyone who scored zero on the written exam must know even less than him.
Apparently that assumption needed revising.
"It's just basic fundamentals." Rowan waved a hand. He meant it, too.
Syrus and the others simply had not encountered these concepts before.
He had the advantage of knowing the story, which came with a working knowledge of card mechanics that most people here had spent years studying.
"It really is hard to believe," Alexis said, walking over with a small smile. Her two friends trailed alongside her.
"Someone like you, and a zero on the written exam."
"I never made it to the written exam. Zero was always going to be the result." Rowan shrugged helplessly.
He glanced briefly at the two girls with Alexis. If he remembered correctly, they were Jasmine and Mindy.
His private assessment: entirely normal hairstyles. One look and you could tell neither of them were serious card players.
If either of those hairstyles were flipped upside down, their dueling ability would improve several times over immediately.
The faces were acceptable though. Clearly below Alexis, in both features and overall presence, but acceptable.
Rowan did not dwell on any of this, because the memory of last night's ill-advised joke was still fresh and he had a strong suspicion Alexis had taken it the wrong way.
The last thing he needed was to stand here long enough for the conversation to drift somewhere awkward again.
He pivoted decisively.
"Actually, it's about time. There should be some people arriving at the dorm."
He turned to Jaden and Syrus. "Let's head back."
"People? What people?"
Both of them looked confused, then remembered the mysterious expression Rowan had worn the night before.
Their curiosity jumped to attention instantly. They followed him out of the lecture hall without another word.
"You won't get away that easily," Alexis said quietly, watching Rowan make his exit. A confident smile crossed her face.
She had come prepared. Several targeted Trap Cards, slipped into her deck specifically for this occasion.
She had been planning to challenge Rowan to a duel and see the "secret" he had refused to share last night for herself.
And he had slipped away before she could say a word.
No matter. She would find the right moment eventually.
If Rowan had known what she was thinking, he would have pointed out that they were operating on entirely different wavelengths.
Though even knowing, he would still have found a reason to leave.
He had 800 Emotion Points remaining, still short of the 1000 he needed to redeem another underworld deck from the system.
Against someone of Alexis's caliber, with a targeted counter-strategy already prepared, he would genuinely struggle.
The timing was simply not right.
"Won't let you get away so easily... so that's the type Alexis is into!"
"And that intensity! Is this the Duel Academy Ice Queen's love confession?!"
Behind Alexis, Jasmine and Mindy had taken two careful steps backward and were whispering to each other with barely contained excitement.
The highly ambiguous phrasing of Alexis's declaration had sent their imaginations somewhere extremely specific.
"You two, what are you whispering about? We should be heading back." Alexis turned around with a puzzled look.
"Nothing, nothing!"
"Yes, let's go, let's go!" Jasmine and Mindy laughed it off with matching grins, fiercely guarding their exciting new theory.
Alexis looked between them with an expression of genuine confusion.
...
Later that afternoon, Rowan was sprawled on his bed staring at the ceiling.
"Classes here really are something else," he said to no one in particular, yawning.
Two sessions a day.
Morning theory, afternoon physical education, which amounted to some light stretching and loosely organized recreation.
Some days there was only one session. Compared to the academic schedule he had survived in his previous life, this was a vacation with homework branding.
Though his previous life had not featured Duel Spirits or supernatural forces sealed inside trading cards capable of fusing twelve parallel universes and erasing all of existence, so perhaps the trade-off was reasonable.
"That said." He sat up and looked across the room with a flat expression.
"Why are the two of you in here instead of your own room?"
Jaden and Syrus were sitting cross-legged on his tatami floor, cards spread out between them, apparently in the middle of building or reorganizing a deck.
"Chumley, the other guy in our room, sleeps all day," Jaden said, scratching the back of his head with a sheepish grin.
"We'd disturb him if we talked in there."
Syrus grinned alongside him in identical sheepishness.
"So coming here and disturbing me is fine," Rowan said, staring at them with a look of profound resignation.
Was that supposed to be a sensible explanation?!
"We're friends! It's totally different!" Jaden said immediately.
"When you put it that way, I can't really argue with you."
Rowan dropped back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling again.
It was fine, honestly.
His private residence was already under construction. This room was temporary.
When they had returned from the lecture hall earlier, a Chazz Corporation construction crew had already arrived by helicopter, materials and equipment included, and was actively building according to the specifications Rowan had sent the night before.
He could hear the sounds of it now, faintly, from somewhere just beyond the dormitory wall.