God of Trash

Rhys didn’t have a schedule. As far as he was aware, he wasn’t registered for any classes. For that matter, he didn’t even know if there was such a thing as ‘registering for classes’ in this world. Rather than ask for assistance and risk suffering through the slow process of school administrative paperwork, he decided to barge directly into the pillmaking class. What was the worst they could do, after all? Throw him out?

He was already familiar with the location of the classrooms. After all, he had picked up trash outside of every one of these buildings. The teaching classes were easy to identify from their garbage. They always had lots of copies of the same items, whether it was input or output, and the failures usually had an amateurish ring to them. They were some of his favorite places to pick up trash from. Lots of good picking to be had in those heaps. Rhys wandered up the mountain to the classroom, humming under his breath.

Class wasn’t in session when he arrived. Rhys sat down on the stairs to absorb mana and wait, contemplating his intent skill at the same time. According to Straw, quiet contemplation could sometimes unlock skills that couldn’t be unlocked through combat or other common triggers. He hadn’t personally succeeded at it yet, but it cost nothing, and it didn’t hurt to try. Besides, he could always use the time to consolidate his thoughts and consider how to approach triggering Intent next time he tried. He wasn’t sure if that was the point of contemplation, or if there was something magical he was supposed to be doing, too, but either way, it was always useful to take a second to consider his actions.

“Look! A trash heap,” someone said.

Rhys jolted to his feet and looked around. Did he miss one? A second later, he caught sight of three kids, two boys and a girl, pointing at him, and put two and two together. Rolling his eyes, he went to sit down again.

The taller of the two boys, with light brown hair and dark blue eyes, met his gaze and laughed. “What do you think you’re doing, dirtying our stairs? Get back to collecting the garbage, trashman.”

Rhys stood tall. He crossed his arms. “I’ll have you know I was personally brought here by your Schoolmaster. Can you say the same?”

The boy hesitated for a moment, momentarily taken aback. Before he could recover, his friend, a blond boy with a square jaw and small eyes, crossed his arms at Rhys. “Personally picked to be our garbage collector.”

The first boy laughed. “Good one, Jae.”

The two of them grinned at one another. In between them, the girl rolled her eyes. She wasn’t that pretty, but she clearly thought she was. She’d carefully coiffed her hair into ringlets and wore layers of heavy makeup, plus tight robes that showed a good few inches of cleavage and pulled back at the hip to show her left leg in all but its entirety. Rhys considered for a moment, taking her in. It was an easy enough design to build, although the wig would be hell. Still, he’d never been into the young mistress types, and his female friend had a more athletic build rather than the soft and shaped form of this girl. No, in the end, she was trash, but not his kind of trash. Rejected. He wouldn’t be wasting his money on that fabric.

She scowled at him. “What’s that look for? Are you eyeing me up? You dare lay your filthy eyes on me?”

“He looking at you, Janna?” Jae asked, stepping forward. The blond nodded at his friend. “Jaques.”