Chapter 9

  It didn’t take long to fill out the requisition form with Fleur’s help. I thought we were able to present a good enough argument for why a place to house and raise animals was crucial to our growth.

  To be honest, I didn’t know just how much influence Professor Kuhn held at the academy. Maybe I could have just written that, as a Druid, I needed animal companions to best show off my skills, and he would have pushed it through no matter what.

  To be on the safe side, however, I added a couple of paragraphs explaining how being responsible for another life would foster our sense of responsibility and how their companionship would improve mental health.

  I don’t necessarily believe those last parts, and they certainly weren’t why I was doing this, but it sounded like something a school would eat up.

  Fleur threw in a bit about the cultural importance of being closer to nature as an elf. I thought she was just adding on to my flowery words at first, but her serious expression as she wrote told me otherwise.

  There was no small talk between Fleur and me, we just finished our task and went back downstairs. She was still following at an uncomfortable close distance, though, and I really couldn’t keep myself from asking her about it.

  “Hey, Fleur…”

  “Yes?”

  “Is this considered a normal distance from where you come from? Because by human standards, you're deep in my personal bubble right now.”

  “This is abnormal?”

  “I’d say so.”

  To demonstrate my point, I abruptly stopped walking while she was behind me. As predicted, she bumped into me.

  “See?”

  She took a step back, her expression unchanged.

  “Must be a human issue.”

  She looked at me like I was at fault.

  “An elf would be more aware of their surroundings. Thank you for enlightening me on your limitations, Rex.”

  She moved to my side but was still too close. She wasn’t being snarky. She seriously thought I should be able to match my movement with hers.

  I decided to believe that elves were just weird and chose to ignore her behaviour.

  We handed over our form to Professor Kuhn. It looked like we caught him just before he was about to leave for the day.

  “Promptly done, I’ll review it tonight. As I just finished telling the others, there are no more activities for the day, so use this time to settle in and rest. Our homeroom begins at 0600 hours, and we meet in room 1-E. There are maps set up around the school if you lose your way.”

  He gave us both a quick nod and left.

  There wasn’t much to do yet, and most of the others had already returned to their rooms or were otherwise occupied.

  “I’ll be in the training room. Goodnight, Rex.”

  Fleur finally separated from my side and walked away.

  There were only four people still in the lounge area. Lily and Guy were snickering and gossiping about something together, apparently making fast friends with one another. And on the other side of the room, in the kitchen area, Lloyd and Isolde were chatting in excitement.

  I didn’t have anything to do here, and neither conversation particularly interested me, so I moved to go outside.

  “Ah, Rex! Wait a second.”

  I stopped as my hand reached for the door handle. I knew this was coming.

  Lloyd crossed the room to approach me and held his hand out.

  “What’s up?”

  I asked as I shook his hand reluctantly.

  “Nothing crazy, I just wanted to ask you something. Sorry if I’m wrong and this sounds weird, you can just tell me if I’m being annoying haha…”

  “What’s your question?”

  Getting tied up in this protagonist wannabe’s pace was the last thing I wanted. I’ll intended to wrap this up quickly and move on.

  “Well, uh… Do you have a Gift?”

  He was indirectly asking if I was the same Rex he knew of.

  “I do. Mental Fortress, it’s not a big deal, just so long as you don’t try reading my mind.”

  Mental Fortress was a real Gift, but I certainly didn’t have it.

  “Oh… Ok. Sorry, it’s just that… there was this kid where I grew up who kind of looked like you…”

  “I see. Is that all?”

  “Hm? O-oh, yeah, I guess.”

  “I’ll be busy tonight. If anyone asks, let them know they’ll see me at class.”

  “Sure, I can do that. Do you want some company?”

  “I’ll have some friends with me.”

  A black blur flew past Lloyd and into my cloak. Tiara peeked out with a piece of raw beef in her mouth.

  As I walked out, I heard Guy’s voice.

  “Hey, where’d my meat go?”

  I did tell them not to leave food unattended.

  ***

  Lloyd watched Rex leave the building.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  “Where’s he going?”

  Isolde came up to join him.

  “I’m not sure, he said he won’t be back until tomorrow though.”

  He scratched his head, debating whether he should follow the mysterious Druid or not. Most of all, he just couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew the guy, despite Rex’s apparent lack of recognition.

  “Hey Isolde, did you see Rex’s mana capacity in his report?”

  “No, I didn’t pay much mind to it.”

  “It was zero!”

  Lily called out from across the room, she had left Guy to his desperate search for beef. Why was he checking his pockets for it?

  “I saw it clearly. No mana capacity and no mana flow, which means he must have no Mana Organ, right?”

  She butted her way into the conversation.

  “Strange, right? I definitely felt him using mana in his fight. Do you know him?”

  Lily peered at Lloyd with great interest.

  “...I think so… I kind of hope I’m wrong, though.”

  “Oh? Do you not get along?”

  Isolde asked with concern.

  “No no, nothing like that, we were friends if anything… Ah, man, I shouldn’t speculate. Let’s just forget it, haha.”

  Lily showed a look of disappointment.

  “Tch. Boring.”

  Lloyd laughed nervously in response.

  If that really is him… I should probably talk to him before Lily finds out about Rose…

  ***

  Rex made his way to the campus exit, a large black archway marked the end of the IMA and the pathway to the town of Borderton.

  Of course, for security purposes, there were two guards on duty.

  Calling them guards was probably a bit too generous of me. They were really third-year silver class students; this was a rotating duty for them in the IMA.

  I doubted they ever really did much besides stop the occasional delinquent sneaking out at night…

  Yes, I’m aware that is exactly what I was doing, but I’ve got a real purpose behind my actions.

  “Tia, you’ll be in charge this time.”

  I took Tiara behind a bush, and we did the usual trick.

  Primal Soul. It’s not magic, no matter how it may appear. It is the act of perfectly harmonising my soul with another, then merging them into one. The result will likewise fuse the bodies that house said souls.

  It’s a skill anybody can learn, but not one that anybody but me should use. A single error would make separation impossible, and making the fused form stable is crucial, unless you want to accidentally fuse a foot into your head and instantly become brain-dead. In short, you need an ego powerful enough to not lose sight of yourself, and enough of a mutual understanding to work in tandem with the other soul. It was predominantly my time in the Soul Stream that made this viable for me alone.

  Tiara and I became one once again, this time I altered the way our souls were blended. For combat purposes, I would usually maintain a humanoid shape and complement it with the most powerful aspects of the other soul. What I was doing now was not for combat however.

  The fusion finished, and Tiara was now alone. The only noticeable change would be that she got a little bigger, but was otherwise just a normal cat.

  Like this, we simply hopped up the side of the wall and to the other side.

  “What’s that?”

  “Hm? Oh, just a stray.”

  The lookouts paid me no mind.

  I waltzed through Borderton, a town still under development. The ocean breeze made its way to my sensitive nose, and I struggled to quell the hunger in this body once the thought of fresh fish entered my mind.

  Tiara tried to take control and run off to find something to eat, but I was able to keep her on track.

  The first few times we tried this, she would take us on multi-hour-long adventures that wouldn’t end until we were too full to move.

  We found our way to the eastern gate, where the road led into the Soleo Kingdom. It was flanked by the Verdant Divide on the southern side and the sea to the north. My destination was a small cave by the seaside about an hour away.

  The guards at the gate were the real deal this time, and they would be trained to keep an eye out for anything with mana in their bodies. That, of course, included Tiara and, by extension, me.

  The outer wall was a temporary one, made of wood that was due to be reinforced at a later date. Until then, my claws could latch on anywhere, allowing my to create a foothold anywhere.

  I rapidly climbed up, using the cover of night and my pitch black fur to stay out of sight.

  Using Phase Step the moment I landed to hide in the treeline, I was easily able to evade being spotted.

  After that, it just became a matter of walking eastward until I found my destination.

  Sniff sniff.

  Finally, the salty air carried with it the scent I was searching for.

  I retracted my fusion and carefully climbed down the cliff edge leading to the beach.

  Snort… huff - SLAM - Snort!

  A wry smile crossed my face as I heard the undeniable sounds of my friend.

  Kiiiee! - CRUNCH - Snort - Schlorp schlorp

  I hopped down and turned to see him crushing a large crab beneath his hoof, its insides popping out like jelly.

  Looking around, I saw that he had already brutalised the crab’s entire extended family, they were probably trying to nest in this area. A fatal mistake and an amusing reminder of my own first run-in with this beast.

  “Hey, Soot.”

  I announced my presence to the beast. He turned to face me and strongly exhaled black smoke from his snout.

  A boar, twice the size of any regular pig, with orange stripes of fur that bristled in the breeze. Two large tusks curled out from its mouth. They were blackened at the ends, and the air was hazy all around them.

  Soot. That was the name I had given him. Back in the Feral Abyss, I had tried to camp out in a cave to survive a particularly hazardous storm. Said cave was already occupied, and with neither he nor I willing to back down, we fought for dear life.

  If it weren’t for an even bigger threat showing up and attacking both of us, we surely would have kept going until one of us was dead.

  Snort.

  Soot nudged me with his snout, interrupting my reminiscence.

  “Sorry, buddy. You’ll need to hide out here just a little while longer. I’ll bring you back soon, I promise.”

  Without proper materials, Soot would just burn down whatever shelter he was kept in. I came here tonight to collect some of his fur and a fragment of his tusk to solve this issue.

  Soot nudged me harder. Clearly, he was unhappy staying here alone.

  “Seriously, it won’t be long. If I bring you now, you’ll be turned into bacon.”

  Huff.

  Another gust of smoke blew into my face.

  “...Listen here, you little shit.”

  I threw myself onto his back and started tugging at a tuft of orange fur.

  Tiara watched the two wrestling in the sand while she chewed on a piece of crab meat.

  ***

  Benedikt Kuhn eagerly reviewed his lesson plans in his office. His first homeroom was about to begin any minute now.

  The tower bell chimed to signal the beginning of the school day. Benedikt had his papers ordered and stacked on the table. He picked them up and walked briskly to room 1-E.

  “—ere did you go, though? You couldn’t take a bath first?”

  It seemed he was walking in on them mid-conversation.

  He opened the sliding door.

  “To your seats everyone, we have a lot to cover today.”

  He marched up to his stand at the front of the classroom and looked up at the students.

  “Rex.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Did you slay a dragon this morning?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then please explain yourself.”

  Rex Jaeger looked composed as always, yet he was the only student not in uniform, and the clothes he did have on were singed all over. The smell of smoke permeated the entire room, and the cause was clear.

  “...A goblin did it.”

  The class was paused while Rex was given a change of clothes.