The next morning isn’t quite as miserable as the last.
That still doesn’t mean it’s good, though. Waking up is just as awful as always, and I find myself wanting to berate the System for my Seeker’s Survival Skill not making it so I wake up easier.
It literally reduces how much sleep I need. How in the name of the gods does that not make waking up easier?
Regardless, last night and this morning were... eventful. And exhausting.
Cari spent nearly an hour interrogating me about Bella after she caught us on the couch. Apparently “just let me enjoy this for a moment longer” wasn’t enough to stop her from demanding every possible detail afterward.
Worse, she threatened to go straight to Bella herself if I refused to cooperate.
Under normal circumstances, that threat would’ve been horrifying. Actually, it was horrifying at the time.
Then I realized that I had to face Bella after draping myself across her lap and all but forcing her to pet me until she fled the room in a flustered panic.
I woke to Cari’s violent ministrations as usual, dead as dead can be and mercifully incapable of thought.
At least until I step out of my room and immediately lock eyes with Bella across the dorm’s living area.
We both freeze.
Then Bella does something... silly.
She quietly turns around and walks directly back into the kitchen toward the kettle.
Then she stutters for a moment, seeming to realize she’s already holding both a teacup and plate.
Instead of returning to the couches like normal, she simply stays there with her back to us, sipping her tea as though this had all been part of her plan from the beginning.
“...Coward,” I mumble under my breath.
“Mmhm,” Cari agrees immediately from just beside my door.
I jump slightly, only now noticing her leaning against the wall just out of sight, wearing a malicious grin.
“Hush, you,” I grumble.
She just hums, somehow making it sound smug.
The morning flows like that, one awkward tumble and shy glance after the next, interspersed with my sister’s insufferable glee.
Eventually, we reach the platforms, and Cari’s grin shifts into something that belongs on a wanted poster.
“Well, I’m off to Dungeon Ecology. Have fun,” she chirps.
With a wave, she cruelly abandons me to suffer the consequences of my actions.
I glance over to Bella, finding her closer to recovering than I am, her noble mask already mostly reconstructed.
But she also seems... conflicted.
She glances at me, then looks away the instant our gaze meets.
She’s still not going to move...
I lean on Charisma just a bit, though I’m already certain of what directions it’ll suggest, and which I’ll choose.
Action.
I already decided that if I wanted something to happen between us, I’d have to be the one to move first.
“So,” I begin slowly. “What class do you have?”
“Party Coordination Basics,” she says.
Oh.
“R-right, me too. I guess we’d better go. That’s, uh, the Practice Fields area right?”
Her crimson eyes flash over to me for an instant, then she nods.
She’s about to turn away when I reach out and take her hand in mine. She startles, then seems to force herself into a measure of composure.
It’s not like we haven’t held hands before, after all. I can actually see her rationalizing it in real time as I guide us to the platform marked for the Practice Fields.
But I know, and I know she knows, that the intent is different now.
Still, her fingers tighten around mine, sending delight racing through my tail and making it swish violently for several seconds until I force it under control.
The ride toward the Practice Fields passes in strange, quiet peace. It’s not nearly as awkward as earlier, though she still refuses to meet my gaze for more than a fraction of a second.
She’s close enough that our shoulders brush every now and then as the platform glides through the air, and every single time it happens, I let my tail brush against her leg.
Another little step closer to... something.
The first time, she lets out a quiet gasp of surprise that delights me far more than it probably should.
The second time, she seems to catch on that I’m doing it on purpose.
Her shoulders start brushing mine a bit more frequently, after that.
By the time we reach the Practice Fields, I’m dangerously close to purring again.
Finding the class itself is easy enough. Most of the students entering the district seem to be filtering toward the same large stone building near the edge of the fields, and Bella and I simply follow the flow of traffic inside.
The moment we enter the classroom, though, I realize Bella still seems a bit... distracted.
Honestly, that does wonderful things for my ego.
So this time I gently tug her along behind me and guide us toward the front row myself. Only once we reach the desks do I give her hand a small squeeze before finally letting go.
Bella jolts slightly, blinking as though she’s only just realized we’ve arrived.
Then her cheeks darken.
“...Thank you,” she says quietly as she settles into the seat beside mine.
This is too fun.
Party Coordination Basics turns out to be exactly what the title suggests.
The Professor—a broad shouldered human man with enough scars to make me immediately trust his judgment—has the perpetually exhausted look of someone who’s watched far too many idiots get themselves killed.
He spends the entire class discussing team compositions, combat roles, and the importance of balancing flexibility with specialization.
“Most new Delvers make the mistake of building parties focused around offensive power, neglecting things like scouting, resource management, or support magic,” he grouses. “That’s what this class is meant to beat out of you.”
Sounds like a fantastic way to die horribly.
Most Academy students don’t enter with years of delving experience, and I’ve seen first-hand parties comprised exactly like that.
Some young hopefuls slap together a team with their friends, expecting to go on their first delve and make it out with riches and stories to tell. Only to come back scarred for life, or never come back at all.
The lecture itself is straightforward enough, and class passes quickly after that.
Before long, Bella and I split off toward our next classes.
She even offers me a terribly shy smile as she goes, sending my heart racing.
When I arrive at Wilderness Survival, I’m reunited with Cari.
I spot her near the front of the room with a textbook already spread open across her desk, several empty seats around her as students continue trickling into the classroom.
The moment she notices me approaching, her grin turns deeply suspicious.
Excellent.
Without slowing down, I slide into the seat beside her and very purposefully flick my tail directly into the side of her head with an audible fwump.
She sputters in surprise as fluffy black fur engulfs her face, then gasps dramatically and begins fake-spitting.
“Emilia!” she cries. “Gods, it’s in my nose!”
I immediately lose the battle against my laughter.
“You deserve worse.”
We play fight for a while after that, only settling when the Professor arrives.
He’s a human man built like a brick wall, with greying hair and a battered face covered in skin so weathered that I’d think he spent the past two decades sunbathing in a sandstorm.
The room quiets almost immediately.
“I’m Professor Nyril. You’re here because you want to survive,” he says bluntly. “Good. I’m here to make sure you actually do.”
Well then. I already like class.
“For the first month, we’ll cover fundamentals. Shelter construction. Water sourcing. Environmental hazards. Identifying edible flora and fauna. Basic navigation. Emergency medical procedures.”
His expression hardens further.
“Then we move onto the practical portion of the class, where I’ll throw you into hostile environments and see whether or not you actually remember any of it.”
Oh, now I really like this class.
“We’ll be using controlled sections of the Tunnels, supervised Dungeon spaces, and artificial survival zones constructed by the Academy. You’ll fail repeatedly. Possibly publicly.”
Cari quietly groans beside me, the sound mixing with similar protestations from all over the classroom.
“You’ll thank me later when you aren’t dead.”
By the time the class ends and Cari and I split up, I’m honestly excited for the semester in a way I haven’t been since arriving at the Academy.
This is exactly the kind of thing I came here to learn.
How to survive. How to adapt.
How to stay alive long enough to become so strong that nobody can ever hurt the people I care about again.
Monster Fighting (Practical) only makes that excitement grow.
Professor Axic is an orc woman with enough visible muscle to make most knights question their armor. Even standing still, she somehow gives the impression that she could casually walk through a stone wall without slowing down.
Scars cover her arms and shoulders openly, several old enough to have faded silver with age, while one of her small tusks appears chipped near the end.
She looks terrifying.
I immediately want to be like her.
“Monsters don’t fight fair,” she says within the first five minutes of class. “So if you do, you’re an idiot.”
Oh, hells yes.
The class itself focuses on monster behavior patterns, common weaknesses, hunting instincts, and engagement strategies for different enemy types.
Humanoids.
Pack hunters.
Burrowers.
Aquatic monsters.
Flyers.
Ambush predators.
And so many more. The list that shows up on the board is exhaustive in every sense of the word. She breaks down how each tends to attack, how to identify dangerous behavior before it happens, and which mistakes get Delvers killed most often.
Best of all, the practical portion of the class apparently involves supervised combat against captured monsters within controlled Tunnel environments.
Solo combat.
My tail swishes through nearly the entire lecture, and by the time the class finally ends, I’m literally vibrating with excitement.
All of that excited energy is slowly drained out of me by my final class of the day, Extra-Dimensional Studies.
It’s still interesting, though. Thankfully.
It focuses almost entirely on Dungeon environments and the strange pocket realities they create—or perhaps connect to.
Nobody seems entirely certain which really is the case, or if both are true.
Professor Brokkan—a truly ancient looking dwarven man—spends most of the lecture discussing old theories regarding Wild Mana Zones. And he calls them that, too.
When one of my classmates asks why he doesn’t just call them ‘Dungeons’, he harrumphes.
“They been Wild Mana Zones for centuries, an’ I ain’t gonna change what I call em when they act damn near the same,” he grumps. “’Sides, just ‘cause most of ‘em were turned into ‘Dungeons’ don’t mean that wild mana zones are all gone.”
After that, he goes on to explain how we’ll be learning about how the environments within those areas sometimes follow entirely different physical laws from the outside world.
By the end of it, I’m starting to suspect nobody actually knows anything.
Still, the class is interesting enough that I don’t regret signing up for it... even if it does make my head hurt a little.
By the time I finally return to the dorms, I’m tired, mentally overloaded, and honestly pretty happy with how the day turned out.
Then I step off the elevating platform and freeze.
Bella stands just outside our dorm door, hand outstretched to open it.
She aslo locks up the moment she spots me.
For several long seconds, neither of us move.
Then Bella straightens slightly.
“...Emilia,” she says carefully.
Her face is utterly composed, the noble mask now so firmly in place that I can’t even begin to glean what lies behind it.
Oh no.
“I think we need to talk.”
My stomach simultaneously fills with butterflies and drops directly through the floor.
Authors Note:
Hehe... :3 Bella's turn!
Side note, I’m so torn on calling this chapter “Happy Thoughts and Vengeful Thwaps” or “Practical Tail Applications”.
The first is funnier and more of a play on words, which I am very guilty of enjoying. The second is more on point with all that happens in the chapter while still holding an itty-bitty hint of humor.
I love them both. Anyone want to throw their vote in for one or the other?