Chapter 15: The First Day of School

Chapter 15:
The First Day of School

 

I OPENED MY WINDOWS and the warm morning breeze flooded my room. It ruffled my hair and the hem of Alice’s skirt.

“The big day is finally here, brother dearest.”

“Yeah, I’m finally going to get to start school.”

I had already put on my new uniform, but I never could do the tie up very well. This was my secret—getting my little sister to help.

“I’m sure you’ll do well in Hero Academy, brother. I’m determined to pass that exam next year too.”

“I appreciate it, but don’t force yourself, okay? I’d really rather you didn’t die.”

“I just want to get a little closer to the brother I admire! By the way…you still haven’t given me my hug today,” she said cheerily, her arms wide. She had her eyes closed and her chin slightly raised, lips in a pout.

“Alice? You do know what a hug is, don’t you? You should do what you’re suggesting with your boyfriend.”

“Brother, boyfriend, same difference.”

“All right, that settles it, next time I’m out, I’m picking up a dictionary.”

See, this was one of the downsides of being poor. We didn’t even own a dictionary. And before you ask, no, I didn’t kiss her. We just hugged, very platonically…for ten seconds…twenty seconds…sixty seconds. It was going to become a problem if she wouldn’t let go.

“I feel like I might never see you again if I let you go now…”

“I’m just going to school.”

At the worst possible moment, my father opened the door to my room. “Hey, Mr. Elite Academy Student, it’s time to…get…”

It was just a hug, but things were looking a little too passionate. My father froze in the doorway, backed out of the room, then spun around and ran down the stairs at full speed. “Oh dear!” he cried. “What is a father to do?! My children are engaging in forbidden love!”

It was a real pain how he always jumped to conclusions like that. I shook my head and we went down to the living room.

“Good morning, mother.”

“Good morning, children.”

“How can you bear to face your children?” father asked. “After I told you I saw them in a scandalous embrace in his room!”

“Well, I mean…”

“Father, you’ve got the wrong idea. There isn’t anything unnatural about my relationship with Alice,” I announced.

But that only upset him more. “But you’re holding hands!” he shouted, pointing.

“That’s because Alice begged me to.”

“You know who holds hands? People in romantic relationships! Look! You even have your fingers intertwined!”

“Father, it is completely normal behavior to hold hands with your family members or people you respect.”

“Is it? Am I that old now?”

Alice nodded deeply. After that, my father calmed down and started to rethink his behavior. That sort of flexibility was one thing I couldn’t fault him for. He ran over to Alice, demanding that she hold his hand too, but got depressed when she bluntly rejected him.

As an aside, holding hands earned me some LP. Not a whole lot, but not so little that it wasn’t worth it.

“By the way, what’s that?” I asked, pointing at a pot I’d noticed sitting on a shelf.

The pot itself was unremarkable, but its contents, a large quantity of pitch-black insects, was unusual. They almost looked like grasshoppers?

“They were a gift from our neighbors. I was thinking we’d have them for dinner tonight,” said my mother. She was from a respectable family, but she’d abandoned all that to elope with my father, and she was a lot tougher than she looked. Eating bugs didn’t faze her.

The rest of us, on the other hand, weren’t about to touch them.

“I think there are too many for me to finish by myself, though,” my mother said, thoughtfully.

“Could you make me a plate too?” I asked.

Silence fell over the room; I had always turned her down in the past.

“Have you surpassed me, my son?” father whispered.

“I couldn’t eat those,” said Alice. “You really are incredible, brother dearest.”

My mother just smiled at them.

After breakfast, the three of them insisted on seeing me off, despite my protests. They even sang me the chorus of the Traveler’s Song, which attracted the attention of everyone passing by. It was orders of magnitude beyond embarrassing, but to be honest, it made me kind of happy.

 

***

 

I met up with Emma at the gates of the Hero Academy and paid my 300,000 rels at the desk. At that, the receptionist returned the remains of the dead reaper I’d killed during the exam. I wondered if I could sell it to help fatten the family coffers.

I tossed the reaper’s remains into my Pocket Dimension and we headed to the S-Class home room. Once classes started, we’d be able to ditch the badges indicating the status of our noble families, but the first day was an exception. Today, they were a requirement. Even the commoners, who didn’t have badges of their own, had to borrow ones from the front desk to identify themselves.

“I kind of hate this,” said Emma.

I understood how she felt. This mandatory badge business made it painfully apparent that the whole “it doesn’t matter where you come from” thing was a total sham. Ultimately, we were expected to remember who had all the real power from our first meetings, today. On some level, I guess it was unavoidable. We lived in a society where everything revolved around social status. If anything, it’d be weirder to pretend it didn’t exist.

We opened the door to the classroom, and all the attention immediately fell on us. The room was only about half full, and most of the eyes in it were fixed on our badges: the symbols of a baron and baronet’s family.

S-Class was full of the kids of important nobles and the mega-wealthy, so we were way, way down at the low end of the class spectrum. Me in particular. Some of our classmates turned around as immediately as they’d turned to look, having judged us unworthy. Others faltered, unsure of whether they ought to acknowledge our existence. Well, more accurately, that’s what the girls did. The boys were still totally zeroed in on us—or, on Emma.

“Name’s Rappard,” one of them said. “I’m the eldest son of the Delmond family. Nice to meet ya.”

“Hello…” Emma bowed her head with a sigh, sounding dejected.

She had always attracted a lot of attention from the boys, ever since we were in prep school. She was cute and easy to talk to, so they were pretty relentless. One time, a couple of teachers even came to blows over her. That situation had been age-inappropriate in all kinds of directions.

At any rate, it wasn’t ultimately a surprise that Emma was facing this kind of reaction all over again. It also normally put me on the outs with everyone, seeing as I was actually Emma’s friend. Then, contrary to my expectations, one of the boys actually spoke to me, and even offered his hand.

“Hello there, I’m the Siphonious family’s—” Halfway through the sentence, he saw the badge pinned to my chest and stopped dead. Ha. Maybe his eyesight was bad so he couldn’t see it clearly before, or maybe he’d been too distracted by Emma to notice until he’d started talking. The otherwise anonymous member of the Siphonious family withdrew his hand from my vicinity. He reminded me of a turtle pulling its head back into its shell. “Man, it’s so nice and warm out today, huh?”

With that, the nameless boy walked away like nothing had happened. I thought it was pretty darn rude of him, but I held my tongue.

Baronets held a unique position among the nobility. It was a rank given to people who weren’t nobles by lineage, but who did something to contribute to their kingdom. Apparently, that was how my father earned his title—he’d played a pivotal role in stopping a monster invasion. More to the point, most nobles didn’t consider baronets real nobility. There was a demeaning tendency to insist that the ranks truly started with barons.

“Umm, don’t you think that was a little rude?” Emma pushed her way through the crowd to confront the Siphonious boy. Her eyes seethed with rage.

“Hm? What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Noir’s father might only be a baronet, but he took third place in the entrance exam.”

“Yeah, but we all know what really happened there…right?” The Siphonious boy looked to the rest of the class for their approval. He didn’t need to say it. Everyone knew what he meant—that I’d only passed by riding my team’s coattails.

Emma, however, knew better. And because she was the person she was, she had to go and be completely earnest about it. “If Noir hadn’t brought back that dead reaper, I might not have passed myself. He ranked that high because he worked for it!”

Everyone burst out laughing.

“Oh, stop lying! Everyone knows Lenore was the one who did that.”

Suddenly, Emma remembered that was the cover story. But her blood was boiling. I could see the impulse to refute it growing in her eyes. Fortunately, just then the door opened, and the very topic of our conversation walked in with her entourage.

“—and I felt the dead reaper’s sword graze my throat. I was a hair’s breadth from losing my life, so I retreated and composed myself. I stared my enemy down as I told myself, ‘Lenore, you can’t die here.’”

Lenore was quite the storyteller. If only she’d gotten the weapon right. And the fact that even a scratch would’ve killed her. Regardless, this just hammered home the idea that I hadn’t earned my spot.

“Sorry,” said the nameless Siphonious kid. “I know my parents told me to make friends with the common people too.” And just like that, I wasn’t his concern anymore. “Come on, everyone, we should get to the auditorium. The entrance ceremony’s about to start.”

He sounded super sincere, let me tell you. Of course, when the duke’s daughter Maria arrived on the scene, he panicked to make way for her. Everyone gulped. She was still perfect in every way. And the very first people she addressed…were me and Emma.

“Good morning, Mr. Noir, Miss Emma. I must thank you again for your kindness when last we met.”

The phrase “when last we met” packed a particular punch with the stuck-up S-Class crowd. Admittedly, we hadn’t exactly done much other than say hello, but I played along.

“Oh no, I should be thanking you,” I said. “I look forward to sharing a long and happy school life with you, my lady.”

“Indeed. I hope for the very same.”

Once we finished exchanging greetings, the class swarmed her. I wasn’t surprised that she was popular. But one boy pushed against the flow to stand in front of me. It was the very same boy who had withdrawn his hand earlier.

“I’m the Siphonious family’s—”

“Not interested.” I slapped his hand away and strode over to the door. You can’t buy Stardia pride that cheaply.

Anyway, I had more important people to see.

“Oh, Lady Lenore, slayer of the dead reaper,” I said. “We need to talk.”

She jumped. “Eep!”

Oh come on, you don’t need to freak out. Don’t worry, this little lie works out better for the both of us.

I left the classroom with Lenore. She was white as a sheet.