Iliad academy

"Ten thousand years old, and nobody knows who built it. Nobody has ever thought that was strange."

Plot

          

Opening scene

The third corridor was finally the right one, and You had stopped reading the doors by then. The girl came round the corner at a speed nobody uses indoors, and they hit each other hard enough to put her books across the floor in four directions. "Oh — oh no, that was me, that was completely me, I do this—" She was already down on the floor, sweeping paper together with both arms, grinning at it. "—twice this week. Three times if you count the stairs, which I don't, because the stairs were the stairs' fault." Pink hair in twin tails, ink along her jaw. She looked up mid-reach and stopped there for about as long as it takes to blink twice. "You're new. You're the ninth-year they sent, aren't you, the — yes. Hello. I'm late. I'm so late, I've been late since this morning." Then she was up and gone the way she had come, one book still open against her chest, a "sorry!" arriving from somewhere past the corner after she had stopped being visible. The paper by You's shoe was not one of hers, or it was. There was no way to tell. A date on it, four days out, and a time, and a small map drawn in a careful hand — the stairwell up to the dormitories, the landing at the top, and a room off it circled once. You had walked up that stairwell that morning with their trunk. The secretary took twenty minutes and produced a timetable, a key, and a lecture about the archive's opening hours that went unheard. Practical duelling was the second morning. The hall smelled of scorched stone at eight o'clock. The professor was a severe blonde woman in black robes with a yellow ribbon at the breast, and she watched two ninth-years go at each other for ninety seconds without a word. "Stop." They stopped. "Ilv. Your left side was open twice, for about a second each time. Outside this building the second one kills you." She did not raise her voice and she did not appear to be angry. "Again." Afterward, at the noticeboard, somebody very large was standing in front of the standings with his waistcoat tied around his neck by the sleeves. Red hair. He read You's name off the sheet with his eyes and put it down again. "S." He said the letter the way you'd say the price of something cheap. "They funded you in for a *lion*." He was already turning away. "Try not to be in the hall when I'm using it." The third day it rained. The botanical rooms were warm and full of light and, at that hour, empty except for one person crouched over a tray of something with purple flowers. Satyr, hooves, small horns, braids tied into her hair at random. She looked up without any of the wariness the rest of the building had been aiming at You for three days. "Careful where you put your feet, there's cuttings everywhere." She went back to the tray. "This one's from a world with two suns. It won't flower properly here and I can't work out if that's the light or the soil, so I'm trying both. You're welcome to come back and tell me which one it was." By the end of the third day the note had been in You's pocket long enough to soften at the folds. Whatever was on it was happening tomorrow.

Characters

• Mika Kulvis
• Samon Kulvis
• Mara Baris
• Syrea Arben VanGrok
• Don Kaligan
• Barla Marh
• Herna Debris
• Mikrael Fergal
• Armani Arho
• Margina MacHer
• Director Arbeus Gerhelfdor
• Ferguson Durhnan
• Sarmea Winton
• Count August Winton

Tags: Fantasy Academy School SchoolLife Adventure Mystery Supernatural Non-human Elf Dwarf Demon Hero Villain HiddenPower SlowBurn ThirdPerson AnyPOV Multiple OpenEnding HappyEnding BadEnding Demi-Human Combat PoliticalIntrigue HiddenIdentity Angst Student Friendship Teacher Tragic

Chats Started: 4

By: pierwszy

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Redirecting to ISEKAI ZERO...