That dirty, scheming, mischievous old bastard. He waited just long enough for us to be settled before springing the news on us.

  We had to go get signed up for all of our courses now. Apparently, there was a small window of opportunity before all the good ones were taken, and we were left with whatever was left over. Like the last, sad, jerky-tough sirloin steak at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

  Screw that.

  Sylvia, Liora, Azarus, Renauld, and I were practically tripping over ourselves as we sprinted toward the Main Hall, where registration was meant to be happening. None of us were even wearing our shiny new uniforms-

  (Which I doubt Sylvia even had yet.)

  -but we did have our pins. Grey had tossed one to his daughter as we raced out the door, chased by his and Honoka's chuckles. I was a bit relieved to see that all of us were considered Journeymen and women, which meant we might just be in some similar classes.

  But I didn’t have much more time for thoughts like that. I barely remembered to throw out a thought to an amused Fade to watch over Aveline again before I left.

  I could hear them before I could see them.

  The student body of the Academy had turned out in force with the news that classes were reopening. The result was that a massive crowd of grey cloaked men and women of all different sizes, races, and even ages had gathered in the plaza before the Main Hall. Seas of them, in fact. There had to be hundreds of different students on the side we had arrived at alone. The result was a loud, droning roar of voices that filled the air.

  And all of them were screaming at each other. If I didn’t know any better, the process of signing up for classes was a damned auction. From where I stood, I could see that a large platform had been erected in front of the Main Hall on which a dozen different Academy staff members stood. Each of them was holding a sort of primitive megaphone, essentially a sheet of metal beaten into the shape of a cone, and shouting out into the crowd. All of the students were crushed up against the stage and waving a hand frantically in the air, very obviously holding up their badges for the staff to see. Those who weren’t at the front were fighting to get there.

  And I do mean fighting. That mass of students was going wild trying to reach the front. Fists were flying every which way, sometimes deliberately, sometimes just because someone else was in the way. It was almost like a bar brawl; it was so brutal in there.

  Every once in a while, one of the staff members would point out towards one of the wilding waving students, and a different staff member would pick them out of the crowd. Sometimes that meant they would be escorted out of the press, sometimes that meant the apparent bouncer would bodily pick up the student and bound out of the crowd with the hapless student over their shoulder.

  Sometimes, in one particularly absurd example, that meant a staff member would gesture with one hand and yank them out of the press telekinetically.

  That one screamed especially loudly.

  I blinked long and slow at the sight. “This…” I said slowly, just barely loud enough that I could even hear myself. “Can’t possibly be efficient.”

  Sylvia was standing just to my left as we all stared into the chaos, and must have heard me. “I’m given to understand,” She muttered to me. “That it is a tradition.”

  “Traditionally dumb,” I heard Azarus groan behind us.

  I…didn’t disagree.

  Liora just sighed to my right.

  Renauld, as the only person among us who had actually gone through this process, first cracked his neck back and forth. Then, he slowly popped his furry knuckles one by one. “Alright,” He started, in an eager smile on his furry lips. “No Arts, no Spells, no Skills. No hitting below the waist, and no goin’ for the eyes. No claws, either,” He said to a deadpan Liora with a grin. “Remember that, and you’ll do fine.”

  “Wait a second, wha-”

  That was all I had time to get out before Renauld outright dove into the melee. In seconds, my Gnollish Healer friend had disappeared from sight.

  Still, I could hear his yowling hoots of glee over the screaming of the student body.

  I blinked slowly at the out-of-character behavior from Renauld. While I was still processing the odd sequence of events, Azarus stalked in front of me, loosening his broad shoulders as he did. “Ain’t gonna let the damn Healer show me up,” He said grimly, before lowering his head like bull.

  And then charging like one, too.

  “COME GET SOME!” I heard Azarus roar, before he, too, was swallowed by the crowd.

  Then it was just me, Sylvia, and-

  Wait a damn second.

  Liora was gone. My other Gnollish friend had literally disappeared into thin air while I wasn’t looking, in a mirror of the vanishing acts she used to pull on me all the time when we were Nocturnes.

  Sylvia and I just looked at each other for a moment before the absurdity of the situation set in. I couldn’t help but laugh, and Sylvia followed suit. “I guess we have no choice,” I said, shaking my head. I bowed slightly to Sylvia, sweeping out one arm towards the crowd as I did so. “Shall we?”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “We shall,” Sylvia replied, nodding regally. A familiar, mischievous smile crossed her lips then, something I was incredibly glad to see once more. “Just as we were trained to.”

  My smile widened as I realized what that meant, and the two of us charged into the crowd.

  Side by side.

  ………………………….

  It was…hard to keep track of the melee through the crowd. The entire slog, back to back with Sylvia through the fervor of the press, was incredibly chaotic. People weren’t necessarily trying to start fights as they pushed forward, but nobody was exactly afraid to use their fists, or elbows, or feet, or even their knees to push people out of the way. Hell, I even saw a few people repeatedly headbutting their way through the masses of students. It was a constant back and forth, punctuated by scrapes, bruises, and bloodied noses.

  And yet, I could tell there wasn’t any malice in the entire thing. Nobody was mad about the frantic rush to register for classes. On the contrary, there was an almost celebratory mood in the air, and what I had previously mistaken for screams were at least half cheers. There was a feeling of relief threading its way through the student body, of letting loose after a long stretch of anxiety. People were almost happy to be nearly brawling.

  I think… I got it.

  With the election of Wenzel to the post of Regent and the resumption of classes, people were relieved. Life was returning to a state of normalcy for them. They could get back to their daily routine without living in fear that any day now, the war might just kick back off once again.

  Or I could just be talking out of my ass, and this was just what the registration for classes was always like. What did I know? I was new here.

  Man, but the Academy wasn’t like how I had been expecting it to be.

  This was such a pain in the ass. I don’t think I’d ever fought so much hand-to-hand in my entire time on Vereden.

  By the time Sylvia and I had reached the front of the crowd to wave our pins in the air with the dozens of others around us, I’d taken my fair share of blows. I could feel my nose bleeding, and I was pretty sure I was going to look like a panda for the next day, with my developing double black eyes.

  Joy.

  Luckily, I think the staff members might just have been instructed to keep an eye out for Sylvia and I. Over the yelling and cheering of the crowd, I couldn’t make out what the staff member was saying, but I was sure able to see him pointing at the two of us and screaming something.

  Next thing I knew, I was being abruptly lifted straight out of the crowd by what felt like a hand the size of Rhazal’s. Below me, I could see as an incredibly tall, incredibly buff woman wearing an Academy staff pin appeared next to a startled Sylvia and gently begin herding the Sculpted woman out of the crowd. I floated wide-eyed and a bit jealous in midair for a moment, spurred on by boos and moans from the disappointed crowd, before I was jerked forward. I was barely able to find my feet under me behind the stage before I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder.

  “Wonderful to meet you and all that rot, Mr. Hart,” A harried male voice said. “But we’re a bit behind schedule, so if you’ll just come this way.”

  I didn’t even get the chance to look up before I suddenly had someone pushing me forward from behind. I had no idea who was even forcibly guiding me through the much thinner, almost palpably smug crowd of waiting students back here. It seemed like I got to skip the line, though, as I was directed through the wide-open doors of the Main Hall.

  A low roar filled the inside air of the building as I got my first look at the inside. While the fa?ade had appeared to be a form of white brick, the inside floors were a tasteful black and white marble, with dark wood paneling on the walls. Even more people were milling about inside, the lines out of the door stretching to several different open doors on each side of the wide hallway. As I passed, or more like pushed pas, one of the doorways, I was able to catch a brief glimpse of Azarus sitting in a chair before a desk, behind which I could see a mildly familiar figure. I think it was that guy Honoka had dueled? Ken-something.

  And then I was all but shoved through the doorway of an open interview room, and unlike all the rest, the staff member pushing me closed the door behind us. I staggered over to the free chair in here with my ears still ringing from the noisy chaos outside these four short walls, and slumped into it. I shook my head to get my bearings and then looked up to finally get a glimpse of the staff member who had herded me in here.

  It was…an interesting first impression.

  Physically, I would peg the man at being around his late thirties to early forties, but with Statuses, who knew how old he really was? I think he was around my height or perhaps a little shorter, with light brown hair flecked with steel grey, slicked back to display his faintly wrinkled forehead. Tanned from what looked to be long hours in the sun, he had thin-framed, rectangular wire glasses perched on his broad nose…

  And was throwing back a swig from a clear glass bottle, in which I could see a very dark liquid sloshing about. I blinked slowly at the incongruous sight, unable to stop an amused smile from creeping over my lips.

  I may not have been able to attend college back on Earth, but there were stereotypes about Professors back there. I see some things were just universal.

  The man finally finished with his…large gulp of booze, and finally lowered his bottle to take a loud gasp of air. He looked up and opened his chocolate brown eyes to meet my own. At my visible amusement, he laughed a bit sheepishly. “Dreadful tradition, really,” He said, a mildly posh accent showing through in his voice. “I dread registration day each year. Would you…like some, Mr. Hart?”

  As the man extended the bottle my way, I shrugged and accepted it.

  When in Rome, and all that.

  “To a new school year,” I said wryly, raising the bottle in salute to the man. As he laughed, I took a swig myself, only to nearly choke on the familiar taste.

  That was pirate grog. After all the time I’d spent on the Thorny Reef, I would recognize that burn anywhere.

  I cast a suspicious eye at the staff member sitting across the desk from me. He just laughed. “The Headmaster distributes it,” He chuckled. “A little taste from his less law-abiding days, shall we say. But where are my manners?” The man reached across the desk with an open palm and a smile. “Professor Liam Altaburry. I teach history and Illusion magic here at the Academy.”

  I was a bit surprised when the Professor grabbed my hand instead of my forearm when I extended it, in a more familiar way to my Terran sensibilities. But I just rolled with it. “Nathan Hart. Nice to meet you, Professor."

  “And a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Hart,” Altaburry nodded at me. “Now, onto business. You’re here to register for classes like the rest, and I’m sorry to say that even if you are the Headmaster's Apprentice, you shall get no special treatment in selections from me.”

  At his mildly stern look, I cocked my head at him in confusion. “I, uh…I wasn’t expecting any?”

  Altaburry blinked. “Ah. Well…good.” He reached down and opened a drawer on the desk, pulling out a large leather-bound tome of a book. It audibly thumped as he set it on the desk. Cracking it open, the Professor rapidly flipped through the pages, and when he was done, I was a bit startled to see that the text on the parchment appeared to be animated. There were long lists of what seemed to be classes, judging by the names, and each one had a counter that was changing in real time, the ink shifting before my eyes. Altaburry smiled at me.

  “Now, let’s get started, shall we?”