RYN'S POV
The very moment I stepped out of Professor Orin's lecture hall, classroom, or whatever it was. I knew I wasn't going straight back to the dorms.
Some part of that was instinct.
Another part was probably due to Kael.
Or rather, the fact that Kael somehow keeps getting dragged into things.
Things I couldn't explain.
That idiot has only been at the Academy for what? A few weeks? Maybe a bit more if you factor in all the entrance exam stuff we had to do and the chaos in the medical room after the maze.
Yet, somehow, someway, that dumbass was able to do the impossibly stupid feat of becoming interesting to not just one, but two Heirs of one of the Ten Great Houses, half of the first-year cohort, and now apparently a scarred faculty member with the aura of someone who could break a person in half just by their stare.
It was getting ridiculous.
Not even the funny or entertaining kind of ridiculous.
It was the annoying kind.
We're both commoners.
Both from the Basin.
But somehow... somehow he's pulling so far ahead.
I continued to walk down the corridor, my hands shoved well deep into my pockets. The pace of my steps was aimless at first, but quicker than normal. There were students all around me, all in familiar patterns at this point. Noble in clusters as if they had an affinity for finding one another, commoners were more scattered; most of them were talking with each other now, but some were still scared to speak up.
It was interesting to see a mix of students, nobles, and commoners who didn't seem to care who they had just left the classroom with and were now engaging in conversation with.
I don't think I could get used to seeing that.
No. I don't think I could trust myself if I ever got used to it.
Nobles and commoners don't mix.
Ever.
'Whatever, it's not my problem to think about, and Kael can handle himself... usually.'
'Probably.'
'Hopefully.'
I slightly grimaced as I tried to convince myself of my own thoughts.
The issue wasn't that I thought Professor Orin would do something awful to him. Not exactly. It was more that Kael had this way of stepping sideways into situations that no one else seemed to notice until he was already halfway inside them.
And once he was in, it always became something problematic.
A hidden exam.
A duel with a noble heir.
A mysterious collapsing body that walked itself out at the end of the maze exam.
A weird library event.
Some conversation with Elya Veyrannis.
Now this.
It was as if the Academy kept noticing Kael and deciding, "Ah, yes, that peculiar, weird one. Why don't we make his life a little stranger?"
'Must be nice to be cosmically selected by the universe, I guess.'
I thought I would be more bitter, jealous even.
But I wasn't.
Well, at least not fully.
It mostly made me feel something I didn't particularly enjoy feeling. This odd sense of nervousness, but alienness at the same time.
Kael was strange.
He had always been strange, especially since the first day I met him.
Back in the Basin, before any of this Academy madness, there'd been something wrong with the way he looked at the world. Ok, maybe not wrong, but different, and not in a bad sense, at least... I don't think so.
Since I've known Kael, he's always looked like he's trying to solve the mysteries of the universe with just his mind, which is ridiculous because... because— well, because he's supposed to be like me.
A teenager.
A kid.
A first-year Aetherion Academy student who has only just started getting a taste of what power is.
Yet... he's going above and beyond, as if there's no limit to what he believes he can achieve.
And if that's the case.
Then... what does that make me?
What of my resolve?
'Did I get scared of being noticed by this place?'
Places like these could categorise you as useful.
Or dangerous.
And sometimes they couldn't tell the difference until it was too late.
Something I knew too well.
I turned down one of the wide corridors leading away from the main academic wing and let out a deep breath through my nose.
Maybe that was why I didn't want to go back to the dorms yet.
Because if I sat there and waited, all I'd do was think.
About Kael.
About Professor Orin.
About Taron.
About the fact that all of them seemed to be moving in circles that I wasn't entirely inside of.
That thought annoyed me enough to make me walk faster, but this time the annoyance was visible on my face, attracting some awkward glances from students around me that I walked past.
By the time I reached the lower training quarter, the polished Academy had quieted and given way to a different kind of atmosphere. More open. More worn in. Less elegant.
Still Aetherion, obviously. This place couldn't stop looking expensive for more than five seconds. But the commoner training spaces were at least honest about what they were for.
The floor was reinforced with dark stone instead of polished pale marble. The walls were lined with old impact scarring and patched suppression arrays. The target dummies were less decorative and more "this has been repaired too many times to be pretty anymore." There was a smell of dust, sweat, metal, and faint ooze in the air, the sort of scent that only happened when enough students had spent enough time throwing unstable magic at each other.
This was better.
Much better.
This was the kind of place that made sense.
There were already a few students around, mostly commoners; a couple of them looked like they were doing basic casting drills at the edge of the training hall, but most of them were finished and wrapping things up.
Although there was someone further down who was repeatedly failing to lift a stone disk with Terra magic, they looked increasingly offended by the disk's lack of cooperation.
That sight certainly made me laugh, even if it was a little.
Then I spotted Randel.
He was near one of the central practice circles with three other students I couldn't recognise, and for a second, I just stopped and watched.
Not because I was trying to be weird about it.
But because I'd never seen him like that before.
Not like this.
When I first met him in the maze, he'd looked like someone who had forgotten what it felt like to stand without waiting for the next hit. Since then, he'd gotten better. Calmer. Less jumpy. More himself, or at least what I assume "himself" would be.
But this... this was different.
He was actually training with people.
Talking with them.
Moving with a kind of awkward but real familiarity that looked surprisingly natural on him.
It made something in me settle.
Without thinking too much about it, I raised a hand and called out, "Yo, Randel! What's up?"
Randel turned immediately.
His face brightened in that quiet, surprised way of his, and he lowered his hands from the defensive posture he'd been holding.
"Ryn!"
One of the others stepped back while Randel walked over, rubbing at the back of his neck like he'd been caught doing something faintly embarrassing.
"Didn't expect to see you here," he said.
"Yeah, well. I had too many thoughts, so I thought I would come somewhere I could punch them out of my head."
Randel gave me that jokingly discerning look that said he had no idea whether I was joking or not.
I was.
Mostly.
Randel's eyes flicked towards the exit side of the hall behind me.
"Huh? Kael not with you?"
"He was," I said. "Then a professor dragged him away for a private conversation, and I decided that if I waited outside like some kind of anxious muppet, I'd have to kill myself from the shame."
"..."
Randel blinked.
Then, after a second, he let out a small laugh.
'Phew. Good, the joke did land.' I thought while making my thoughts visible on my face.
"That wasn't a good joke," Randel mumbled.
"Hm? What was that?" I said.
"Nothing," Randel replied sharply.
"So, who are they?" I asked while nodding to the other two students behind him.
"Ah!" Randel glanced back and waved the two people behind him to come over.