ALRIGHTY-O I SAID I WAS GONNA DELAY THE NEXT CHAPTER
BUT I JUST REALISED THAT I SUCK AT STUDYING AND ILL JUST KEEP PROCRASTINATING LIKE THE DAMN QUEEN I AM
typing random shit has become my stress reliever,, so before i knew it the next chapter has finished??
so like,
last night i was all set-up to study some damn pigeonhole principle stuff and all that jazz before i found out that WOW
— IM TOO LAZY?
its a miracle how well im doing in terms of academics lol
and i dont study at midnight cuz pow pow beauty sleep— oh sorry, beauty insomnia pops up and i start planning for the next chapter in my mind.
that being said, i wont delay it any further since i actually bothered to stay up and make myself a chapter summary for the upcoming chapters!!!!
this was the first time that i actually made myself chapter summaries so ik where im going and im not just dragging something out without noticing it
if im not wrong, chapter 19 will be the last so 7 chapters to go :)
***
Mira held in her laugh during history class the day before the Magical Shift tournament.
No, it wasn't because the teacher was talking whack about something.
No, it wasn't because she was doodling and found out that her creation was a hilarious masterpiece.
It was because three Savanaclaw members in front of her seat had twitched their ears at the same time.
"A-Amir-san, are you okay?" Yuu asked in concern as her upperclassman clutched her stomach and smashed her head on the wooden desk multiple times, catching the attention of many members of her class. Of course, her unnatural behaviour didn't go unnoticed by Mozus Trein. Receiving a slight glare multiplied by two, Lucius also giving her the same look, Mira shrunk from her seat and puffed her cheeks in silence. Clearly, it wasn't her fault for finding something as hilarious as this; but she had her limits to how she could hold her laughs in.
Right.
In front of her were none other than Ruggie, Leona and Jack.
Despite the peculiar grouping of the classes and seating arrangements, Mira had recognised that there was a suffocating atmosphere between the three. It was as if Jack was a separate entity compared to the other two; she knew it was because of the upcoming Magical Shift tournament that decided their victory or loss. From the way that he spoke when Mira had first met Jack, she somewhat recognised the sudden respect he had for the third-year. Nonetheless, the strong thunderbolts erupting in between the two had caused her to remove all of her laughter prior to the ear twitching situation.
With this going on, I'm sure that it'll get worse once we unleash our plan tomorrow..I hope things go well after work.
Her ambers widened when she saw the first-year lift his hand to her direction, turning around in a slightly guilty expression, lowering his voice to not get caught by the teacher. "Amir-senpai, can I borrow your eraser? I might have left mine somewhere in my room..."
How childish. Just because you're in a bad relationship with the person next to you right now doesn't mean you cancel requesting them for a mere eraser. Gaah, that being said...it's not like I understand much about human emotions.
I've never felt such an idiotic feeling before and I never will.
"Sure," she casually whispered as she grabbed her eraser using her left arm, dropping it on his palm before he whisked back around to write down his notes. An idea that was both cruel and blasphemous popped into her mind due to her boredom of not being able to take notes unless she had trained her left hand to do everything for her. Closing an eye and pouting in an act of pity, she wiped off a fake tear with her left index finger as she sniffed. "I can't write anything anyway...sniff sniff, what a shame."
Twitch.
Twitch.
An amused snicker spread on the girl's lips from behind as she saw the two pairs of ears from the vice and head dorm leaders of Savanaclaw, thinking that they were the cause for her injury. As much as she knew about their determination to win, she could make out the irritated expressions on especially Ruggie's face. Them being good friends had backslashed the severity of the initial plan that the dorm had set out in order to injure most of the Magift players of this year; reducing the rate of injuries by a decent number.
Of course, Jack, Grim and Yuu had understood her true intention of acting like a victim; mentally reminding themselves about how superior she was in terms of her emotional but poisonous strength.
Grim rolled his eyes as he rested on Yuu's head, staring at Mira in utter disappointment. "It's amazing to see how far he goes with his acts..."
Yuu flashed Mira a look before recalling a question she was meant to ask ever since she had transferred to the academy. She leaned in and cupped the side of her mouth with a single hand, causing the seaweed-haired girl slightly incline from the hard seat that joined with everyone in the row. "That reminds me, Amir-san, why do you always cast some sort of magic on me every single morning ever since after my arrival?"
Mira eyed the teacher just in case he had caught them speaking, to her relief that he didn't; before back beside her in a bored and lifeless expression. "I'll talk about that later. This isn't really the right environment—"
"I expect you all to be ready by exam period, understood? Your rankings for the quiz from last week have been submitted on the board. Do check as you walk by." Mozus suddenly called with a loud voice, shaking the poor female back to her straightened posture. Feeling like the sudden increase of his volume was because of her, she flashed an innocent smile as her arm tapped on her textbook.
IS IT JUST ME OR AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO GETS CALLED OUT FOR SPEAKING?
IS YUU JUST A PROFESSIONAL AT THIS?
Despite being decent at history and easily aiming for at least top 10 in the rankings, she wished that she could beat the Octavinelle members that had always settled themselves on the top row. In fact, the academy had been so used to seeing Octavinelle members on the list that they had called the first non-Octavinelle member as rank one instead.
Now that I recall...rank one should be me, right?
Uwaowie, look at me being Little Miss Cocky.
Her head perked up when she heard the familiar chime of the school bell, a dense bang that almost broke the many speakers on each wall of a room. Like other students, she jumped off her seat that joined the entire row in order to check their rankings for the exam. Of course, not many had gone to find their names like the more serious students did; making it easier for her to find her name instead of suffering from the towering heights of students.
"Yuu, did you find your name yet?" Mira quickly asked, noticing that Yuu was slightly shorter than her by a few centimetres. The girl pursed her lips and nervously sighed, not finding her name so far.
"Not yet...I guess this means I didn't do as well as I thought."
"C'mon, it's your first history quiz — you should be fine," Mira reassured despite feeling half-hearted about it; she knew that cheering people up for exam conditions and scores were nothing but pointless in her perspective. Not only was she heartless when hunting for the rankings, but she had also studied quite a lot by herself in her room in order to not disappoint her expectations.
If I can estimate my score...I hope it's nothing under a 97 percent — but life is cruel, so it might be otherwise. I mean, the worst I can get is a 95...right? Considering many Octavinelle members are going to get that as their average...oh Hell no, a 90 would get me down to a shitty rank of around 50!
Everyone in that dorm are absolute nerds!
"For me..." Mira hummed as she tried to find her name on the top row. "Ah! I'm third! 100%~! Octavinelle who? I've only heard of the Ramshackle dorm!"
As she stayed on her tip-toes puffing her chest out in childish triumph, she found a student beside her push her from her current stance, causing her to almost topple over her own foot. Eyes widening before shutting closed, she expected a shock of pain to rush to one side of the shoulder that should have hit the ground.
Should have.
Opening her eyes in apprehensiveness, ambers met with grey full of worry, before unconsciously shifting her vision to his soft ears that she had glanced at 'n'-times during the history lesson. "Finding yer name on the board doesn't mean you can space out after!"
In an instant, she felt blood rushing to her neck almost making way to her face. Mira, a girl full of pride, refused to let anyone see her out of character; quickly jerking forward to her feet once again and taking a deep breath. Once the stuffy feeling had been removed from her body, she glanced up again in a more comfortable look.
"Sorry 'bout that Ruggie," she casually replied in a goofy grin. The female then lifted her head to study the rankings once again. "Did you find your name?"
"Yeah, I'm ranked like...12?" He said despite sounding unsure. Mira found herself furrowing her eyebrows at the rankings. How did he not sound sure about finding his score? It wasn't like he forgot about his name or anything, so she clarified by herself by searching for the two words 'Ruggie' and 'Bucchi' on the rows. She blinked, finding that he was ranked 12th as he said so with a score of 98, humming in understanding.
"Smartie."
"Says you, history sweat. Ah, don't forget that we have work after classes are over — Azul-kun gets suuuuper irritated when people forget and sleep somewhere instead."
"Heeeh? Seeing as you're so close to Azul, why not exchange to Octavinelle instead? I'm sure you can be a 'history sweat' like me if you try."
"Naaah, I have considered that — but I'm sure Savanaclaw's best for me! Anyway, it's a hyena's job to be serving the lion."
And let's not forget that you wanna be a big shot for Magift recruiters.
An irk mark popped on her head before she was going to retort about the damn Lion King myth, yet paused when she saw a sleepy lion slouching his back beside Ruggie. Curious, she whipped her head to the dorm leader of Savanaclaw and gave him a snicker full of mockery. "How did NRC sixth-grader go?"
Ruggie covered his mouth to refuse the bubbling laughter stuffing his throat. "Pfft, NRC sixth-grader—"
"Shut up you two, I'll kill you—!" Leona growled in a tired manner. "Who cares about a single exam?"
"Wow, that's even worse than ranking last," Mira gasped as if she were in a drama. She had a knack for acting as dramatic as possible and out of all the flavours in the world, Mira had chose salty. "That's right~? You've seen this topic too many times ever since you were a freshman, right~? I guess it can't be helped~!"
"That's it—"
"Woah, woah, Leona-san! Calm down, he's just joking!" Ruggie lunged forward to stop his dorm leader from throwing an attack at the second-year as she stood there, snickering in amusement. Mira found them surprisingly dorky compared to her first impression of the 'wild' dormitory, expecting them to be all cool but somewhat mad simultaneously.
—And somehow, she had a bad feeling about tomorrow.
"Tch, I'm leaving, let's go Ruggie," Leona turned his head as his brown locks fluttered behind him, somewhat irritated to have to attend lessons because the vice dorm leader had forced him to. Ruggie, who slowly walked backwards to still fill Mira in his vision, waved his arm widely.
"I guess I'll see ya at work, Amir-kun!"
"Yeah, see you there," she returned the wave as the two disappeared to the other side of the hallway. She then whisked around to see Yuu's confused figure as she embraced Grim to her arms.
"You two are really close," Yuu straightforwardly mumbled just loud enough for the second-year to hear. "It would've been nice if you two were in the same dorm."
"Aha, same dorm?" Mira repeated in sarcasm. "Funny, I'm sure things are fine as it is. Imagine having to survive with a zipper behind your ass just 'cause you have a tail diddly daddling around."
Yuu sweatdropped and nodded. "I guess so."
They both picked up their walking pace to find a private area to discuss the question Yuu had asked during class, an uneasy feeling clogging Mira's throat as she caught a bad feeling in her stomach. Despite wanting to use her unique magic to figure out what it was; it was exchanged for the files that she had asked for in regards to the Octavinelle. They both had the exact same lunch, mostly because they both cooked the food together; munching on the handmade sandwiches as they made their way out of the building.
"I don't think people go to the botanic garden during lunch, so how about we discuss it there?" Mira confirmed with the first-year who returned the idea with a nod. Yuu placed the still-snoozing Grim on her head instead of her arms as they made their way to the botanic garden.
If only the botanic garden was empty, though.
"First of all," Mira began as she crossed her legs, cursing at the tense atmosphere between the two isekai-ed humans. "The magic I used wipes off your scent."
"S-Scent!? Holy — am I stinky!?"
"No-no-no, that's not it. It's quite faint, but females have different scents than males. Since the people in this world aren't all 100% humans, some — mostly Savanaclaw members and it depends if it's Octavinelle (I learnt Octavinelle the hard way and I can barely recall it), but they can easily sniff you out and get you busted."
"W-What? But you didn't cast it on me until a few days after."
"That's what's worrying," Mira muttered. "I can't guarantee some people already know of your gender...but things haven't stirred up yet — so it isn't too late."
Yuu glanced at Mira with concern. "Hold on, if you're using the same magic on you and me; wouldn't that mean you're two times tired than a usual wizard would be when they activate some sort of magic on themselves? If I can remember from one of the magic analysis notes...it takes people up to five years to learn how to use such skilled magic."
"That's undeniably true...it did take me quite the number of years...but not five."
"How?"
"Diasomnia members are known for their strength in magic. It's like how Savanaclaw is good with sports, Octavinelle for studies — you get what I mean."
Yuu widened her chocolate-brown eyes and clapped her hands together in satisfaction. "I see—! Mira-san, you're amazing!"
"H-Hweh!? N-No, I don't need such praise," Mira stuttered as she lifted her left arm up to stop the sparkles around Yuu from comically bouncing from all over the place. "As long as you're not being exposed — then it should be fine. AH, now that I realise it...I need to go and meet with Cater right after work in regards to Riddle. You're really close with Heartslabyul, right?"
"I-I guess you can say so..."
"Then remind him. The worst case is that he forgets and starts to MagiCam people on the campus — ugh, I shiver whenever I think about it."
Yuu gave her a lopsided smile as she made her way to the exit of the botanic garden. "Then I'll go and do that."
"Oh, wait, I need to switch off the magic for you if you're going to Heartslabyul's dorm — the radius of the magic won't reach you," she said before clicking her two fingers. In an instant, the glow around Yuu's body dissipated despite changing anything about her in terms of physical appearance. "That should be fine then. Quickly go before any dangerous member of a dorm finds you."
"Y-Yes, Ma'am!"
Yuu quickly scurried out of the glass-sheltered building as Mira gave an exasperated sigh. Glancing at the many mushrooms that were tended on the bench labelled in familiar handwriting. She wasn't able to pinpoint where she had seen the same neat handwriting before, yet she found it oddly painful to look at.
Talking about mushrooms...Jade seems like the type to tend these — not that I know much about him, though. If anything, he seems to know a lot about me.
Hmmm...how bad did my memory get?
This one looks like the one that miraculously grew like Sequoia sempervirens at the front of my dorm...but when did it get there in the first place? I'm sure that the mushroom in front of my dorm didn't appear until much later last year.
Just what exactly happened?
Before she was able to make her way towards the mushrooms to get a better look of one of them that seemed like something she had seen in Jade's book of collections, the monotone bell had struck her ears in surprise; causing her to turn to the speakers and put up a rude finger. Regretting the fact that she was right beside the speaker on the wall, she snapped her fingers to activate the magic on herself once again; also hoping that as Yuu came back from her errand did she also receive the same treatment of the magic. Rushing out of the botanic garden in order to find her next classroom, what she didn't notice was that she was in the lion's den the entire time.
Eyelids fluttered open revealing emeralds, the enemy awakened from his slumber. He found his nose still alarmed by the change of smell as he rose from a wooden bench, the shade of sunrise on his vest highlighting his dormitory.
Staring at the exit of the botanic garden, he found himself squinting his eyes in confusion.
"A woman or a man...which is it?"
🌻
How...did it turn up like this?
Mira glanced at the four eccentric students of the Diasomnia dormitory, confused to how the mirror had allocated her to be one of them. Instead of dealing with the loud first-year, the sleepy second-year and the two too-old-to-be-third-years third-years, her eyes rested on the emerald flames dimly lit on each wax candle on the wooden coffee tables, the charcoal black long sofas over the patterned tortilla-dyed carpets. Tracing up to the two stairs on each side of the extremity, all she could notice were the same wax candles resting on the unpolished golden candelabra.
Before she was able to notice the bright violet light gleaming from the boundary, her curiosity had paused as she felt hands rest on her two shoulders. Looking up to meet the cat-like magenta orbs, Mira gave a lopsided smile in return. "Lilia?"
"Oh dear, it seems we've gotten caught into another dispute," he curled his lips in a reassuring smile, his hands still tapping on her shoulders from behind the couch she was resting on. Her hand held a ceramic cup of herbal tea as the two glanced at Malleus' excited yet expressionless face; Sebek's loud-ass shouts to wake Silver up as the latter breathed out some Z's. "This happens every now and then, so rest assured."
"I-I see," she managed to mutter before finding nothing else to do but sip on the tea. Her eyes glistened in a compliment from the bitter and warm taste, then placing the cup down on the glossy wooden coffee table. "I came here in regards to Heartslabyul's dorm leader, Riddle Rosehearts — but unfortunately he isn't here to tag along for his proposal, so I've come in his stead...."
Malleus then turned to the freshman who was the cause of Mira's disorganised manner. "Stay quiet and let him speak."
"Y-Yes, Young Master!" Sebek stiffened before involuntarily standing up straight, his voice still has loud as ever. He took his hands off Silver's dorm uniform collar after his little lecture to not fall asleep in front of Lilia and Malleus; and of course, the guest.
That said...Cater promised me he'd be here in a second — but just where did he go?
Right when she was about to open her mouth to speak, the five were interrupted by the knocking of the entrance. Knowing that it was Cater, she hopped from the sofa and made her way to open the doors agape. "Where were you? We're about to start discussing the plan."
"Sorry, sorry~! I was discussing things with Jack-kun," he apologised despite his voice not sounding like it. Lilia then guided him to the lounge before preparing another cup of tea, placing it in front of him as Cater thanked him. "At first we were discussing using the documents you've gotten from Octavinelle, but the topic then moved from that to cacti."
"Cacti!? Does he like them?" She asked, hands slamming on the table in sudden enthusiasm. She blinked before realising the attention that she had suddenly stirred, slouching back on the sofa and apologising. "S-Sorry — I overreacted."
"It's all okeey~ Yuu-chan and Grim-chan told me about your love for succulents, it's no surprise that you'd act like that!" Cater comforted before looking at the Diasomnia students. "We're discussing what we're gonna do on the day, right?"
"That's right," Lilia confirmed before ushering the Diasomnia crew to all sit down. "It seems that Savanaclaw has a plan to take us down tomorrow."
Mira took out a creamy folder. "This is what I got from Octavinelle. It shows what Savanaclaw had exchanged with them; a potion that seems to last for a few seconds that enhances the use of one's unique magic. From what I predict, the vice dorm member will use his unique magic in order to create a stampede of people rushing to a single direction to injure many members on the campus during the festival."
"How heartless! Imagine if the Younger Master got hurt!" Sebek bellowed, giving Malleus a worried yet aggressive look of over protection. Malleus tried not to be sassy and roll his eyes but instead, focus on the notes on the wooden table that were sprawled in front of them.
"Let's not forget their motif, Sebek," Mira cautiously muttered as she removed her fake cast, then flexing her fingers from the lack of use. "You might be a first-year, but the Magift tournament is known to the entire world. Imagine if you're not able to win a single point no matter how good you are because of a single person. I'm not saying that I'm taking their side, but we shouldn't call them heartless if we ourselves don't notice their pain. Remember, this is only a plan to stop any more injuries from occurring and not overkilling the situation."
"Also, we have to make sure we don't stir any suspicions," Lilia said as he placed a leg over the other. "What shall you propose?"
"My unique magic is called 'Split Card'," Cater introduced as he went with the flow of the conversation. "Briefly, I can create clones of myself."
"We'll make the clones look like Diasomnia students during the stampede so Savanaclaw becomes convinced that many members have been injured," Mira elaborated, her arm out in front of Cater as if she was advertising him. "In the end, the students have to meet up with the dorm leader at some point to announce the advantage...and I'm sure that's going to be somewhere in their dorm."
Malleus looked up from the table with an idea. "Perhaps in their own field?"
"That's likely."
"Hoooh, Heartslabyul's dorm leader has thought of this quite well," Lilia complimented as he reviewed the plan in his mind. "Once we're able to deceive them, we can make our way there and corner them for a little nice talk."
Little nice talk, he says.
That sounds anything but nice.
"So how about it? Can we call it a truce?" Cater asked enthusiastically as the he and Mira stared at Malleus in expectancy. Malleus, who was more than glad to support their plan, gave a little chuckle that was quite rare of him these days.
"Very well."
"Yaay!" Cater cheered before turning beside him with his hands out, colliding with Mira's as they cheered in triumph. As long as they were able to have Diasomnia on their side, they had assumed that everything for the day after was pitch perfect.
Assumptions were assumptions.
***
THIS WAS WHAT THE CHAPTER SUMMARY LOOKED LIKE LMAO