Chương 37: The Academy - 1

It was strange to be back in his dorm after a week on some island killing bandits. LANCE'S dorm was exactly how he remembered leaving it before the term let up for Spring Break. Dirty garments littered the floor of his closet of a room, his desk was piled high with books and unwashed plates, while his bed, unmade and misshapen as it was smelly from amorous activities, both solo and cooperative, wasn't a wrinkle out of place. Yeah, exactly how he left it. So, why did he feel weird?

Breathing in deep of his personal quarters, Lance did something he wouldn't have thought to do prior to leaving for break — he cleaned his room. It didn't take nearly as long as his post-adolescent mind had insisted it would once upon a time. He tossed his dirty garments into a hamper, threw that hamper into the auto-washer, a neat little invention the academy was lucky to have, and dumped the infesting trash into a garbage sack he then brought down to central processing.

While his clothes washed, he even took outside and beat the sole rug in his room. He dusted, cleaned the shades, then curtains, organized his schoolbooks, even. When he finished with his dorm, it looked as clean as it had when he first moved in at the term's start. He chuckled at himself, impressed. Unfortunately, the one thing about his dorm that remained the same was the smell. Namely, the distinct odor of his nineteen-year-old... passions. Oh well, nothing a river cleaning with soap won't fix!

He de-dressed his bed and took it down to clean, too. When he was done, he let it hang on some communal poles for drying, writing his name on a piece of paper and clinching said paper to his blanket with a clothing pin. Cleaning done for the day, he thought about the next thing to do. He felt like he had forgotten about something, something important... Thinking further on what 'it' could be, though, left him no further advanced than a moment ago, so he forgot to think about remembering and moved on with his day.

Next on the agenda was talking with an official about his island; unfortunately, he had forgotten that, technically, it was the last day of vacation, so no academy official would be in the administration offices. He returned to his dorm and got to work on his homework. After the chaos (the bloody chaos) that was his stint on Murder Island, his coursework seemed so boring.

'Conversion Ethics 101: Standard Practice,' and 'Battle Techniques: Standard Practice' were trivial when he had just had a masterclass in both and with only the barest consultation from his course-derived knowledge. And yet, he was a student here at the academy, and his wisdom told him, what little wisdom existed in his late-teen head, said that his courses might yet prove useful to him, so he should pay attention. Which was what he did when he did a whole break's worth of homework in one, diligent night.

What did he learn? Useful things, in fact: one, that he shouldn't wait until the last moment to do his homework. But also, two, that regarding conversion ethics, a 'plea for conversion' was seldom needed on populations which either had fallen to corruption or had already accepted one of the Pantheon. He also learned that his footwork while engaged in Martial Activity was just as important as his bladework. Thus, he hoisted himself, his haughty masterclass knowledge, on his own petard!

The sun rose and it was time to grab his blanket from off the drying poles. Not to use, though. He wasn't even close to tired. He just wanted to put his blanket back on his bed. While he was outside in the laundry yard, was when he had forgotten about a vital aspect to his return chores — a shower. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. A young lady screamed at him, covering her mouth in horror.

When he elicited calm, she ran as fast as her legs could take her; he looked at his reflection in a nearby basin of water and saw what the gentlewoman had seen: a figure coated from head to toe in dried blood and whose skin, what parts were visible and not coated in blood, caked in disfigured acidized skin. It came back to him at once: THAT was what that odor was, that strange smell which seemed not of his dorm and which wasn't just his youthful spunk!

Lance rushed back into the dorm and dodged into a washroom after grabbing a towel. He locked the door and scrubbed himself before he even had filled the tub up. When he was done his rigorous washing, the tub was filled with gross red flakes. He emptied the tub, cleaned it, filled it again and cleaned himself again. He repeated this process several times before his body and hair were completely cleaned of sweat, gore, and heaven knew what else.

As he washed himself, he had to admit he got a silly kick out of overhearing the academy's prefects search for 'the bloody zombie:' he had done many a thing while attending the academy, some of which were immature, most of which were benign. Being mistaken for a monster because of the state of his body? That was new! He emerged from the washroom cleaner than he had been in, well, weeks, surely.

He put on some clean clothes while discarding his old garments and made sure his leather armor had gotten as clean as possible in the auto-washer. A sniff and appraisal later told him it hadn't worked, so he put them back in for another cycle, or three. With his body and garments washed, it was time for classes, he not realizing how long he had spent in the washroom. Courses at the academy were blocked together depending on a number of factors. Class year, class rank, whether one was 'premier' or not.

As a first year, standard rank, premier, his courses were in the middle of the afternoon. Truly, the most inconvenient time for coursework. Bad time for classes or not, he went to classes on time. His father was spending a lot of money for him to be here and to learn the ins and outs of carrying out a Pantheon God's will, all at his own behest after literal years of begging his father to send him here.

He wasn't about to let himself slouch now just because he had multiple years of experience crammed into one island misadventure. Per the norm, his classes were held in one of the courtyards adjacent to the main campus. It was open air.

The birds sang, eager to fight or to fuck, and their human counterparts, who would much rather be fighting or fucking, filtered into the middle of the courtyard where seats and desks had been arranged in front of a startlingly long blackboard implanted into the ground on metal stakes. Lance took the same seat he always took — in front. The course was on 'History of the Local World: 1243 - 1540.' It was an overview course and intermediate level.

The course wasn't popular since it was all bookwork with no practical elements. Lance didn't care, though, he loved learning about history, how nations moved the way they did, and the players involved in that movement. Over the next three hours, the professor went on about the nations of Morrow and Tommo, their rivalries through the ages, and how they used to be a single nation, 'Tomorrow.' Then the professor spoke on the 'twin empires' of Hawkland and Falcland.

How they split over differences in how to appreciate the eldritch powers; namely, that the rulers of Hawkland believed in animal worship while Falcland believed in nature worship. Next, the professor began on a unit of Eldritch-Holy contradictions in the world at the time and how those contradictions moved interactions among the world powers. Although the lecture was fascinating, more of his attention was drawn to a woman in the course than he would like.

Behind him, a rotund, bald lady with but a pink bow on her head to show her 'ladyness,' was making strange noises. He tried to ignore her, for it was not the first time he had strange classmates. As the class went on, however, those noises became more pronounced, until, eventually, he asked her to quiet down. She did quiet down, for a moment, before resuming her sounds with gusto renewed. He gritted his teeth. It was going to be a long lecture...