Chương 9: Classroom

After running for a little more than ten minutes, we got out of the maze.

"Huff, huff, huff, mister, stop now. I can't run anymore."

"Is this all the stamina you have got? Kids these days can't even run for five minutes."

"Even the old lady who used to take care of us never talked like that."

"Then I will have to teach that old lady a thing or two."

"You can't,""Why?"

"She was fired."

"Oh," Pyiari's face said, 'Do not ask the reason'. I did not and changed the topic.

"Well, where are we?" The question was for Pyiari, but the Akashic system answered instead. Learning Area A child's mind is like a blank canvas. It needs to be painted with the right colours to help them in the future. Life's Last Hope understood that. For the children's own well-being, they built the learning centre. It didn't just teach them academics, but ethics and life skills too. Recorded in the Akashic system in the year 13524 And yet another area which has not been found before.

I can't even act surprised anymore. Was this rift never explored completely?

"Is this your school?"

"You can say that,""Cool, will you show me around?"

"I would have, but there will be other kids and Ms. Bochi here right now. I don't think she will react kindly after seeing you." Life's Last Hope was a fairly simple rift. Its main challenge was the maze —which you got an easy ticket out of—it did not host many monsters. Strange Toy, boss monster and two more, and the only NPC being Pyiari. Yet, I had already encountered two new monsters, two new areas and a Pyiari who had completely derailed from her script. And here she was saying there were more kids here.

Can they also be NPCs? I hope at least her friend is. I can't take a monster out of the rift with me.

"What happens if Ms. Bochi catches us?" If I were to guess from the naming scheme I had seen until now, Ms. Bochi must be another monster, her territory being the learning centre.

"You don't wanna know, mister." She used the same excuse she had for Orand.

"You know what, I do wanna know."

"Well…she has never caught me so," Oh, so that's it. She says, 'you don't wanna know' when she doesn't know it herself. What a kid.

"But…but, from what I have heard from other kids is…that…"

"Never mind, I don't feel like knowing now. We have an objective right now. We have to find your friend and leave this facility as fast as possible."

"Yup,""Lead the way, I hope we don't have to go through the place where there are people who won't react kindly after seeing me."

"Well…" Sigh, not again. From the moment I met this kid, we have been sneaking away from monsters.

"We sneaked away from the security." By security, I was referring to Orand and Moark. Their job and description both hinted at that.

"What's a teacher and a bunch of kids gonna do?"

"I assure you, Mister, it will be a lot easier than before," Pyiari was a strange kid. When facing Orand, she was not scared at all, but when it came to Moark, she was so scared that she wouldn't let go of my hand. Maybe she had gotten caught before and was punished. All the details she told her were from her own experience. But now, just a few minutes after successfully escaping from Moark, she had recovered back to her confident and jolly self. Kids do change their moods fast, but isn't this too fast?

"Lead the way then!" Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

"Aye, aye, captain!" The Learning Area was a collection of rooms and corridors. Each room was big enough to accommodate about a hundred kids. Every room held a different purpose. One had maps pinned to the walls, which were definitely not of Earth. A music room, a science lab, and a library with a myriad of books. A nature room with plants I had never seen before. A projector room, and many more.

We never entered any of the rooms, just walked through the corridors, checking them out through the big windows all of them had. The glass was one-way, allowing those outside to see in while preventing anyone inside from seeing out. Right now, Pyiari and I are observing one such room. A normal classroom. Around thirty kids sat inside, happy, learning what was being taught. It was not an illusion. Whenever I focused on any one of them, the Akashic system would show me their description. All of them were NPCs.

There were hundreds of rifts around the world, yet only two of them had this number of NPCs in a single place. Every minute I had spent inside this rift, my understanding and knowledge of the rifts had been put to shame. A boy in the first row raised his hand to ask a question. If my brain hadn't already gone haywire from seeing the kids, it definitely did by watching who their teacher was. Bochi the Nurturing Bochi was fascinated by her teacher.

She respected how they dedicated so much of their time to someone else's child. She also liked children. That's why when no kid thought of the future, she had already decided that she wanted to become a teacher. She was sent to Life's Last Hope to nurture the children here, and when offered the chance to do it for an eternity, she did not decline. Recorded in the Akashic system in the year 13678 Just like the other two, black sludge covered her body. Her head was comically huge, and her arms were a meter long.

It was a scary sight, but none of the children were scared at all. Even Pyiari hadn't shown any signs of fear when she saw Orand, Moark or Bochi. Is it because they had been seeing them for so long that it had become a regular sight for them? Or was it something else?

"Pyiari," I decided to ask her.

"How does Ms. Bochi look to you?"

"Why? Don't tell me you have fallen for my teacher, mister." How can anyone fall for an abomination like that?

"That's not it. Just answer my question."

"Hmmm, it seems mister is a shy guy. Can't even look at her beauty with his own eyes." Arrgh, this girl is so annoying sometimes. Even when she annoyed me, a part of me felt nice. As a single child, I had never had a younger sibling. This was the closest I could get to it, and I wouldn't lie, I really liked this feeling.

"Just answer me,""She has jet black hair cascading down her hips, long eyelashes and tender lips adorned by a red lipstick. She is around your height. Her facial features are on the sharp side, and her fingers are slender. She looks like a heroine out of a movie." Wow, Pyiari's vocabulary is really good. They are teaching her really well here. Coming back from the stray thought, I got back to what was important.

How Pyiari and the other kids were seeing her, or the other monsters at that, was totally different from how I saw them. If I were to guess, how Pyiari sees her is how she looked before she took the immortality drug. What could be the reason? Are the monsters using some kind of hypnotism?

"What's wrong, mister? Did you get excited just by listening about the teacher's beauty?" What vile language. Is this what they are teaching her here? Where is her teacher? I will make a complaint to them. Realizing that going to Pyiari's teacher voluntarily would be worse than walking into a tiger's den, I decided to teach Pyiari manners myself after all of this was over.

"Ah, no, anyway, aren't these kids your friends too, don't you want to leave with them?" The moment I said that, Pyiari avoided my gaze. Her lips trembled for a bit. It wasn't because of fear, anger or disgust but something else, which I couldn't guess right now.

"They—" Before Pyiari could finish her sentence, the children inside the classroom stood up. The class had ended, and they were about to leave. They were going to come to the corridor. The corridor was long and straight. Even if we ran at full speed, we wouldn't reach the end and if Bochi were to see me…

"Mister. Quick. Here." Pyiari was smart; she had realized that we wouldn't be able to run, so she found a place to hide. It was a janitor's locker. I was on the slimmer side for a man, and Pyiari was short for kids her age; even then, both of us wouldn't fit inside.

"Go inside, they won't say anything to me, I have an excuse." I nodded reluctantly but complied. The moment the locker's door closed, the classroom's gate opened, and Bochi was the first one to come out, holding the gate open for the kids. The locker's door had small holes through which I looked outside. Bochi did not notice Pyiari until every kid was out of the room and standing in a line. She closed the door and turned around, finally noticing Pyiari.

Bochi grunted and snorted, her mouth opening too wide, and her head rotating a full circle.

"Sorry, Ms. Bochi, I was getting treated. I really wanted to attend this class." Pyiari understood Bochi's weird grunts and snorts. She was answering her.

"Really? I didn't want to miss that.

"Would you really do that for me?" Pyiari and Bochi were holding a conversation. Whatever was letting Pyiari see Bochi's old self was also letting her understand the snorts. While they talked, the other kids were not silent. I could understand them while they talked to each other. Not a single one of them tried talking to Pyiari, but all of their chit-chats were about her.

"It's her."

"Isn't she the one who—""Yes, she is the one who—""Why is she—""She is friends with that girl,""I heard they did it together,""I don't wanna be in the same place as her,""I already broke my friendship with her,""Me too,""Me three," None of those words were kind to Pyiari. Whether Bochi did not hear them or dismissed them, I couldn't tell.

"Thank you, Miss,"Next class. No, I won't be able to join. Father Aran called me.

"Yeah, I will be careful.

"Thanks, bye" Pyiari waved at Bochi as she left, and behind her, the children walked in a straight line. One of them turned around. A girl, the same age as Pyiari. She showed her tongue, teasing her, then turned back to share a laugh with her friends. They went far and entered another room. When I was sure that none of them were left behind, I got out of the locker. Pyiari stared at the door of the room they had entered.

"They don't think of me as their friend anymore. So, why should I? They are not my friends. Not anymore." Despite her words, the longing for her friends was written all over her face.