Chương 158: Cordyceps Twenty-Three

I tried to get Montgomery to spill more information about the murder on campus, but he actually knew very little. Only a few of the first years had actually seen anything, and that was mostly the body being carried off. A hearse really had come to the school, along with a couple of doctors from a nearby clinic to properly declare Mister Lockhart dead. There was also a rumour that the janitors had to clean out the stairwell of bits of brain.

I suspected that was hugely exaggerated, but it did suggest that he'd fallen down the stairs. That would be a neat explanation for why and how he died. In any case, it didn't look like I was a suspect, so maybe I'd gotten away with it. Plus, I had a fantastic alibi, courtesy of Harbin. I couldn't be going around murdering people if I was knocked out in the nurse's office, could I? Well, that'd be my excuse if questions were ever asked.

Montgomery finished scratching Sir Nibbles under the chin, then we put the panbadger on my bed.

"We should head out, we might still have time to grab a bite."

"Oh, dang," Montgomery said.

"And we have double Literature this morning, I wouldn't want to do that with an empty stomach." We jogged over to the cafeteria, arriving just as most of the others were heading out. The bell rang as we got to the counter and the lunch lady was closing up, but she rolled her eyes and allowed us to take a mini loaf each. Montgomery complained that it wasn't enough food for a proper breakfast, but it was more than I'd had some days, so I wasn't going to complain. On the way out, I noticed a few Trolls looking my way.

Harbin was in the centre of the pack, eyes narrowed as he looked at me. I flashed him the finger, and his eyes went wide. A few of his buddies gasped too. The Trolls might have liked playing up the 'uncouth ruffians' look, but in reality, they were raised in the same kind of prim and uptight homes as any Dragon. I'd have to figure out an appropriate revenge later. I wasn't going to kill him. He was just a little shit that didn't know his place. A bully. Not a monster.

A problem for later, basically, but I still vividly remembered the pain before I got knocked out. That had to be answered. Literature class was on the second floor of the main building, but the same staircase that Lockhart had died in, actually. I didn't see any signs of anything suspicious, though it did smell a little bit like bleach. The class was already full by the time we arrived. I had to take a seat near the front because that was all that was left, and Montgomery ended up near the rear of the class.

I was sitting there, chewing on my bread, when the teacher came in. He was a very short man, only a few inches taller than myself, but dressed to the nines, with a well-tailored suit beneath his teacher's robes which he wore open at the front. The man came to stand at the front of the class on a small elevated section that let him see across the room. Then his eyes locked on me.

"Are you eating in my class?" he snapped. I swallowed, put the bread down carefully, then reached into my pocket.

"I asked you a question, young man," he said.

"Are you eating in my class?" The disbelief was evident in his voice and his gaze, stern and angry, was locked onto me. I finally found the nurse's notes, but I had to see which one I was meant to give him, so I took my time unfolding them while he continued.

"This is not a dining room, young man. This is a place of learning, a sacred place of knowledge to nourish the mind. Not your gluttonous stomach. We are here to learn the beautiful art of communication. Not munch on stale bread. Do you have nothing to say for yourself?" This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. I nodded, then stood and casually walked over to him.

"I have a note," I said as I extended the note to him. Maybe if I was really a twelve year old boy like the rest of these firsties, I would have been cowed, but as an adult... well, I'd learned not to be intimidated by someone like a teacher. The man snatched the note from my hand and read it over.

"This hardly gives you permission to eat in my class," he said.

"But it does give me permission to be late," I said.

"Would you rather I miss the first ten minutes of class while I eat outside? That's an option too."

"I don't appreciate the backtalk," he said.

"I thought this was a class where we would learn how to communicate," I said quickly, making sure to slip a word in before he could continue.

"That's what I'm doing." The 'you idiot' at the end was silent.

"Get back to your seat, Mister Killua," he said, the note crumpling up into a ball in his fist. I returned to my seat, took my bread, and stuffed it into my mouth. I was aware of a lot of eyes on me. I just hoped that Montgomery at the back was clever enough to stash his snack. The teacher, Emanuel Lingua, continued with the class, though not without sparing me a few looks every so often. It seemed as if I hadn't made a friend today.

The first half of the double lesson involved reading from a text, then the class has a discussion-slash-debate on the themes and motivations contained within the text itself, essentially dissecting it. The teacher wouldn't stop picking me to answer his harder questions. But really, this was easy. It had been some time since I'd had to do this kind of work, but my tutor, Mister Digglestein had done something similar with me already, and I was able to make things up like the best of them.

"I disagree," I said to the teacher after he highlighted part of the text and suggested that it could mean something about the author's motivations. Mister Lingua's eyebrows rose.

"Explain, then," he said. So I jumped into a small lecture about the same thematic element, but approaching it from a different angle. The trick to this kind of meaningless drivel was that it was less about finding the 'right' answer, the way you would in any scientifically-minded class, and more about formulating an opinion and then defending it. The lesson here wasn't actually about finding themes and such, it was about communicating what you saw. Or at least, that's what I thought it was about.

So the best way to score well here was to be slightly antagonistic. The teacher nodded at the end of my assessment, then casually flicked his hand to the side, dismissing me.

"You are, of course, entirely wrong," he said, but there was a quirk to his lips. Class ended surprisingly quickly, and I gathered up my things and left in a hurry. I didn't want to miss lunch. My life was pretty luxurious these days, if I had grown this used to three solid meals a day.

"That was fantastic," Montgomery said.

"I thought the teacher would rip your head off."

"You need to learn how to handle teachers," I said.

"They're just people with an ounce of power, but only within these walls. Besides, I like literature. Debate and discussions like these make for good skills."

"Maybe, but that class was boring," he said. I shrugged. I'd enjoyed it. In fact, I'd enjoyed most of the classes so far. It felt like I was learning, even if I was maybe a bit ahead in most respects. Or maybe it was just that I'd missed the atmosphere of a school. Academics had always been a great love of mine. Still, I might be pulled out at any moment.

We got to the cafeteria for lunch, and after grabbing a tray and sitting down to eat, I idly noted a secretary pushing a cart through the rows of seats and handing out letters. Just normal business that I'd noticed before. The students had to have some way of communicating back home, and letter writing was very popular. I was still surprised when a letter landed in front of me, my name across the front in a quick, scratchy scrawl. I grabbed it and stuffed it away.

There was only one person that could be from, and that meant I needed to read this, and now. But maybe I could finish my lunch first. I wasn't going to skip both breakfast and lunch. There was only so much anyone could ask of me.

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