A Lifes Journey

"…ise and shine fella, we're here." A raspy voice woke me up from my nap.

"The biggiest place to learn in 'Lirkan' continent, academy city – 'Mil-Ansk', was ait?" My half drunk carriage driver turned his head to the right.

"Boya you lookin' kinda small ain'tcha? I thought only bigga people go here." His assumptions would probably piss off anybody else, but I am a patient guy.

"You see sir, I may be on the shorter side but, my teacher says I have the potential to be one of the best fighters in the kingdom." I bragged, trying to keep it cool.

"Plus, I am of age, so…"

"Well I'll be… a showty like ya is gon' be a military studen'? Yahyahayah." His crude laugh sounded somewhat unconvinced.

Fuck.

I hate talking to people, this is so annoying, why do I even have to listen to this bullshit, just take me to the city and fuck off…

"Yep, I hope I can make it as a knight someday." We're finally going our separate ways.

"May fortune find ya, and be cirful with them rich folks ya hear me boy?"

Words of wisdom, truly, what would've I done without you, toothless half-dead person.

"Ahhhh, I'm missing the Slayer assassination missions already…" Whispering to myself, I remembered Kiyoko's last words to me before I left.

"You're finally 20 in 2 days, when you get to Mil-Ansk, remember this, you have a bad tendency to be arrogant and stupid, take extra care to NOT do anything unnecessary." Arrogant? Stupid? Me?!

"Well, whatever, attention is the worst enemy for someone like me, I mean, I don't like it… we're gonna take it easy and avoid trouble here for su-."

"HMM?! Did you just push me, you scrawny asshole?" The bald headed seemingly-sentient wall of muscles turned to me, ready to fight.

I guess 'trouble' is unavoidable… Haha… I let out a sigh in my head. De-escalation Lifes, de-escalation.

"My bad buddy, I'm not looking for trouble, it was an accident. An accident…" Bahh I'm gonna make myself puke, can't I just kill him??

"Who you callin' your buddy, bro, I'm not your fuckin' buddy!" But you just called me bro? "I'll let it go just this once, but you betta' watch yarself in the future. Now fuck outta my sight, stupid stickman." impressive vocabulary, I guess.

He smirked arrogantly before bumping into my shoulder as his ugly, fat friend let out a loud snicker.

Well, could've been worse I guess. Now, where's my new home?

After some asking around and walking through the large, fairly empty, grass field I reached 2 rows of houses, dorm's block - 'B'. After a little more walking, I finally found my dorm somewhere in the first section of the front row.

A pretty simple design, 2 stories, blue roof, wooden walls and a green sign with black letters that was hanging next to the plain, wooden door - 'B-15'.

"Yo. Were you assigned to this building as well?" An unfamiliar, crisp, clear voice, because of course it is…

I nodded without turning around. I don't handle the charismatic types very well.

"A quiet one, eh? Well, no matter, my name's Leonardo, but you can call me Leo, if we're gonna live together, can I at least hear your name?" Guess it can't be helped…

"Lifes"

"...?"

"*Sigh* Well, nice to meet you, Lifes, I hope we'll get along."

Well I hope we don't.

"Mhm." I nodded.

Mister charisma said he'd let me pick a room first so, of course, jumping on this opportunity I picked the most secluded room on the 2nd floor when yet another unfamiliar voice came from downstairs.

"Well well, I see people have already entered my palace before me, haha."

Just kill me…

"Hey, my name's Leonardo, but you can call me Leo, what's your name?" The charismatic red-haired said in a way-too-practiced manner.

"Leonar-Ah hem, PRINCE Leonardo!" he saluted awkwardly with 2 fingers over his chest. "Your highness, I didn't know you're one of the residents, please forgive my impudence." The guy's shiny, bald head sent light rays all around as he knelt down and looked up.

"Prince?" I interjected from the 2nd floor, somewhat panicked.

Leo shot me a bittersweet, somewhat sad smile as he nodded slowly.

Well, guess he's the type to hate his status, not that I care, I just kinda panicked because status=trouble but luckily this guy doesn't seem like the type of dude to use his status for unimportant things… Hopefully.

"So, we have Lifes over there, Leo, as in me" He refers to himself with a nickname? "And Roger over here, yes?" the bald headed monkey nodded nervously, probably too much of a coward to speak.

"Come on… relax, I'm just a normal student, act normally, please." Prince charisma tried to calm him down.

The red-haired prince suggested we go to the academy to make sure that we're not late for the opening ceremony when cue ball finally spoke again.

"O-oh by, by the way, I'm 23 years-old and I'm a 3rd year student. How old are you guys?" It was surprising to hear the bald monkey coughing out a few words after almost shitting himself earlier just from being in rad-hair's presence.

"I'm almost 23, and I'm also a senior." Red-hair said.

"20, first..." Praise to whoever invented context.

"So, my new friends, I know of a really easy shortcut to the school from this dorm block, shall we go?" Who's your friend?! We both nodded and proceeded to follow mister prince.

"We turn left at the end of this alley and then just go straight until we reach the military academy building. A lot of delinquent students often make this alley their home though, so, do be careful." Red-hair briefed

After walking through the alley for a while and turning left like Charisma said I found myself in front of a scene that was kinda unexpected.

"Guys, stay alert, those guys aren't going to play nice".

"Whacha whisperin' about, pretty flame-boy? Eh?!" The skinny, tall, not-so-scary blond dude spat.

"Hey guys, mind lettin-" before Leo could even finish, Roger started screaming.

"You bastards dare treat this kingdom's third prince like he's some nobody you can mess around with?!" This fucking braindead monkey, even our flame lion looked like he died a little inside.

"Stand back prince Leonardo, I'll defend you!"

"Ah, no, Roger, maybe we can just talk it out…?"

"Ya fucking bald piecashit, d'ya thunk you can just talk to us like that, boys let's kill 'em." The group leader said as he pulled out a small, somewhat rusted, karambit knife.

"I'm out, good luck."

As I walked by one of the other guys, he stepped up to stop me, I looked him in the eyes and he moved to the side and let me pass.

Lucky… I'm not supposed to get into trouble.

***

"Woah, so many students, is this the spot for the ceremony?" saying this out loud was a tactic on my part, just like in the stories I read, some side character will help me now…

"Yes." Thank you books. "The ceremony is going to be held here on the outer training field, are you a first year by chance?" Tch, a girl, bad luck, I guess.

"Yes, Lifes." No need to drag the convo, just give me your name and leave me alone.

"Sophia, nice to meet you, Lifes." Her voice was so soothing, It felt like I could fall asleep to it at any time.

"LIFES!!!! You goddamn bastard, where are you?!" The bald headed monkey searched for me drawing everyone's attention in the process.

Reluctant, I walked up and tapped his shoulder.

"You have the guts to just walk up to me like that?! I'm going to fucking kill you! Right here, right now!" He threw a haymaker with his right hand that was easily dodged by just a simple step back.

"Why so angry?"

"You've got to be kidding me, right? You just left us, the prince is strong so everything ended up okay but, what if they kille-" Before he even finished, I snapped.

"Don't make me laugh dude! Firstly, this is a fucking school not some warzone, second, this red-haired walking ball of charisma has Sy levels at least 10 times higher than those retards in the alley and third, which is also the most important point, I OWE YOU FUCKING NOTHING! For all I care, I could watch you both get killed right in front of my eyes, why the fuck would I have to help you? get your head out of your own ass!"

"WHAT?! What the fuck are you talking about?!" He spat back "You should always help your frien-"

"Huh? Who are you to decide that?! Also, who the fuck is your friend?!" From the corner of my left eye a sword suddenly appeared.

So much for a laid back start for the year aye?