Chapter 6: The Storeroom Princess (1)
“Pspspsps…”
Silence lingered in the air as I pspsps’d the catkin girl.
Maybe since she was royalty, just a normal pspsps was not good enough and I had to put in some emotion into the pspsps? Servitude? Was that it?
Though I had met quite a few catkins on the battlefield, all of them were soldiers, not feral rouges.
The catkin girl’s eyes widened as an incredulous gaze swept up her face.
Right. Regardless of the situation, a student was a student. It was my responsibility to teach her!
“Pspsps!” I said again, this time more servile than before.
“Y-you…” The catkin spoke! In human tongue! “Are you mocking me?”
“Psps?”
Oh, wait. She can speak human. I shook my head from side to side and answered.
“Not at all. You are the only student in the academy right now, and as luck would have it, I am going to be your professor.”
The girl’s incredulous gaze shifted to one of confusion. Her tight grip loosened, and an amulet with the symbol of the beast nation of Aegean glinted in her hands.
This seemed to be working, the conversation.
I just had to push.
I waved the cat nip cookie in my hand and smiled, urging her to take a nibble or two.
“You!”
The girl immediately slapped the cookie out of my hand. It performed a clean slide and fell straight to the ground.
“My, thank god the floors are spotless!”
The girl seemed to have been annoyed more.
“Get lost, you bastard!” She screamed and dived ahead. Before I could pull my hand back, she opened her mouth wide and—
—Chomped straight down.
“Ack!” I yelped from the pain as her teeth sunk right into my skin.
I yanked my hand up and down but the brat just wouldn’t let go. She had clung to me like chewing gum clung to someone’s precious hair!
“Fine!” I said. “I’ll leave! I’ll leave right now!”
“Grrr!”
The girl finally let go of my hand when I surrendered. She kept staring at me and hissing like a cat though.
With no other choice, I raised my hands up high and dashed out of the store room.
And that was my first meeting with my first student.
***
“Pspsps…”
An annoyed voice rang in the empty store room.
At first, she thought that it was the end of her life. That her stealth had fallen apart and that she would finally succumb to fate.
But it was something completely different. Let alone a murderer, the man who had just streamed in acted like an idiot.
With her knees pulled up to her chest, the cat-kin girl glared at the spot where a man just stood.
“Professor…?” She muttered, her words laced with venom. “Who is hiring idiots like this? I should file a complaint…”
Her words trailed off at the end as the girl looked at the amulet clutched tight in her hand.
The amulet with the symbol of the Royal Family. The first royal family of Aegean that had united the cat tribes all over the world and allowed them to stand toe-to-toe with the grand alliance.
A scoff left her.
From the princess of a grand alliance… to someone who couldn’t even leave the storeroom, let alone file a complaint.
Right then, a loud rumble rang out.
The girl’s eyes widened as she looked around.
“Enemy!?”
But no matter where she looked, her keen senses did not pick up any other presence besides herself.
She looked down at her stomach. The culprit of the sound.
The girl scoffed again and looked at the cookie that the man had dropped.
Another scoff left her.
It seemed she would even have to eat food that was dropped on the ground now.
So far, she had been hungry. It was dangerous to let go of her stealth just for food.
“Better than not eating.”
The girl pushed herself off the ground and walked toward the fallen cookie, when near the door, a paper bag caught her eyes.
It was the same bag the ‘professor’ from before carried.
The same one where he had pulled the cookie out from…
The girl rushed over and picked the bag up. It was full of the same cookies that had fallen before.
She could smell any poison out, the girl was sure of it. She knew there was nothing wrong with the cookies except for the cat-nip.
“Hm…”
The girl did not know what to say.
So she simply ate the cookies left for her.
***
Night had fallen. That meant it was the time for ghosts and spirits and wraiths to take over the world… not.
It was just time to go to sleep. Thankfully, even though I was a whole month early, the dorms were the first place that the academy had prepared.
I was guided to the dorms for the special class of hostages. Close to the student’s dorms but not too close was the building made for teachers.
There were passages going straight to the students from the teacher’s dorm and a device that would alert me of any intruders.
Me, because there is no other teacher here.
Look at this, look at modern work ethic. I am from a different world and even I am diligent enough to come to school a month early, where are the teachers who have nothing else to do?!
Letting out my anger in the form of a sigh, I walked into my room with the renewed patience of a Zen monk.
The lights came on with the flip of a switch. Thankfully, my luggage was already placed inside.
I stretched my hands and looked around. A wide room, a wide bed, a side table, and a desk.
It was almost like an expansive hotel room. The bathroom was even wider with a bathtub fitted inside.
The place was perfect.
I decided to unpack first. Getting my clothes out of my bag and into the closet. Next, I set up all the letters I had received from my friends all around on the desk alongside my stationery.
Lastly, from my bag, I pulled out a spatial pouch. Keeping something like that in an already enhanced attaché might be overkill, but the item was just that important.
A gramophone.
Or a turntable or record player, however one wanted to call it.
Along with the disks of many orchestral arrangements.
All of this was a special gift I received from someone very high up in the clergy of the Sun God. They were a specifically renowned healer, so its value was very high.
I took the gramophone to the side table, put in a record, and let it play. The loud music filled my ears and a smile spread on my face.
Lastly, I closed all the windows and curtains and used the last gift I had received. A device to block sound from going outside my room. If I didn’t use that, the students might wake up from the sound.
With all of it in place, it was time to go to sleep.
The music continued ringing in my ears. It was perfect.
Quiet was rather boring, right?
A student, crying in the storeroom, with the symbol of the Aegean Kingdom in her hands, and also a diplomatic issue.
Things were interesting. Extremely so.
I’ll go there again tomorrow.