Volume 2 - CH 2

Location: Taiwan

Time: 6:50am

“Yeah, senior gave you an Illusionary Weapon.”

Miao Miao was soon attracted to the thing I was holding in my hand; the blue soybean. “Seems like this item is a water attributed one; it’s really hard to find such a pure color.”

I looked at the soybean in puzzlement, “There are differences? Could this be something senior doesn’t need?”

“That’s impossible, pure Illusionary Weapons get very high bids in the market. I do know senior has four pure colored weapons, but I’ve only seen him using an ice attributed weapon.” Miao Miao explained, “Basically using an Illusionary Weapon is very taxing towards one’s physical and mental strength, so not everyone can actually use them. Also, to use an Illusionary Weapon, one must first sign a contract with the elemental Elf before the weapon can materialize. Since senior gave you this, this means the weapon hasn’t been used, because after signing a contract, it’s impossible for a second person to use it.”

Miao Miao’s words made me rather confused.

In any case, summarizing it would mean that, this grain of soybean was new and has not been used before, and it’s possible that this gem… correction, for this water elemental weapon, before I can use it, I’ll have to first sign a contract with it. Let’s keep it this way for now.

“Then how am I supposed to use this?” Playing with the blue soybean, I inquired curiously.

“Just like this.” Miao Miao took a bean-like bead from the necklace on her neck, it has the color of one between yellow and green, just like that beautiful water color dipped inside a cup of water, “Creature who formed a contract with me, allow the learner to witness your form,” In the middle of the two-colored bead, there was a similar text I was unable to read, and it slowly brightened up.

I saw the light, which was like a little sphere rapidly spinning inside the bead, slowly emerging.

And then as if it was a soft fabric, a palm sized little person slipped out and stood on top of Miao Miao’s palm, “This is the Elf of my prairie element, Evening Flying Claw.” Then with a ‘poof’, it disappeared in the air and returned into the bean bead, “If you want to conjure your Illusionary Weapon, you must first, set up a shape for it, and then use your blood to determine a contract. Only then will the Elf reply to sign a contract with you.”

Set up a shape?

“How do I set it?” I looked at the blue bean, completely unable to understand how to use it.

Miao Miao said really clearly, but what I heard was really confusing.

“Use your mind to set it.”

…

That’s a really rotten and abstract answer.

However, talking about weapons, I would think of the spear senior had used, which had some transparent whitish part and red words printed on top. As expected, one look and one will be able to know it’s something senior uses; even his weapon gives off such sharp and fine feeling.

Me, on the other hand, even the explosive charm would turn into a big black spherical bomb.

I’ve decided it’ll be better if I do not use the Illusionary Weapon for now. Just in case, by any chance, my mind would think of a big blue water bomb. I think this time, senior would definitely directly strangle me to death, once and for all.

“Yang Yang, there is an expert in handling Illusionary Weapons in our class, when he arrives, I will introduce you guys to each other.” When Miao Miao saw I was rather reluctant to use it, she patted my back while smiling, “The usage of an Illusionary Weapon is harder to learn compared to an explosive charm. There’s no one who knows how to use them from the start.”

I knew she was trying to comfort me. “I understand, thank you.” There was no need to talk about Illusionary Weapon, when I couldn’t even properly use an explosive charm.

Just as the both of us, each have our own understanding of the bean, the classroom’s door opened with a ‘swish’ sound.

A Four-eyed Frog came in.

* * *

“Morning.”

The Four-eyed Frog spoke first.

The Four-eyed Frog was wearing black-rimmed glasses. Similar to me, he had black hair, black eyes, and there was nothing special about his looks. His bangs was covering half of his eyes, looking rather gloomy. He gave off a feeling like those legendary, extremely smart and keen nerds.

“Chifuyu, morning.” Miao Miao obviously knew this glasses guy, as she happily beckoned to him, “This is Yang Yang, the new student who didn’t come to report to class the other day.”

After putting his bag at his seat, the glasses guy slowly walked over and then stood beside us and started sizing me up, “The new student whose guide is that black robe?” A rather shocked expression was revealed behind that thick glasses, “And I thought it will be some really powerful guy, but he really doesn’t look like much.”

I’m sorry, I’ve always never looked like much.

“Hello classmate, I’m Chu Ming Yang, nice to meet you.” In order not to break my image in the class, I’d better greet him first, “This is the first time I’m entering this school. In the past I’ve never come to… uh, this world before, therefore I would most probably be troubling you guys in the future.”

“Yang Yang is completely new in this, he only found out about our matter after enrolling here.” Miao Miao stood beside me and helped me to explain, “Oh right, what is Ryan’s transportation schedule? Senior gave Yang Yang an Illusionary Weapon. I want to ask Ryan to teach Yang Yang how to use it.”

“Ryan has work today and will be coming in late.” After he answered Miao Miao, the glasses guy turned his head back towards me, and this time his interest in me had significantly increased, “Hello, I’m Chifuyu, Yukino Chifuyu.”

That’s a pretty long name, “Yukino?” At first I thought he had the same origin as I.

“Chifuyu’s hometown is Japan, and his family name was still being used even till now, but he is currently staying at a place thousands of miles away from there.” For some reason, Miao Miao seemed to be extremely happy, “Their family had recently started to invest into jobs similar to ours. Chifuyu is the fourth generation.”

So he also has a family background.

I suddenly felt that I couldn’t mix with these people, because everyone already knew of this school long before he did; it’s only me who was an amateur, who had somehow rushed in here courting death.

“Don’t worry, all the courses in this school are taught from scratch. If you have the potential to be picked by this school, you will definitely be able to learn these things.” Chifuyu said to me, his tone was a little flat but it was fairly gentle, he should be someone who was easy to get along with, “You’ll get to meet Ryan later on. Ryan enrolled in this school during primary, in the past he was just like you; he couldn’t understand what’s going on. Now, he is regarded as a freshman who is highly proficient in using Illusionary Weapons. Many students from higher grades and even teachers would ask him questions regarding this area.”

After he said that, I felt a little more relieved. After all, the senior, who was acting as my guide, was awfully strong, making me feel really frightened.

Now that I’d heard there were people like me, who suddenly entered the school and became strong, for some reason this really made me feel relieved, “I still do not really understand this school…”

“Yang Yang, you don’t have to worry about dying.” Miao Miao immediately saw through my concerns, “Haven’t you already met Assistant Tyre? Even if you died inside this school, the medical team will immediately resurrect you.”

Resurrect? Now that she mentioned it, I seemed to have heard senior saying the same thing.

“The mortality rate of this school is really high, but there has not been any real death.” Pulling out a notebook, Chifuyu flipped through a few pages, “I’ve heard that when this school was created, the directors had already made a contract with all walks of life, as long as the person died in school, he or she can make a complete resurrection. However, this is only limited to inside the school grounds. So if you died outside the school, there’s no way to save you.”

“Yeah?” Then the long queue in the corridor I’ve seen before… were actually waiting to be resurrected?

Chifuyu lent me his notebook to have a look at it, “The current medical team members are all from the Phoenix Clan; having the ability to bring the dead back to life. I’ve also heard that someone as powerful as Assistant Tyre, even if you went out of the school perimeter and wasn’t protected by the contract, as long as you didn’t die too outrageously until even your ashes cannot be found, he could still revive you within a certain time limit.”

I flipped through the notebook. Sure enough, there was a part which has records of the things regarding the health care center.

That wooly aborigine was actually very powerful. I absolutely had no way of matching that person with his ability.

“Miao Miao is also a part of the medical team, oh!” At one side Miao Miao suddenly raised her hand and chipped in, “Yang Yang, I can immediately help to treat you, too.”

Medical team? Isn’t that supposed to be the Phoenix clan.

“You’re in the medical team… someone from the Phoenix Clan?” I looked at her suspiciously, and she nodded her head firmly, “Your family mount is a big cat?” Miao Miao nodded again.

I didn’t continue to ask questions. What I wanted to say was, your family is White Cat King’s source of food? Actually rearing birds and cats together!?

“I can tell you the reason for this.” The glasses guy pushed back his glasses, issuing a sharp glint, “Thousands of years ago, the Cat King ate a member of the Phoenix Clan, and thus was cursed by the Phoenix. So now you can see a cat running around with a bird riding on top.”

So that’s what happened! This was the end result of having an itchy mouth.

“I’m good friends with Suya!” Miao Miao started chasing and beating the glasses guy.

Just as the two of them were fooling around, for some reason I suddenly felt a chill behind me, a coldness that felt like pieces of ice were being smashed behind my head.

Of course, if there were pieces of ice almost crashing into you, would you not avoid it? My answer is: If it’s me, I’ll definitely avoid it!

So I immediately tilted my head reflexively to avoid it, regardless of whether there really were pieces of ice behind me.

Then I saw a hand, to say it more accurately, it was not a human’s hand, but was some sort of beast’s claw and it was horribly almost as big as my head.

“Whoa!!”

Hearing my cry, Miao Miao and Chifuyu, who were originally still fooling around, stopped at the same time, “Yang Yang!” Miao Miao was the first one to rush towards me and pulled me away.

Turning back, I saw that the claw did not belong to a beast but a person.

A person who looked around the same age as me, wearing a student’s uniform but he gave off a feeling of a gangster, the uniform was also worn casually, and he was even wearing flip-flops.

I suspected he was same type of people as those visitors who came to Taiwan wearing Hawaii shirts.

* * *

“Morning, fellow students.”

The person wearing the flip-flops opened his mouth with a gangster-like accent; he was also chewing on something that might have been a chewing gum. His short, strange, and bright multi-colored hair was combed upwards, held up with hairspray.

Looking at it, it was a very… indescribable wonder. The beast claw was stuck on his hand.

‘He’s not a human!?’

This was the only recognition in my confused mind. He was a beast man… Feels like an adjective to insult someone.

“School gangster.” It was very obvious that Chifuyu did not have any good impression on this colorful rooster head. To be truthful, it was also the same for me. Then, I fully experienced the feeling of what senior had said about Class C being the last class.

“Nerd, are you courting death?!” The five-colored rooster head became angry. I saw his beast-like hand shaking for a moment, just as though the muscles were being twisted, and then after a few seconds, it shrunk and turned into a human hand.

“Towards someone who attacked first, I have a very good reason to return the favour.” Chifuyu who totally disliked him was clearly being provocative. He didn’t act like his calm and well-behaved glasses guy appearance.

I currently wanted to run out of this classroom.

“If you want to fight, then come on!”

“Who’s afraid of you.”

In my entire life, I think I was the most courageous at this moment.

“Don’t fight!” I rushed in between the two of them who were going to go at it at any moment and forcefully shut my eyes.

What are we going to do if the guys started fighting, turned the classroom’s mood sour, and it might just decide to drag us out and grind us!

I’d rather resurrect after being blasted by two people, rather than resurrect after being crushed into pieces by the classroom.

When the glasses guy and the five-colored rooster head saw me rushing in, both of them were stunned for a moment, the two of them did not make any move.

“Even someone who doesn’t know cigam knows that one should not fight in the classroom… If you guys want to fight go outside and fight. At most you will be considered as an intruder and be removed by the guard.” A leisurely voice floated over from the other side.

Not knowing when the fifth person had appeared inside the classroom.

It was a girl with very long hair. The length of her hair was up to her thighs. Her hair was brown with a pair of beautiful brown eyes; looking like the quiet type of girl. Her hair was fine and straight. As she moved, faint waves were created, “If you want to continue fighting, as the class rep, I will not sit by idly.”

Class rep?

Seemed like on the day of the orientation, which I’ve missed, even the student body had already been chosen.

“Olivia, good morning.” Miao Miao greeted the class rep.

The five-colored rooster head snorted loudly and obediently walked back to his seat. I think he was very afraid of the class rep in certain aspects, so he didn’t dare utter a word of complaint.

“Good morning, Miao Miao, Chifuyu, and also Yang Yang.” The girl, who was addressed as Olivia, revealed a pretty and elegant smile, making one feel very comfortable, “Yang Yang, you didn’t make it the other day, so you wouldn’t know. I’m the class rep of Class C, Olivia Skien. If you encounter any problem in class, you can come to me.”

“Alright, thank you.” I hastened to remember the name of the class rep.

“Yang Yang, you have a cell phone right?” Olivia snapped her fingers and in an instant, I saw a cell phone appearing in her hands. For some reason the cell phone looked really familiar.

‘Isn’t that my cell phone?!’

“Miao Miao also wants to enter!” Bouncing over to Olivia’s side, Miao Miao kept saying she wanted to input her number into my phone.

Nn, how should I put this… Seems like my classmates are really very unorthodox.

“By the way, enter Ryan’s and my number in, too. It’ll be useful for you.” Chifuyu said and then he went back to his seat. His seat was a few rows away from the five-colored rooster head, both of them glared at each other from time to time.

“I’ve helped you guys to enter your numbers already. Yang Yang if you have any problems, you can look for us directly. We will try our best to help you out.” Olivia said and smiled at me, making me feel very comfortable.

In fact, that cell phone is not mine… And also it has not been charged for a very long time.

Talking about this, I suddenly thought that if senior will keep on lending it to me, I should go and buy a charger first. Or else, one day, in a life or death situation, it might suddenly ran out of battery, and that would be really unlucky right?

According to my degree of bad luck during the previous years, this was very likely to happen. After the few of them had played with it for a while, Olivia snapped her fingers again and then the cell phone disappeared.

Inside my pocket, I felt the cell phone had automatically returned to my side. This trick is very useful. I think I would really want to learn it.

After seven o’clock, the students came one after another, but acted very differently compared to Chifuyu, Miao Miao, and the others who were very warm. Most of them arrived and without greeting anyone, heading straight for their seats, and minding their own business. I also didn’t want to bother the others. After she had finished her greeting, Miao Miao also went back to her seat.

I noticed that there was a white cat on Miao Miao’s seat. Nn… it shouldn’t be the same one as the one I’m thinking of?

The number of students in this class was considered very few, at least it was fewer in numbers compared to the class I was studying at during my previous school. My previous class had fifty-five students, and so far this class had fewer than twenty people. Also, there were a lot of empty seats; seems like there were still a lot of people who were either late or had already died outside…

The class was very quiet. In fact, it’s so quiet that it has reached a certain something called as horrifying extent.

And I felt that this class seemed to have some kind of murderous feeling to it, to put it simply, I felt the class doesn’t seemed to be as easy to get along as I’d imagine. A lot of them were privately glaring at one another, as though they were ready to fight at any moment.

Turns out, this situation does not only apply for only Chifuyu and the five-colored rooster head. Especially the five-colored rooster head, he was obviously hated by many people. They were glaring at him throughout the entire classroom.

“You are the student who didn’t arrive the other day, right?” The student in front of my seat turned around. He was around the same age as me, a short curly-haired foreigner with blond hair and blue eyes, had a rather rounded face with some freckles, but felt easy to get along with, “You’d better not get involved with the one with spiky colorful hair, he has a bad reputation in our world.”

‘Bad reputation?’ I suddenly thought of the beast claw from just now, “A gangster?”

Both of us lowered our voice considerably, only allowing each other to hear what had been said.

“It’s a lot worse than that.” The round faced teenager said, “His family does assassination jobs. As long as there is money, they will betray their skills to kill. So a lot of people look down on them.”

‘Assassination?’

At that moment, in my mind was the five-colored rooster head wearing Japanese ninja clothing, while walking on the wall looking really awkward.

I think it should look really like a colorful sphere glowing in the dark.

* * *

With a ‘swish’ sound the door was pulled open.

A man came in. A man whom I think was not a student.

“Dear students, good morning.”

Looks like it’s the teacher, the student in front of me quickly turned back, and then all around the students, who were each doing their own things, looked up front.

He’s a very tall guy; I guess he must be over 200 centimeters, his head was almost touching the ceiling. He has the height very useful for a game of basketball.

“Looks like today there are still a lot of students who are late.” Looking at the one-third of the seats that were empty, the teacher exhaled.

He looked rather wild and rough, also had a foreigner’s facial features. With a rather robust build, he should be the type who works out regularly. He was bald, that naked head, which gives off a sharp glint, had some strange black totems on it; he was wearing punk styled clothing, giving off a feeling as if he was some kind of high level person in the underground world, the type of experienced fighter where one punch from him would kill off a bunch of people. And he’s also an African American.

I finally found out something was not right. If senior and Miao Miao used Mandarin to converse with me, I’m still able to understand that, but just now when I was conversing with Olivia, whom I’ve yet to get acquainted with, and also that round faced classmate, I had also understood what they had said, making it feel rather weird.

I carefully looked at the lips of the teacher who was on the stage. I was right, he wasn’t speaking in Mandarin, but I can actually understand him.

“I believed all of you have seen me before on the first day, I will be your homeroom teacher whom you will be seeing until the day of your graduation. I’ll be seeing you guys every morning on early self study day. Those of you, who came from the lower grade and have a bad record, better take note of it. I’ll also be paying careful attention of you guys, if you want to do anything funny, then do it outside of school. Even if you died while fighting, there will not be anyone who would care about it. You are prohibited to fight in class or school grounds, wasting the medical team’s resources!”

Speaking in such an imposing manner, the homeroom teacher left such harsh sentences on the first day of school, “Don’t think of challenging your teacher. You should all know that your teacher is not an object you can challenge, but after you guys have qualified as a black robe or grew some hair after graduation, you will be very welcomed by your teacher to come back anytime to gunny sack me for revenge.”

‘Whoa… he is a weird teacher. Not only is he bald, but he also wished for his students to come back and beat him up.’

“If there are no problems, then that’s all for today.” The homeroom teacher clapped his hands; a very loud sound echoed around the classroom, “Incidentally, your teacher is also teaching “Study of Outside Kind”. Those who chose this elective, you have a dog’s luck, but those who didn’t choose this, you had better take note of this. How dare you not choose your teacher’s elective? You’d better watch out!”

I was feeling very scared, because I didn’t write his course in my list of electives. No matter how I looked at it, the name of the course felt like it’s a course for researching aliens, who would want to choose that?!

“Teacher.” Miao Miao raised her hand, and stood up after the teacher had nodded, “I’m very sorry I did not choose your subject.”

‘Miao Miao! Aren’t you being too honest!?’

The homeroom teacher narrowed his eyes and stared at Miao Miao for a long time, “You are part of the medical team, and medical team has additional lessons for Study of Outside Kind, so teacher will let you off.”

“Thank you teacher.” Miao Miao happily sat down.

This time, it was Chifuyu who raised his hand. Now I suspect that these guys were deliberately looking for trouble with the teacher because just now the teacher’s cough sounded too unnatural.

“I didn’t choose that elective too.” Very neat and clean, the glasses guy pushed his glasses back issuing a glaring reflection with a ‘ting’ sound, “The classes for Study of Outside Kind and Mantra clashes, and I think we should start from the basic Mantra first. Anyway it’s not too late to learn Study of Outside Kind in our second year.”

It was very obvious that Chifuyu was challenging the teacher. The glasses guy looked like someone who is easily pissed, but his expression didn’t change at all.

“You are the fourth generation of Yukino Clan right.” Surprisingly, the homeroom teacher wasn’t angry, and he even grinned, “Yukino Clan is a strange clan who is dedicated to using their brains and not their body.”

…

Now, it’s the teacher and student provoking one another.

I dearly wish to hold onto my head and scream. What’s with this stormy atmosphere?!

“From the beginning of the first generation, the number of people coming to our Yukino Clan with their problems has already far exceeded the number of students in this school. Let’s hope that there won’t be a day where teacher will be requesting help from Yukino Clan.” Immediately snapping back a reply, Chifuyu pushed back his glasses and then he lazily sat down.

The teacher shrugged, he didn’t seem to take any offense. But from their conversation, it made me think that Chifuyu’s household should be somewhat similar to a library, because many people will go to his family to solve their problems.

“Well then, let us all welcome the future chief of the Yukino Clan as a fellow student in our class. Next time if you all have any problems, you can go and ask Yukino, and he will give you the answer.” The teacher started clapping his hands, and the students below sporadically followed and clapped.

“There’s nothing remarkable about Yukino Clan, who still lost to our Rogeria Clan.” The five-colored rooster head snorted disdainfully.

Oh, seems like their family had been an adversary for a long time, I totally understand now, why the both of them had a mutual dislike towards each other.

“That’s enough the both of you.” The teacher clapped his hands once again, the sound pressuring over the both of them, “Class C has always been the hardest to settle, now that your teacher has seen it, I also felt that this is true. But not to worry, your teacher will not show any weakness, every one of you let’s unleash your youthful vitality! Yeah!” He clenched his fist and raised it towards the ceiling, only lacking in the fact that he wasn’t running towards the setting sun.

…

Yeah, your freaking head. This teacher is mad.