18. René Dago, Teacher

Agatha felt like a shalesnapper in the ocean in the classroom. This simply wasn't her environment; it was too… fancy. The whole academy felt fancy, but because she was a student, she had disassociated with it until now. But she was now a student in a classroom. This was supposed to be her environment.

Yet she didn't feel that way.

Shalesnappers, though… she almost drooled. It's been a while since I had their meat. I wonder if they have them at Knight's Ascent. There's a river nearby, so there should be…

Her thoughts were instantly cut off the moment the door leading to the classroom closed. It was a soldier. But unlike all the soldiers she had seen at the academy – which hadn't been many until she had been taken to the mess hall – who only looked like better-dressed city guards, this one had a flair to him. Not of nobility, but danger.

The agate hanging by her neck felt it. That man was competent with the lithic disciplines. Whether it was lithorica or lapiloquia, Agatha couldn't tell. But she was intimidated enough by his march alone.

"The name is René Dago, and I will be your Agatecraft and physical education teacher for this year. Furthermore, I will be your homeroom teacher for the rest of your stay at the Skyscraper Academy." He presented himself after leaving a folder on his desk.

A lithorist, then, Agatha pondered, even if the realization didn't faze her in the slightest as statistics already pointed out that he was bound to be a lithorist. Everyone was a lithorist, but not that many people were lapiloquists.

Their teacher smiled, and for a moment, Agatha thought he was looking at her, but then thought against it. I'm not that remarkable, she told herself. And besides, his smile was creepy if that was the case. She preferred more innocent ones and not… whatever that was.

"Yes?" The soldier asked and pointed at someone next to her with the raised hand. It was a noble-looking boy. Noble in the sense of shit-blooded, not chivalrous.

"That René Dago?" The boy with the pushy voice – which validated Agatha's stereotypes – asked.

"I fear that does not tell me much," their teacher answered with a smile that didn't laugh yet somehow was amused.

"The Reaper of Aneolopolis?" The boy asked again.

"Ah, that René Dago," the soldier smiled more viscerally. "Yeah, that would be me."

The classroom was filled with audible whispers. The what now? As people seemed to discuss their teacher's apparent exploits, Agatha was just at a loss for words. She didn't know of soldiers or heroes beyond the Shining Knight, but everyone knew about the Shining Knight, so yeah, her knowledge on such topics was null. Agatha turned to her roommate for information, but Christie seemed to be as lost as she was.

"Silence," the teacher beckoned once, and whilst that wouldn't have worked on the rowdy children of Malachite, the students here shut up instantly. "Yes, some of you will have heard of my recent exploits on Grwcia, but if you do not want to learn why I have the nickname of 'reaper', then I would recommend maintaining silence. This is not about order or etiquette, but discipline. Most of you here are going to be soldiers, and whether you receive or give orders, discipline is imperative. That is my first lesson for you all: discipline is imperative. Remember it for the rest of the days."

She was liking this teacher already, if only because he was able to cowl those posh noble kids into submission.

To reinforce that very lesson, René Dago removed one of his white gloves and pressed his bare hand against the black slate. The stone trembled upon the touch. A moment later, the center of the slate gained ridges that were too neat to be natural yet too uneven to be made by a carver. But that mattered not, because the students saw that the depressions were made in front of them by themselves. Lapiloquia, Agatha realized. The act of commanding not agates but stones. The carvings, made without a chisel yet undoubtedly by a human hand, read: DISCIPLINE IS IMPERATIVE.

The act left the students speechless. Lithorica was something well understood that everyone could do, but lapiloquia was a far more mystical discipline shrouded in mystery. It was one thing to command one's agates. It was another to command the very foundation of the world.

Satisfied with his students' reactions, René Dago smiled and let out an unceremonious long sigh, which prompted the frowns of many students.

"Fractures, that was hard to do," their teacher let out a giggle with the same ease as he cursed, a bead of sweat sliding down his temples. "Now that we are done with the stick, let us go a bit with the carrot. I want you to understand that we do not need to go skulking and frowning everywhere here. This is a military institution, yes, but also an academy, and you are children. I do not expect you to be highly drilled soldiers but just have common decency, humility, and understanding. If you all fulfill those three characteristics, then there will be no need for you to see the soldier wearing the uniform, but instead René Dago, teacher. Understood?"

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

A girl sitting in front of her raised her hand, and René Dago slightly raised his chin to invite her to speak.

"You called us children, but… are you not young too?" Some other students gasped at that question, but Agatha found it a very valid one.

"You will find that most soldiers are young," the teacher responded with a chilling smile. "But still, I almost double you all in age. I might look young, but I am twenty-five, and also more honored than most of the generals you will ever meet. If your doubts are on the quality of your upcoming education, fear not, you will soon understand why I am a teacher at the Skyscraper Academy."

The girl quickly turned her hand down as she almost shivered from René's response. There was something unsettling about the man in the way he switched from a cold-blooded soldier to a man you might see singing along on the community's pyre.

René Dago clapped his hand to call for the attention of his class. "Now that the initial doubts have been resolved, it is time to continue with the initial homeroom session. Starting from the front, present yourselves to the class. If you are unfortunate, you will be seeing each other for the next five years."

Agatha wasn't sure if that sentence was supposed to be a joke, and by the looks of it, neither were her classmates.

The boy in the upper leftmost corner of the classroom stood up. He was somewhat chubby – a thing that indicated wealth already – but he didn't have that posh presence of the nobles, but a more sophisticated and intellectual air. A scholarite, perhaps? The blond girl mused to herself. The scholar faith was the most predominant faith in Crocheta, but all faiths were just a distraction on her mind.

Why believe in something else when you can believe in yourself and your agates?

"The name is Mateo Librar," he said to the class with a modest bow. "I came here through the highest score in the written exam, and I wield standard amber agates."

"Excellent presentation, Master Librar," Teacher Dago clapped. "And good thinking by introducing your agates. I do not recommend sharing everything about them as they are theoretically military secrets now, but as you will work alongside your classmates in the field, you must know their characteristics closely. Continue that way."

Those words made Agatha's heart drop, and as the students kept presenting themselves with the most detailed explanation of the agates at their disposal, the color was completely drained from her face.

Whilst some boasted about the vivacious color of their agates to highlight their quality, most others liked to comment on how many more agates they had than the median. The quantity of the agates was something standard; no matter the quality of the original agate one had been fed, they were always a handful between five and ten, so it made sense to boast about their quality more than their quantity. But the people here were here due to their outstanding qualities or outstanding wealth. Of course, they had been fed high-quality agates as babes instead of a broken agate a miner had decided to gift to your mother when you were old enough to work. So they weren't the norm, one even hand fifteen agates. Fifteen!

Agatha almost cried when she heard that. It was one marvelous thing having twice as many agates as the average person, but a completely different subject was having fifteen times more agates.

Her turn was slowly approaching.

She wanted to run away from the class. She wanted to puke. She wanted to cry. Maybe running away from the class wasn't enough; maybe she should run away from the whole academy.

Then she saw her.

Agatha turned her head to the right to see how her roommate was shivering. Whilst Christie was taller than her, she felt like a doll to the seamstress-in-training, but now she was even smaller than that. An abandoned puppy in the rain. Seeing someone who was suffering more than her from the round of presentations woke something up inside her. She wasn't taking delight in her roommate's suffering, but quite the opposite.

She wanted to put an end to it.

When her turn finally arrived, Agatha stood with the thunderous might of a vitreoshock. All the nausea had been transformed into momentum. So she spoke with a bolstering voice.

"I am Agatha of Malachite. I came here through special summons, and I wield the highest quality agate in the world!" She spoke with supreme confidence and a raised fist.

The class didn't know what to make of her claim; she heard at least one giggle, but she didn't deflate from the humiliation. Change came in the form of a clap as René's hand met like he had done with the first student.

"Is that the famous highest quality agate in the world?" He pointed at her necklace. Whilst his words may have come out in a joking manner, his tone was anything but that. Agatha nodded. "Might I see it?"

The dirty-blond girl nodded again and sent her agate flying to the teacher with the Control command. The little sapphire popped satisfyingly out of the necklace's socket and flew with dexterity before the black-uniformed soldier.

"May I?" Teacher Dago asked as he put his hand below the floating sapphire, and with another nod, Agatha liberated the agate from the command and softly dropped it on his hand. "Hmm?"

The man hummed enthusiastically as he inspected her sapphire. Perhaps she was always exaggerating with the transparency of the agate, but it was true that her agate looked like a ball of glass with a sapphire inscribed inside. Some might even say the sapphire was star-shaped.

"Interesting, interesting," he mused as he rolled the agate on his palm. "I have never seen an agate this round before. It is basically born to be commanded with Gate, and the intensity of the color is outstanding. Tell me, Miss Malachite, is your agate from the First Stratum?"

For a moment, Agatha was dumbfounded by the question as she didn't understand it – nor had she been referred to as Miss Malachite in her life before – but she quickly recalled that the contents of the special summons spoke something about the 'First Stratum' even if she didn't know what it meant.

"Yes," she said, albeit taciturnly.

"Outstanding!" Teacher Dago reiterated, but with far more eloquence. "Know I understand why Terráquea summoned you. Your situationship is problematic, but this is quite the interesting agate. You can unsummon it now," she said. "You will find many difficulties in this academy, Miss Malachite, but I can assure you have this academic year guaranteed."

"Thank you, teacher…" Agatha responded sheepishly as the class looked at her with confused expressions, their eyes prying about her 'situationship'. She might have had her fears about imminent expulsion completely vanished, but she had either way known that the problem was not entering the Skyscraper Academy but holding onto the position.

"Next!" The soldier clapped again, and Agatha sat down.

The next turn was Christie's, but Agatha was delighted to find that the lovely doll was no longer trembling, but instead her couple of bicolored agates were brimming with confidence.