53 Osp Day 1- Up Stairs (2/2)

The stench of moth b.a.l.l.s and camphor lingered about his suit. It made me wonder on how often he wore it. Regardless, I could easily mistake him for an uncouth teacher as depicted in Velvet Rose newspaper books.

He gestured for me to follow him.

I trailed his lead up the polished wooden stairs that sent tiny vibrations to my legs upon each step. I figured the stairs were hollow in-between.

Aside from feeling, no sound pa.s.sed through my ears. This wasn't the first time.

Memories of being sick with fever back at Gat s.h.i.+em resurfaced.

A redback spider had bitten my leg when I had toiled the soil around the small glen. I was very young, so the poison had spread fast and caused a dangerous fever that had me bed ridden for weeks. During my recovery, I wasn't able to hear anything. So, Bulldog and Shuso had taught my brothers and I to speak in sign language. On the fear that if I shouldn't recover my hearing, this was the only way we could talk with each other. Back then, I did recover. The skill became useful to us with the elderly deaf monks. One other skill Shuso had taught only me was to hear through absolute silence using my other senses. Fortunately, some skills my body never forgot.

We reached the first floor, similar to the last, but with windows running in rows on either side of the corridor.

One row of windows was joined by doors to rooms, which allowed an outsider to peek inside and see the students seated at angled desks (two to a desk) facing a blackboard on a wall and a person standing before them.

The opposite window row overlooked a vista of a central courtyard, the main wrought iron gates beyond the path that linked the courtyard and gate area, and the picturesque lane of maple trees running a procession towards the white-box mansion barely visible in the distance.

So, this was how the students knew of our fight with Aidoneus. They had a perfect line of sight to it.

Ryuu tapped my shoulder.

I continued to follow his lead past these rooms and up another flight of polished wooden stairs, along another corridor of rooms, up some more stairs until eventually we reached a top after going up six flights in total.

The corridor we entered was different. It held a handful of polished redwood doors and only one side of windows, which faced out to the square central courtyard nestled within a building enclosure.

Ryuu opened the dark wood door at the end.

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