463 Chapter 463: Transfer Studen (1/2)
”Hey, Brother Richard!”
Adrian Stuart waved at me while I gaped at him. Close by, the sentries verified his identity, and finally waved him in. He skipped into the territory of Saint Teresa Academy and approached me. The crowd dispersed, now that there was no longer much of a commotion.
Apparently they were expecting some drama, where the guards would kick Adrian out of the school and perhaps even call the cops. Their expectation of such stupid entertainment (at the expense of others) was crushed once the guards confirmed that Adrian's visit pass was legitimate, and they were disappointed not to see any sort of drama. Good. They deserved to be disappointed. People did not exist to entertain them with their troubles.
”What are you doing here?” I repeated my question, mostly because Adrian hadn't replied. He grinned and gestured toward the main campus building.
”From today onward I am transferring into Saint Teresa Academy!”
”Huh? You are?!”
Originally Adrian was a student of the middle school section of Crowley's Grand Arcane Academy – the same school that his cousin, Cecilia, attended. Speaking of which, we might as well forget about Cecilia at this point. She was meant to be the joke version of Carolyn from Battle Frenzy, but she ended up merging with another of my characters from an earlier version of this constellation summoner story (damn, I must have written over 20 versions of this story by now). Whatever the case, he was supposed to attend the same school as Cecilia, but obviously he decided to switch loyalties for no reason other than because I happened to be enrolling in Saint Teresa Academy for an exchange program at this time. It was too much of a coincidence.
”Yeah, I am!”
”Why?” I demanded, trying to suppress a twinge of irritation. I knew Adrian wasn't stalking me, or he would have transferred to the middle school section of Jing Tian Academy long ago, but I was pretty sure he didn't choose this moment to move to Saint Teresa Academy by accident. ”Wouldn't it be better for you to stay in Crowley's Grand Arcane Academy?”
”No,” he replied with a shrug. ”There's not really much difference…and besides, Crowley's Grand Arcane Academy lost to Saint Teresa Academy in the round of 16, so it's actually better to transfer here anyway.”
”That was the high school tournament, not the middle school tournament, and I doubt you chose to transfer here because of that.” Otherwise all the students of Crowley's Grand Arcane Academy would have moved here as well…and I doubted the director of Saint Teresa Academy, Teresa Taylor, would have flippantly allowed people to transfer here based on such superficial reasons. She would have put a stop on it, I was sure.
”Oh, no. That's not the reason why I transferred here. I did so because of a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was to help Melina.”
”…say what?” Oh, right. Weren't they together when I first found them during the tournament? At that time, I thought for some reason they were in the same school – that Melina was also in Crowley's Grand Arcane Academy – but I was evidently mistaken. However, they seemed pretty close for students from different schools, which piqued my interest somewhat. ”Okay…that's interesting. How will you transferring here help Melina?”
”She needs teammates.” Well, that was true, and we were literally discussing that problem last chapter, but…how the hell did Adrian know that!? He must have read the question on my face, for he quickly offered an explanation. ”We have connections, and are under the same education system. It's pretty easy to speculate what will happen if Melina decides to be a swordswoman like her father. I'm guessing she got ejected from her team?”
”You are placing a lot of faith on something that just happened today.”
”Let's just say it's easy to predict the future once you're familiar enough with the system. People ar predictable…they tend to behave the way you expect them to if you push them toward a particular direction. Well, I don't mean that literally, of course…and I mean the school pushing them toward specific choices.”
”Yeah.” I was almost going to ask if he was the one behind Melina's decision to become a swordswoman, or if he manipulated her teammates somehow, but obviously that would be too farfetched. No matter how scheming Adrian was, he couldn't possibly predict everything to such an accurate extent.
”The second and…well, this is actually the main reason, so it should be the first, but you know what I mean.” He cleared his throat and grinned at me. ”I want you to tutor me as well!”
”…huh?”
For a moment, I wasn't sure if I had heard him right. I stared at him blankly for a moment, his words still ringing in my ears.
”It's not fair that you're Melina's exclusive private tutor! I met you first! Come on, you should teach me as well! I mean, you already mastered a high level of wood magic! That's my element! You should be teaching me wood magic as well!”
”Uh, well…that's…”
”I know you didn't exactly learn my family's Stuart swordsmanship, but still the foundation for wood magic is, as you said, very similar. The ten great families were the ones who established the basics for all the elemental magic and techniques, after all. But the reverse is also true – if you've mastered wood magic, you should also be able to teach me wood techniques, even if I'm from the Stuart clan, since all the elemental spells share the same origin!”
”That's true,” I conceded with a sigh. The wood spells I learned to execute with Green Dragon were incredibly similar to the Stuart swordsmanship that his cousin and uncle practiced. To the point where both Cecilia and Lionel Stuart actually thought I somehow secretly learned their family's techniques when I actually didn't. However, something wasn't right about this whole scenario. ”If you wanted me to teach you wood magic, all you needed to do was ask. You didn't have to purposely take the trouble to transfer here.”
”It will be easier for the both of us,” Adrian explained cheerfully. ”I was hoping that you can teach both Melina and me at the same time.” He then sulked. ”It's unfair that she got to monopolize you in the first place!”
”No one is monopolizing me,” I told him, sounding a little exasperated. ”Anyway, like I said, all you needed to do was ask.”
”That's the thing. Right now, you're being employed by the Franklin family, and you're essentially a live-in tutor. So I figured I might as well move into the estate and learn with Melina. It will be more convenient for you, anyway. You can teach us both at the same time, without needing to commute from place to place, or city to city.”
Oh, right. That was definitely a major obstacle for Adrian. He lived in Southampton City, which was quite some distance away from Flandor City. If either of us had to make the journey daily, it would be difficult on whoever. About an hour and a half journey by train, and that wasn't even including the return journey. Basically a three hours round trip, and that was harsh no matter who had to do it, especially if it was done daily.
”But I also guessed Melina's situation, so I thought I would give her a hand. So it's killing two birds with one stone, really.”
For some reason, Adrian sounded very proud of himself. I scratched my head and sighed. Well, it did solve a lot of the potential problems that he brought up, so…
Then I suddenly remembered something.
”Wait a minute…did you just say you're going to move into the estate? Huh?”
”Oh, yeah…I've yet to tell you. I'm moving into Melina's manor. I received permission from Uncle Fergus, and he allowed me to stay in.”
”Eh?! EH?!”
I was still wrapping my mind around that revelation, but Adrian continued as if I wasn't throwing my hands up in the air and yelling incoherently.