Blessing of the Seas

Luna stared at the woman in confusion. She was befuddled, baffled, stupefied, bamboozled. If Luna remembered correctly (Which she always did), this was the very woman who was against her children going to the Academy; yet here she was, literally standing among who Luna assumed were teachers, in the Academy herself.

“Do you think so? I mean, a lot of people can look similar to other people. She probably looks like someone we know, but isn’t them,” Yelena mused.

Bennett shrugged, lifting Luna slightly. “Guess you’re rig-”

“AHA! There you are!” A very familiar and annoying voice yelled.

The three of them looked over to the voice to see Tyreese, looking as smug as always, walking over to Bennett. Luna groaned and Bennett gave her a questioning expression, but was interrupted before he could say anything.

“Well, well, well, you’re actually alive!” he said, putting his hand around Bennett’s shoulder. “After what you pulled, I’m baffled. The hell was that? And who’s this beauty?”

As Luna slapped Tyreese’s hand as Yelena looked smugly at Bennett. Bennett simply shrugged. “She’s my sister. And I have no clue where you can fit the term ‘beauty’ on her-”

Bennett ducked under Yelena’s hand as it swung at him, but otherwise ignored her. Tyreese, however, looked slightly miffed.

“You live with her? Man, you’re lucky,” he sighed. “How ‘bout- OUCH!”

He was interrupted when, from behind, Mia seemed to appear and grab his ear. “The first thing you say when you see him isn’t ‘thank you’, but you immediately hit on his sister? How insensitive can you be?”

Luna poked Bennett’s cheek and he looked at her for a moment before seeming to understand. “Do you want to go to the front so it’ll be easier to see?”

…Nevermind.

Luna shook her head before trying to pull herself higher up, struggling for a moment before she got onto her shoulders just as the people who were at the front began to speak. Bennett was momentarily surprised, but when Luna swayed dangerously, unsure how to stay upright on his shoulders, he gently held her ankles, stabilizing her.

“Attention, Students!”

Almost immediately, the 150 students slowly stopped talking and looked up at the person at the front of the room in rapt attention. The one in question was a man who seemed young, but, seeing as many people seemed to recognize him, including Bennett who looked at him in awe. With faint attention, Luna saw that Yelena was practically shivering in excitement as she held one of her brother’s hands. However, Luna looked to the new man at the front.

The man held himself with confidence and seemed completely calm in front of the many excited teenagers. Due to this, Luna had an inkling of who he could be, which was confirmed by his next words.

“Some of you may already know me as the Headmaster of the Academy of Magic, as it’s been nicknamed over the years. For those of you who don’t know me, well, you know me now,” he chuckled and Luna immediately felt some sense of foreboding from the man. She gripped Bennett’s hair for a moment before loosening her hold. He continued. “I am known as one of the last known Lightning Battlemages to walk the planet. And, from this moment onward, I shall be the one watching over you. Need not worry about your belongings, as they have been placed in your new dorms.”

Belongings…? Luna thought. Dorms? Wait, we’re STAYING here?!?

She looked down at Bennett, who had certainly not informed her of this. He looked up at her, sensing her gaze.

“Ah. I may have left that part out…” he said meekly as Luna lightly slapped his forehead. “Fair enough. Neither of us really brought anything other than the leftover money and the clothes we have. They provide us with uniforms… so we thought we didn’t need them.”

Luna frowned, looking at herself. I have to change out of my dress? …I like this dress, She thought glumly.

She didn’t have a choice, however, as she couldn’t even make the thing change into the type of clothes she wanted, like she used to be able to. She was starting to realize the things that she had as a Goddess were a bit… over the top. For instance-

“However, I must commend some of you for your performance. Specifically, our newest Lightning Mage, Bennett Yasmine.”

Despite what she knew about Bennett, he cursed. “Come on… I couldn’t have been that-”

“-And the rest of his team, as they were the only ones to have defeated the first Boss.”

Yelena froze next to Bennett and stared at him. “Huh? You… what?”

The Headmaster kept talking as Bennett’s expression slowly contorted into confusion. “I must also congratulate another, an Earth Mage who embodied her very ideals to protect the rest of her group, Juli Andromeda.”

Luna frowned at this. She could swear she knew the surname “Andromeda”, but just couldn’t remember where from… But, when she looked over the heads of the many people, she froze in place at the sight of pitch black horns with a streak of brown running through them.

…What? Isn’t that girl… an Abyssal? Voidborn, at that, to be able to have an Earth Alignment?

Luna poked Bennett’s head and he looked up at her questioningly. She slid her tentacle out and pointed to the girl with it. His eyes followed it and he frowned.

“I’ve… never seen horns like that. With the pointed ears as well? Strange. Is she some sort of Dragonborn-Elf Hybrid? But the horns… they’re not positioned the way it would normally be positioned for a Dragonborn…”

His frown deepened as Yelena followed his gaze. “What’re you looking at? I can’t see, you towering buffoon.”

Bennett looked down at his sister, who was, in fact, shorter than him. “Have you ever heard of a Race with dark black horns at the top of their heads and pointed ears, almost like an Elf’s, but pointed back?”

She frowned. “Why specifically on top? And what do you mean by pointed ears pointing back?”

He shrugged, lifting Luna up and down. She barely held back a childish giggle and smacked the top of his head lightly instead.

“Right, sorry, Lu,” he responded.

Before she could smack him again, the headmaster spoke again. “Now, let me welcome you to the Academy of Magic, the place you will go from a simple commoner to a fully fledged Battlemage, or higher!”

There were cheers from the student’s but Luna got a foreboding feeling from those words. The others, Bennett, Yelena, Tyreese, and even Mia, were seemingly excited, but Luna couldn’t have felt more trapped.

***

Juli sighed at her broken Status screen from the previous System.

Status

Name : Juli Andromeda (???)

Level ! ERROR ! | Tier ! ERROR !

Race : Voidborn Abyssal

Health : 0/0 (! ERROR !)

Mana : 0/0 (! ERROR !)

Class : Voidborn Abyssal Princess I (!@#!@*)

Stats

! ERROR !

! ERROR !

! ERROR !

! ERROR !

! ERROR !

! ERROR !

Titles : Reincarnator

Skills : ! ERROR !

I wonder how Jason is… She thought, feeling a pang of emptiness in her heart.

Juli missed her brother so much, so much that it hurt. She knew that he probably felt guilty, since she was dead because of what happened to him… but she also wasn’t. She was both alive and dead, in a sense. Not a zombie, mind you, but… a husk of sorts.

That’s not right either, She thought. I still have a soul, hopefully. I still have everything that makes me a person, also hopefully. But I still feel empty. Why-?

These were the thoughts she had as she stared up at the man who said her name and praised her for the “Exams”. She couldn’t have cared less though, since the Academy wasn’t her true goal. Based on the Quest she’d gotten the moment she’d woken up, she was meant to find something… a piece of something important. It had led her to participate in the Exams,, and now she wasn’t sure where to go from here.

Juli sighed, looking around in random directions, ignoring the people staring at her, or, more specifically, her horns. She noticed what looked like a young girl sitting on top of a boy’s shoulders, staring at her in confusion. When Juli locked eyes with the girl, said girl shrugged before looking down at the boy and messing with his hair as he seemed to speak with someone next to him.

…Jeez, he’s tall, Juli thought. A damn skyscraper. No wonder she’s on his shoulders. No one seems to care about it though…

With a frown, she decided to ignore the two of them for now.

How about we find this Bennett Yasmine?

***

Bennett held onto Luna’s ankles as she messed with his hair as he spoke to Yelena.

“Did anything happen while I was unconscious?” he asked, looking down at his sister.

She shrugged. “Not really… The most I did was walk around the halls aimlessly for the rest of the day. Others may have just gone around and explored, but I wanted to wait for you two to get up.”

Bennett frowned. “Luna wasn’t up before me?” He looked up at her. “I would’ve expected her to look around, at the very least-”

Luna smacked his forehead, letting out a huff before glaring at Yelena, who had snorted. She then proceeded to smack her lightly with a tentacle before drawing it back in, continuing to mess with Bennett’s hair again. He shook his head and looked back at his sister.

“I wonder how much longer we have to stay here before we can look around…” he mumbled, looking over to the Headmaster, who was still speaking.

At some point, Yelena began to shake in excitement again and he rolled his eyes as she couldn’t focus on one thing for more than a second or two.

And finally, after what seemed like forever-

“-And now that we’ve given you this basic information, again, Welcome to the Academy of Magic. Your first classes will start next week, so you have three days, not including today, to choose your classes, explore, and even make friends.”

After this closing, the rush of 150 students ensued and Bennett heard Luna yelp as she was nearly knocked off his shoulders. In a slight panic, he lifted her off his shoulders and let her back in her normal position, using his arm as a sort of seat, her head now level with his. She wrapped her arms around his chest as she was jostled around and Bennett looked to Yelena, who nodded and they pushed in the opposite direction the crowd was going, where it didn’t take long to move out of the crowd and into the open air, where he sighed.

Luna slowly let go, instead wrapping a tentacle around him and looking glum, with messed up hair and her dress folded in places. She immediately let out four more tentacles (which somehow made her lighter, or more specifically, distributed her weight), before beginning to fix her hair and dress, looking annoyed.

He watched her for a moment before looking to the crowd which was already half out the large room, which he assumed was probably the dining hall and looked to Yelena.

“Wanna get moving?” he asked.

She poked his cheek. “Of course. Oh, I found the library yesterday! It’s just books upon books. It’s amazing! Let’s go-!”

“Excuse me, but would you two be the Yasmine twins?”

Both Bennett and Yelena recognised the voice with a shock and spun around with wide eyes. The young-looking headmaster stood behind them with his hands behind his back. The thing that gave away his age was his gray hair and tired looking eyes. However, his eyes seemed to sparkle as he looked at them.

“H-H-Headmaster?” Yelena stuttered.

“Y-Yeah, we are,” Bennett responded in surprise. “I’m Bennett and this is Luna.”

His sister shook her head rapidly. “Yeah, I’m Yelena.”

The Headmaster chuckled at their nervousness. Luna, however, ignored them, finding it more important to fix her clothes and hair. “No need to be so nervous. I just wanted to meet the children of one of our most successful students.”

Bennett blinked. “Do you mean… our dad?”

Yelena frowned at Bennett, but seemed to have the same line of thought. However, the Headmaster shook his head.

“No, I mean your mother, Melony.”

The twins froze in place and the Headmaster tilted his head slightly, confused at their reactions. Luna, of course, had finished fixing her hair, and had let out a fifth tentacle (Or sixth, counting the one around Bennett) and was fussing over her dress, which had bends in its strange material.

“...What do you mean? She never went to the Academy,” Yelena said. “She wouldn’t lie to us about that.”

Bennett simply nodded. But the Headmaster shook his head.

“Your mother, Melony Yasmine was one of our most powerful Ice Harbingers, or maybe even Archon, and paved the way to help the Kingdom capture the most heavily fortified fortress, turning the tides of the war significantly.”

At this, Luna actually looked up in interest, but Bennett and his sister just stared in confusion and horror.

This… can’t be right, Bennett thought. Our mother would’ve told us this. But… Why does it make so much sense? It explains so much. Like the Runes on the fridge, something only Ice Mages can manage to do; the way the room gets colder whenever she’s angry at me and Lena’s shenanigans; and so many other things-

Luna poked his cheek as he nearly grew lost in thought, snapping him back into reality.

Right, try and focus. Lena is probably already-

Bennett looked at Yelena mid-thought and was barely able to hold back a snort at his sister’s drop-jawed expression. He nudged her foot with his and she blinked, closing her mouth immediately.

“You… this can’t be true,” Yelena said, rubbing the sides of her head. “Our mother, that powerful? Actually, that’s not the part I’m confused about.”

She shook her head. “If she’s so strong and well off, why the hell do we even exist?”

***

Luna couldn’t say she was surprised at this oh, so shocking revelation, but Yelena’s question actually brought up some questions of her own. Yelena made a good point, though her question didn’t make much sense. Of course a strong person would have offspring at some point. It was just nature. Even Luna- No, Cthulhu had children. (At some point, Luna began differentiating “Luna” from “Cthulhu.” When? She had not a clue. It was just a bit weird to think of “Luna” as a mother of thousands, if not more.)

The question she should’ve been asking was-

“I don’t really think that’s the right question,” Bennett muttered. “The better question is what happened to her that led to us being barely able to live?”

The Headmaster sighed. “Debt to your father’s family.”

At this, Luna was genuinely curious, causing her to look up. Both Bennett and Yelena’s faces contorted into similar frowns.

“Our father?” Yelena muttered. “How?”

The Headmaster seemed to look around nervously as if he felt someone watching him before clearing his throat. “I… may not be able to finish this story today. If you wish to hear more, come to my office-”

Bennett’s frown deepened. “Before you go… is our father a noble?”

The Headmaster, who was in the act of turning around, looking Bennett in the eye. “Yes, is that important-?”

Bennett’s expression suddenly contorted into something dark and full of fury for just a moment, long enough for Luna to notice and freeze in place at the sheer anger expressed on his face. Then, just as quick as the expression appeared, it disappeared as Yelena looked at him in confusion.

The Headmaster, however, took a slight step back at it as Bennett nodded with a flat expression. “Okay. Just wanted to know.”

Bennett… he dislikes nobles? No… that was pure hatred. Loathing. But… Jennifer is a noble, but he doesn’t seem to hate her. Might be something specific then. Mia might also be a noble as well. I think there’s a side of Bennett I haven’t seen yet. Maybe not even Yelena has seen either.

“I would advise you to go to your dorms sooner than later,” the Headmaster said.

Bennett blinked. “I- uh- don’t know where my dorm is.”

“Do you know where your group is from the exams? They are your Dorm mates.”

Luna was unsure if she should feel happy or exasperated at that news, so she looked at Bennett to see his reaction, but her eyes ended up landing on the horrified expression of Yelena.

“I can’t be with Ben?” She muttered, sounding far more in despair than Luna thought she should have.

~~~

“Luna, we should probably go-” Bennett started.

She smacked him with a tentacle as she rolled over to glare at him. She laid in a bed covered in blankets that was in the dorm room, stubbornly refusing to get up. With a small noise of annoyance, she covered herself in the blankets. She could faintly remember Bennett carrying her to the dorms while following the other three, with Tyreese and Mia bickering the entire time and Jennifer looking between them nervously.

However, there were more important things to do than remember that. Specifically, lay down in the very comfortable bed. It was even more comfortable than Bennett’s bed back in the clinic, though, to be fair, it wasn’t exactly the most luxurious bed in the world.

Bennett sighed. “Fine, I’ll just leave you here, I guess. Tyreese, can you watch her and make sure-”

Immediately upon hearing this, Luna shot out of the bed and crashed into Bennett’s back, knocking him forward through the door as he let out a yelp of surprise. He rolled over out in the hall and Luna found herself sitting on his back as Tyreese looked out the door with a taken aback expression, though it quickly contorted to his smug grin.

“I’d take that as a no,” he cackled, turning around and closing the door behind him.

There was then the very distinct sound of him locking it and both Luna and Bennett, who somehow craned his head around, stared in disbelief at this. After a moment, Luna let out a huff and stood up, acting like she hadn’t done anything a few moments before. Bennett sat up and shook out his hair, looking a bit like a dog as he did so. He then stood up and gave her a wary look.

“Are you going to knock me across the hall with the Strength that belies your small and seemingly adorable form?” he said, completely serious as he stared at her.

She fought to keep her face from heating up and responded by lifting herself off the ground with three tentacles and forcing herself back in her usual place, using his arm as her seat. Sighing, he squinted down the hall focusing on a distant form, which to him would be probably unrecognizable, but to Luna, she could tell it was-

“Oh, Yelena’s over there,” he muttered. “She looks like she’s with her group.”

Huh? How in the- how can he even see her; she’s all the way at the end of the hall and should be barely a blur to him-

She shook herself out of this train of thought. Actually, it might not be as impressive. I’m too used to Humans being weak little things with next to no sense of danger whatsoever. However, the Humans here have proved many times that they’re much different. I remember seeing Bennett carrying an entire bundle of wood to the docks the other day. Like something that had to have been four to seven times his weight… actually, how much does he actually weigh? That was probably not a great estimate of his strength.

As more thoughts raced through her mind, Bennett shrugged before turning around. “Guess we don’t get a tour guide. We’ll have to find our way around here ourselves, Lu.”

Another annoying burst of heat nearly rose to her cheeks, but she nodded instead of reacting.

“First up, the library?” He said meekly, clearly already knowing Luna’s answer.

She gave him a hard stare, trying to impart upon him the obvious answer. For a good four seconds he resisted, but eventually, falling to the power of Luna’s stomach rumbling, he let out a sigh.

“Fine… dining hall it is,” he grumbled. “I wanted to look for what the library had. Maybe I could learn Lightning Manipulation and not half cook myself whenever I tried to use Lightning Strike.” At Luna’s expression he suddenly added, “It doesn’t hurt me, mind you, so get rid of that droplet of healing or whatever. It just feels really, really hot.”

That didn’t exactly help his case as Luna kept preparing it. No way she was letting him accidentally cook himself, whatever that meant. Not like someone would eat him… unless he tasted good-

With a scowl, she pushed down the instincts of Cthulhu and pulled Luna back. However, he gave her a bewildered look, not knowing the expression wasn’t for him.

Twenty minutes later and a lot of head scratching on Bennett’s part and a few strange look from various students on Luna’s part, as she had a tentacle wrapped around Bennett as she played around with her Water Manipulation, creating small figures of Bennett, Yelena, or whatever she felt like making, they found the dining hall. The moment she smelled the food, she let her most recent construction of a Kraken disperse and kicked Bennett’s leg to get him to move faster.

He looked down at her and sighed. At this, Luna got the faint urge to spray ink on him, but then realized how weird that would be since she couldn’t just spray it from any part of her body anymore (and yes, she had tried at some point, only ending up making the water of the bath she took turn black. With how generous this “System” seemed to be, she had been mildly surprised that she hadn’t gotten any Skill for it) and decided against it.

“Luna, don’t just shove things into your mouth and then leave,” Bennett grumbled, seemingly tired. “Yes, the sight of you with food stuffed in your cheeks like a squirrel is adorable, but you don’t need to do it all the time-”

His voice faded away as he opened the door to the dining hall and they beheld the food spread out on tables. It had everything she could possibly imagine, from steaming meat pies, to pancakes, to seafood (Obviously the most important part), to noodles and soups, to nicely cut and beautifully seasoned steak and other meats, to even various amounts of desserts that her mouth just had to shove into her mouth.

Bennett gave her a panicked look, his grip starting to tighten. “Luna-”

However, she was already out of his arm seat and had split into five Duplicates, to the bewilderment of other students already in the Dining Hall. Bennett groaned as multiple copies began shoving food into her mouth happily, Luna quite pleased with the turn of events.

~~~

Bennett carried Luna on his shoulders, as she was too lazy to use his arm as a seat on a full stomach. He was muttering under his breath about something to do with a food coma, but she was too tired to listen. She truly hadn’t expected the sheer amount of nutrients that five of her would give, combined, causing her to be completely exhausted. However, she forced herself to stay awake, as she still wanted to see the campus.

Eventually, after a few minutes of walking, they came across a large door that the two of them stared up at. Bennett tilted his head at it, contemplating something. While he did this, Luna sniffed the air, catching a scent of what seemed to be old paper, some maybe dating back a thousand years or so. There was a hint of Mana in the air, which she found odd. Mana and MP were one in the same, but had different properties. For instance, she could use Mana to power her Skills, as she found out when she was making her water sculptures. They were more defined and simpler to form. However, with MP, they were much less defined, yet they seemed to have more density. At this small test, though she’d have to try more often, MP made Skills, or spells, as she used to call them, stronger, yet more difficult to use, but Mana made things easier and quicker to form.

Is MP just a more dense version of Mana, which makes it harder to handle? And if so, why-

“Lu, what are you doing with my hair?” Bennett suddenly asked. “I can feel you touching it.”

She blinked and looked down at her hands, which she had unconsciously buried in his very much unkempt hair, though it probably was probably in that state because of her fidgeting while thinking. She pulled her hands out of his hair and huffed.

“Mhm. I can’t say I know you well, but when you’re thinking hard about something, you do fidget around with your hands, so I assume you were thinking about something. Also, do you think I should ask someone for directions to the-”

“Excuse me,” a voice interrupted.

Bennett’s speaking turned into a yelp of surprise as he Flickered to the other side of the hall they were in, pulling Luna with him. She grabbed his hair in a slight panic, all drowsiness suddenly being ripped away.

When she looked back to where they had been previously standing, she was mildly surprised (meaning she was absolutely baffled) to see the blank faced Abyssal girl from earlier standing there with a slightly ajar expression, like she was a bit confused that Bennett had suddenly disappeared. She immediately tried to Scan her, but was met with a message she had never seen before.

___

Error! Scan Blocked!

___

Heh? What the- Right. Abyssal. Damnable things are near impossible to sense their strength by conventional means thanks to them being literally tied to the Abyss. Luna thought, miffed slightly.

The Abyssal frowned. “I’m pretty sure randomly [Eye-] er, Scanning people is rude.”

Luna stared at her. She was about to mention the dumbass Skill [All Seeing Eye Of The Abyss]. That just confirms my suspicions that she’s not from this System. But how did she get here?

Bennett seemed confused for a second before looking up at Luna, who made a show of looking meekly down at him, which was something that was starting to become a bit genuine. He then sighed.

“Sorry about that. I panicked, since I’m used to silently hunting things down, not the other way around,” he said. He then cringed slightly as Luna smacked him with her tentecle. “Yeah, I realized how that sounded the moment it came out my mouth too.”

The Abyssal blinked slowly. “Right. I think I understand what you mean. By the way, would you happen to know a Bennett Yasmine? Some girl told me that he was looking around the campus.”

Bennett blinked at the girl in confusion, but Luna simply did a quick look over of her. She seemed to be slightly older than Bennett, in a sense, but she was also younger… a bit like Luna, but toned down by a huge amount… in some places.

Why couldn’t I have my old body? she mentally grumbled.

The girl had dirty blonde hair and very noticeable green eyes that seemed to be a bit lifeless as she watched them. The same look Luna had seen before in other people: Reincarnators who hadn’t accepted their previous death and were longing for something back in their old world.

So she’s a Reincarnator, huh? Normally, I’d be nice to them and do my best to show them what they wanted to see, even if it hurt them more. Though, usually, they’d get better after a while. But… I get the feeling if i did show her, if I even could, she would be even more lifeless than she is now. What in the hells happened to her before her Reincarnation?

Luna also noticed that the girl was wearing clothes with words in a different language other than Common… English. They said something along the lines of, “I’m Named After a Galaxy!” Underneath those clothes Luna could see very worn looking leather armor, a bit like Bennett’s

She’s from Earth, that useless brick in space where I used to terrify people for fun. In Earth terms, she’s been “Isekaied ''. Speaking of Earth. I put them in a different plane of time than the rest of the universe for just messing with them back when I was younger and keeping them away from most of the horrors I birthed when I was older. But how in the name of the Gods did she end up there? And very funny shirt. Just ignore the fact that the Andromeda Galaxy is very much a horror show filled with necessarily powerful things and I guess it’s nice. Also, wasn’t I supposed to be studying something?

After a few moments of silence, Bennett sighed. “Well, I’m Bennett. This is Luna. What were you looking for me for?”

The girl’s eyes narrowed. “How do I know you’re actually Bennett? You could be lying to me.”

Luna simply stared at the girl for a moment before rubbing Bennett’s hair until it crackled with overcharged static electricity and her own hair rose into the air. She grabbed her own hair with a tentacle to keep it out of the air before looking at Bennett’s flat face staring up at her with a hint of amusement in his eyes. He then rolled his eyes and looked back at the Abyssal.

“That enough proof? I’m the new Lightning Mage. Bennett Yasmine, nice to meet you…?”

The girl sighed after a moment, frowning at Luna. “Juli. Juli Andromeda.”

Bennett grinned in his normal fashion. “So…what exactly did you want to find me for, Juli?”

“How exactly did you beat the Boss during the Exam?”

***

Bennett immediately was a bit wary of Juli. First, she appears without either him or Luna sensing her, then she explains that she was looking for him, but is immediately suspicious that he may not be Bennett, even after the show of his Lightning Alignment. To be fair though, he kinda panicked and tried to get both him and Luna away from the strange girl. And when she asked how he beat the Boss, he was even more suspicious. There was no way that someone went through the effort to find him just to ask that. There was something else she wanted from him.

“Honestly, I don’t know. I kinda almost killed myself,” Bennet said, shrugging. He knew that Luna was probably giving him an annoyed expression, but he didn’t look up. “I just got a new Skill and used it, I guess,” he continued nervously.

Juli stared at him with a slightly suspicious look on her face. “That explains absolutely nothing,” she responded, her tone flat. “I couldn’t even defeat it and I was the same Level as it.”

Why is she so concerned about this? Bennett thought, looking to the side nervously. I just want to go to the library, man. Wait, did she say she was the same Level as the Boss? “You have a Class?” He suddenly asked, far more interested.

She blinked in confusion at his sudden interest, taking a small step back. “Yes… why is that important?”

“That’s amazing! I haven’t met anyone who has a Class that wasn’t just outright a piece of work or my mom. Though, to be fair, I don’t really try to approach people often… I’m normally working, out searching for some satellite nests or hunting down Elemental Beasts to trade into the Merchant Guild for some extra money for-”

“I don’t care about your life story,” the girl, Juli, suddenly snapped. “I just want to know how someone at Level 2 can defeat a Boss five times his Level.”

Oh… she just wants to know how I’m so “strong”.

A small bit of anger burned in the back of his mind, but he took a breath to cool off. There was no reason to get angry right now. She was just…

Bennett looked at the expression on her face, which had contorted into an expression he knew he made sometimes, the expression of someone who thought they weren’t enough. The expression of someone needing to do something, not just for themselves, but for the people around them. Someone who wanted to protect something.

I wonder what she wants to protect… “Look,” Bennett started. “You keep saying I killed it, but I didn’t do that alone. The Headmaster said himself that ‘Bennett Yasmine and the rest of his team were the only ones to have defeated the first Boss.’ It was a team effort. I just happened to land the last hit. Did you not work with your team?”

The girl’s jaw tightened and Bennett could hear her grinding her teeth. “Don’t tell me it was a ‘team effort’; you can only get places with your own hard work. You killed it and the rest of your team didn’t. They just happened to be there when you killed it.”

“I’m about 90% sure you’re not even listening to the words out of my mouth. Did you run off from your team or something?”

The slight twitch in her face verified his question. Before he could continue on speaking, she simply turned around. “Clearly, this was a bust,” she muttered. “Don’t talk to me again.”

Both Luna and Bennett watched her leave and once she was out of sight, he earned a smack on the head from the girl on his back.

“I swear, I’m gonna stop carrying you around if you smack me again,” he mumbled. “But, what was her problem?” He felt Luna shrug before pulling on his shirt. “Yeah, I almost forgot! The Library! Let's see if they have anything interesting.”

He took a few steps forward before he stopped. “Well, provided we can find it. I should have asked her if she knew…” Bennett added, a bit meekly.

Luna groaned, slumping against the back of his head as he sighed.