Vald left the infirmary late in the afternoon and got Oliver to give him a ride home. Oliver was just finishing his classes at the time Vald was allowed to leave, and so Vald waited for him outside his classroom. Oliver was surprised to see him, but didn't miss much. He immediately noticed Vald's state of exhaustion and demanded the reason behind it.
"It's not as bad as it looks," Vald said with a laugh. "I'm just tired. Apparently some guys beat me up, but I can't really remember."
"Why aren't you at your house?" Oliver asked in a concerned tone.
"I was at the infirmary," Vald replied. "Mind giving me a ride home? I don't really have one."
"Of course!" Oliver gasped. "Do you mind waiting for me to buy some essay books at the store? My professor's having an essay in class next time and Mom will kill me if I don't buy the stuff for it immediately."
"Of course," Vald replied. He followed the younger student in a daze. Life had gotten really tedious lately. It couldn't just be the college experience could it?
"How are your classes going?" Oliver asked to pass the time.
"Professor Marse just loves me," Vald answered with a laugh. "I don't need to do anything for that class. Professor Halvir, though… I don't know."
Oliver nodded. "Yeah, I guess I should've expected that. Professor Marse is known as the easiest professor. Girls cook him food in exchange for grades. But Professor Halvir is the opposite. Despite teaching seemingly easy classes, he's incredibly hard and has high fail and drop-out rates. I've been doing some research into them…" He said the last sentence as if it was embarrassing and hid his face.
Vald shrugged lazily. "Karin from high school has that class with me. She cooks for him all the time, and now because of her he calls me 'Prince' too. It's really annoying."
Oliver smiled. "What's Trevor been up to? He hasn't answered my Facebook messages."
"I don't really know," Vald admitted. "I've been kind of busy."
At the school store they bumped into Professor Marse. "Your Highness!" he called when he recognized Vald. "How are you?"
Vald sighed and glanced at Oliver. The younger student smiled and said, "I'll just be a second," to Vald. He went inside and left Vald alone with the weird professor.
"Fine?" Vald answered, making it a question in an attempt to show his awkwardness.
"Then you are no longer hurt?" Professor Marse asked.
"How did you know about that?" Vald asked.
"With all of the strange things happening, word gets around quickly."
Vald gave him a look that told him that he knew it was a lie.
"A young lady working at the infirmary was kind enough to let it slip that there was a student actually using the infirmary," Marse answered honestly with a smile "and it didn't take much persuading for her to tell me that it was Your Highness."
"Stop calling me that," Vald replied. "It's weird."
"Val then?" Marse asked with a child-like grin. "Then you must call me Marse, as well. All of the others do anyway."
Vald felt awkward but nodded.
Oliver returned quickly and the two left, waving away the professor gratefully and heading to where Oliver's mom was waiting to pick them up.
"Do you have a lot of homework?" Oliver asked.
Vald shook his head. "Not really."
"Want to get on Crimson Spell later and try out that mission again?" Oliver asked eagerly. "I bought a few more spells yesterday, so we should be able to take on the boss this time!"
"And get help from someone higher leveled, right?" Vald asked.
Oliver pouted but nodded.
I actually forgot Marse! Well it's not a big deal since he's really the most forgettable character of the main group for me, behind Rein cause at least he has some depth as Havi's childhood classmate with an inferiority complex and an ass-kissing problem. Marse is just a glutton with a thing for princes...which is weird.