Chapter 9

Fortunately for Marie and her friends, they were easily able to make it to the first class. It certainly made it easy since they had all been assigned to Class 1-A. For the first period, it was Potion Class. Marie finished putting on her white lab coat before taking her seat next to Grim. The room was large with an assortment of liquids and ingredients lining the shelves. In the center of the classroom was a giant black cauldron. A strange purple liquid bubbled within it with a smell that Marie couldn't place. The best guess she could give is a strong perfume with a bit of cigarettes.

The sound of heels clicked as the teacher entered the room. He was a handsome man wearing a black and white fur coat, matching his hair.

"My my, so many new faces. A batch of new puppies to train." The man gave a devilish grin. "I am Divus Crewel. Starting today, I will make sure you pups know the basics of potion-making. I will hammer 100 different kinds of both medicinal and poisonous herbs. I expect not a single pup in here to fail."

"Jeez, this guy is kind of strict." Marie thought to herself.

"Also, I'm sure as you've all heard by now, the puppy here will be with us as a regular student along with her cat."

"Hey, how many times do I need to tell everyone here that I'm not a cat!" Grim yelled.

Suddenly there was a loud snap. Startled, Grim jumped up on his desk with his back hunched and tail sticking straight up.
Crewel was staring at Grim with narrowed eyes, tapping his pointer in his hand harshly.

"As I was saying, you will pay her no mind in class. The same shall go for her. I expect you pups to behave. Any misbehaving puppies..." he paused to harshly slam the pointer in his hand, creating a snap."...shall be punished."

Marie's face went pale.

"Okay, strict and scary."

"Let us start with the first of our items, the sage."

The school bell rang, indicating the beginning of the second period. The classroom was quite the stark contrast to Crewel's. Simple desks lined up next to each other, all facing a single desk with a chalkboard. In fact, it didn't look much different from classrooms back in her world. Taking her seat, Marie's jaw nearly dropped open at seeing the large book sitting on top of her desk. It had so many layers that it looked to have over than more than a thousand pages. Glancing over at Grim, she could see him just struggling to open up the book. She leaned over and flipped it open.

"Fnagh. I could have opened that myself." Grim gave her an annoyed stare.

"Ah yes, much like you don't need that booster seat right now."

She giggled as he grumbled in response, but fell silent at hearing the door open. Entering the classroom was an old man dressed in a red cloak. In his arms, he carried a black and white cat.

"My name is Mozus Trien, but I expect to be addressed as Professor Trien by all of you here." One of his hands gave slow strokes along the cat's back. "This here is my familiar, Lucius."

The cat let out a low meow in response.

"Looks like you aren't the only cat here in the school." Marie whispered.

"For the last time, I'm not a cat!" Grim hissed.

Suddenly Trien cleared his throat loudly, causing both Marie and Grim to look at him. The teacher had a cold glare. Marie swallowed hard and settled into her seat.

"Ms. Anderson and Grim, I understand you both are in a unique situation, but I expect to have every student's attention in my class. That includes you two. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Professor Trien." the two quickly responded.

"Okay, not as scary as Crewel, but just as, if not even more, strict."

"Now then, I ask you all to turn to page 15 in your textbooks. To begin our journey into the extensive history of magic and its uses, we shall begin with the discovery of the first magic crystal within the Dwarfs' Mine."

The familiar sound of the school bell filled the air. It was now the start of the third period. Marie stood in line with the other students, dressed in gray gym suits. She was pretty thankful that for once, Crowley did manage to set out to do what he had promised. She had been provided her own changing room and locker that could only be opened with the key she now possessed. Apparently, the ghosts had put it together overnight.

Speaking of which, she saw the ghosts out on the field. They were busy carrying boxes that contained varying weight sizes. She yelled out to them and waved her hand. Walt had paused and upon seeing her, nudged his companions so they all could wave back at her. Honestly, those ghosts were kind of sweet. That is when they weren't trying to scare her.

A loud whistle blew, causing the students to jolt in surprise. A large muscly man in a red jacket grinned with his hands on his hips. His teeth were so white, that they practically shined and glimmered.

"Welcome to your Psychical Education class! I'm your coach, Ashton Vargas. It's up to me to train you bean sprouts up. It takes more than magic to be a great magician, you also gotta have muscles. If you work hard, even you can have a figure like this!"

He grunted as he flexed his biceps, doing a few poses.

"Certainly likes to show off doesn't he." Marie thought, not really impressed with his attitude.

"Now I want 20 laps around the entire track and after that, 100 pushups. I expect everyone to be finished before the end of the period."

"Wait what?! Don't we at least get warm-ups?!" the girl exclaimed.

"Forget that, I don't want to do all that! It sounds so exhausting!" Grim whined.

"No complaints, now go! Hup hup hup hup!"

Figuring that there was no chance of bargaining with this teacher, Marie had already started her sprint. Glancing up ahead, it seemed the field was about as large as the average football field. The girl whined, already foreseeing how exhausted she was going to be by the end of the class.

"Ah man, I still can't feel my legs." Marie groaned as she walked alongside her friends in the school hallways.

"Tell me about it. I hate guys like him. Doesn't help I still have to deal with this stupid collar." Ace grumbled, tugging a bit at the heart collar.

"Well, Coach Vargas did say he wants to train up our muscles. So it's to be expected his exercises will seem intense at first." Duece commented, "It's best not to question his methods."

"Oh, I'm questioning them alright! If I kill over before the end of this school year I will make sure my ghost haunts him!" Marie griped.

"I'm so tired. All these classes are so boring!" Grim whined in Marie's arms. "I wanna do the cool stuff already! I wanna do flashy magic and be all like pow, zap, and ping!" The feline emphasized each of these words by wildly swinging around his paws. At one point, he ended up accidentally smacking Marie's face. "Heh heh... whoops." he nervously grinned at seeing the girl's glare.

"For once I agree with you." Ace replied, "Didn't expect NRC to be like regular school. Such a letdown."

"Well it only makes sense we aren't doing any complex magic yet. This is only the beginning of the school year. Our teachers are expert mages, they know what they're doing." Duece stated.

"Ugh, of course, you would say that being all Mr. Serious. What's next anyway?"

Ignoring the ginger's insult, Deuce answered "Well according to the schedule, it's lunch break."

Hearing these words, Grim immediately scampered out of Marie's arms. He took off on all fours, happily shouting about food.

"Grim, get back here!" Marie yelled, chasing after him. "The last thing I need is you making another mess in the cafeteria!"

The two boys stood in place as they watched the girl chase after the feline.

"Shouldn't we help her?" Deuce asked.

Ace gave out a hum, giving the exaggerated look of being in thought before smirking "Nah, she's fine."

In the lunch room, Grim was grinning to himself as he had a plate full of food. He had managed to grab some omelets, grilled chicken, and bacon egg tarts. Yet despite having all of this, he still wanted more. He was snickering loudly to himself, as he got in another line. Trailing behind him was Marie, holding her tray of spaghetti.

"Grim, I think you have enough food."

"But there's so much more food I want to try! Oh, that bread and jam looks really good."

In his excitement, when Grim rushed up to the counter, he accidentally bumped into a student's legs. The student ended up stumbling but still catching himself. Because of the stumble, the egg yolk on top of the carbonara ended up breaking open.

"Oi, watch it!" the student yelled.

Grim yelped as he took a few steps back.
Acting immediately Marie quickly put herself between the two. "Sorry about that. I promise Grim will be more careful in the future." She tried to walk away, but the student's companion with red hair grabbed ahold of her arm harshly and pulled, forcing her to face them.

"Hey, don't you know breaking open the gooey egg is like the best part of the carbonara? How are you and your little pet intend to pay us back?" the redhead grinned menacingly.

"Yeah, you owe us. I know, how about you both hand over your food? That should cover it."

"No way, this is our food!" Grim sneered as he protectively held the tray close to his chest.

"I'm with Grim. Now would you kindly get your hands off me or else!" Marie said as tried to jerk her arm out of the redhead's grip.

"Ha! Or else? Don't think we don't know about you girlie, we both know you have no magic. So what are you gonna do to an upperclassman like me?"

Whelp, he had asked for it. Calmly using her free hand, she set her tray of food on the counter. Now that she didn't have to worry about losing her meal, she used her free hand to grab ahold of the student's arm while at the same time, throwing her hip into his stomach. The student didn't have time to react as she swept his leg out from underneath him and threw him to the ground.

"I may not have magic, but I do have 10 years of experience in judo." she smirked with her hands on her hips.

"Yeah, that's my minion for ya!" Grim snickered with a paw pumped up in triumph.

"Grim, I thought we had a talk about the minion thing." Marie groaned as she picked back up her tray.

They walked away from the student as he was trying to help up his dazed friend. At one of the tables, she could see Ace and Deuce already seated with their food. She sat down next to Deuce while Grim sat next to Ace. Grim had wasted no time digging into his food face first, causing Ace to grunt as some food was splattered on his jacket.

"Marie, we saw what happened. Are you alright, those delinquents didn't bother you too much did they?" Deuce asked out of concern.

"Nah. They were annoying but I handled it." Marie answered as she twirled her fork in her pasta, "But I really want to not have to deal with them again, I was in enough trouble yesterday as is."

"Well long as I'm around, I won't let any delinquents push you around."

She slurped up a noodle before smiling. "Thanks, Deuce, that's sweet of you."

The boy blushed in response with a smile as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Oh that's such a cute face, I could just take a snapshot of it immediately!" a familiar voice exclaimed.

Marie dropped her fork with a loud clank and turned her head. Standing at the side of the table was a grinning Cater with his cell phone out. As if her encounter with the delinquents wasn't enough, now the guy who threw her and her friends out of Heartslabyul is here.

"Not you again!" Ace sneered with clenched teeth.

"Yeah, you made us do all that work painting the roses red and then tossed us like garbage." Grim snapped, momentarily forgetting about his food.

Marie did not respond, simply choosing to glare at the upperclassman with her fists clenched. The only one that wasn't angry was Deuce who instead looked nervously around at his friends. The last thing they needed was to make a scene in the cafeteria.

Cater laughed with what seemed to be an apologetic smile, though it didn't look very sincere. "Ah, you guys are so mean~ I expected you guys would have cooled off by now. I totes come in peace."

The group glanced at each other in silent discussion. There was no real way to know if Cater was telling the truth. But at the same time, trying to force an answer out of him may draw eyes on them. Didn't help that Marie already earned a few stares for her stunt. Any more trouble could result in one of the staff stepping in and that would lead to an enraged Crowley yet again.

Finally Ace groaned with the roll of his eyes as he said "Fine, you can sit with us."

"Much thanksie~" Cater practically purred as he sat down next to Marie much to the girl's annoyance. "You know, I didn't want to throw you guys out. I was just following the Queen of Hearts rules."

"You were grinning while you did it though." Deuce pointed out.

Cater laughed with a wink "Don't be like that Deucey." The nickname prompted a baffled look from the blue-haired boy. "That's just at the dorm. Outside I'm just your friendly senior Caycay."

"Careful, Cater, you'll end up scaring more freshmen." an unfamiliar voice laughed.

Approaching the table was a tall young man with green hair wearing glasses. Marie noted that he had a black clover painted on his cheek. If she had to guess, he was from Heartslabyul. It seemed to be routine for students from Heartslabyul to have at least one card symbol painted on their face. It was like the whole student body of Heartslabyul were living cards, with the dorm leader as the Queen. There was that sense of Deja Vu again.

"Wait, who are you?" Ace asked with his arms crossed.

The young man grinned as he adjusted his glasses. "Trey Clover. I'm a third year in Heartslabyul like Cater. He told me how he had trouble with you guys this morning, especially Marie here."

"Hmph, well he was the one refusing to cooperate." Marie replied with her nose upturned.

Cater laughed as he slung his arm around the girl's neck, causing her to fall back against his chest. "Don't be like that, you don't need to be sour to me all the time. Outside of Heartslabyul, we can totally get along. Say if you don't have a cellphone, we can go shopping. I know all the best models. It'll be a date!"

The girl threw his arm off of her shoulders and started aggressively stabbing at her spaghetti. Yeah, no sweet words would make her forgive, especially since he had refused to let her speak the the dorm leader.

"Anyways, since you guys are new here. We figured we could answer any questions you might have." Trey said as he sat down next to Cater.

Grim's ears immediately perked up.

"Oh oh! I want to learn about the dorms!" he answered with a mouthful of omelet.

"I have to admit, I would like to know about the other dorms besides ours." Ace added.

Marie raised a brow as she silently ate, listening to the upperclassmen explain the dorms. Apparently, the selection is based on the Dark Mirror. It will look into a student's soul and determine a dorm. Because of this, the dorm is filled with people with similar personalities. Ah, so that was the point of the entrance ceremony. But instead of being sorted into any preexisting dorm, she ended up unintentionally starting her own. Funny how fate could work like that.

"So, one way you can identify what dorm a student belongs to is by their vests and armbands. They'll have a vest matching their dorm, and colored armbands with their dorm insignia on it." Trey explained.

Now that he mentioned it, Marie did notice her school uniform differed from Ace's and Deuce's. Her vest was a dark grey while theirs were red. Her armband was grey and black with the insignia of a raven, their's were red and black with the insignia of a heart. So these were factors in how she could identify different dorm students.

"For example, take a look at that guy over there." Cater said as he gestured with his thumb.

Marie followed the command and saw him pointing toward a rather large young man. He had a muscular build to the point it looked like his school uniform had trouble fitting him. On top of his head was a pair of gray dog ears that flicked every so often. He even had a large fluffy tail to match. Marie wasn't surprised by this point to see a boy with animal traits. She encountered that lion guy at the entrance ceremony, and then there was Mr. Peterson, the school janitor who was literally part bear. Speaking of which, Marie could only hope he wasn't too angry about having to clean up after their mess yet again.

"See his yellow armband? That means he's from Savanclaw: Dorm built in honor of the King of Beasts."

According to Ace and Trey, most students who tend to favor physical activities end up in Savanaclaw. For the most part, the students are composed of beastmen, but not all beastmen end up there. Sometimes you'll have beastmen end up in one of the other dorms, or even rarer, a human would be organized into Savanaclaw. Marie practically sighed in exhaustion at the thought. While she was far from unfit, if they were anything like Vargas, she would be exhausted every day.

"How about the guy with the gray armband over there?" Grim asked.

Marie nearly choked on her food when she saw who Grim was pointing at. It was the boy with glasses she accidentally fell on top of at the entrance of the ceremony. Azul she recalled his name as. Apparently, his armband was an indication that he was part of Octavinelle: Dorm built in honor of the Sea Witch. Most people in that dorm are all about business. They even run their own restaurant at their dorm. She watched as Azul seemed to be eating a salad with one hand, while the other was typing away at a calculator.

For a brief moment, he raised his gaze and saw her staring at him. Panicked, Marie quickly lowered her head. She still felt awkward about accidentally falling on top of him. Seeing if he was still staring, she carefully lifted back up her head. Much to her relief, he seemed preoccupied with his calculator again.

"Okay, then what about the guys sitting in front of us?" Ace asked.

Marie turned around and much to her delight, she saw Kalim sitting with a boy in a red hoodie. Kalim seemed to be talking excitedly about something to the boy that she couldn't hear. When he took note of her, he smiled brightly and waved his hand wildly. She couldn't help but wave back. Her wave slowed when she noticed the boy in the hoodie narrow his eyes at her. She smiled nervously and turned back around. "Gee, what was his problem?"

Cater and Ace explained that they were from Scarabia: Dorm built in honor of the Sorceror of the Sands. They are known for their smarts and are neck and neck with Octavinelle for being the dorm with the highest test scores. Though Kalim himself doesn't share these traits, rather he loves throwing parties. Unlike Heartslabyul with its Unbirthday Parties, these parties seem to be thrown without rhyme or reason. Marie couldn't help but giggle at this.

"Sounds like Kalim alright. He must be so nice to everyone."

"Getting back on track, take a look at those flashy guys over there." Trey pointed out.

Not too far from them, Marie saw two students sitting at a table with purple and red armbands. One of the students was a blond wearing a feathered hat and the other looked like...

"Hey, there's a pretty girl over there!" Grim exclaimed.

"A girl, in a boys' school?! I thought Marie was the only one?!" Deuce said with his brows furrowed in confusion.

Ace shook his head with a sigh. "You idiot, you just said it. Marie's the only girl here and even she isn't here under normal circumstances."

"Ace could have worded it nicer, but he's right." Marie replied.

Apparently, the two belonged to Pomefiore: Dorm built in honor of the Beautiful Queen. Those in the dorm value beauty above everything else. They dedicate themselves to ensuring they look absolutely beautiful in everything they do. This ends up ranking the students quite high when it comes to popularity, with the highest belonging to that of their Dorm Leader. But beauty aside, Pomefiore students are also skilled in making potions. You can ask them for any kind of potion and they'll make it with ease.

"I would point out Ignihyde, but they tend to avoid public areas and keep to themselves." Cater sighed, "Their dorm is built in honor of the God of the Underworld."

Ah, that's such a shame. Marie wished she could have seen some Ignihyde students. Makes her wonder exactly what they look like.

That left only one dorm remaining. Diasominia: Dorm built in honor of the Witch of Thorns. Not much is known about students from Diasomnia due to everyone being scared to go near their dorm leader, Malleus Draconia. Marie's heart fluttered; there was that name again. Just who was he, and why did he strike fear in everyone's hearts? Was he truly that terrifying? These thoughts faded away as Trey directed the group's attention to the far back row. There were students wearing black and green armbands. One student had silver hair, while the other had bright green hair.

As for the third, Marie immediately recognized him. It was the boy who looked to be far too young to be there from the entrance ceremony. He was sitting with his legs crossed, drinking from a box of tomato juice. His ruby eyes glanced at her and he released his straw with a pop. He flashed a toothy grin. For a moment, her vision was cut off from a student walking by. But when her vision was clear again, the boy was no longer in his seat. She jolted and frantically looked around. Where did he go?

"Something on your mind my dear?"

The boy was now inches from her face, hanging upside down. Marie screamed as she fell backward out of her seat.

"Fnyagh! He just teleported out of nowhere!" Grim exclaimed.

The boy chuckled as he landed on the ground and helped Marie back up. "Ah, how rude of me not to introduce myself, I'm Lilia. Lilia Vanrouge."

"You're awfully young to be a student here." Deuce commented.

"Actually, he's a third-year like Cater and me." Trey stated.

"So you're all trying to guess my age. How delightfully charming you youth are. But yes, while my cute visage is bursting with youth, as your glasses friend here pointed out, I'm not exactly the age one would call a child."

So Lilia was actually older than he appeared. Well, that kind of explained some things. Still, his wording it quite weird. He had referred to them as youth. He's not that much older than them, right?

"Still, there's no need for you to stare from afar. You can easily come and speak to us. Aren't we all students of the same school? Diasomnia would welcome you with open arms!"

The group of teens looked past Lilia to see the two other Diasomnia students giving them cold glares. Didn't exactly look like the promised warm welcome.

"Maybe next time." Marie nervously grinned.

Lilia simply chuckled with his hand to his mouth. "Very well then." He bent forward in a graceful bow. "Apologies for interrupting your meal. I shall be on my way then."

With that, he headed back to his table.

"Jeez, that guy came out nowhere. Our table was a good 20 meters from him and we didn't even see him coming." Ace gasped as he ran his hand throw his hair, still startled.

"Yeah, Diasomnia seems to be like that. Especially their dorm leader, Malleus Draconia. He's among the top five ranked magicians in the world." Trey commented with a smile.

"Meanwhile our dorm leader is our own brand of crazy." Cater added as he leaned back with both arms behind his head.

Hearing the mention of the Heartslabyul dorm leader, Ace clenched his teeth in frustration. "Tell me about it. The guy seals away my magic for eating a tart! A tart! If you ask me, he's nothing but a narrow-minded tyrant!"

But as Ace's rant went on, Marie noticed a red-haired boy approaching. Actually, she recognized him at the entrance ceremony. As he got closer, he seemed to grow angrier at Ace's words. Now what did Azul call him again? By this point, Trey and Cater's faces had gone pale and they immediately started trying to shush Ace. Wait a second, if they were panicking then that meant... Suddenly the name rushed back to her.

"So a tyrant am I?" the boy said in a cold and stern tone.

Ace's eyes widened like saucers as he spun around. "Gah, Dorm Head Riddle!"