The first day of school for Elric ended up in the school Dean"s office. With two deep glaring eyes, the Dean stood with a condescending presence towards the three Otakus. He was a pot-bellied man in between his fifties wearing a formal long-sleeved white polo, black slacks, and a slim curvy mustache to compliment his already ridiculous build.
He was facing the steaming-mad Dean with a stupid look and two black eyes from both sides of his face.
Standing beside him is Jim who had accidentally sprained his knee and elbow from Elric"s sudden stumble. John, the biggest guy in the room, had an aching stomach from the body slam and an aching heart from the dropped burger he was eating a while ago.
Distancing meters away from the three Otakus is the main culprit of the trouble - Long.
He had the same cold and proud look not even sparing the people around him a glance. Of course, he did not forget to hide his fractured hands inside his pockets and even kept a straight face, not wanting to show a glimpse of weakness because of his overwhelming pride.
"I do not care who started it, what caused it and how it happened. Our school rules are clear, no fighting inside or face the consequences!" The princ.i.p.al beckoned to Elric, Jim and John who is standing with their heads bowed down before him.
With every whipping words the Dean spewed, he made sure to direct it only at the three knowing Long"s incredible and respectable reputation.
Not to mention, Long is also one of the school"s smartest and outstanding students that they pretty much let him do as he wanted as long as he continued to dominate every inter-university events and compet.i.tion.
Basically, Long is the best student they currently have and the school Dean is afraid that scolding their one and only genius might cause him to transfer to the other school. Therefore, he made sure to control his temper in front of this outstanding young man and choose to berate these three stooges before him instead.
"And finally..." The princ.i.p.al continued, "as the punishment of your delinquency, I have subjected you, three idiots, for three days of temporary suspension starting tomorrow!"
"Three days of suspension!?" John immediately reacted in panic. "Am I gonna fail my college schooling? What about my dreams? How will my mother respond to this? Am I still gonna get an allowance? But food? My tender juicy hotdogs and burger is gone?!" He questioned with a doubtful panic.
"Relax, its just three days! We can just make that up with sheer diligence and home study! You know the main characters of the stories right? They always get these disadvantages in order to further develop their character! Right buddy Dodong?" Jim reacted positively while elbowing Elric beside him with an energetic gesture.
"How about Long? He started all these, how come he doesn"t get a punishment?" Elric questioned. As much as he wanted to stay low profile, learning how unjust the school Dean is to them pretty much triggered his eyebrows to rise.
"Well, I know him. Long is an outstanding and behave student. And aside from his excellent academic works, he is also respectable and behaves young man. I doubt he will start kicking you moron"s a.s.s if you did not push him to. Therefore I am just pointing the punishment to you three knowing how troublesome you are, especially you Jim."
"Me?" Jim pointed at himself.
"But I am a behave one! I may be a little rebellious but it"s because of my overwhelming pa.s.sion for justice and fairness! That man maltreated my good friend here. Just look at those swollen black eyes in his face!" Jim defended himself and pointed at Elric.
"Well, I heard he was hara.s.sing Long with this new comer"s creepy stare."
"So my friend gets pummeled because he looked at that b.a.s.t.a.r.d!?" Jim disagreed.
"Silence!" the Dean bellowed and quickly turned around to stand in his table.
"My decision is final. You come to school tomorrow, and the security guards will just kick your wimpy a.s.ses back outside."
"But-" Jim muttered but was immediately interrupted.
"No b.u.t.ts! Now go out!"
"But-" Jim murmured with a reluctant look.
"Let"s go, buddy," John told him.
"Out! Now! Or do you want expulsion?"
"We are going now, sir Dean. Thank you." Elric bowed down in respect, seeing this gesture, John and Jim also bowed albeit reluctantly and left the Dean"s office right away.
As for Long, he had already left long ago and the Dean did not even react at all. This is the privilege of the favored student of the school.
Heaving a sigh, the Dean took a hard sip of his coffee thinking it was already cold enough for a huge gulp.
PHHSSSSUWEH!~
"AAack! AAhh!~" The Dean spewed out his coffee from his mouth like a forceful water hose.
"How aaahh~ the h.e.l.l haaa!~ did my coffee became extremely hot!? I thought it has turned cold after fifteen minutes! Aaah!~"
The dean felt like drinking a freshly boiled coffee. It was extremely hot which resulted in his seared tongue and mouth!
He immediately rushed towards the cold water dispenser on the side to ease the pain with a cup of cold water but to his surprise...
"AAAAAGH!!!!~"
Suddenly, he started to jump like a rabbit, swung his face, fan his mouth and shouted in agony as he felt like the world is trying to burn his entire mouth!
It turns out that even the cold water from the water dispenser has turned incredibly hot.
The school dean felt like going crazy after taking two huge sips of boiling hot water!
It was weird, but he could only blame himself for being careless. Just how stupid was he to do that to himself twice?! He could have checked the temperatures first but who would be careful enough to expect that?
It took a while that he had finally calmed down. He was, after all, unable to feel the pain anymore since his tastebuds seem to have been boiled to numbness already.
The dean was just about to set down on his chair when suddenly...
Craaack~
BAAAANG!~
AAAAAAAAAAGGGH!~
A loud roaring shout from the Dean"s office can be heard across the school alleys as the administrator staffs scrambled to come and know what was happening only to see their duly-respected Dean lying helplessly on the floor looking pathetic with his unkempt hair, the pale-looking tongue that was hanging outside his mouth, a pained face, and a broken wooden-chair under him.
His poor pot-bellied figure laid facing the ceiling in utter pain, anger and bewilderment after his wooden chair suddenly crumbled as if it was made of charcoal!
Just how unlucky his day could probably get?
As much as he wanted to scold or blame anyone, he was not dumbed enough to unreasonably point it to others especially that the three stoggies a while ago just stood in their place the entire time.
At the end, he could only blame himself for being too careless not realizing that he had offended a being that he should have never even dare to mess with.
***
"Don"t worry boys. This too shall pa.s.s. Let us not forget that this challenge is just part of our character development." Jim talked like a rapper trying his best to be positive and friendly.
"Three days of suspension. I"m really gonna fail big time this time." John mumbled to himself.
Hearing his big friend"s mindless chatter Jim added,
"Cheer up dude! Think of this as if we are the main characters of a novel or a strategy game. We have you John as our main tanker, here our new Nakama Dodong Pogi as back support and of course, me, as your captain who will lead us to success in the future! Like pirate kings, we will rule this school and that ugly mother-sucker Long will be a goner soon!"
While the two talked like chatter boxes, Elric on the other side continued to walk with them and smiled in amus.e.m.e.nt.
With all of the easy-going things happening around, he felt like he was back to being a normal human again and he felt an unexpected warmth in his heart knowing how easy normal human"s life actually is.
You don"t pit your life to different creatures of unknown worlds, you don"t suffer lightning tribulations and you do not have to be on guard all the time from the unwanted dangers of unknown.
All the problem of the human realm is actually the easiest problem from all realms. How you find happiness and how you reacted to the challenges of life, is all up to you. It was just a matter of perspective. And the fact that not the majority of people who seem to miss watching life through this perspective is really saddening.
After going thru everything in his life, Elric realized that life should be experienced by how it went along and not where you were going. It was not about achievement but how you went towards the achievement. After all, there was nothing in the peak of the mountains but an empty skyline full of unreachable stars.
But knowing that there is something else that meets the normal human eye, Elric was well aware of how feeble reality is and how fast they could actually change once the unseen forces started to move and affect the human realm.
And because of that, he made it also a mission to keep the peace in the world as it was and protect it - especially from himself.
"Now since we got plenty of time at the moment, why don"t we go for some rounds in Dota in the nearest nearby internet Cafe?" Jim suggested.
"Wait, Dota? You mean that online game?" Elric asked.
"Oh yeah, I forgot you were from an island in the north. Well, yes. Dota. That online game! Wanna come?"
"Sure! Sure! I wan"t to learn." Elric added, he was just pumped to learn that his favorite computer game was still alive despite the years of time has pa.s.sed.
The three were just about to go out the gate when Elric"s senses noticed something. He immediately scanned his surroundings and immediately found a faint dark aura of a Shadow not far away from where he was standing.
Quickly, his eyes morphed into a Dragon"s eyes and his vision immediately widened and his sensitivity increased significantly and everything looked as if they had been magnified countless times that even the skin pores can be seen from a kilometer away!
It did not take long for him to find the aura"s direction and Elric saw in one of the school"s isolated windows, a female student was standing with a creepy smile while staring at a certain direction.
Elric immediately traced where she was staring at only to see Long hiding behind a huge tree and was actually bandaging his injured hands using his mouth!
Quickly, the creepy female student"s mouth moved and Elric immediately focused his hearing senses in her direction.
"Both his hands are injured. He sprained his right ankle and he also injured his neck from that giant kid"s body slam. He won"t be able to resist if we do it right now."
The creepy student said as she slowly backed out of the window and her figure disappeared like a cloud of smoke.