She couldn’t really get it out of her head, even when back in Ivy’s class.

  Alberon was homophobic.

  The fingers of her opposing hands joined each other at their tip in front of her mouth.

  Damn. That wasn’t a surprise. He’d seemed like the type. But she was sooo going to roast him for that. Actually, now, she was going to literally roast him with a sun spit. He’d already developed PTSD on the matter of being roasted alive by a plasma beam, so honestly, pushing a finger in that still open wound of his would deal additional psychological damage. Although… she frowned. The guy was kind of fruity, wasn’t he? That with his whispering voice and his manipulation attempts all while being very vain and dressing fancily with lots of copper jewellery. Humph.

  Was she misusing Disney stereotypes?

  This self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing, power-thirsty, deceiving, dishonest, compulsive-lying, good-for-nothing, egocentric, girlbossing, gatekeeping, malewifing, manipulative, shady cult-leader kind of fit the Disney villain bill. Sort of.

  But did that mean that Emperor Alberon was on the rainbow spectrum himself?

  Well, one could be gay and homophobic by being six feet under the closeted closet. For now, she’d probably stare at him from afar with pronounced nefarious intent for being a homophobic ass in the first place.

  “…that is how, God Emperor Alberon fended off the last attack on His City for one hundred and four years, defeating the wretched Deceiver of Light back into ignominy, forcing the disbandment of that sun god’s cult, marking the end of the alliance of Mount Triath, as the goal of the coalition was achieved. The sun god’s cult became systematically hunted down by its former members as just retribution for their continued, persistent attempts at resurrecting their god…”

  She picked her nose, searching for a booger, while the scritch-scratching of other students’ pens intensified.

  Maybe she should rename her sunspit attack the “rainbow ray”. Nothing quite like a jet of scorching plasma to vibecheck the homophobes.

  “…But with the Deceiver of Light dead, the sun god could not form a cohesive unit and its cult fragmented over time. With their true names erased from history, all that remains is the grim reminder of the past atrocities they committed vainly for a fake purpose, a glory that remained brittle and unfinished…”

  Vic felt annoyed. She knew Ivy had been staring at her ever since class had started. Her bulging eyes had turned really insistent when the teacher, apparently also a priest, began doing his history lecture over the “last attack ever to grace His Lord’s feet- ahem, his city, of course”, while not saying a thing about the one Vic had done about a week ago. Maybe ignoring reality was the norm for the ones who sucked the CursedBlood Emperor’s toes as their very formal job.

  No, she wasn’t going to blow that priest to bloody bits for now. He had no idea who Vic was, apparently, and she wasn’t interested in getting to know him. He probably didn’t even care that one of the students wasn’t wearing their gaudy uniform.

  “…As befits the new form that its worshippers take, losing both individuality and purpose of body and soul. A symptom of a weakening god, having previously claimed the self, the ego itself as its absolute creed. Indeed, there are gods who once proven to be wrong and defeated by their betters, still cling to survival, instead of reforging the self, truer, stronger, and purer, as our Humane God does…”

  Should she start openly coming out as a lesbian to people here? It wasn’t like Alberon was going to be able to pretend to let her stay if she even antagonised him on his main ideas, like repressing minds and bodies because he probably got off of that very notion.

  Tsk. This was a sermon, now that she thought of it for real. It wasn’t a history lesson. It was just propaganda. What was even the ratio of lies versus truth in his speech? Yeah, maths. Maths was the only thing this history lesson was missing, for sure. Her fingers twirled a little beneath the table. Her guts were kind of yearning for mischief.

  “…which of course, brings me to the reason I have brought you today this history lesson, which isn’t in your curriculum, similarly to how none of the other sections I have seen today had it in their own syllabus”, the priest said, bringing up his arms in adoration, completely unbothered by the booger Vic had just flung across the assembly hall, narrowly avoiding it as he’d just accidentally dodged by raising his arms at once. “As we all know, a few weeks ago, I would still have been able to tell you this history lesson while proclaiming that such was the very last time the Walls of His City were breached by a foe.”

  The priest paused, probably for dramatics.

  “But this cannot be said anymore”, he said, with a depth that affected some of Ivy’s classmates. Vic felt herself bristle. She really hated being in the middle of the mass of students. There were more than seventy sat here, even a couple of round-eared humans. “As you all know, last week, an assault began with the objective of destroying our world as we know it. But our city stood, unflinching, on its solid foundations. Despite the repeated onslaught of two different divinities that used ruses and vile, wicked schemes to attempt to overwhelm us, turning brother against brother, friend into foe, one truth prevailed: they failed, and Elkroth remains the sanctum of its citizens, united against those that would destroy the Accord between humane and divine.”

  Ivy grabbed Vic’s arm before it fully rose and forced it down, keeping her hand on Vic’s arm.

  “I just have a simple question”, she whined to Ivy.

  “You’re not supposed to ask questions during lectures”, Ivy whispered hushedly back. So insistent.

  Gngngngn.

  “It’s so dumb that you’re not allowed to interrupt the lecturers, tsk. You’re just being trained to gobble up whatever bullshit they spew at you”, she said. Ivy grimaced.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Please, not now”, Ivy whispered. “Please. Please, we’ll talk later.”

  “…And it is you, dear students, that are the solid foundation on which the future of the city depends. It is you, who will stand firm in the face of tremendous adversity. You are its future protectors, its future administrators, its future researchers. So many young, brilliant minds, united in one purpose. The City will be grateful to you all, because as much as it has given to you, it is still through your will to meet the crux of your potential that you make yourself worthy of all the hopes that have been put on you.”

  Ivy fiddled with her hands. Vic squinted at the priest, then stared at the students that were sat below her. All of them were either quietly melting in the praise, gulping down anxiously, or had brought one of their hands to their chest while making a handsign with their fingers. She stared judgementally.

  “But to make a city prosper, one cannot only ensure that the shield it protects itself with remains impenetrable. A balanced approach is what defines humanity itself. As such, the shield must be accompanied by a sword. The “Art of Defense” specialisation track will be remodelled to make the finest coven of war mages the lands have ever seen. Only the finest students with the best grades and at least one recommendation from a teacher will have a chance of entering this new main track under the direct patronage of our God.”

  Vic cringed while other students swooned. First of, rude. Just making the assumption that everyone followed their god was yucky. But to be expected, tsk. Whatever. It was pathetic anyways. Secondly, what the fuck?

  She heard at least two different students whispering needily about needing to get on that new track. She stared back at Ivy to see for herself if the most sane student she’d met had a sliver of critical thinking, but Ivy was staring down at her desk numbly. Huh.

  “Change is happening. Our preserved city has been attacked, for the first time in a century. History is in the making, and you will be part of history, if you are worthy enough. Prove yourself, children. Make yourself worthy, for your sake and for the sake of all.”

  And everybody started clapping.

  Vic stared.

  Bro. Bro what the fuck. No, don’t clap. Stop clapping, you fools. Stop clapping!

  What put them in such a state was… just… being remembered in this backwater city for being the goodest bestest boi at following orders around? Was this worth so much to them all?

  Some people got up but Vic stayed sat. Ivy also stayed sat. She was still clapping. Vic wasn’t.

  She received some stares for her impassivity, but at this point, she felt she should have spoken up. The clapping was loud. Ugh. Too little too late. The priest had already bowed and was discussing with another teacher on the way out while being clapped after. She didn’t care enough to start beef with that guy anyway. She glared at them both, but also at the few students who’d rushed after the pair and were despairingly asking questions, some who had round ears, some others with pointy ones, all waiting for their turn to speak up.

  Disgusting.

  She shouldn’t have waited for her chance to speak up.

  ___

  “That was so cringe. So fucking cringe. So ew. So ewww”, Vic said.

  “What do you mean by “cringe”?” Ivy asked. She had her notebooks held close to her chest with her arms. She looked a bit numb.

  “Huh?” Vic answered. “Well… cringe… it’s… like… when someone does something so… cringe that you can’t help but feel the urge to stare back in horror because you just witnessed someone do something so… uhm, wrong that it just curls your guts and makes knots with your spine.”

  Ivy neutrally nodded. She wasn’t smiling.

  “Come on!” Vic said, a bit enthusiastically. “Didn’t you see those students so desperate to get in this track? They’re basically begging to be canon-fodder.”

  “War mages, no matter where they’re from, are well-respected here. A few ones have even reached greater fame or rather… infamy than some gods, like the Storm Witch and the Spellmonger”, Ivy said distractedly. Vic faltered. She pretended nothing was amiss. Hearing her mentor’s nickname coming from the mouth of someone from this place was something, huh.

  “Ivy, Ivy, Ivy”, Vic said with a reproachful voice. “Isn’t it obvious that this isn’t what I’m venting about? My problem lies with the fact they’re literally dangling a carrot before you all, saying that’s the only way to get yourself a sense of worth, and I’m just seeing everyone gobbling it up like some mind goblin.”

  “Ah, really?” Ivy asked. Oh… Ivy hadn’t asked what a mind goblin was.

  Vic scratched the back of her head.

  “Yeah, you shouldn’t make your sense of worth depend on what some childish adults pretending to have a sliver of absolute authority say”, she said. She tapped her chest. “True strength, true worth comes from within. Never from caring about what others think of you.”

  “You… wouldn’t… know how it feels, Vic”, Ivy said, and it sounded so cold it nearly made her step back. Her eyes just widened instead. “You probably have some perfected bloodline that allows you to have insane amounts of magic or… are just divine...ly gifted. Yeah. You have nothing to prove. You already matter.”

  Vic had been staring angrily.

  “I’m just human.” Vic said. “I struggled. I always struggled against everything and everyone that wanted to kill me or eat me or break me or force me to do things that I didn’t want to do, and then I outsmarted them all, until I could defeat them with sheer power. They never see it coming, they never saw it coming. I grew, I am still growing! But I started human, and I am still human.”

  Ivy chortled back.

  “You sound godly. You’re not fully human anyway, Vic”, Ivy said, “unmixed humans don’t have magic, or… actually only have a negligible amount that makes it just the same.”

  Vic faltered. She frowned. No, she definitely was human. It even said so in her stat sheet, where next to “species:” was written “human”. The game system was just on her side, and that had made a world of difference.

  “Well weren’t there some humans in the assembly hall?” she asked. “What are they doing in a magic school, huh, looking at paint dry on some random holy wall?”

  Ivy stared at her.

  “Even humans who can’t do magic innately have ways to overcome that hurdle with tools”, she said. “Making tools is very human. Runemaking is one of those hypercompetitive tracks dominated by magicless humans. Octavius… who’s my friend withom we ate for lunch, barely passed into his second year there.”

  “Runemaking?” she asked. Was it like a course that taught students how to make electronic machines, but instead of electricity they used mana? “Do they make circuits?”

  Ivy blinked at her.

  “You know of runemaking?” she asked. She sounded a little confused. “I thought you specialised yourself in destructive… and defensive magic battle spells.”

  Vic blinked back.

  “I mean, I can be open-minded”, she said. “I probably know the basic equivalents to what you call runemaking.”

  Yeah, Vic would go with that story for now.

  “Oh”, Ivy said. She stopped walking. The school’s formal entrance was now down the hallway. Vic frowned. So close to the exit, already. “Yeah, sure. Alright.” Ivy seemed a little lost. “Alright”, she repeated.

  “Anyway”, Vic said, “runemaking sounds… intriguing. Can we go there?”

  “I don’t have that class”, Ivy said. “I… don’t know if they’ll let you in, even if it’s… you. No one can just pop in there and demand to be taught. You could probably be expelled for that.”

  Vic stared.

  That sounded a lot like they were keeping their knowledge secret. All the more intriguing.

  “…But I can bring you there, as your guide”, Ivy finished, after Vic had just stared.

  Vic made some meandering jokes while going down the halls towards there, while Ivy finished packing her bag while walking. The girl was good at multitasking, huh.

  The hallway looked just the same as the others when they stopped before a door.

  There was a sort of mechanic soft rumbling sound coming through, sounding a lot like tiny explosions going unheard of until it was far too late to stop the final, big one.

  “Do you want to come in there too to see what it’s like?” Vic asked. “It’s kind of fine to hang out with you. At least by now you don’t roll your eyes as much as before or stare at me in shock when I make my jokes.”

  “I’m tired”, Ivy answered. She tried a smile. “Too much happened today.”

  “Come oooon. Pretty please?” she said, teasingly.

  “I want to go home, Vic. Goodbye.”

  Ivy turned around and left her there. Vic stilled.

  She stared back wordlessly as Ivy disappeared from her sight.