VCAM 75

Chapter 75

 “Meeting Mr. Cross”

A few hours after the commotion on the main street,

Lyrisia and her nineteen-bodyguard entourage finally arrived at the academy’s main gate.

A vast campus enclosed by white walls, with a towering spire at its center.
Students in uniforms moved back and forth in front of the gate, and the guards couldn’t contain their excitement just from seeing that.

“Wow! Everyone’s wearing the same clothes!”
“They’re lined up! All together! It’s like a bunch of soldiers!”
“No, that’s just the school uniform…”
Lyrisia placed her hand on her forehead and let out a deep sigh.

◆◇◆

At that moment,
a tall young man popped his head out from beyond the school gate.
A man who seemed more suited to bargaining at a street stall than holding chalk at a blackboard.
A slender build, black hair lightly and carelessly swept to the side.

“Oh—are you the new kids?”
His Kansai-accented voice rolled across the cobblestones.

Lyrisia instinctively stopped in her tracks.
There was something oddly rhythmic about his voice, tickling her ears in a strange way.

“We’re the new first-year students.”
“Ho! Then you’ll be assigned to my Cross Class. I’m your homeroom teacher, Kai Cross.”

He smiled broadly.
For a moment, Lyrisia felt a sharp pang in her chest.
—This is him. The “encounter with the unknown” her father had worried about.

The bodyguards all stirred in unison.

“T-Teacher!? Did he just say ‘I’ like ‘wai’!? What’s ‘wai’!?”
“It’s… somehow so soft-sounding!”
“I’ve never heard anything like it!”

Then Gorum stepped forward.
His gray eyes sparkled as he stared seriously at Kai.
“…That way of speaking. Beautiful. Like a spell. —I will learn.”

“Oh, uh? You’re… eager, huh.”
Kai shrugged and pulled a candy from his pocket.
“Here. A candy. Calm down.”

“A candy…!”
Gorum took it with both hands, eyes glistening.
“The sound of ‘candy’! I’m moved! Why is this happening!?”

“Hey, hey, it’s too early for the ‘why is this happening’!”
Kai instinctively quipped, and the entire bodyguard team shouted in unison:
“WHY IS THIS HAPPENING!!!”

All the students at the gate turned around at once.
Lyrisia covered her face.
“…What am I supposed to do with this bodyguard team?”

◆◇◆

That evening,
Lyrisia and the bodyguards were shown to the Cross Class classroom.
Kai stood at the blackboard, twirling chalk between his fingers.

“Alright, let’s do introductions. I’ll go first. I’m Kai Cross, homeroom teacher of Cross Class. Born in Osaka, so my way of speaking is a little weird, but don’t mind that.”

A small wave of laughter spread through the classroom.

“Now, as for the new students…”

“Teacher!”
Gorum eagerly raised his hand.
“I want to learn Osaka dialect! I want to master ‘Nandeyanen’! I want to master candy too!”

“No, you’re studying in the wrong direction!”
Kai thumped the chalk on the blackboard in exasperation.

The other bodyguards shouted one after another: “Me too!” “Me too!” “I want candy!”
Lyrisia pressed her forehead against her desk with a sigh.
“…After just one day at the academy, you’re already disrupting the atmosphere.”

But,
the corners of her mouth softened ever so slightly.

And so began the academy life of Lyrisia and her bodyguards.
And Gorum—absorbed Kai’s Osaka dialect as if devouring a magical tome.