3:00 P.M.
Three subjects after lunch, one before dismissal.
A new face walked into the classroom. Her black, shiny hair was tied up into a ponytail, but she had several loose strands anyway, most of them on her face.
Her abstractly messy lab coat floated as she walked towards the desk. She placed down her old laptop, a briefcase, and an Elemental Compatibility Orb on the desk before grabbing a marker.
The sound of writing filled the room as the students silenced themselves.
As she finished writing, she capped the marker and placed it back on the desk quite aggressively.
"Class?"
"..."
"Class?" The new teacher's tone sounded sharp, much like her nose--err, like a needle piercing through the students' ears.
"Class A, miss..." Kurass bravely sacrificed herself.
"Miss, what?"
"..."
"I've written my name on the whiteboard."
'It's so messy though...' Kurass squinted her eyes to read the large handwriting. 'Ah, she's blocking the middle.'
Knowing that she didn't have the courage to ask the teacher to move, she could only stare at the teacher's face before taking a guess in the dark.
"...Miss Sharpnose?"
"Shanirose!!" Miss Shanirose widened her eyes. "You rude, rude girl!"
"Ah, I'm sorry, teacher, I'm really sorry, Miss Sharpnose--err, Shanirose."
"You're doing it on purpose, aren't you?! Come here! To the front!"
Kurass gulped as she walked beside Miss Shanirose.
The latter gave her the marker she used to write on the whiteboard. "Now, write my name, 'Shanirose', a hundred times till you get used to it!"
"But, Miss..."
"What? You're regretting making fun of me?"
"This is a permanent marker..."
"..."
"..." Kurass.
"..." Ms. Shanirose.
"..." Everyone.
A long moment of silence ensued.
Miss Shanirose stiffly retrieved the marker from Kurass's hand before gesturing her to go back to her seat.
She then leaned against the desk as she faced the wide whiteboard, her name written in black marker.
"Sindelle Shanirose... Spindle Sharpnose..."
Pulling the seat out of the desk, she crashed down on the seat and had a grim face.
After a good few minutes, the silence was finally broken, by none other than Sindelle Shanirose herself.
"...My dear students, I apologize for my temperament earlier. I tried to impose myself as strict and serious, in hopes that it would aid you in your focus. That you had a strict teacher in class is motivation enough to be good, or at the very minimum, try to be. Well, it was, for me at least.
"Alas, you've seen my terrible display already. What I set out to motivate you only served to dampen your expectations and enthusiasm about the subject you're about to learn.
"A strict teacher is a good motivator, but only if it's a perfectly strict teacher. I do not want to be a faux flawless teacher that cannot admit her own faults. As a student in university myself, that would disgust me.
"You, student, what's your name?"
"Ah, family name Salden, first name Kurass, Miss Shanirose."
"Well then, Miss Salden, as your educator, I apologize for trying to make an example out of you. I might as well resolve this now for you not to have any grievances with me in the future."
"N-no, it's nothing, Miss Shanirose!" Kurass felt both embarrassed and pleased that an actual teacher had apologized. Usually, they were too prideful to do so.
"Well," Sindelle clapped, "now that I've completely ruined your first impressions of me... let's start from the beginning."
The attention of the class was now fully on her.
With a hum, Sindelle grabbed a whiteboard marker from her briefcase and started tracing her name on the whiteboard. After that, she rubbed it off with the eraser, removing the permanent marker completely.
"Okay! Now that that's all dealt with, let's start with introductions. Me first. My name is Sindelle Shanirose, you can call me whatever you like. Except for Sharpnose.
"My subject of expertise is Language and Communications... but since I'm a teacher in this day and age, I get to teach you about a completely different subject!
"Hint: It's about elemental plants and beasts. That's right, it's Magic Biology!"
The students were completely dumbfounded, both by the complete 180 of Sindelle's personality, but also by how quick she was talking!
"Ah, you may be wondering: 'Why is Ms. Delle speaking so fast?' Well, it's because I've wasted all that time on the fruitless attempt to show that I'm strict and scary. This is my real personality, honest.
"And for those of you wondering about recitation... I'll be honest with you, when I was a student, I hated reciting in front of the class. And I'm sure a host of students here do too. Raise your hand if you hate recitation!"
A few students raised their hands. Felum was one of them.
"Oh? You with the red hair, stand up. Tell me why you hate recitation."
Felum was dumbfounded. 'What the hell...? You're asking a student who hates recitation to recite?'
Despite his thoughts, Felum still stood up.
"I, uh, erm..."
Finally, Noele couldn't hold it in anymore and let out a small chuckle. Truthfully, many of the other students found the irony of the situation funny as well. With his chuckle as the catalyst, the classroom was suddenly filled with laughter.
Felum bit his lip as he turned red.
"Student, what's your name?"
"F-Felum Peore."
"Ah, Mr. Peore, you can sit down, I was just joking. Don't take it to heart." Sindelle winked at Felum.
"O, okay..." Felum sat down with a dark expression.
"Now," Sindelle clapped once more, "let's begin the first activity."
She shoved her briefcase and laptop off the desk, catching them with a subtle patch of wind right before crashing.
On the desk all alone was a spherical orb filled with a light grey mist. The mist circulated inside the orb carefully.
"Now, you may be thinking. 'We already know our Compatibility Rating, so what is this for?' Let me demonstrate."
Sindelle lightly touched the orb and, as usual, the mist swirled around inside before a host of colors eventually popped up.
"This is my Compatibility Rating. Let me see here... I have about 60% on Earth, and 55% on Wind, Air, whatever you call it. The rest is negligible.
"Here comes the interesting part. I'll activate it..."
Sindelle discreetly pressed a button located underneath the orb. All of a sudden, the orb flashed a bright light as it projected a holographic image into the air.
Floating above the orb was a beast that they felt was familiar, but at the same time, foreign.
All of the students were captivated by the rotating holographic beast, examining its broad, brown-feathered wings, its knife-like claws, and the drill-like beak it possessed below its slanted eyebrows.
"This is an Eargle. Most of you, no, all of you shouldn't have heard of it before. It is an Elemental Beast that originates from the Deep Wilderness.
"My modified Compatibility Orb chose to show this beast because it's one that has the most similar Compatibility Ratings to mine.
"Now, you know that an Eargle typically has compatibilities with Earth and Wind."
The students' eyes sparkled. They wanted to touch that orb. They wanted to see which Elemental Beast they were most similar to.
"Okay. Everyone that wants to try it, raise your hand."
Almost immediately, the whole class raised their hands. The ones at the back stood up to raise their hands even further.
Sindelle smiled as she scanned the classroom. Her eyes went from left to right, her vision filled with enthusiastic students... until one student, whose face was brimming with frustration, reached her sight.
"Oh? The student over there, in front of Mr. Peore."
Noele took a deep breath.
"How about you come up to the front??" Sindelle continued.
"Tsk." Noele sighed before standing up.
The student's blatant disinterest and even disgust at her request poked Sindelle's curiosity. When everyone was eager to find out their 'spirit animal', this student was eager to find the way out of the classroom.