The third day at Leiscatie Academy was all about interclass activity. All five classes that had accommodated guests for the past 2 days gathered in the hall to receive a briefing for the upcoming activities arranged.
Due to it being an interclass activity, there wasn't the need to split into groups since they were competing between classes. While healthy competition was promoted, the real goal of the activity was to provide interactions with the other students and the national visitors. By splitting them into groups, it would only make getting to know people from different classes harder, which was why it was decided they would do it through events where forced interaction was made.
"Kaze, allow me to introduce you to one of our classmates," Yuuji pointed out during a social interaction event they had to break the ice. "This is Mary, a dragonkin whom you can consider has a similar status with Chris and Irene."
"Pleased to meet you, Kaze," Mary, a female dragonkin with blonde hair and sidetails politely greeted Kaze. "I have heard quite a bit about you from Yuuji here."
"W-What has he spoken about me?" Kaze's face twitched a little upon hearing that Mary knew Kaze through Yuuji, which could be problematic. "Surely nothing weird, I hope."
"Not really," Mary giggled at his words. "Other than being a good friend to him and our princesses, I respect you the way I would to any other person."
"I see, that's a relief. Yuuji is a great guy, but he can be an asshole at times," Kaze frankly spoke without a care that he was insulting the crown prince directly. "I feel at times he doesn't act like how a prince should, just like how your nation's princesses don't act high and mighty."
"Of course. In Aravel, being a princess or part of the royal family is a social status. Beyond that it's about putting the people as priority number one," Mary nodded with a proud smile. "We do have a Council where the Emperor discuss on how certain actions are executed and making important decisions with elected members. That helps to ease the process of introducing a new law when putting the nation in mind."
"Would you happen to be somewhat related to the Council?" Kaze asked. "I have a feeling that you aren't any ordinary dragonkin."
"Hehe, you're partially right. My father is an important Council member, so I learn a lot about how the system works from him," Mary explained as she gave him a thumbs up for his accurate guess. "I do have a goal of becoming a Council member in the future, or at least something related with governing the nation."
"Wow, good luck on that. I don't even know what I aspire to be in the future."
"I don't blame you, Kaze. Us dragonkins have lots of time to figure that out, unlike humans. I sympathise with that, especially knowing us dragonkins have the freedom to relax and do nothing for years before deciding on an occupation or an actual job. I heard from Yuuji how humans are in a constant race with one another to try and achieve something due to your short lifespan."
"Lunaria said the same thing too, about how she appreciates us making the most out of our time alive."
"Lunaria-hime did? I'm glad if that's the case. It shows that Lunaria-hime understands time relative to humans are much shorter compared to us… which is a shame that means we would eventually outlive our human friends."
Kaze's blood ran cold when he heard the last bit of Mary's words. It was true that humans die quicker than dragonkins by their natural lifespan, which made Kaze worried for Lunaria. If they truly got married in the future, would that mean Lunaria had already expected to live a full life ahead without him? Would she be able to live without him by her side when she was already so fragile? Was he simply overthinking a hypothetical question?
For the better or worse, Kaze had his thoughts cut as soon as Albert came forward to introduce a new friend he made from his respective class.
"The name's Artan, pleasure meeting you," the male dragonkin named Artan gave Kaze a strong handshake. "And you are?"
"Kaze, Artan," Albert filled in the blanks for Kaze. "He's the one who invited me to join the group."
"Oh, did he?" Artan grinned happily. "I sure am glad you dragged Albert along to Aravel. Turns out my man here spars quite well."
"Albert is one of the stronger opponents in the school we attend," Kaze admitted with a humble nod. "Were you two able to spar that much over the past 2 days?"
"Not really, but we managed to make enough time for a spar or two," Artan flexed his muscular build at Kaze. "We also compare muscles quite often, almost to the point we competed over who has the better build."
Artan and Albert both were rather muscular people. For Albert's age, he certainly looked like a bodybuilder who worked out for years despite only being a student, especially with how his muscles bulged from his uniform around his arms and chest area. Artan was in a rather similar condition, such that the buttons on his outfit looked a little more stressed from trying to hold the fabric together from getting ripped apart by Artan's muscles. As a dragonkin himself, it only proved how much Artan had trained to attain such a muscular form that would make any girl drool if seen flexing.
The weird conversation with Artan shifted to Shoko, who was seen pulling a rather hesitant-looking female dragonkin over to Kaze's side.
"Now, who did you bully this time, Shoko?" Kaze crossed his arms and pretended to look annoyed at Shoko.
"Must you associate me with something mischievous all the time?" Shoko sighed, realizing she dug her own grave with how often she teased him that Kaze could use it to his advantage. "And here I thought I wanted to introduce you to a cute student who fancies meeting you."
"H-Hello, I am… Aoi…" a female dragonkin shyly waved at Kaze before hiding behind Shoko's back. "S-Sorry… I'm a very shy person…"
"Aoi here is our underclassman," Shoko explained with a cheeky smile. "I met her along with Mitsui in class. She is a little shy at times but opens up once you get to know her better."
"Underclassman? Meaning she is a junior?"
"In terms of the school syllabus, yes. No way is she younger than you, Kaze," Shoko laughed at his question. "Remember that schooling works differently in Aravel. Everyone here has quite the age gap without a class having a consistent age range between students. Aoi here is as young as Lunaea and Luniel."
"I see. Well, I will still treat you like my senior even after what Shoko said," Kaze earnestly talked to Aoi and bowed politely. "I hope Shoko hasn't been too much of a hassle to deal with."
"You talk like you're my mom," Shoko sighed out loud as Aoi timidly bowed back at Kaze.
The ice-breaking session ended with Kaze meeting a bunch of other people among those that had left a stronger impression in him. The same applied for most of his friends, who were busy meeting and greeting dozens of students at a time while getting recommendations all over the place. He felt like his friend circle just exploded in an instant from being introduced to so many people.
What came next was the first interclass game. Leiscatie Academy had arranged a human-themed game that relied more on brains than their physical advantages. The game was a detective game which revolved around a murder mystery. 3 students from each class were nominated up to the front as a 'chesspiece' while the rest of the class worked on solving the puzzles planned by the committee in charge of the event. Through the puzzles, they would receive clues that would be required to determine who the murderer was.
Those that acted as chess pieces also had their roles to play. By pretending to be people of different background, they had to discuss among themselves to figure out who the murderer was. They could help their respective classes by providing hints from time to time that would be crucial to solving the clues. This would then lead to the exposing of the murderer, who was randomly selected within the group of 15 people. Each 5 minutes that passed without further progress would equal to a person dying, leaving the team with roughly 70 minutes in total to solve the mystery.
The ending of the interclass game was rather climatic, with only 4 people left standing before the murderer was caught. A heated debate occurred between two class on deciding on the murderer, something that was later proven to be correct by the class with Lunaea in it. This made their class the winner for being the fastest to figure out the murderer, ironically played by Yuuji on stage.
After the end of the first interclass game, a short break was given before the second event. During the break, most of the students took this chance to socialize and discuss a little about the aftermath of the first game. Clearly, the game planned had been intriguing enough to arouse the complete emersion of the students present into it, such that there were still discussions about the murder mystery at the end of it.
"That wasn't so bad," Yumi commented about the game.
"I think the Student Council did a good job with the first one," Kaguya agreed with her friend. "What do you think we will be doing next?"
"It is a bit hard to guess," Luniel, who sat with them in a circle, grinned at the question asked. "My bet would be on a physical game."
"What type of physical game could involve so many people?" Noel felt curious at Luniel's suggestion. "Would it be something like a race or an obstacle course?"
"Having close to a 100 people on an obstacle course all at once is insane," Kaze sweatdropped. "Unless there happen to be an obstacle course that big that it could support all 100 of us."
"Which is not possible, and doesn't exist in Leiscatie," Yumi shook her head. "So suggestion rejected. A more probable physical activity would be something like what we just did, one where everyone gets to be involved rather than shortlisting only a few participants from each class. Maybe something like a magic demonstration?"
Yumi's guess was quickly answered when their break time was up. The next event was surprisingly something like a talent show, where clubs and societies from the academy were invited on stage to provide performances to showcase what they were capable of and put on a good show. This meant that all sorts of entertainment and demonstrations could be seen, including a magic demonstration as Yumi suggested.
The first few groups to go up on stage were of different variety. Each one had a performance distinct from the other with none overlapping in terms of technique and topic. If a dance group showed up and performed a traditional Aravelean dance, the next group was something completely unrelated to dancing. With group after group showing up while flaunting the talent and hard work they had gone through to achieve the presentation given, the student body erupted into countless rounds of cheers with each group arriving and departing at the end of their unique and spectacular performance.
"E-Eh?!"
"That's…"
"Lucentia-hime!"
"No way!"
The most surprising part about the performance was that it had been coordinated with Lucentia. Since she was an idol, it wasn't a surprise that she knew how to sing and dance. What was surprising was that Lucentia showed up on stage without a warning. Dressed in a fancy outfit, it was obvious she was there to perform as well.
Instantly, everyone in the hall went wild. No one wouldn't know of Lucentia's part time job, especially when her singing and beauty was one of the most celebrated parts of her career that received incredible support from the citizens of Aravel and her fanbase. For Lucentia, who rarely did concerts or live events due to her status as a princess, to show up at the academy and perform live, was surely a treat for the eyes and ears.
Kaze was especially astonished since he was just introduced to Lucentia's side job a few days ago. His attention was completely swept up by the outfit Lucentia was wearing. It wasn't the revealing type that allured people, but rather being a fancy type with a long sweeping dress that touched the floor each time she walked. The colour of the dress was a mix of grey and white that brought out the colour of her hair and emphasized on her arms and shoulders, considering how it was a shoulder-less and arm-less design.
A floating mechanical box the size of a fist floated in front of Lucentia's mouth, acting as a microphone instead of relying on her to use wind magic to emphasize the volume of her voice. This was the same technology made to record Lucentia's singing once she was done, which Kaze had also seen before.
The crowd grew silent in anticipation for Lucentia to begin. It only took a few seconds of silence for Lucentia's voice to fill the hall.
Instantly, everyone got swept up in the power of her voice. The first line of her song was enough to send chills down their spine, especially with how sweet and lingering it was. From there on, they were drawn into the tune and energy that Lucentia had put into her singing.
As the song progressed, those from Czech felt particularly affected by the lyrics the song had. They knew that Lucentia had feelings for Kaze, but they never once imagined she would dedicate an entire song to the subtle mention of her love and emotions from loving him. As subtle as it was, no one would have associated it to the song being a direct confession rather than a simple love song motivated by a sudden impulse of hers. It was also why Lunaria and her sisters, who hadn't heard the song before, felt their faces growing hotter. Never had they imagined Lucentia to make a move so indirect yet powerful at the same time in order to win the heart of their beloved.
Kaze, being the person who revolved around the song's creation, was particularly disturbed by it too, in a good way. Since he had already heard the song once, he wasn't caught off-guard by it. He felt embarrassed at how Lucentia was singing this in front of a crowd, as if not afraid that she was essentially letting everyone know she had a massive crush on someone and wants to get his attention. More so than that, he felt admiration and attraction towards Lucentia for doing such a good job singing. She truly delivered the level of emotion the song was trying to captivate.
The song slowly came to an end in a time-slowing manner. Whatever spell Lucentia had casted on everyone with her voice brought everyone out of the illusion of her song, them returning to reality to realize that this was essentially the debut of Lucentia's new song. Cheers erupted once more across the hall with a huge mixture of roaring and applauding, a big contrast to the usual shouting that a human crowd would make more so than a majorly dragonkin crowd.
In a stunning fashion, Lucentia hooked the collar of her dress with index finger and tore it off in a swinging motion to reveal a second outfit underneath. Instantly, the sexual appeal that Kaze had expected of an 'idol' was in full form with her slightly risqué outfit. To compliment the look she was going after, Lucentia pulled her hair back into a lopsided high ponytail leaning towards the right. Her transformation was immediate: the image of an elegant and eloquent lady turning into a teenage dragonkin popstar.
Minutes flew by as Lucentia began jamming out song after song. Kaze and the others were able to indulge in Lucentia's high-paced dancing across the stage as she sang. The floating mic followed her the entire time, almost as though dancing along with the princess herself on stage. How Lucentia move was mixed in with a few of her sword style steps, allowing her to glide around effortlessly while dancing.
It was a truly magical experience to watch Lucentia let loose without holding back. By the time her performance was over for real, people were still cheering out of joy and excitement for her. To end it off, black cubes were seen flying into everyone's hands via magic.
"Everyone here will be able to get a recorded version of Lucentia-hime's new song for free!" Lucentia's song producer announced. "Consider it a token of kindness from the princess herself as an appreciation for her fans supporting her this whole time."
"W-Woah… what do you think this is?" Yuuji, one of the few who had no clue what the black cube was, gently tapped the surface of the cube. "How is it that we can listen to Lucentia's song here?"
"Kaze, you seem to know what this is," Noel pointed out after noticing Kaze's seemingly bland reaction compared to theirs. "Did Lucentia show it to you before?"
"I think the more accurate question should be whether Lucentia sung that song to me before," Kaze sighed out loud. "And yes, she has indeed sung it before and I do know how this works. Its basically a recording device invented by Lunaea and Luniel using wind magic to capture Lucentia's voice and embedded as a spell circle. That way, the song can be repeated multiple times using the device without worrying about it running dry since the spell activation takes up mana from the surroundings like any spell circle."
"So that's the story. Was this during your visit with Lucentia to her idol job?" Irene asked him with an intrigued look before gradually morphing into one of mischief. "How was it? Listening to her song?"
"S-Stop, you don't want to ask me that right now," Kaze looked away, blushing immensely from being asked such a sensitive question. "You know how I feel."
Kaze's eyes glanced back to the stage where Lucentia stood, waving back at the crowd. By chance, her eyes locked onto his for a split second as she was scanning the crowd. She made use of this second to give him a quick wink as a sneak attack, which effectively made Kaze's heart throb. His mouth gaped open in response, only for her to leave the stage at the exact moment.
The rest of the performance went by in a breeze. By the time the entire show was over, lunch was next on the list followed by another entire afternoon of more interclass games.
Back in the palace during dinner, Kaze and Lucentia became the object of the group's talking topic. It was already something Kaze had expected to happen, especially after the spectacular show that Lucentia had put on. Rather than commenting on how she performed, everyone was teasing Kaze to respond to Lucentia's bold declaration of love.
In particular, Reginsleif as a father seemed the most interested in his daughter's public 'confession'.
"Lucentia, Kaze, come to my room later," Reginsleif declared with his nostrils flaring and bloodshot eyes. "I MUST know every little detail about my daughter's song!"
"Yes, father," Lucentia made a small smile at this, though she was really directing it at Kaze who looked to be having a difficult time keeping calm. "Though I would have to point out that Kaze's having a hard time agreeing."
"Sorry my boy, I got a bit excited knowing that I missed the opportunity to hear my daughter's confession via a new song," Reginsleif kept his tone cool when he apologised to a panicking Kaze. "Don't worry, I promise I won't get angry or jealous. If anything, I am ecstatic that Lucentia here confessed so bravely, even if it was a hidden message that only a few of us understood."
"You could always listen to the recording yourself," Luniel interjected. "Unless you prefer hearing it directly from Lucentia-nee, of course."
"Lunatea, anything to say?" Laevia asked her second eldest daughter, who obviously felt pressured to step up her game compared to Lucentia. "It looks to me that Lucentia's seriously trying everything to win Kaze over."
Surprisingly, Lunatea didn't act all flustered and stomped off like she usually would if teased even a single bit. She continued to calmly eat her dinner, albeit her ears turning red from embarrassment, without a hint of her showing that she was succumbing to the challenge.
"… I have my ways," she muttered softly, stuffing her mouth full of sliced pork.
The room erupted into laughter according to Lunatea's reply. It certainly was never boring to watch the ever-waging war between the dragonkin sisters to conquer Kaze's heart.
A few minutes later, one of the palace's guards entered the dining room with a letter in hand. Reginsleif took note of this and had Tuarle, standing behind him as usual, to accept the letter on his behalf. With a swift salute, the guard left the room immediately, leaving Tuarle to deliver the message verbally given along with the letter to the Emperor himself. Evidently, the content must be serious since Reginsleif furrowed his brow upon listening to Tuarle.
He accepted the letter and briefly read through the content. After a short bit, he exchanged a knowing nod with Laevia, whose previously warm face melted into a difficult-looking one. The two have obviously realized something from the letter delivered and felt worried by the content. Their gaze instantly fell on two people within the room, oblivious about what was to come.
"Excuse me for interrupting," Reginsleif gently quelled the excited chatter the group was having with each other. "I have a brief announcement to make. Lunaria, Kaze, please see us at the office after dinner. My wife and I will depart for the time being."
With that said, Reginsleif left the room with Laevia, rousing a few confused looks from certain members at the table. Lunaria and Kaze, in particular, had a bad feeling about Reginsleif's message. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn't good news.
Dinner flew by and Kaze arrived at the Emperor's private office with Lunaria.
"Kaze… there is no better way to put this," Reginsleif heaved a troubled sigh, his wife placing a comforting hand on his shoulder by his side. "We have received a decision from the Council of Aravel."
"Um, what decision would that be about?" Kaze nervously asked the Emperor.
"Do you remember when we said that we would work together with Sir Ethan and discuss a solution regarding your return to Czech with Lunaria? After the devil attack, there has been complications on both sides, namely that it would be too risky for my daughter to return and continue studying there."
"Y-Yes. I am aware of it."
"After a long and hard consideration from both parties, we have come to a firm decision…"
Kaze held his breath as he waited for the Emperor to make the most crucial announcement that would determine his and Lunaria's fate.
"… You and your friends will return to Tristania as soon as the two-week period has ended in Aravel. Lunaria… is not allowed to continue studying in Tristania with everyone. She won't be allowed to return for an indefinite period."