Bell perked up from her midday reverie, slightly startled by the repeated tolling of the bell in the distance.
'Hmm?' Bell thought, slowly becoming aware of her environment.
Teacher Sofia turned to face the window and paused her lecture. After a moment, she walked to the desk where her computer lay.
"Class is adjourned for today. Your homework is to be rested for the exam tomorrow." She said, turning off the computer and television screen.
At those words, the quiet environment of the room was shattered by the tens of students all clamoring to leave. Bell instantly understood why everyone was rushing to leave.
'It's lunch!' Bell thought as if she had suddenly become aware of the fact.
She hadn't noticed in her dozing, but she was hungry, surprisingly so. In a sign of resentment towards its owner, Bell's stomach grumbled. After a moment, Bell stood up alongside Aramine and Shota, and the three made their way to the exit.
Despite meeting the boy a mere hour ago, and had only spoken to him once, Bell and Shota were in a strange sync. The two, alongside Aramine, navigated the hundreds of students in the hallways as they quickly headed towards the cafeteria.
Upon exiting the building, Bell opened her umbrella as both Aramine and Shota summoned a Marble. They became covered in swirling silver petals and sparks; a whirlwind of similar sparks covered a few other students in the immediate vicinity.
As the sparks slowly dissipated, Bell saw that Aramine was wearing a poncho that dropped to her knees while Shota wore a thick cloak. The three, spearheaded a small crowd towards the giant staircases that led towards the student's specific dorm layers.
By the time that Bell, Aramine, and Shota reached the staircase, they were extremely crowded, with only a small area to be quickly filled by the three. As they ascended, Bell looked down towards the steps, careful as to not slip and fall.
Bell shuddered at the thought of such an embarrassing event.
As they grew closer to the top, the crowd thinned, but was still populous nevertheless. Bell ascended the staircase first while panting slightly.
'Damned stairs...' Bell thought with bitter intonation in her mind.
Aramine and Shota were close behind her, and the three continued onward towards the cafeteria. A large crowd was already on their way, and Bell could only imagine the wait time for food would be like.
Upon reaching the cafeteria while dreading the wait time, Bell and the other two entered the wide-open double doors. To Bell's pleasant surprise, the line wasn't bad at all. However, there were cooks constantly restocking the hot meals.
Bell closed her umbrella and wrapped the small velcro cloth to its reciprocate piece of cloth, thus making sure the umbrella won't accidentally reopen. Beside her, Aramine and Shota dismissed their Marbles. Aramine's Marble turned into a silver liquid before flowing into her chest while Shota's turned into silver dust and vanishing in the wind.
Bell looked towards the two as water slowly dripped from her umbrella onto her shoe with an envious expression.
'I need something like that...' Bell noted in her mind.
Before Bell or Shota said anything, Aramine was the one to speak, "Hurry! Get in line!" With a tone of comedic exasperation. As she spoke, she quickly stepped in the direction of the line, of which was growing rapidly.
Bell and Shota followed at a brisk pace, and entered the line a few places behind Aramine. It was unfortunate, sure, but the situation wasn't anything horrible, they would all be able to eat at the same time.
In the few moments of silence between the two, Bell looked around the cafeteria and let the atmosphere settle in for her.
Only a few of the rich, lacquered dark wood tables and chairs were filled, but that would soon change based on the sheer number of students filling the line. The air was warm and inviting, but wasn't too hot to be annoying, and the air was filled with the scattered conversations occurring all around.
The scent of various foods and spices filled Bell's senses to the brim with growing hunger.
'Ahh, I might die before reaching the food...' Bell thought to herself.
Shota looked completely fine, but Bell didn't know what he was feeling; was he hungry? Was he starving? Thirsty? Not hungry?
After a few moments of coming up with pointless questions to ask Shota, Bell simply said, "Hey, Shota."
Shota turned his head towards Bell and replied, "Yeah?"
Bell steeled herself for the answer to her question and asked, "What kind of food do you like?" Internally, Bell hoped, 'Nothing sour, nothing sour, nothing sour...'
He took his time with his answer, and when he spoke, Bell's expression turned foul.
"I like really sour and salty foods." He said with a smile.
Shota then tilted his head, his kind expression slowly turning to one of confusion, "What's wrong?"
Bell shook her head, erasing her foul expression and replacing it with a fake smile.
"Oh, nothing, I just thought you'd be the type of guy to like spicy foods." Bell mumbled with a nonchalant tone, but her slight aggression bled through the cracks.
Shota then smiled again and explained, "Oh! Yeah, I get that a lot. Everyone is always so surprised when I tell them I like sour foods."
Bell nodded her head in understanding, she truly thought that he was the type of man to love spicy foods.
Shota then took the momentary silence to ask a question of his own, "Well, what types of food do you like, Bell?"
Bell answered without hesitation, "All foods, really." She then paused for dramatic effect, adding in an insidious tone, "Minus sour foods. Salty foods are even worse."
Shota then took a step back with an aghast look on his face, as if her words had brought him physical pain. His right hand immediately raised to his chest, and he looked like an actor in a drama after the character had gotten shot.
His expression shifted to that of highly dramatized horror, and Bell smiled at the fact.
"Well... That's fine, I guess..." Shota replied, returning to normalcy. "What's your favorite type of food, though?"
Bell, again, answered without hesitation, "Spicy food. The spicier, the better."
To which Shota said in dejection, "Aww man. I hate spicy food, it's the worst there is."
It was Bell's turn to take a step back in abject horror with a look of disgust on her face.
Shota smiled and said, "Now you know how I feel."
Bell nodded, understanding the horrible feeling that the two felt about each other's taste in food.
After a moment of silence, Shota then asked, "What made you like spicy food? Or were you always like... that?"
Bell didn't take offense at the clear shade being thrown her way as she simply reminisced at the point that started it all. A bowl of chili from down on the Ground Layer.
Her mind wandered to the strangely fond memory.
***
They were in a run-down part of the Ground Layer, which should have been an achievement on its own. Bell's mentor had just finished cooking after Bell was done with her training and returned to the table with a bowl of chili.
"Thank you for the meal!" Bell said with enthusiasm.
Her mentor, an old man wearing several layers of ragged clothing and a large hat, replied, "Well, you worked hard today. This is your reward."
Bell held the bowl by its side to keep it still, and she found it warm to the touch, almost uncomfortably so. Either way, she took the spoon embedded in the chili and pulled out a spoonful of the delectable looking food.
As she raised it, Bell only had a split second between the scent hitting her nose and the food entering her mouth. Unfortunately for the young girl, Bell failed to react in time, and was forced to eat some of the spiciest food that she had ever eaten.
Her eyes immediately began to water in reaction to the spicy food, and then in joy as she realized how delicious the food was. She immediately took another spoonful of chili in joy at the taste of the food, her ears and nose turned several shades redder in the coming spoonfuls of chili.
In the next handful of minutes, Bell finished the chili in the bowl, then started scraping the remnants of the meal. After another few passes, the bowl was entirely clean and could probably pass as having recently been washed.
Her mentor laughed at the sight.
He laughed, an old, wheezing type of laughter, but one filled with joy nevertheless. Bell's mentor then said, "Do you want another bowl? I still have half of a pot."
Bell nodded between wiping her tears and snot away.
***
It was that bowl of chili, and the three more that followed, which inspired Bell to search for the spiciest food that she could ever eat. Bell had somehow found the resolve to even die for, or even to, the food that she was in eternal search for.
At this point in time, Bell and Shota reached the buffet line where Bell promptly skipped out on most of the food and made a beeline towards the hot foods section. She looked around, but didn't find anything particularly spicy to eat, with a disappointed look on her face, Bell resigned to eat a plate of rich meats and various breads.
Bell had lost track of both Aramine and Shota in the few minutes that she wasn't looking at them. So she decided to simply wander around and hope that she found one of the others. As she walked, Bell picked up a cup and filled it with strawberry milk and picked up a fork and knife to eat her foods.
It didn't take long to find a few members of the group huddled together at a large, round wooden table. Bell sat down, and as she did, Aramine and Shota showed up at the table.
Greetings rang around in a volume just above the now crowded cafeteria's laughter and conversation. Plates and trays clinked while people carried on with their conversations, often being accompanied by laughter.
Over the next few minutes, the rest of the gang showed up and sat down, and another meal in the Terrarium took place.
They spoke of food taste, most sharing disdain to overly salty foods, but not too many agreed with Bell's opinion that sour foods were the worst. The same was to be said with the counterargument that Shota made about spicy foods.
As the conversation split and continued onto different topics, Bell and Michael refilled their plates a numerous amount before they decided to stop eating. After all, they only had an hour in the cafeteria before the next class started. Which, for Bell, was Forging.
But just as Bell thought about her next class, she checked the time by asking the Pathfinder.
[12:52]
Bell and the others finished their meals and followed the many students heading out towards the exit of the cafeteria. Bell opened her umbrella as they exited the cafeteria while a few of the others summoned Marbles. Torm and Jude were still making good use of Bell's Created umbrellas, and that filled her heart with a warm feeling.
That, or it was heartburn.
Bell didn't know, and she couldn't tell the difference, anyway, so she decided to call it a warm feeling from having positive emotions.
They all headed in their separated directions as they reached the crowded staircases base, and Bell followed her Pathfinder.
After a few more minutes, she reached the Forging building, and it looked more like an oversized warehouse than anything else. But that was fine, Bell entered the building and quickly found where her Forging class was.
The interior walls were entirely made of brick, and Bell could hear the consistent clanging of metal against metal. As she sat down, Bell broke out in a sweat, the heat was unnoticeable somehow, but its effects persisted.
As the minutes passed, the girl with the spear from the Bullet Train entered the room.
'What was her name again?' Bell thought intently for a few seconds, racking her brain for the girls name. 'Oh yeah! Charybdis!'
It was after a few more minutes passed that Bell slowly saw more and more recognizable faces, such as Michael and Pyralis, then Wren a few moments later. As they entered, Bell wondered to herself, 'We all left at the same time, why did I get here first?'
Just as the bell tolled, Teacher Hephaestus entered the room. He rolled into the room on a mechanical wheelchair that seemed to have several functions to help him in daily life.
And Bell saw the reason that he had to use a wheelchair, it didn't seem like Hephaestus was hiding it: His legs were heavily malformed, and didn't seem to be fit to lift any human body.
Bell was perplexed by this, 'Isn't he a Teacher? I thought that completing Trials healed the body?'
Soon, she realized, 'Oh, it's probably a Curse.'
"Hello students." He spoke in a hearty, yet raspy voice. "I am Teacher Hephaestus Karagonis, and I will be teaching you how to make good tools.