Clack, Clack, Clack.
A sound of typing filled the room as I sat on the ground, with a laptop on my lap. On my right laid a book. Every so often I would glance at the book, read what was written on it and type it on the screen.
I would read and type.
Read and type.
Read and…
"This sucks," I cursed out loud, almost punching the screen in front of me.
"Well, to be fair, she did say no physical punishments this time." Thorne let out a small sigh beside me and returned to typing.
Both of us were currently sitting inside an empty classroom. There were no tables, no chairs—just some year-old laptops and a pile of books.
"I mean, seriously, look at this." I grabbed a couple of the books from the pile. "Art of Military Tactics. Art of Diplomacy. We learned all of this during the first semester. How does it make sense to copy these things down? And to type them on an old piece of junk, no less. Even your grandfather wouldn't remember how to use this thing."
"What other choice do we have?" Thorne snapped back. "We got caught, remember? And why the hell are YOU getting so mad? This is MY last month in this World, and instead of enjoying it, I'm going to have to spend the next few weeks sitting here for hours after school to copy this crap down." he collapsed with his back on the floor.
Both of us sat in silence, and I didn't say anything for a while.
"I'm going to miss you, you know," Thorne suddenly spoke, breaking the silence.
"I know you will,"
he smirked. "And you'll miss me too."
"…I suppose."
"You know, he spoke, a bit of sadness seeping into his voice. Everyone in my family is happy that I'm finally going to dive in, that I'll bring them glory and honor. But that's it; they don't care about the rest. Can you believe I haven't even seen or talked with my mother ever since we decided on the new world?"
Again, I didn't say anything. Thorne's home life wasn't exactly a secret. Besides, I was the last person to comment on someone's relationship with their parents.
We sat in silence like that for a while, after which I stood up.
"Come on, get up."
"Huh? Why?" He asked, slowly sitting up.
"Let's go out and do something."
"What are you talking about? We still have to finish this by…"
"We can do that tomorrow."
"You want us to skip school again? Do you not remember how we got into this mess?"
"I do, and we're already knee-deep in it. Even if we break out or burn, the worst she can do is add another pile of books. Which, frankly, doesn't change much."
Thorne stared at me for a couple of seconds before chuckling and getting up. "I suppose you're right. We can leave by gate 3. The guards there are easy to bribe."
"And the witch?"
"She should be in class right now."
Nodding, both of us walked out of the room and escaped into the hallway.
As Thorne had said, the guards at gate 3 were very easy to bribe. Escaping from the Academy had been a cakewalk, aside from the fact that we had to run the entire distance to make sure no one saw us.
Right now, both of us were sitting on a bench on the side of the road, right outside Orion Academy's main building.
Heh heh, Thorne suddenly chuckled, looking at the Academy building.
"What is it?"
"Zoom in toward our classroom with your HUD."
A bit confused, I did as he said. As the students advanced to their final years, their classrooms were generally allocated higher in the building. Combining that with glass panes at the side of the building and the built-in zooming function in our HUDs made it somewhat easy to peek inside.
In the classroom, the blood witch was standing on the podium, taking her lecture. That was good, as it meant we hadn't been discovered yet. At the back of the classroom, however...
"Heh, heh, heh. Idiot." I couldn't hold back my chuckle either as I watched Jadis standing at the end of the classroom with his head hung low.
"That idiot really is unreliable.
…And a traitor," Thorne chimed in. "Vega TOld hEr eVerYThiNg. If Vega had ratted us out, he would have been in that room with us typing. Letting him go with just that, he most likely gave us up."
I nodded in agreement. "If we weren't in a hurry, I would have never asked him to cover for us."
Thorne shook his head. "It doesn't matter now. What do you want to do now?"
"We can go eat something," I suggested.
He shook his head. "We had lunch two hours ago."
"How about a movie?"
"There's nothing good."
"Arcade?"
"The one closer to here shut down. The other one is across the city."
Both of us sat in silence, thinking.
Thorne suddenly had an idea.
"The coordinates to my new World were supposed to come today. They were supposed to deliver it at home, but we can go directly and check if they've arrived yet. Besides, you haven't picked a World yet, either, have you? The "Golden Exchange Guild" carries the best selections, so you can also browse through their collection."
Listening to him, I hesitated for a bit before reluctantly nodding. "I guess we can go."
"Good." Thorne stood up from the bench and began walking toward the nearby taxi stand. "Maybe this time you'll find something you like."
I too followed him. We soon reached the taxi stand, which was nothing but a large silver panel at the side of the road with some waiting benches built at its side.
Thorne walked toward the panel, scanned his ID, and began choosing our destination: the Merchant's District. It took the automated car less than a minute to arrive to our location.
Reaching us, it scanned and confirmed Thorne's ID and opened its door. B
Both of us got inside, and the car zoomed through the road and onto the upcoming highway.