The secretary from earlier guided me back to my office and told me to make myself at home, which is exactly what I did. Well, actually, "office" might not be the right word. She showed me where I would be living for the next year or possibly even longer.
The office looked quite similar to the director's, though it was slightly smaller. But that didn't really matter; as long as there was a desk, two chairs, and a bed, I would be the happiest man in the world. It's not like I had better conditions than this during the war. I still remember the bed I had been sleeping on… Ah, just thinking about it gives me chills.
Either way, all you need to know is that as soon as I entered my room, I slept like a baby. I needed to pass the time until night, and that was the best way to do it.
***
"Yaaawn!"
I stretched my entire body, and damn, that felt good. I squinted my eyes and noticed that it was now dark outside, which was all I had hoped for.
"Time to go look for that student of mine."
Alexandra hadn't told me where to find her. But it's not like I really needed any help. Finding a teenager should be easy enough, right? Well, that's what I hoped for since I didn't want to spend days finding her.
So, without wasting another minute, I headed outside the tower toward the huge garden of the Royal Academy. Yes, the Royal Academy wasn't just a tower, as I soon learned when the secretary brought me to my room. There are actually a ton of buildings around it.
I'm not lying when I say this. There's literally everything you can think of. A park, a garden, training grounds, a smith to make weapons, a potion lab… I'm telling you, there's a reason this is the greatest academy in the entire world.
When I finally got outside, everything was peaceful. There wasn't the slightest noise around me, which was perfect. The silence would make it a lot easier to find her.
'Alright, let's concentrate,' I thought, gathering my mana around my eyes. It was one of the skills I had developed over the years, Tracking.
Yeah, I know…the name isn't great, but it's the only thing I could come up with at the time, and it just stuck.
What the skill allows me to do is see the footprints of everyone in the past hour or so. Let's be honest. With this skill, it should be extremely easy to find my student.
A blue hue appeared around my brown eyes, and I could now see footsteps all over the garden. They were all glowing blue, which made it easier for me to see them, and it seemed that all of them came from the same person.
"Now, where are you hiding?" I smiled as I started to follow the footsteps.
I observed them for some time, and from their shape, size, and form, I was 95% sure that the student I was looking for was a girl.
The footsteps guided me to one particular building: the storage room. It was probably the only building in the Royal Academy that looked bad. It seemed to be on the verge of falling down. So…why, out of all the infrastructures at her disposal, did she go there?
Is she trying to experiment with living in bad conditions? Like, why would anyone even do that?
I shook my head and headed for the wooden door that was on the verge of falling down. I knocked on the door twice, and it almost fell down. After knocking, I stayed still, waiting for her to answer. However, no one came to open the door.
"Hey, I know you're in there. I'm not here to hurt you, don't worry."
It seemed like I hadn't chosen the right words, as the presence I had been sensing moved further away from the door. I had no clue why, but she seemed…scared?
Ah, whatever. Enough about being polite. This isn't like me.
I grabbed the handle of the door and swung it open without care.
"Hello there!" I said with a smile. "Ah, you gotta be kidding me…"
It was the first time I ever met one of my students, and she was trying to escape.
Am I really that horrible?
The girl was currently trying to leave through one of the holes in the ceiling.
"Leave me alone!" she shouted as she struggled to push herself through the hole.
While I had nothing better to do, I observed her a little… it's not like she could get away from me.
She was wearing a black top and a short white skirt. Maybe it wasn't on purpose, but it created a great contrast with her long white hair and pearly red eyes.
It didn't take too much time for me to figure out what she was. After all, I had seen a lot of them on the battlefield. Though, they usually weren't running away from me… I'm quite the nice guy, you know.
Pitying her, I walked up under her, and decided to give her a little push.
"Here," I said as I helped her by pushing her right foot upwards.
My help seemed to be enough for her as she was now on the ceiling of the storage room. I didn't waste any time following her as I flew right through that tight hole.
She staggered as she took a few steps backward.
"W-Who are you?"
"Me? Your new teacher."
"Then, why is a teacher following me around? What kind of weirdo are you?" she shouted. "Are you interested in young vampires like me?"
My eyes widened. First, she knew that I was tracking her down…second, why is she saying that I'm a weirdo? Third, what kind of person says that to a teacher?!
"Tsk, since when has the Academy been hiring stupid teachers like you?"
My mouth opened wide.
What kind of student is this?
Is that why the Emperor called my class special?