Chapter 95
Combat Medic 2nd Lt. Patrice Francoise Benette stared at the ceiling as he lay on his bed. He has been awake for about an hour now, but still hasn’t gotten out of bed. He’s still trying to make things make sense in his head.
You see, a curious thing happened yesterday.
A curious thing indeed.
Johan, Dorin and himself had gone to their Magic Defense Class under Duke Leopold Louise Alcione, or rather, Dean Alcione, as he is called in the University. The Dean was suddenly called away on an emergency meeting, and the class was told to do some drills or simply go to their next class.
He remembered that Prince Alexander and his retinue were almost late that afternoon. It was exactly 4 pm when they arrived. The prince then suggested they undergo a sort of drill to check their abilities to defend against elemental magic.
Everyone decided to participate, except for Dagon who was too young, and him for being a coward.
“Yes I know I’m a coward and I have long accepted that I have no proficiency in either fighting or defending myself,” he said as he frowned at the ceiling. “But what happened next... is simply something I can not explain.”
A crease appeared on Patrice’s smooth brow as he recalled the things that happened that evening.
Johan and the Prince had fought valiantly. Even he was awed by the way his fellow Special Class Sphere member, Johan, defeated Xander. But then, duty called when he saw his fellow students being caught up in Dorin and Mordecai’s fight.
“I mean... how could a fellow medic use people like that? And how could Dorin just fling them aside as if they were nothing but crash test dummies that could easily be replaced! I had to set two bone fractures yesterday!” he said with a sad look on his gentle. “It was a good thing that Mordecai went further into an empty field to keep the casualties from piling up!” the sad look turned into a frown. “But then, that was when the weird things started happening...”
The sky suddenly darkened.
Lightning rained down on the field, and as if that wasn’t enough, a bright light lifted from the ground, going up, and left a black hole in the sky, where several eyes of different size, shape and color peeped in.
Patrice shivered and rubbed his arms as he remembered the events that evening.
That was when the Dean came back and decided to call the Morells. The whole in the sky looked a lot like the gates they open up to the in-between, after all. But the Morells could not be contacted, and when the Dean finally got a bit more magi to back him up, Johan went to him with a sleeping Dagon in his arms, and told him to go back to the dorms to keep safe.
“I was so scared that I just ran all the way home with Dagon, without looking back... and when they finally came home...”
Patrice covered his face and took several deep breathes.
Finally, he turns to his side and slowly rises up from his bed. He put on his loose shirt and pants and opened the door to look around the hallway.
He was face to face with Sebastian whose puffy eyes were barely open.
“G-good morning!” he greeted his room mate.
Seb blinked. Twice. And started wobbling towards the bathroom.
Well, Seb was never a morning person to begin with, and it was barely seven in the morning. Patrice made his way to the kitchen and saw Dorin having breakfast with Azra and Dagon, while Johan was busy cooking with his back to the table.
“Oh, g’morning!” Dorin greeted him with a grin.
“G-good morning...”
“Here’s more sausages.” Johan turned around and placed steaming hot sausages on the currently empty serving plate on the table. “Dagon, don’t eat them all, Seb and Benette haven’t had breakfast yet!”
“I want waffles!” the dragon child demanded.
“What do you say?” Johan frowned at him.
“Please!”
Dorin laughed and rubbed the kid’s spiky hair.
“I see the manners class you’re both taking is paying off! Dagon’s such a fast learner!”
“Dagon such fast learner!” the boy repeated as he took two more sausages from the plate.
“I wish I could have lessons too...” Azra said sadly.
“Don’t worry, once you get a bit bigger and stronger, then Seb won’t have a reason not to let you go!” said Dorin. He looked at Johan who was busy cooking more waffles. “Aren’t those done yet? I’m still hungry even after eating two batches, too bad we don’t have kitchen duty today since we have a class early in the morning.”
“You can say that again,” said Johan. “I’m so hungry, I feel like I just fought an army of soldiers who came to harass us miners!”
Patrice choked on the hot milk he was sipping.
“You okay?” Johan asked. He patted him on the back so hard, he spat the rest of the milk out of his mouth.
“I-I’m fine... just... do you really not remember anything that happened yesterday evening?” he asked his two roommates.
“Oh this again?” Johan frowned.
“Like we said last night, Johan and I just went to class and did some boring drills and went straight back,” said Dorin. “You were lucky the Dean went to an emergency meeting, so you didn’t miss much. Why didn’t you come to our class anyway?”
“B-but I did! Didn’t you wait for me near the bus stop so we could go to class together?” he reminded them.
Dorin and Johan looked at him quizzically, then shook their heads and laughed.
“We, did, but you never showed up,” said Dorin.
“You must have been sick, that’s why you can’t remember,” said Johan. “If that’s the case, then don’t push yourself and just get some more sleep.”
“But Dagon was there too!” Patrice placed a hand on Dagon’s shoulder. “Dagon, weren’t you with me during the drill yesterday?”
“Yup!” replied the small dragon. “Dagon ate a lot, lot, lot, of snacks! Thank you!”
Johan looked at his child proudly.
“Yes, I remember Dagon eating all the snacks the girls in the class gave him.”
“And who was he with?”
Johan frowned for a bit.
“The girls in the class were with him,” Dorin answered absentmindedly.
“That’s right!”
And the discussion ended with Seb entering the kitchen and sitting on the table, still half asleep.
‘Is it me then?’ Patrice thought to himself as he gingerly ate his breakfast. ‘Am I finally loosing my mind? Perhaps my father hitting me on the head so often has made some permanent damage?’ he shrugged the thought aside. ‘Perhaps I should ask our other classmates about it first...’
So, Patrice Benette went to school and tried to look for his Magic Defense classmates.
“Yesterday? We just had some boring drills and went home early,” they answered. “Come to think of it, I should have skipped classes like you did.”
“But I was there yesterday!” Patrice insisted.
“Oh, then perhaps I just didn’t notice you.”
“Well, it is true that people seldom notice Patrice even when he’s right beside them.”
“He’s very inconspicuous, after all,” they laughed and dropped the subject.
Patrice did not argue with them. The least he would do is try to argue with people.
Well, there doesn’t seem to be any problem anyway, nothing bad actually happened. Even the military field where they had the drills showed no sign of a fight. So, maybe he really was just sick and dreamt everything up?
And so he left that at that and decided to just forget the whole thing ever happened.
‘I’m just glad that nobody is hurt, and that’s what really matters.’