[Quin's POV: ]
"Haaa..."
"Haaa."
"Huuuu."
Three consecutive sighs filled the surroundings, and then there were four of them who shook their heads in the process.
"It's boring."
"Let's do something na."
"Do what though?"
Lucifer and Uriel weren't here so the rest of us had to cancel the plan to go and see the flower fields that had recently been said to have appeared in some part of the island.
It was sad that they had to do something very important exactly at a time like this, but if they weren't going, I had no reason to go either.
'And since I wasn't going, Chry didn't have any reason to go either.'
And since so many people weren't going, Zoe wouldn't come either, and after Zoe, Lizzy wouldn't come.
And, since so many people weren't going, even though Tia and a few others had some motivation to go, they wouldn't go either since it wouldn't be as much fun as could have been with the rest of them here.
"Should we play something? Or go explore the places we haven't been to?"
"We went around the garden just last weekend. Did you forget the incident with the creatures and Baal?"
Last week, we all decided to go around the garden and see what things we had not seen until now. But, while we were going around, a plant-like creature suddenly came to us with a bunch of other creatures and started 'playing' with Baal.
'It was strange, but according to the two of them, this wasn't something new or surprising.'
That plant-like creature had already attacked him once, and then it played with it after a certain thing happened.
"Then what? Go and check the creatures-."
"No. Absolutely not! Did you forget the bees got angry when we started climbing the tree?!"
The other time we decided to go around and play with the other creatures that we could find in the academy, like the creatures that lived in the garden the bees that lived on the great ancient tree, and the other bird that also lived on the branches of the other trees, something similar happened.
'There was some kind of event going on among the bees, as the two of them explained, and we ended up disturbing them.'
The two of them calmed the angry bees down with something strange that we still don't know about, and thanks to them, we were saved and forgiven.
'They said they had already met the Queen of the Blue Bees and they said that one day if she wants, we might also get the chance to meet her.'
"Haaaa..."
"Tsk."
"Why the hell is this damn day so long?!"
Even Carla was getting angry now.
There was practically nothing to do!
"Ughhh! Let's just go and play something, everyone. Or if not that, I'm going to the library to read something."
Alf and Bell were reading something else already while sitting a little too close to one another— but that was normal nowadays so that aside, they couldn't focus since we were in the garden and there were so many distracting things.
'They were mage scholars so they needed to study more than the rest of us... or perhaps they just liked studying, that's all.'
But this place was distracting. And they wanted to go to the great library on the western end of the academy castle... and actually, that was a good idea.
"Hello? Is something happening finally?"
This group of ours had become unexpectedly big.
Aside from the three of us, there was Lizzy, Med, Zoe, Carla, Alf, and Chry who initially got together to have lunch, and then the first additions, Tia, Hide, Luna, Eula, Araxie joined us.
Captain Alpheus and Captain Alpha, and their vice-captains were the second additions after which, a large number of students started joining us for lunch occasionally.
'Some of them were only here for the chance to socialize with the rest of the students and captains, while some of them were doing it because of pressure from outer forces or with ulterior motives.'
But then it wasn't that bad at first... but then, after the competition, things changed quite a lot.
'Many students started joining us and following us around the academy with other motives and we had to warn them in various ways.'
But still, in the end, the group got as big as those 'societies' that the other students made.
Now there were around fifty of us only in this group and most of us were from the initial lunch group that used to eat together.
'There wasn't any group leader here, since this (Group) wasn't really an official group and just some people hanging around for their reasons, but Uriel and Lucifer had a deep connection with every individual present here.'
They were nothing less than a group leader, but still, the actual group moved through individual motivations.
"We are going to the Library~! Join us if you want~ hehehe."
Even Deleon and Miss Ezra who had started hanging around pretty recently were good people to have around.
'When we were in the Heliox estate, we had spent a pretty fun time together so we all knew neither of them was actually as bad as the rumors make them.'
They were cool, on the other hand.
"Miss Quin?"
"Ah, Chry~. Yes, let's go~."
Chryses had somehow become as close to me as Uriel and Lucifer... we spent a lot of time together studying and talking about various things.
This friendship we had...
"Oh, there's something on your face."
He was attractive.
There were many things about him that made us more comfortable with each other than the rest of the group.
"Ah, thanks..."
His smile was funnily similar to a smile present deep into my memories... but, I didn't know what that thing I didn't know about was.
"Shall we?"
"Yes. Let's go~."
I held his hand instinctively, and he held it back... even though he knew he shouldn't.
This friendship was precious to us, and we had to keep it limited to just that.
A friendship.
'At least until I finish what I have to...'
We needed to limit this relationship.
And he knew that better than me... perhaps that's why he never lets me intertwine our fingers while holding hands.
'Hump.'