"Isn't that where dwarves live?" Sophia pointed out.
"Dwarves? What is that?" Meiya curiously asked, her face looking a little confused again.
"Um, well, it's like short, muscular people with a bunch of facial hair that live on the mountain."
"That's a separate species?"
"Not exactly... Humans, dwarves, and elves are all created together as one; at least, that's how the story goes."
"Huh. I really need to learn this world from scratch... Kate, how are you so knowledgeable about this?"
"I just used to travel a lot with my professor... Anyway, the fourth place we can visit is Northeast, where elves live.
But there really isn't much to do there besides scenery. At least, that's what I felt the last time I went there.
And there are a lot of restrictions on things you can do... Like not being allowed to eat meat and——"
"We're good on that."
Sophia and Mary both chimed in agreement for once, as they couldn't imagine only eating vegetables for the entirety of spring break.
"Then that leaves us with the last option. We can visit the east where... Wait..."
Katherine froze for a second, realizing it was the single place she never visited with her professor.
"It's the pirate port." Luqing suddenly murmured as she stopped eating her food.
"Oh right, yeah... It's where a lot of trading routes go."
"It's where our milk is brought from, right? All the from far east to that port?" Sophia curiously asked.
"Y-Yeah, Ahem, anyway, we are not visiting there... That leaves us with four options."
"I want to go to Ironpeak. I want to explore dungeons again!" Mary excitedly proclaimed.
Sophia considered all the options for a second and then agreed with Mary because all the other options had severe drawbacks. .net
From temperature to food restriction, the only one that had no 'hard' drawback was Ironpeak.
"Meiya, what do you think?" Katherine asked, looking over to her for her opinion.
"I don't mind it. I'm just hoping I get to see a dwarf and a dungeon myself."
With all three agreeing to it, Katherine turned over to the last two, who had been mostly silent the whole time.
"I don't mind it."
"Same."
"Then it's decided! Pack everything up, and we're going tomorrow!"
---
As Alex finished taking a shower and started packing his clothes, he was bothered by what Luqing and Miss Amy had said in class.
Even though he never had a school health examination himself, he could remember seeing people's experiences with it online.
It was just the polar opposite of possibilities, from average basic BMI checkups and health checkups to full-blown strip searches.
For a second, he thought of skipping it on purpose, but it just felt too stand out.
Especially since the school operates under almost a boarding school system where everyone lives at the school.
In all the days he had been at school, no one had ever skipped school besides a few people who were sick or late.
However, the sound of the back entrance door being opened made him stop for a second.
With Katherine's voice seemingly coming from the storage room and another woman's voice, Alex got a little curious.
With some careful maneuvering, he carefully avoided the dining table and the chairs in the living room before stopping near the storage room.
Not risking to peek through his head through the open doorway, he leaned onto the wall with his ear against it.
---
"What do you want, Amelia?" Katherine asked as she stood in the storage room with a cloaked figure before her.
"Kate, I have to give it to you. You hid Alex's secret really well." Amelia murmured as she lowered her cloak.
"What secret?"
"Alex isn't really a boy... That's the reason why the guardian didn't have him as the successor, wasn't it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Come on, we're sisters. You don't have to hide things away from me."
As Amelia tried to move closer, Katherine quickly took a step back away from her.
"Alex is always a boy in my eyes. That's what matters to me." Katherine stated.
"Yeah, sure. A boy that has periods... Ahem, anyway, I just want to ask you more about it.
If you give me all the details you have on Alex, I can maybe develop a potion that can fix everything."
Katherine hesitated for a second, but she eventually gave in after remembering how much Alex wanted to be a 'man.'
"Fine, I'll tell you about it. But I don't want you to tell this to anyone else."
"I swear I will keep this only to myself... Now, can you tell me about Alex's exact condition?"
"He's a Hermaphrodite... At least that's what the midwife told me before she left."
"A hermaphrodite... Why does it feel like I heard this before?"
"Because the mage goddess has the same issue... I only figured that out after I searched it up at the library myself."
"No wonder... Shit, that's going to make the issue much harder to solve if the goddess herself can't fix it."
"Yeah. But I heard that she never bothered fixing it... Amelia, I'm sure you can do it with your generational talent in alchemy."
"Hey, don't put that much pressure on me. I don't even know where to begin."
"If you need me to help you, just tell me, okay? I can throw as much money at it as possible."
Amelia rolled her eyes as she looked to the side, not rejecting Katherine's offer outright.
"Of course, you're going to pay for this. I can barely afford food at this point."
"How? Didn't I already give you a few thousand just last week?"
"Burnt it all in my experiment. You can ask your son if you want to know details about it.
Anyway, I'm going to go back home now. See you later, you silly goose."
"You're a silly goose!"
As Amelia vanished, Katherine turned off the light before heading towards the living room.
But before she stepped foot in the living room, she suddenly heard the sound of a door being closed.
"Who's up this late...?"