Chapter 10: No Mice

Chapter 10: No Mice

[There are still no mice.] The baby Windspeed Hawk complained.

He was right, even with super vision, which could see into the infrared spectrum and would pick out urine trails of rodents, there was no sign of mice. That should probably have been expected of a magical dorm, but it was a great tragedy in the mind of the bird.

[Alright, buddy, we will go to the cafeteria and find some meat.]

Karl headed for the main floor again, and made his way to the buffet of the Cafeteria. ReAd latest chapters at novelhall.com Only

"New student? I don't know you." The old woman behind the counter asked.

"Yes, ma'am. My name is Karl."

"Polite, that's not bad. Alright, grab what you like, but only the white plates are allowed to be taken back to the rooms, and must be returned during your next meal. Eat all you like, magic affects all you kids differently, no need to be shy about your appetite."

[MEAT!] The Hawk shouted happily in his mind, drawing his attention to a pile of raw fish set along one side of the long counter. It looked like a grocery section, where you could pick out your own ingredients to take to your room, while the first half of the counter was prepared dishes.

"Then, pardon my hunger." Karl replied, and took a pair of white plates to fill for their dinner.

Pasta and meatballs with cream sauce, roasted pork, some sort of vegetable that gave off an incredible feeling of energy, and then an entire plate of raw meat for the Hawk.

"Well, that's one of the more interesting plates, for sure. But if you're in a room with a kitchen, you can cook it as you like. In the future, you can just ask the cook to prepare it if there's a special way you like your food." She explained.

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind."

Karl retreated to his room while the Hawk pleaded pitifully to be fed. If this was how adorably needy all baby birds were, no wonder their mothers would go to the extremes of even chewing food for them. Fortunately, the Windspeed Hawk had an extremely sharp metallic beak and could bite through bone with ease, even as a newborn.

"You were the gauntlet guy from the first group, aren't you? I didn't get a good look at your face earlier." A girl with blonde hair and a heavily bruised face asked as he sat at the table next to hers.

"Yeah, might I ask, what happened? Everyone looks like they were beaten half to death." Karl asked.

"We were. I went with a group that understood going together for safety against the Earth Mice, and our lead warrior chased them off with a skill, but when we got to the second field, the plant monster was already going insane.

So, we thought it would be safer to go around, and we decided to try the treeline to the right." She paused and gently touched her face, then flinched.

"The one with the monstrous boars?" Karl asked.

"Oh, you already know?"

Karl nodded. "That's why we went through the field. I saw the marks of the boars on the trees, and recognized them from outside the mining town where I grew up."

The girl laughed. "It's me, Jasmine. I guess you really didn't recognize me with my face like this."

That explained why she didn't introduce herself when she started speaking, he should have already known her. Karl looked her over again. He was absolutely certain that when they left, the Jasmine that he knew had not been a blonde, and that she had been at least twenty kilos heavier than she was now.

"You look different. It must be the hair." Karl mumbled, not wanting to insult his classmate by mentioning what she used to look like.

Maybe it was puberty, but he should have noticed a change like that, he was sure of it. There were a few other familiar, but also not familiar, faces in the crowd. It was like everyone was a bit different than he remembered, and most of them had improved in the best of ways.

Come to think of it, he didn't remember sitting quite so tall at the table, and his uniform pants didn't quite reach his shoes anymore. That wasn't right, they definitely did this morning when he got off the train.

Maybe his Academy experience wasn't going to be a bad one after all. A little more height and he would catch up to his classmates.