Knife To Meet You! 12 Meeting The Headmaster

'Is that because the air is too thin up here?', he contemplated. It certainly looked like it due to the height they were at. Above the clouds and still climbing. Air had to be thinner up here.

But at the same time, a look at the cloaked Krys showed that he was having no issues breathing at all. In fact, he seemed to be utterly enjoying the climb up the tower, even if the cold winds were making him chatter his teeth.

"What about the thin air?" Krys asked Kyvas back.

'How did you..? Oh wait... Telepathy, of course.'

Krys just grinned.

'I was wondering why the tower has no windows.' Kyvas asked.

Krys furrowed his brow. "Huh, I never wondered about that."

Kyvas blinked. 'You didn't wonder why the tower you live in doesn't have windows. How?'

"Never had a reason to think it through." Krys rubbed the bridge of his nose, then quickly retracted his hand and pulled his cloak closer. "Should really enchanting something to keep me warm..." He then mumbled.

He seemed to have slowed down his pace though, perhaps contemplating the question.

Kyvas nodded and looked at the tower walls again. They looked like stone, really smooth stone, but felt (again through a sense he did not understand yet) like crystals. The stone was cut into square bricks, sitting almost flush with each other.

'So the tiles in the lab were probably just these bricks...'

"Ah!" Krys exclaimed.

'What?'

"What you just said, it could be that. The walls act as a mana conductor throughout the tower. Maybe it also filters out unwanted mana. I'll have to ask that liar." Krys grinned again, a spring returned to his step again.

===

A unique part of the tower life was how quickly news could spread from one corner of it to the other. There's always people who love gossiping about one topic or the other.

It had been over an hour since Seph and her friends had entered the gardens. Near the time it took for the first cla.s.s of the day to end.

The four still had two hours before their first cla.s.s of the day began, and they intended to spend the rest of it in the gardens as well.

But unlike Seph, the other three had had breakfast quite a while ago, and decided it would be nice to have a snack or so before the horde of students with either free cla.s.ses or the ones skipping their next ones could reach the gardens.

Naturally, Seph joined them as well. Even if she wouldn't eat, she could definitely provide them company.

So the four walked towards the central courtyard, the main entry and exit point to the gardens, and the place where the majority of the mostly student owned and run facilities existed. It was the place to go to have something different from their canteen's rigid menu. The place to shop for trinkets. The place to waste your pocket money in the most enjoyable ways possible.

Teak lead the group. He had an uncanny ability to find the right paths in this labyrinth of a garden. Of course, most of his routing decisions were made after spotting the large crystal lights hanging over each of the three courtyards, but one could -- no, would -- still make a wrong turn here or there despite of them, and have to sidetrack along a path with no visible exits for long periods of time. Teak was the natural enemy to these tricks of the garden.

Callu was right behind him, surrounded on either side by Seph and Hiila. Hiila spent most of the journey quizzing Callu about her various doubts about elemental magic. Callu was among the top of their cla.s.s when it came to the elements. Hiila was not. She often asked doubts like these when they were alone.

Teak often complained about this. They were here to relax, not talk about their d.a.m.n homework! Hiila often hit him because of that. And because Hiila just liked to hit things.

But this was a conflicting subject for Seph. On one hand she did not like being reminded of the academics (unless it was magic control and rune theory. You could ask her about those all day) during free hours, but honestly, magic was also fun for her. And she knew the same was true for Teak as well, watching his scrawny figure turn back to look at them every once in a while.

So she'd agree with Teak but ask her own questions every once in a while as well.

Callu preferred demonstration over theory. She'd hop right up before them and show off all the intricacies of elemental design whenever she found the reason to.

And then she'd hop right beside Seph and cling to her arm. Feigning tiredness.

Yes, feigning. Seph was sure of it.

'Easy to read! Talk about yourself first!' Seph's internal grin seeped onto her face with thoughts like these.

But Seph wouldn't call her out. After all Callu was soft.

A short while later, they reached the eastern courtyard. The three courtyards were joined by two straight, wide, paved paths. They just needed to go down the path connecting the eastern and central courtyards now.

But, right as they were to start the second half of their journey, Seph overheard a group of students laughing about a certain event.

"...Did he really do that?"

"Yeah! Professor Krys just ran around the ninth year's cla.s.srooms with a knife!"

===

A long climb later, Kyvas and Krys neared the top of the staircase. It was nowhere near the tip of the spire, but Krys still called it the 'Top Floor'. The spire here was a quarter of the thickness from where they started, though, so Kyvas knew they had climbed a lot of distance.

Krys stopped near another metal plate. He used his quill once again and opened the door to the inside of the top floor.

Stepping inside Kyvas could see a much simpler floor layout than the mazes that const.i.tuted the lower floors. This floor just had a single corridor almost bisecting the entire floor. To the left of where they entered and at one end of the corridor lay a staircase that lead down to the lower floors - Presumably the intended way to enter this floor. On the other end of the corridor stood a large wooden door.

The rest of the corridor was entirely devoid of doors, or any of the metal terminals Kyvas could see all over the tower, except for the one Krys used to close the door to the outdoors, of course.

What the corridor did have however, was rugs, paintings, statues and plaques, as well as a few benches near the walls. Luxuries that were absent from the part of the tower that Kyvas had seen so far.

Krys walked up to the door.

But instead of knocking on the door like Kyvas expected, he sat at the bench nearest the door.

'...Why don't we enter the office? Will he call you in?' Kyvas asked curiously.

"He's not in the office. The Headmaster likes to come by later in the day, at around 10. Sets up his quill even later. It's why we had to come here, instead of just sending a memo for permission." Krys replied. He sifted through his cloak, his hands faintly trembling from the cold, and pulled out his pocket watch. "Maybe twenty minutes more. I'll warm up a bit my then too."

Kyvas nodded and prepared for a boring wait. But not ten minutes later, he heard faint footsteps from the other end of the corridor.

Kyvas turned his attention just in time to see a portly middle-aged man with a kind face turn into the corridor, walking with a leisurely pace, dressed in a similar cloak to Krys's, except with heavily flared sleeves and a small golden crown.

'Is that him?' Kyvas captured Krys's attention, who was playing with his watch's hinge.

Krys looked up. Then promptly stuffed the watch into his cloak and stood up.

"Krys?" The older man smiled a bright smile and quickened his pace towards them. "How did your experiment go?"

Krys furrowed his brow and gave a look that looked like someone just spilled his lunch. He then lifted Kyvas up and said,

"Kyvas, Meet J.T. Lyre. The Headmaster of the academy."