The Demon Saint is Missing, so I Ran to Another World

No Free Lunch (Part 2)

And, speaking of the demons...

"Gah! That special scholar tricked us! He tricked us! That idiot! I want to strangle him right now!" from where I stood, I could hear the loud, sardonic voice of the goblin girl, Lady Srexe. She was walking away from the crowd that was in front of the token stall, together with her classmate, Tama'lee.

"Srex, the special scholar is still our teacher; have some respect!" the orc girl insisted. "But...yes, Tama'lee is hungry, and she expected to eat now..."

I think they didn't see me, for they continued past my spot without even looking at me, who was subtly waving at them. And since I wanted to talk to those two, I followed the pair, until we reached the part of the hallways that had a few other students hanging around.

"Hey!"

It was the goblin girl who first turned around, "Well, well! I can't believe that you still have the gall to show yourself to us, even though you broke your promise! Heh, typical human."

"I did pass the scores, yes, for that is our prerogative," I countered. "And besides, it'd be unfair to your classmates if I didn't; they're expecting tokens for their hard work!"

"Tch," was all Lady Srexe could say.

"But Tama'lee expected the Special Scholar to help them!" the ogre cried out, her hands were on her stomach. "Tama'lee trusted the Special Scholar!"

"Ah, my apologies for breaking the promise," I gave her a pat on the back. "And that's why I'm here, see?"

"Eh, we don't need you," the goblin girl didn't hide her displeasure. "What we need is food!"

"Well, if you don't want to eat, then who am I to impose on you?" I decided to stop talking to her and focus on the orc girl instead, "How about you, Tama'lee? Do you want to eat?"

"Of course! Tama'lee is so hungry...and so is Nari! However, we have no tokens..."

"Here, take this," I handed to her two of my tokens.

"No way!" the orc girl exclaimed. "An ogre like Tama'lee can't take the teacher's token!"

"You're not taking it; I'm giving these," I winked at her. "Besides, I broke my promise, so consider this as compensation."

"But..."

"Do you want to eat or not? If you do, please call Nari as well; you guys have to eat. After all, you can't study properly if you're running on an empty stomach."

That silenced Tama'lee. However, Lady Srexe entered our conversation, "Oi, human! You don't have any idea of how much you're giving, no?"

"I don't. You tell me."

"That's a teacher's token," the goblin girl explained. "Teachers use that for their needs."

"The tokens for students are different?"

Lady Srexe nodded.

"And we can't give these to students?"

"You can. However, it is common sense that the teachers only hand it over to the most deserving scholars. One teacher's token can buy a lot of food, or clothes, or books here, after all; significantly more than a single student's token can afford. So it's highly-valued."

Now that made sense, why Tama'lee's reaction was like that. Anyway, I wanted to confirm something else, "Is what you said a rule here?"

"I'd say, more like a tradition. You should check your Conclave guide for the rules instead of asking me those questions!"