Lilia's Tale: Freyja's Endeavor

Chapter 59: Classes

I woke up, a bit groggy and confused. Unusually for me, I was still quite tired in the morning, so I got out of bed quickly. Sayuri was already awake and dressed.

"Oh Lilia, you're going to be late!" she said once she noticed me.

"Oh. Right, work," I mumbled.

I was still in the same mindset as before, ready to be mentally assaulted by magic under the guide of training. Having such a mundane reason as routine to get up felt almost comforting.

I quickly dressed up myself and left directly towards the school, realising halfway there that I was a student here. The hallways had grown unfamiliar to me in this short yet intense time.

I thankfully remembered what my seat was, so I sat there and waited. My mind wandered back to the times I had spent in here, avidly trying to remember.

I noticed Father come into the room while I was daydreaming. Part of me was oddly excited to see him, while the other part was confused. Thankfully, he saw me and came over.

"You're here quite early, Lilia," he said.

"I was a bit out of it this morning so I'm here to get my bearings back."

"Hasn't it only been roughly a week and a half since your punishment?"

"A very intense week and a half where I died, my familiars died and I had to deal with Fenrir again."

"...Right."

Silence fell into the room as we both awkwardly stayed as we are, looking around.

"Since we have some time, why don't we talk about what I wanted to tell you?"

"Sure thing. Might be worthwhile if we stop before anyone else arrives."

"It is nothing confidential. I already submitted the research. The papers should be available in the library here too."

I was intrigued now. I vaguely remembered he wanted to talk about wanting to talk about what he had discovered, so the fact he already submitted everything came off as sudden to me.

We went on to talk about what exactly he had discovered. He successfully proved that there are different types of magicules. Unfortunately, he didn't get to tell me much about it as students quickly started arriving.

"I have ideas to further improve upon the research but I might need your help for that. Make sure to come over during summer vacation," was the last thing he told me.

As I waited, I noticed a group of girls coming over.

"Are you okay?" one of them asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thank you for asking."

They seemed a bit worried and awkward, standing around in front of me. I had a feeling they wanted to ask soemthing else but none of the three ended up talking for a while.

"Uhm...What exactly happened?" the shy girl in the back finally asked.

"What do you mean?" I asked myself, unsure what they were referring to.

"Well, Sayuri-chan said you were bedridden for a week. Why?"

"Oh. I guess you could say I worked myself too hard?"

Their anxiety seemed to vanish as relief settled in. Did they think I was hurt or something like that? Either way, it seems Sayuri didn't say anything unnecessary, which made me glad.

They ended up making small talk with me for a bit, mostly about the boys in class. Eventually, the topic of my hair was mentioned.

"How come you have such pretty hair by the way, Lilia-chan?" one of them asked.