The Outsider (Outsider #1) ✔️

Chapter 121 : Family Visit

Dusk worked the rest of the week in the same manner, with Military Training taking up the early part of the day, followed by a quick shower in the PG Dorm apartment and then to the Tech Building for her courses.

Uni-Viva President's public reversal Professor Elton's orders followed by news media reports him being dumped from the Ministry Advisory Committee made the students in her class also become wary of her. News of her dormmates being removed from University for their attack on her made the students more wary and many of them kept their distance from her. But it made little difference to her because they ignored her earlier because of her poor student background anyway.

Dusk wanted to apply for a new dorm room, but Lady Crystala did not allow it. Next day Dusk found that Room 385 had now been registered in her name. Crystala tried to force Dusk to take her Hover-Car to Tech Building, but she refused saying it was pretentious. Finally, she agreed to use the Duo-Pax instead, leaving the Hover-Car for Scarlet to take Lady Crystala around.

Their evenings were spent in Tech Morning Star Building. On most of the days, Lady Crystala went to meet friends or attend social events and then joined the girls for dinner somewhere. Dusk felt that if she stayed for a month, they would cover every fancy restaurant in the city. Almost every evening their meals were comp-ed by the restaurant owners in spite of Dusk's protests. After all, having the Royal Family dine at the restaurant was prestigious for the owner.

Much to Catherine's unhappiness, on the 7th day, Dusk spent all morning at Military Building, taking help of the Senior Tech Students in the Military to understand more intricacies of the chip design. Professor Elton had been replaced by a new teacher, Professor Menezes, who was very careful and polite to her, but she did not want to approach him for help. The senior Military Students admired her and were happy to teach what they knew.

Mellow had joined her on 7th day as it was a holiday for her, and she found Dusk's chip work fascinating. Two other students from her chip class who had been nice to her earlier, also joined her in the Military Lab, asking if they could work with her. Dusk did not mind making more friends. She found out from them that Cecil was from a prominent tech family and his parents considered Dusk's fame as fake. It seemed that in college they had ensured Cecil was the top student in his class by unfair methods.

At 3 pm, Catherine and Scarlet marched into the lab, with Lady Crystala in tow, insisting that Dusk and Mellow come and have lunch with them and then they would go to the PG Club to swim. Dusk's new friends were awed to see the 2 Princess and a Senior Royal 'pleading' with Dusk for a meal. Their respect for her went up a few notches. When Catherine asked them to join, they almost fainted. Their parents would be very proud!

In the evening, Catherine was adamant that they do something different. So, they flew down to Orion City in Zole for dinner. It was Dusk's first visit to the famous beach city, and she felt they should have come for lunch so she could see the place properly. Given that it was not very far from Ci'gazze, she figured she would come on her own again.

... ...

The following day was the one that Dusk dreaded. Dawn Hale informed her at night that they were in the Maglev to Ci'gazze and would arrive in the morning. She quickly took the help of Lady Crystala's maids to clean up room 385 (outer single room) and get the clothes that were in her old dorm room and put them in the cupboards to make it look she stayed there.

The morning went pretty normally but just before lunch, Dusk got a series of messages and calls from her father. She was in class and normally kept her communicator on silent mode. Only Susco, Imperial Security, Luke, Paul Hunter and perhaps some members of the Royal Family could get through to her at that time. But her father did not believe it and considered that she was being disrespectful in not accepting his calls.