The Protagonist System

48 School Life Again

Osmand, the headmaster of Tristain Academy of Magic, stared out the observation window at the disturbingly magical goings-on in the courtyard. He always observed the summoning ritual, just in case something untoward showed up and he had to deal with it. It hadn't happened yet and that didn't stop him from watching each and every second year class as they performed the ritual.

This time, Osmand had frozen stiff when a human, a very powerful and magical human, appeared during Miss La Vallière's insanely worded summon spell. Who calls upon the multiverse to have a basic familiar show up? No one! It was insane to cast so wide of a net!

The old man sighed as he felt Mister Colbert approach his office at a run. He was sure to get an earful about the potentially evil person that had shown up and then cast extremely powerful magic without any of their structured training. He sat there and listened for a good ten minutes before Colbert ran out of steam.

“Your complaint is that the summons didn't attack anyone, showed strong magic, and changed the familiar bond into a partnership.” Osmand said and Colbert nodded several times before he realized what he was agreeing to. “Why did you rush here to tell me instead of looking out for the rest of the students?”

Mister Colbert opened his mouth to defend himself and realized he couldn't. He didn't have any real reason to distrust the new summons, and had rushed off, only because he despised the young man. He normally didn't make such rash decisions right off the bat and he wondered why he had this time.

“I see you've cottoned onto something.” The old headmaster said with a knowing smile. “Perhaps a few hours of reflection will let you know what happened.”

Mister Colbert nodded, bowed to him, and left at a fast walk.

“He's going to completely forget about this in about an hour.” The old man's secretary said.

“Miss Longueville, it's not nice to disparage a colleague's shortcomings.” Osmand said as a small mouse leapt out from under the woman's desk and up into his waiting hand. “Black lace, you say?”

“UGH!” Miss Longueville growled and sent a knockout spell at the old man, whom easily knocked it away with his staff.

“You can't blame a helpless creature for admiring your wares, Miss Longueville.” Osmand postulated.

“No, I can't. However, I can blame you for teaching him how to do it, you perverted old bastard!” The secretary said and shot off spell after spell that the old man easily dodged. “Stand still, dammit!”

The old man laughed and the mouse squeaked, teasingly. The old man would never tell his secretary that he already knew she masturbated at least once a week to relieve her frustration over not being allowed to marry at her proper social station.

“Sir!” Mister Colbert exclaimed as he ran back into the office and interrupted the normal cat-and-mouse game that the old man and his secretary played every few days. The sexual tension could be cut with a knife, it was so thick. “What do we do with this weird familiar?”

The old man sat down behind his desk and looked pensive. “He's not a normal familiar, obviously.” The headmaster said and rubbed his chin. “Perhaps a few days of observation will give us a view into the young man's secrets, eh?”

Mister Colbert nodded and left the office again. It was such a relief for him to get the top authority to investigate how this travesty had happened. It would never occur to the slightly scatterbrained balding man that he wouldn't need the headmaster's help in covering up that anything happened to the heir of such a prominent family during his class. Messages were already being sent out by the other students about the entire thing.

*

“No, no. This won't do.” I said when we arrived in Louise's room.

“What's wrong with it?” Louise asked and glared at me. “Don't you want to live with the daughter of an important and prominent noble?”

I gave her a smile and put a hand on her shoulder. “I meant this small room isn't befitting your station. Or mine.” I pointed to the mound of straw on the floor. “I am not going to sleep there, no matter what you think.”

Louise started to blush and then she went angry again. “What right do you have to question...”

I plucked her wand out of her hand.

“Hey! Give that back!” Louise almost shouted.

“Do you have another? I heard what the other students were saying about you blowing things up and regularly burning your wands out.” I said and she blushed. I moved my hand up from her shoulder to pat the top of her head. “It's all right now, Miss La Vallière. I've already stabilized your magic and you have the same affinity as Kirche. Fire.”

“WHAT?!?” Louise gasped.

“I believe your fiery temper gives you too much power and that's why you were blowing things up when trying to cast a spell. Your frustration poured too much magic into the spells and they backfired.” I explained and she stared at me. “I assume you were already taught how to channel your magic into a spell to get it to work?”

Louise nodded. “It... it always explodes. Always.” She said and tears came to her eyes. “That's why...”

“Hush.” I said and moved my hand back down to her shoulder to give it a slight squeeze. “From now on, you will no longer be what they say. Trust me.”

Louise sighed and looked up into my eyes. “Why do I believe you?”

It's my Fatherhood perk, I think. She sees me as an authority figure and I have the parental urge to help her, even if she despises me. Then again, I'm sure that I've already shown her that her first assumption about me was wrong and negated that trait. I thought and gave her my warmest smile. “I think it's because you know I fully believe in you as well, Miss La Vallière.”

Louise blushed again and ducked her head. “Why? Why would you?”

I chuckled and patted her head again. “You were powerful enough to bring me here, Louise. No one can dispute that you did something that no one else ever has.” I said and she looked proud. “Now, about the wands?”

Louise nodded and walked over to her writing desk and opened a small side drawer. Inside was about twenty wands, five of which were burned or cracked. “I get them made at the beginning of the year.”

I barely held in my laugh and she saw my crinkling eyes.

“I thought you weren't going to laugh at me like they do!” Louise growled.

I let my laugh out and shook my head. “I'm laughing that my arrival just ruined the livelihood of whomever makes your piles of wands. You won't need any more replacements! Ha ha ha!”

Louise's anger fled and she blushed again, then she giggled, then she laughed. “I suppose I do spend a lot of money on wands.”

“Not anymore.” I said and patted her head again. I gave her the wand she used back and picked up one from the drawer. It gave me the same bonus as the one she had, so I knew that they were made for Louise and I could use them myself, thanks to the partnership contract and being in my party. “May I take two? Just in case.”

Louise nodded and I picked up another, slipped one into a side pocket of my backpack and kept the other in my hand. “What are you going to do?”

I gave her my best smirk and pointed to the longest wall that was also the outside wall of the castle. “I'm going to cheat, of course.”

“With what?” Louise asked.

“With magic.” I said and walked over to her desk and picked up a candlestick that held three candles. I snuffed them out and popped them off, then examined the wall. It was fairly long and it would take a bit of work.

Louise watched curiously as I enlarged the candlestick and then broke off the three prongs that held candles. That gave me four pieces of metal, so I used magic to stretch them out to the right lengths and then attached them around the entire wall to make them like a picture frame with the wall as the picture. With the metal in place, I quickly engraved the runes needed for expansion charms and stabilization.

“What are those squiggly things?” Louise asked.

“Runic clusters.” I said and finished with the last one. “You might want to step back. This will either expand the space or blow out the wall of the castle.”

“Then don't do it!” Louise exclaimed. “I've already spent a fortune repairing the castle from my explosions!”

I chuckled and tapped the bottom strip as I put some magic into it to charge it up. The wall and floor started to shake as the magic flowed around the long metal braces. When the slight glow went all the way around and met on the ceiling, the entire wall glowed and then pretty much leapt away from me for twenty feet.

Louise's bed, desk, and makeup table dresser with a large mirror, were now freestanding in the front third of the room. The shocked look on Louise's face was worth showing off the same enchantment that my backpack had. I was glad that it worked and hadn't blown out the wall.

“Would you like your things to stay right here?” I asked and walked over to the double doors of her closet. “I need to borrow these until I can get some actual wood.”

Louise didn't say anything as I popped the doors off of the hinges and brought them over to where the metal divider was. I set one door on its edge by the wall and then expanded it to fill the space to the ceiling and then over to the end of her four poster bed and set it in place.

I put the other door on the other side of the room and did the same thing, essentially putting the wall back in place, except I left a space between her bed and her dresser for me to pass through. I nodded at it working as a temporary wall and stepped into the new room. I didn't really have anything on me that I could change or make into a bed, so the 'new' room would have to remain empty for now.

“How did you do that?” Louise asked from behind me.

“Magic.” I joked and she growled. “It's a modified expansion charm that I made on the room. It's limited by both size and the magic used to expand it, not to mention the materials. Stone is easy to expand and difficult to keep that way, because it's stone and not stretchable or bendable like metal and fabric are.”

Louise looked confused now.

“You don't have anything like a bag of holding or trunks with expansion charms?” I asked and she shook her head several times. “Oh.” I said and then smiled. “That gives me a huge opportunity to make a lot of money really quickly.”

“Excuse me?” Louise asked.

Instead of answering her, I took off my backpack and opened the top compartment, then put my entire arm into it up to the shoulder. Her mouth dropped open and she stared at it and my apparently missing arm.

I pulled my arm back out and waved to her, closed my backpack, and put it on. “I'm getting kind of hungry. When do they serve meals around here?”

Louise shivered and shook herself. “We eat at the proper mealtimes in the main hall, of course. When else would we eat?”

I tried to not laugh at her non-answer answer. “I meant today. When is the next meal?”

“In about half an hour. Our spellcasting class ran a little long today.”

That I did laugh at. “That was completely your fault for trying to impress so many people with how powerful you are.”

Louise looked both embarrassed and proud.

“Speaking about being around the other students, can you show me what a proper male noble wears normally? My casual clothes aren't good enough for people to see me wearing, apparently.”

Louise looked at my pants and shirt before she let out a sigh and walked over to the door. “I suppose I have no choice but to show you. I don't want you to embarrass me.”

“That's the spirit!” I said and walked over to her. “Who are we going to see?”

“I have to return Guiche's wand before he freaks out about losing it.” Louise said and led me out into the hallway. As she walked away, I cast a lock spell on the door and an alert ward to let me know if anyone tried to break in.

We left the wing the females stayed in and entered the one where the males stayed. I did not point out the obvious about me staying in her room when I should be segregated like the others. She reached an open door and we both heard the blond ponce shouting about how I was a coward for stealing his wand and for attacking him unprovoked.

Louise set her face to show no emotions and knocked on the door frame. The two startled and their nearly identical girlish screams made me laugh, so I had to turn away and cover my mouth as I coughed to try and cover it up.

“What are you doing here, Louise the Zero?” The blonde girl with long ringlets of hair asked. “You're interrupting me consoling my boyfriend.”

Louise held up the wand that was wrapped with a rose. “My familiar...”

“Partner.” I interrupted and corrected her.

“...found this and gave it to me. I thought I would be nice and return it, rather than break it or throw it away, Montmorency.” Louise said, quite pointedly.

The blonde girl nodded, albeit reluctantly. “My boyfriend graciously accepts your apology and the return of his stolen property.”

Louise let her face show anger and bit her tongue, probably to not escalate things.

I had no such qualms, however. “She has nothing to apologize for, you ungrateful bitch.” I said and plucked the rose wand out of Louise's hand. “Since you accepted on his behalf, then you can be responsible for this.” I snapped the wand in half and threw the pieces at her feet. “Oh, look! It must have broken when he dropped it. How unfortunate for you. Maybe his cowardly foot stepped on it as he ran away?”

Both she and her boyfriend gasped. Louise just stared at me like I was crazy.

“Just so you know, if you keep verbally attacking my partner like you always do, your wand will be mysteriously dropped and stepped on every time.” I said and looked right at the blond ponce. “Do you understand?”

“You are buying me a new wand.” Guiche said, his face angry.

“Why? Montmorency had possession of it. She even said so.” I said and he closed his mouth. “Again, fair warning. Keep up with the attitude and you won't like what happens.”

“How dare you threaten a high noble of this kingdom!” Montmorency shouted.

“I'll do more than threaten him if you don't shut up.” I said and Guiche put a hand on her arm.

“You have made a grave mistake this day.” Guiche said. “I am Guiche de Gramont and my family...”

I pointed my wand at the floor and cast ice. The entire room was instantly covered in an inch of ice. “Only one family name? How... plebeian.” I said and my breath let out a cloud of steam from the cold. “It's you that made the mistake with your arrogance and self-entitlement. Go ahead and call your lesser family and call in some favors. I can't wait to see you try to put me in my place.”

Guiche didn't say anything in response.

“Before you do that, have your girlfriend tell you what I did after you fled.” I said and cast a detection spell. It gave me a full mapping of the area 200 feet around me and I 'saw' the clothing the ponce had in his closet. “Perhaps you should rethink your life choices as your things thaw out.”

Louise let me take her hand and I led her back down the hallway. “He's right, you know. That was a mistake to make him an enemy.”

“He's not my enemy. Not yet.” I said, loud enough for it to carry. “My enemies don't live very long.”

Louise kept quiet as we went back to her rooms. I had some clothes to transfigure to make myself more presentable and I couldn't make a school uniform because I wasn't enrolled. How unfair was that?

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