The end-of-year examination was approaching day by day. With all the courses coming to an end, it was only up to the students to study and hope for the best. The once-lively Imperial Academy was now enveloped in stress and silence, even in the Representative Students' dormitory. This was a rare occurrence in history. Representative Students cared significantly less about their academic grades than ordinary students. It wasn't the defining factor of their lives. To the clever ones, the effort simply wasn't worth the outcome.
But the first-years' professor was Clara Marshall, a demon who wouldn't let anyone pass if they weren't at the top of the top. Jennifer, Leo, and William were talented enough to lay back a little bit, but all the others were experiencing pressure for the first time in their lives, only hoping that Nathan Modernson would figure something out to cheat them through.
And of course, Nathan Modernson would, though it was something that was slightly more inconvenient than most would've hoped.
He figured that if they could get tutored by the academy's living legend of Rune Arts Mastery, John Krymer, then all the Representative Students, even David Edmonds, could score top 10.
After Nathan said farewell to Angela Pompeii and the Tower of Domination after a week of solid training, he returned to the Imperial Academy. After the duel with Amy Blanc, Clara Marshall no longer cared whether he attended her class or not. The other professors responsible for literature classes also knew who Nathan Modernson was and didn't bother making a fuss about his absence. To more and more people, Rune Arts and his academic achievement overall didn't hold any importance in Nathan's gold-coated life, let alone the fact that the boy literally got full marks on all written exams and even went as far as inventing a Personalised Rune Art. Who would have guessed that academy life would be so easy with the principal's full support?
With all of his own problems out of the way, Nathan decided that it was only natural for him to help his friends by getting them a tutor. But even without this reason, having John Krymer join the Salvation Club and his inner circle of friends was only beneficial in the long run. He decided to visit the Ordinary Students' dormitory immediately after his return to attain this private tutor. He knew that it would be a hard task, considering the person in question was John, but Nathan had figured something out about him.
The reason John succeeded was not only that he was a prodigy who also worked hard, but also the genuine passion and curiosity he held for Rune Arts as a whole. These kinds of people were not necessarily introverted or hardhearted; they simply saw the peers around them as foolish savages who wouldn't understand the beauty they sought.
This more or less troubled Nathan. The public image he had was the opposite of someone who could associate with this kind of sophistication. Like most of the other people he met, he knew how to deal with the kind of John Krymer, but this time, he wasn't fit for the job of dealing with them.
That's why Nathan decided to drag the other academic all-star, Jennifer Lumendra, along with him. He didn't know how much she would help with the convincing process, but it was at least a boost to the image. If that still didn't work, Nathan would just seek an alternative to help his friends. John's tutoring being the best method didn't mean it was the only one.
On the way to the ordinary students' dormitories, Nathan noticed a tabby cat that sneaked onto the academy grounds. This was an infrequent phenomenon, as pets were prohibited and stray cats were usually fended off by the academy staff. Nathan paid it no mind, but it pranced towards him and gazed at him with a dismissive stare. Why were stray cats not afraid of humans? Nathan wondered. Perhaps things were different outside Lostburg.
Jennifer tried to scare it off, but Nathan stopped her before she succeeded.
"You think John would like to adopt a cat?" he suggested. After a week of interaction with The Undefeatable, Nathan had more or less been influenced by her perspective on destiny.
"Are you stupid or something?" Jennifer groaned in annoyance. "Can we not complicate things and just get this over with? I have better things to do."
"Come on!" Nathan crouched down to pet its head. To his surprise, the cat not only did not evade his touch but instead nudged its head into Nathan's palm. "What if John is an animal person?"
Jennifer didn't bother to argue further and just continued walking. Nathan scooped the cat up easily and held it in his arms before he caught up.
"Are you not into pets? I was thinking about keeping one once we have our own estate. The Whitedawns are building one right now," Nathan said playfully. He had consulted Angela about this matter with the excuse of rebuilding the Pompeii Manor. Her response was vague and indifferent, but Nathan believed that he noticed her lips rise by a couple of millimetres.
"You take care of it. Doesn't have anything to do with me."
Unlike the Representative Students' dormitories, the ordinary students lived in double-occupancy rooms. Though by no means crude or lousy, it seemed like a completely different place compared to the rooms Nathan and Jennifer were used to. It just felt like an ordinary hotel room with barely enough space necessary to live in, let alone being customisable or even private. Nathan would be more than satisfied with a room like this if he had just left Lostburg, but at this point, he would be lying if he said so.
When they knocked on John's door, it was his roommate who came to open it for them. The dude was clearly shocked to see two Representative Students standing before his dormitory, one of them the Student Council President, Nathan Modernson, who also happened to be holding a cat.
"Greetings! President!" He swallowed nervously and addressed him with an abnormally loud voice. "Is there anything I can do to help you?" Did his breach of a random commandment get to the ears of the Student Council? That would be devastating, and all he could do was pray that it wasn't the case.
"Your name is Ryan, right?" recited Nathan. "The guy who's really good at singing?"
Ryan's eyes instantly lit up. "Yes, President. I'm the vocalist of the band that performed at the beginning of the semester." There wasn't greater news than having the legend know you personally and compliment you on your strengths.
Of course, Nathan wasn't present at the semester's commencement assembly, but he could access files of every student in the academy at any time. He also made too many friends across all of the academy not to know at least something about everyone.
Seeing how his recognition lifted the weight of the awkward visit, he continued with the reassurance, "Don't worry, you are not in trouble. We are just here to propose a favour from John, your roommate. Is he in the room right now?"
"Whew." Ryan sighed in relief and retreated from the doorway corridor, revealing the desk where John Krymer was sitting. John was immersed in a book, so immersed that it seemed he didn't even know two Representative Students had just come to raid his room.
"Good evening, John." Nathan smiled at Ryan and walked in. "Sorry for the sudden disturbance. If you wish, we can wait until you finish reading," he said with respect in his voice, a respect so profound that it made Jennifer's eyebrows furrow and Ryan's jaw drop. This was so out of character for Nathan Modernson. Even though John was the top student in terms of Rune Arts, President Modernson was superior to him in literally every other aspect by immense margins.
John didn't even bother lifting his head. He inspected the visitors with the corner of his eyes and only turned around after seeing Ryan's desperate facial expressions towards him.
"The Inescapable Shackle, by Tina Zeroffer." He introduced the book to the guests. "It's a great book on Elemental Traits."
Jennifer seemed to be holding the urge to ask, "Who asked?" Fortunately, Nathan spoke before she could.
"Comparing Elemental Traits to a shackle, huh?" He attested. "Only if we could find a way to cast any type of Rune Arts possible. Unfortunately, that is probably never going to be possible."
"Who says so?" John objected, taking Nathan slightly more seriously. "Nothing is possible before it is."
Nathan laughed. "Then I hope you can make that possibility come true."
"I will," John affirmed with so much confidence that it almost sent chills down Nathan's spine. Even he couldn't be certain of achieving something so groundbreaking. Was this arrogance or ingenuity?
"Of course you will, you're John Krymer," he replied calmly.
John froze for a while. He didn't expect a response like that, but he certainly relished it.
"So… What brings you here, President?" John finally realised that they must have come with a purpose in mind and noticed the tabby cat Nathan was holding. "What brings the cat here?"
Nathan gently placed the cat on John's desk. "Picked it up on the way here. Thought it could keep you some company. Are you keen to adopt it?" The cat approached John's face immediately and nuzzled him softly.
"It?" John grumbled while petting the cat.
Nathan didn't quite comprehend the reason for John's dissatisfaction. "Yeah? What's wrong with that?"
"Who calls a cat 'it?'" John finally turned to look at him, even more irritated.
"Is it a she or a he?" Jennifer interrupted before Nathan could. Looking at the sheer confusion on Nathan's face, she shook her head in dismay.
Do people refer to animals with human pronouns? Nathan tilted his head in thought. Perhaps people outside of Lostburg love pets so much they started to see them as equals. This was clearly not the common sense he learnt in his childhood. In Lostburg, animals were food for the humans, or, in desperate times, the roles would swap. It was at this moment that Nathan realised that his way of perceiving things was perhaps different from that of the ordinary Runalond citizens, and that it was a dangerous habit he must change.
"Nathan?" Jennifer poked him. "Male or female?"
"How am I supposed to know?" He shrugged in embarrassment. "We picked… uh… them up just then."
"Just check right now."
"How?" Nathan felt like a complete idiot. This wasn't how things were meant to work out.
John sighed and lightly pushed the cat over to scratch its belly. It purred and stretched its limbs in comfort.
"It's a she," John said.
Nathan wanted to seek clarification on how he got to that conclusion, but then realised he should probably try to hide his idiocy to an extent.
"I'll keep her," John said. "As long as the dormitory manager doesn't make a fuss about it."
"I'll make sure she doesn't." Nathan still sounded disappointed at how much he had messed up.
Ryan sounded more excited than John was. "Really? We get to keep a cat in our room? Let's go!" If anything, it helped to soothe the atmosphere.
"What should we name her?" Ryan leaped to the desk, which made the cat jump up defensively, almost scratching John in the process. "What do you think, John?"
John pondered for a while and glanced around the room before finally landing his gaze on the book he had been reading before.
"Tina," he decided. "Let's just call her Tina."
"Anything else, President?" John inquired, though his eyes were still fixed on the cat.
"You see, the End of Year Examinations are…"
"Leave it to me," John said.
"Just inform whoever needs help to come find me in Lecture Room 13 on Thursday."
Nathan couldn't believe what he just heard. John knew his proposal before he proposed it, and agreed to it so easily? What was all that worrying for?
Sensing the silence, John scratched Tina's neck and smiled.
"Thanks for the cat, President."