Bluevale Academy

Lock’s occasional city excursions continued. Though his parents didn’t force him to go, he always found himself curious about human society. He had fun with Arabella the first time, so he was happy to go whenever the opportunity arose.

He’d gone with most of his siblings at this point, but Arabella was the most common. Since she often had to check in on the guild branch, she frequently volunteered whenever her mothers asked for groceries. Naturally, Lock would tag along.

“That’s everything for today. Shall we head home, Lock?” She looked down at her brother, who seemed to be focused on something else. “What’s got your attention now, little brother?”

“We’re being followed,” he replied promptly.

He hadn’t noticed because of his senses or anything. It was more like instinct. He felt someone’s constant gaze on his back ever since they left the butcher about an hour earlier. He couldn’t tell who it was amongst the crowd, but he was sure of the feeling.

“Hehe, so you noticed too?” She said, surprising Lock. “I think we have ourselves a secret admirer.”

“How’d you notice?” Lock asked in amazement.

“Once you get enough stalkers, you sort of develop a sixth sense. Your sister’s just too gorgeous for her own good, don’t you think?” She asked playfully.

“Uh, yeah. You are, I guess. If you know who it is, we ought to confront them,” he suggested.

“How brave of you! Alright. But as my brother, it’s your job to protect me if things go badly. Are you up to the task?”

Protect her? He thought to himself. This was the first time anyone had asked him to protect them. The concept wasn’t foreign to him, but he never thought he’d be given that role. Still, it sounded interesting, so he decided to take the mantle.

“Very well. No harm will befall you, Arabella.”

“What a manly little brother I have.”

She pinched his cheeks, which he didn’t appreciate. He endured it with a sour look. Then, Arabella turned around and made eye contact with a man in the crowd. He looked somewhat startled, but he composed himself, smiled, and approached the siblings once he knew he’d been spotted.

He wore a long brown trench coat and had messy long grey hair tied into a ponytail. He looked young, somewhere in his early twenties. Just from looking at him, however, Lock’s body shuddered. This man was strong. Incredibly so. Suddenly, he didn’t feel too confident about Arabella’s safety, especially since Lock didn’t have a weapon to defend her with.

Do I know this guy?

“You guys noticed me, did you? I’m impressed!”

“My, you’re quite handsome for a stalker,” Arabella remarked.

“Thanks. You’re quite the looker yourself,” he complimented her back.

Arabella’s face remained still, clearly unamused by his flirting. “That wasn’t an invitation to flirt,” she said in a scary tone. “Please leave us alone. I’m not interested.”

Arabella took hold of Lock’s hand and turned them around, intending to end the conversation there.

“W—wait! I’m not a stalker, honest!” The man stuttered after them.

“You’ve been following us for the past hour. I’m sure you know what a stalker is, yes?”

“Okay, yeah, it sounds bad when you put it that way, but hear me out! I’m just here to meet your Father!”

Arabella stopped in her tracks. Lock’s curiosity was also piqued.

“My name’s Thal Raveneer, headmaster of the Chachu Magical Academy. I came all the way out to Bluevale to meet the Hero, but I got lost in the city,” he admitted.

Arabella turned to get a better look at him. On closer inspection, his trench coat was that of the Chachu Magical Academy.

“You got… lost?” She repeated.

“Mhm. I dunno where the Hero lives, so I’ve been wandering around aimlessly all day. I went to the guild first, but they told me I just missed you, Miss Arabella,” he explained. “But then I saw you out in the street! What a stroke of luck, right? Because of that, I actually got to meet you. A beautiful woman is just what I needed to soothe my soul.”

Thall recognized Arabella because she also modeled for the guild’s newspaper. It was quite lucrative, and Arabella enjoyed doing it. Unfortunately, that meant she often got recognized in the street.

When he heard the name, Lock realized he knew this man. Well, not personally. He’d fought the man’s party once before. He remembered Thall in particular was magnificently impressive. And they fought when the guy was only a teenager. Lock remembered sparing him after being thoroughly impressed.

“Hehe. I don’t dislike forward guys like you,” Arabella responded with amusement.

“Great! So could you lead me to your father now?” He pleaded with his hands conjoined.

“I don’t see why not, Mister Principal. Who am I to say no to such an important figure?” She motioned for him to join them on their walk home.

“And while we’re at it, could I also get your guild number, Miss Arabella?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” her cold tone returned.

“Sorry,” he immediately replied.

Lock could hardly follow the conversation, so he decided to ignore it and think of something else. When they arrived home, Thall and Edward met and talked extensively in the Hero’s office. Then, Thall dined with the family and left. Somehow, he’d managed to convince Arabella to give him her guild number before he left.

…

Since he was six years old, Lock had also started school around this time. His classmates, mostly commoners who lived in the middle-class residential district, rarely interacted with the silent boy. Lock paid it no mind. In fact, he barely even noticed it. One girl, though, constantly tried to pick fights with him. He tried his best to ignore her.

“So, class! Who can tell me the answer to this question?”

“Six,” Lock yelled out instantly, leaning back in his unenthused chair.

“Thank you, Lock, but please raise your hand next time. We’re here to learn, not compete,” the female teacher said with a slight passive-aggressive undertone.

Who is this woman? Why does she stand up there and spew useless information? Lock pondered.

The school day was nearing its end. Lock patiently waited for one of his siblings, usually Celeste or Arabella, to come to pick him up. He’d gone home alone once but was harshly scolded by his mother for doing so. He liked to think that he never took orders from anyone, but he didn’t do it again after that.

Barely listening to the teacher, he heard another student ask a question.

“Teacher! Why does it get cold outside at the end of the year?” The child asked curiously.

“Good question, Franz! That’s because of the change of the seasons!” The teacher enthusiastically replied. “When our planet rotates around the sun, it gets further away at certain times of the year. And when we’re further from the sun, it gets colder,” the teacher explained, drawing a diagram on the blackboard. “So you see, that’s why—”

“That’s incorrect,” Lock’s voice emerged from the back of the class, interrupting the teacher’s lesson.

“What?” The teacher sounded confused at his abrupt interruption.

Lock stood from his chair and slowly marched toward the front of the class. He swiped the small piece of chalk from the teacher's hand and began scribbling on the board.

“The change in seasons is not caused by the planet’s distance from the Sun. That’s an utterly ludicrous notion. Ours is the sixth planet in the solar system, and its rotation around the star at the center remains unchanged throughout the year. Rather, the change in seasons is caused by the tilt of its axis. The tilt causes different parts of the planet to receive varying amounts of sunlight throughout the year, leading to the seasonal changes we experience,” he explained as he expertly redrew her diagram. “There are certain countries and regions, such as the Golrea continent to the north, and the Dwarven territory to the very south, that only experience winter, regardless of the time of year. Some countries only experience summer due to magical anomalies, such as the Demon continent and certain parts of Glenaria to the west. The country of Kasira in which we reside is situated just above the equator, so…”

The teacher’s face twitched into a slight grimace as the boy’s explanation continued, struggling to maintain her composure. The class sat silently, eyes widened at the boy’s enthralling explanation. Even the girl who usually interrupted him was amazed. When he finished, the teacher finally spoke.

“Th-thank you, Lock, but it’s my job to teach around here…” She said with animosity in her voice.

“Your job is to teach? Please, spare me your idiocracies, human. I don’t know what good your ‘teaching’ does if you’re simply spreading misinformation; the material you cover is beyond useless. Four plus two? Really? And the way you talk as if you own me really irritates me. All you’re good for is licking the dirt off my sho—”

…

“I’m so sorry for this, Principal Puddleton!” Celeste bowed in remorse, holding her little brother’s head down as well.

“Hmph! Lock’s conduct was completely unacceptable in a school environment!” The chubby principal exclaimed as he uncomfortably shifted in his office chair. The contrast in attractiveness between Principal Puddleton of Bluevale Academy and Headmaster Raveneer from Chachu’s Academy was like night and day.

Lock lifted his eyes off the ground and looked at the principal, unimpressed by what he saw.

“Is that chair wide enough for you, fatty?” He remarked, to which Celeste put her hand over his mouth, trying to shut him up.

“What did you just say?!” The principal raged, not quite hearing what the kid had said, but assuming it was something rude.

“He just said he was sorry! Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he never does this again.”

With one last bow, Celeste and Lock exited the office, then left through the front gate of the school.

When they made it out, Celeste let out a sigh of relief, then glared at Lock, unamused. The boy had his hands behind his head, whistling as if nothing had happened. She sighed again, this time letting go of the lecture she was planning on spewing.

“So, I heard you ‘corrected’ the teacher today?” Celeste spoke with a hint of pride in her voice, putting air quotes on the word ‘corrected’.

“The teacher? Oh, is that what she was supposed to be?” Lock said as he looked up at the sky, subconsciously counting the ethereal clouds that floated above. He often did this when he was bored.

Celeste laughed at her little brother’s childish comment. Lock explained what had transpired and how the ‘teacher’ had incorrectly recounted how the cycle of the seasons occurred. His sister’s eyes widened in amazement upon hearing his story, awestruck by her brother’s apparent genius.

“Lock… Where did you learn that?”

At that moment, Lock realized something.

Shoot, was that too intelligent for a human child of my age? He thought as he looked up at his sister's face, expecting a scornfully suspicious gaze.

To his surprise, her expression was nothing like he’d expected. Instead, it was satisfaction and pride. She giggled, then knelt and ruffled his hair.

“You’re incredible, aren’t you, Lock?” Shining like the sun, her face brimmed with a smile of jubilation, her long blue hair flowing with the warm gust of wind.

Lock felt his breath get caught in his throat, his heart starting to beat faster than before. His chest tingled with a strange sensation. It felt as though life was being breathed into him. He felt his cheeks heat up and redden, and his eyes softened like a puppy receiving treats.

What’s this? Why do I suddenly feel… Happy?

Celeste

My little brother, Lock, was a genius. Ever since he was a baby, he'd shown signs of absolute brilliance.

For example. When feeding a baby, you usually had to hold the bottle to their mouth for a few months before they learned to hold it themselves. But not for Lock. He understood that he had to hold it himself from the moment he was born. I even tried holding it to his mouth, but he yanked the bottle out of my hand every time.

He was also potty trained without ever being potty trained. He never peed or pooped himself, except for when he ingested lactose. Whenever he had to use the bathroom, he would signal somebody by tapping his little feet on the floor three times. At first, we didn’t know what it meant, but we soon figured it out.

I’d helped in taking care of all of my younger siblings, but Lock was the least stressful by far. I would go so far as to call him stress-free. We even stopped wrapping him in diapers after the first month.

But amazing as he was, there was one thing I always felt he lacked—common sense. For example, the other day I accompanied him to his school's opening ceremony. Principal Puddleton, who not only was the principal of his elementary school but also the head of the Ministry of Education in Bluevale City, was preparing to give his speech.

The principal was a chubby older man, and one could even say he had a funny appearance. A normal person would think, “Hm, that man looks funny,” then go on with their day. But not Lock. When he first laid eyes on him, he burst out laughing.

What was worse was that we were sitting in the second row from the front. Amid the silence, before the speech even started, Lock was laughing uncontrollably. At first, I didn’t know why he was laughing.

“Shh! Lock, what’s wrong with you?” I whispered to him, trying to calm him down.

“HAHAHAHAHA LOOK AT THAT HUMAN! HE LOOKS LIKE THREE SLIMES STACKED ON TOP OF EACH OTHER! HAHAHAHA—”

He’d pointed directly at the principal, who was beginning to look more like a fire slime by the second. This was only worsened by the soft giggles from others in the crowd that followed my brother’s outburst. To be honest, even I was holding back a smile.

After that, the principal started his speech. Again, any normal person would’ve thought, “What a boring speech,” then grinned and bore it. Not Lock. He’d fallen asleep almost instantly as Puddleton started talking.

“*Snore…* *Snore…* *Snore…*”

His snores were comically loud. It was as if he was amplifying their volume on purpose, though he probably wasn’t. He may have lacked common sense, but I liked to think that my cute younger brother wasn’t a bad person.

Once the speech was over, each child and guardian had the opportunity to shake hands with the principal. It was optional, so we didn’t have to partake. I had a bad feeling, but asked Lock if he wanted to. For some reason, he insisted we meet him.

When we reached the front of the line, I noticed the principal’s face churn upon seeing Lock. He kept his hand extended for a handshake and refocused his expression, maintaining a professional air.

“If it isn’t the troublemaker! What’s your name, little one?”

“Oh, it can talk,” Lock said abruptly.

He sounded somewhat disappointed. Right. He’d slept through the entire speech. This was the first time he heard him talk. But seriously? You assumed he couldn’t talk because of his appearance?

That’s a little cruel, I thought, but couldn’t help but snicker at the absurdity.

“Ha… He’s a funny one, Miss Celeste. But he lacks a bit of manners, don’t you think?”

“Ah, yes. Sorry about that.”

“Well, young one. Are you going to shake my hand?”

I felt a hint of passive aggression in his voice. Veins were popping out of his head, despite the many layers of fat. I tapped Lock on the back, urging him to take the man's hand. But he looked at the outstretched hand quizzically.

Does he not know what to do?

“Uh, are we striking a deal with this man or something?” He turned around and whispered to me.

“No.”

“So why do I have to shake his hand?”

“You don’t have to. Remember? I told you it was optional.”

“I see. So I don’t have to shake his hand.”

After he said that, he suddenly punched the principal in his family jewels. Upon impact, he dropped to the floor in the fetal position, almost splattering in the process. I couldn’t help but let out a *pfft* as Lock also hollered.

“So it does have balls! Turns out he’s not a slime after all!”

After that, Lock and I fled the scene before the principal could recover. I tried scolding him about it on our way home, but I couldn’t stop laughing every time I remembered it. Maybe I was a bad older sister.

I always wanted to be an officer, but I couldn’t even enforce the rules over my brother. Instead, I laughed alongside him. I was a bit ashamed of myself, but this was also refreshing. This was a side of Lock I hadn’t seen yet. He always seemed calm and in control, but even he wasn’t perfect. Besides, I specifically wanted to be a detective. It wasn’t like detectives had to enforce rules. This was fine, right?

In any case, that about summed up what I meant by ‘no common sense’. Maybe he was being funny on purpose, but there was a sort of innocence to his actions. I thought it was cute, but I’d bet if it were stepmother Elspeth who accompanied him that day, he would’ve learned quite a different lesson.

***

Name: Celeste Gellner

Gender: F

Likes: Social Deduction

Lock’s assessment: She’s observant and tolerant. I enjoy her presence.