Chapter 51: Lea Gilligan

It’s funny how quickly Baler’s facade of indifference dropped.

It started with watching his sister rubbing against Caius and being so blatantly obvious about wanting to sit with him.

It got worse when he called Eloise and Kaya over and they practically skipped over. (Baler didn’t notice their confusion at how Aylin was looking at them and just saw them walking over the Caius as a show of their joy. He wasn’t wrong, of course. He was just blind to additional context).

A smile played at the corner of Caius’ lips at the look Baler was giving him and Baler must have interpreted it as a taunt because his grip on his cutlery tightened until he was freezing it. When the metal spoon shattered in his head from extreme cold, it called many to look over. Including Eloise who had just fed off Caius’ fingers.

She looked as surprised as anyone else and realized soon that Caius and Baler were locked in a stare. Baler was irate. Caius was amused.

"What’s happening?" Eloise asked.

"Nothing," Caius said with a little chuckle and broke the stare exchange as he smiled at Eloise,

"A temper tantrum."

"Oh, okay," Eloise said brightly and began to fill her plate with food.

That was the first thing in this whole exchange that took him by surprise. Eloise didn’t seem embarrassed at all. In fact, she brushed off the events as very uninteresting and was quickly absorbed in grabbing as much food as she could.

Caius was not the only one surprised by Eloise’s reaction.

"Eloise, you just saw Baler destroy his spoon because of you," Kaya pointed out.

"Because of me?" Eloise said and glanced over at Baler who was not looking over at them anymore but rather at his plate of food looking like he had lost his appetite.

For a moment, it looked like Eloise was working it out and coming to a realization but then she perked up and scoffed,

"No. It’s not because of me, silly. You know boys. They’re always after each other for one thing or the other." She said with a nonchalant wave before she shoveled food into her mouth.

Now Kaya was genuinely stunned to the point of being just a bit concerned about how oblivious Eloise seemed. She looked over at Caius and he was still smiling as he shook his head to signify that she shouldn’t bother.

Kaya took a moment and then let the matter drop, smiling to herself now at how ridiculous it was that Eloise was missing something so obvious that she was sure the entire cafeteria was whispering about it among themselves. And then she saw how Eloise was looking at Caius and she understood; It wasn’t that Eloise was unaware but that she was choosing to be unaware because her attention was somewhere else.

"Huh," she said and smiled to herself as she started to eat.

Caius was not exactly on the same train of thought though. He was thinking of something else; He was thinking of how, although Baler Khione’s attraction to Eloise remained the same as it was in the original story, Eloise was being unaware of it in a way she hadn’t been in [To Kill A Demon Lord...].

In the original story, the attraction between Baler and Eloise became fairly mutual and ultimately led to Eloise’s death when the ’Mad Golem King’ came knocking for vengeance. Just an all-around sad situation that Caius could not be happier to be potentially having a hand at changing.

As for Baler’s annoyance, he really couldn’t be bothered. For one thing, it paled by multiple degrees in comparison to his sister’s chilly aura that was already covering her area of the Cafeteria with frost.

In fact, Baler seemed to realize this himself and reined it in because the longer it went on, the more embarrassing it was that he was even losing out in his expression of anger. To his younger sister no less. And it was all technically because of the same guy!

"So, Caius," Kaya said after a minute had passed, "Yesterday... What happened?"

"There was an emergency," Caius said immediately.

"Professor Louvene’s letter said that," Kaya said with a little roll of her eyes, "But what was the emergency?"

"Extra lessons ran long," Caius said again quickly. He had the answer already prepared. Of course, he knew it was too short to satisfy Kaya’s curiosity which was why he included a pointed look that told Kaya it was something he couldn’t easily talk about right now.

"Oh," she said and then cleared her throat, "Right."

It’s the beauty of having her be the only one in the cafeteria to know his secret. It meant that whenever he gave her a certain look and appeared reluctant to talk about something, her mind would understand that it likely had something to do with the secret she knew. And with that, she decided to let the matter drop. At least until they were alone.

Eloise was the exception to the unique exchange though. She looked between Caius and Kaya with eyes narrowed in suspicion and then she asked the question that was most at the top of her priority.

"What caused the change?"

"What?" Caius asked and blinked in confusion.

Eloise smiled,

"I meant this change," she said and gestured at him sitting at the Cafeteria table,

"You’ve never joined us for breakfast before. What caused the change?"

’Was there a reason?’ Caius asked himself.

After training with his father yesterday he had lain in bed awake for a while before he decided he needed to start diversifying his time better. He was going to be going to Arlette’s office at Break to learn Dark Magic which left very little time—besides the times they sat together in class—for him and Kaya to spend together.

He decided, since he didn’t actually spend breakfast with his father at home anyway and a canister of blood was all he needed for a meal, he might as well leave home a bit earlier to join his fellow students for the first meal of the day.

"I was curious. And it’s been interesting so far so I’ll likely make it an everyday thing," he said sparing them the much longer explanation he just ran through in his head.

"Great," Kaya and Eloise said together like they had practiced it.

The rest of Breakfast was spent eating and chatting and laughing together in a way that kept pulling attention to them. Aylin Khione kept glaring over but Caius could feel that it wasn’t exactly aimed at him but rather at the girls he was with.

Whenever Caius found that he couldn’t ignore that chill that kept creeping over, he’d glance over at Aylin and wave at which point she’d brighten up in a smile that pulled back on that chill of hers and gave their group a full minute of reprieve before she was looking pissed again and swarming them with chill.

"Class?" Kaya asked eventually like the annoyance of the chill was getting too much. She was done eating or at least had no appetite for more.

Caius, who hardly ate because he had very little to no use for it, nodded in agreement,

"Of course."

Eloise looked disappointed like there was still more food she’d like to sample on their laden table but she joined them. Together, the three walked out of the Cafeteria ahead of everyone else and started on a long journey to class. The longest they had had to make all week, to be precise.

They had a double-period of ’Study of Magical Beasts’ next and unlike every other lecture that took place in the ’First year’ section of the Lochxen Academy, this one was meant to take place past the many buildings and right at the outskirts of the Massive Forest that bordered the Academy.

A minute after the trio of Caius, Kaya, and Eloise stood up, everyone else stood up as well and they all made the journey together. They arrived just one minute before the start of class with many having shaky legs from the stress of the long walk.

Their Professor was already there, smiling as she spread her arms surveying them all and looking so perked up that her boobs jiggled ever so slightly.

"Well, look at all these excited faces ready to learn.

I’m Lea Gilligan.

Welcome to Study of Magical Beasts. We’re going to have so much fun together."