The hero is now gone, but I’m still here, now what? (Undergoing editing)

Lucille looked up at the four story dormitory that she would be staying in for the foreseeable future, guiltily, she felt slightly thankful that it wasn’t the cramped barracks that she and her friends had talked about when they ate outside the school earlier- she… knew from secondhand stories from her father just how bad the lacking space can get and the way he described himself quite literally cuddling his squadmates had been scary and Lucille hoped she wouldn't have to deal with something like that in the foreseeable future.

 

There is a silver lining to all of it, and that's perversion being prevented by gender based barracks.

 

Even then, she's glad that she had her own room-

 

- but just to make sure, she eyed the dormitory again in case what Zyra told her had been wrong; white in color and four stories in total, gleaming metal railings on top of 4-foot tall concrete walls prevented students from falling off and dying while behind those walls is a hallway that led to dark-blue doors with black numberings placed on the topmost doorframe, she couldn’t see the numbers but the gap between each door was visible to her and from what Lucille is seeing… it did look pretty spacious, enough that it could allow 3-4 students to live there at the same time but Zyra did say that their dorms would only allow for one person to use them so…

 

… so wait- is it that spacious inside?

 

Lucille was eager to find out and she found herself on the western end of the building, directly at the foot of the stairs and she stood there, Pledge in hand and the keys to her room dangling on a chain hanging by her hip, she looked up, wondering if she was in the wrong building or if she somehow got lost so for the third time, she grabbed her keys and looked at the number- 095.

 

Okay- that gave her nothing about the building she was on let alone what building she's supposed to go to…

 

Deciding to take a leap of faith, she started going up the stairs and room #50 on the first floor disappeared from her line of sight to be replaced by white walls, blue staircases, and metal railings to the walls on either side of her.

 

One step up the stairs turned to four, then it went up to six, then when she got to ten 15, she finally reached the second floor, and room #100 greeted her warmly- sadly, Lucille’s racing heart felt anything but.

 

She anxiously made her way across the floor while heading straight for room #95 and once there, she slowly inserted her key and twisted the knob to hear a… click come out of it, the sound filled her with relief and Lucille practically shoved the door open and ran inside like she was being chased by dangerous monsters.

She pushed her back against the door and started breathing heavily, her head feeling light from the sudden surge of relief that replaced her anxiety at the anxious thoughts that plagued her head about possibly missing her room, being in the wrong building or worse, not getting in.

 

But here she was! Facing the hallway that was the entrance to her room, the end of which allowed her to take a small sneakpeek of the living room but she wasn’t going to cheat and instead savored the design of the hallway, right now she was standing on a small, white square floor that’s lower than the hallway’s actual floor- which is light brown in color, and glossy too, she heard that this is where some influential families make their guests take off their shoes or something?..

 

AHHHHHHHH- She's now fancy!

 

To her right rested a small shoe rack that reached up to her knees, there were only two available shelves on it and one was already filled with… she walked near it and-

 

“Huh,” guess that fill out form for her request on what she wanted her room slippers to look like wasn’t a trick question randomly thrown at the back of the Academy's introduction papers and was in fact, real…

 

Lucille grabbed the angel-themed slippers and eyed it with a small pout, she should’ve requested for something better! Like maybe- uh, a- uh- uh- a- uh-

 

Whatever! The slippers that she got looked good anyways!

 

The pair were colored in pure white with feathery undertones- well they were more like fur, really, like, long fur, ones that wouldn't be strange to harvest from a Dire Wolf- okay not important! Back to the shoes- slippers-

 

White wings jutted out of the slipper’s dome, they faced backward and went upwards in a way that’s reminiscent of that of the feathers found on Harpy ears.

 

Lucille twisted the slipper around and found two swords placed at the front of the dome, she eyed it for a second, inspecting the weapons with a critical eye while wondering if they were Pledges or not but eventually decided that it didn’t matter, she placed the slippers on the floor, took off her own shoes, then slipped into the angel-based footwear that she accidentally asked for. (But is not regretting.)

 

She placed her shoes on the shoe rack before looking forward and scanning the hallway of her new room; it was big enough to fit around two hers side by side with a bit of room to spare, maybe for an arm or something? A Cane maybe?

 

The hallway was also colored in a beautiful dark brown, a color that complimented the caramel colored floor quite well, paintings were hung on the walls here and there, most of them were, at the moment, nothing more than framed words of encouragement but Yhaine did say that students can replace them with something more to their liking if they so wished.

 

And Lucille is planning on doing just that, especially after she saw the things written down on the frames, like [Keep going and never give up!] - as if giving up was an option that Lucille would ever consider, how offensive.

 

Walking forward a few more steps led Lucille to see her new room- well she mused that it was more appropriate to call this her living room, it was less than half the size of her old room- which isn’t really a comparison since that was a refurbished storage room to begin with, - but is more packed with furniture and other comforts such as a couch that can fit three people at the back wall, it was blue in color and made of wool, or is that leather?

 

On top of the couch were four pillows, each one colored in a complimentary…

 

… Brownish? Color? Wait- no- she knows what this is, she’s used this color once when creating a piece of cloth for the baron’s daughter of a neighboring village- what was it again?

 

Ah- right, maroon, the pillows were a complimentary maroon.

 

In front of the couch was a small glass coffee table while to its right was an empty bookshelf with three shelves and a cabinet at the bottom, a box of first aid hung on the wall to the couch’s left and further down that direction was a door, Lucille scanned the living room one last time- and mentally noted to remove the framed encouragement hanging on the dark brown walls, - before heading for that particular door.

 

Opening it, she was greeted by a large bedroom, though it wasn’t as big as the living room courtesy of another door by the wall, which led to a slightly cramped bathroom with a shower.

 

Walking back into her bedroom, Lucille eyed the bed at the center, then stared at the lamp and table placed to its right, then the empty table to its left and just stood there, amazed that the Academy can afford such a luxury for its students.

 

Briefly, she wondered if the budget of the infantry students went here but quickly remembered that living like that was part of their training so maybe their living in barracks was intentional?.. The princess obviously wouldn't forget to help them right?

 

Now she's really glad that she wasn't an infantry student and no, her guilt is not gonna force her to only use one of the five pillows on her bed! They were hers!

 

Moving on, Lucille neared her bed and touched the sky-blue bedding on top of it, her hand pressed against the mattress and she silently noted that it was soft and also thick enough that she pressed down for three straight seconds before the mattress refused to give in to the pressure she was pressing down on it.

 

She looked away from her bed- which had five pillows! - and faced the closet on the opposite end of it, she walked near the white thing- which oddly fit with the black walls of her bedroom, but it wouldn’t be just black soon enough, she’s gonna paint it and put dots of white across its surface, which will look like stars! - Lucille opened the closet to see that it was in fact, empty- wait no, not really, there’s a few of the standard Academy uniforms currently hanging inside of it, which Lucille took out, checked, and then put back in.

 

She closed the closet and eyed her room one last time before moving out of it- it was still downright unbelievable that she was going to sleep there of all places! - and into the living room, she looked around, eyeing the place one last time before closing her eyes and SQUEALING-

 

Knocking came from the door and Lucille blinked- oh Goddess what did she just do- she shook her head and walked towards the door, slowly, she opened it and came face to face with a middle-aged maid, “is everything okay in there?” She asked while trying to peer behind Lucille, “why did you start screaming?”

 

“I-I’m fine yep!” Lucille said after a small pause, she decided to tell the truth, “just uh, excited,”

 

The maid narrowed her eyes at her before nodding and walking away, but not before telling her that- “I’ll be marking this,”

 

Oh. Oh. Of course attitude is graded too!

 

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY-

….

 

After that small… mishap, Lucille went back inside her room and as a first order of business, she took down all of the picture frames found on the walls and temporarily placed them in a corner of her living room, then after that, she proceeded to open the envelope left at the center of her coffee table and watched as a small, white card with golden lines and a piece of folded paper poured out of it.

 

Lucille unfolded the paper and started reading what was written inside- “Dear Student, we at the Academy treasure your potential as a future Slayer that will push back and fight against the invading Demon Horde and wish to nurture that potential; thus, we will be granting you this particular card, which has a monthly deposit of 5,000 as a start but if you grow in rankings and strength, that amount will increase.

 

Use it well and grow to become someone who will defend humanity and keep everyone else safe- sincerely, the Student Council President, Prescine Crescate.

 

At the bottom was the signature of the Principal Herself and staring at it made Lucille’s doubts of this being a trick disappear- slightly, she was still suspicious but regardless! Yhaine was (maybe) right and now she had money!

 

But what would she do with it?..

 

Lucille… couldn’t decide on what it is exactly her plans were for her newly found wealth so she decided to meet up with her friends first who specifically pointed out that she “wasn’t rich” and that spending all of that in one go for some random thing would just ruin her next month- after all, what would she use to buy her day-to-day food?

 

The answer was simple- for Lucille at least because her friends decided that taking a visit to the local market would just be annoying or something… anyways, back to the simple answer; what could she possibly eat every day when her budget had been spent is simple and it’s the pieces of cheap meat and vegetables that she’ll be buying from the market tomorrow morning using the money that she brought (around 2,000 or so- more than enough for an entire month for one person really,) with herself when she went to the Academy.

 

“So what do you think of my plan?” Lucille asked with a proud smile.

 

“It’s good,” Zyra nodded, “I can’t believe I never thought of actually just cooking my own food,”

 

“Personally, you can just eat the stuff they put in the cafeteria, sure they’re made from cheap stuff because they need to feed a lot of students-” Hey! Lucille was planning on eating those! “- but the chefs do their best with it, so it turns out pretty good,”

 

“That’s only for lunch though right?” Zyra asked.

 

“Better than nothing,” Yhaine shrugged.

 

“... aren’t we gonna train?” Lucille pointed out, “I’m pretty sure that we need to eat a lot of food for that,”

 

Zyra nodded, “good point,” she conceded, “what do you recommend?”

 

“Grain?” Lucille said, making the blue-haired girl nod at her while looking thoughtful, Lucille looked up and thought about what else could be eaten cheaply, “what about… bread? I’m sure that there’s a bakery we can work in out there in the city during our free time right? Maybe they’ll offer us bread?”

 

“We’re not peasa- we don’t need to do that Lucille,” Yhaine said with a sigh, “we have money every month remember?”

 

“Oh. Right.” Lucille nodded before feeling up the card in her pocket, “I won’t be spending most of this I think?..” she muttered, she was planning on saving up some of her monthly allowance so that she could have stuff to bring to her siblings back home when she returns… but maybe she can earn more during the month by hunting like she originally planned? “I’ll buy the usual, then,” she said with a nod, “just a standard set of monthly food and then earn it back through the month by hunting,”

 

“You’re planning on doing that right away?’ Zyra asked, right eyebrow raised, “isn’t it a bit too early?”

 

“When do new students normally start?” Lucille asked.

 

“Two months at best,” Yhaine answered, “by then we’d have sufficient training to fight monsters,”

 

“But they aren’t really that hard to kill though?” Lucille said, remembering her own experience with a Grisly Spider, it wasn’t even that hard, just… risky, but she’d learned and gotten stronger since then so she was sure that when she faces another Grisly Spider, she’d come out on top and wine, she's confident in beating Grisly Spiders so weaker monsters like a pack of Bark Wolves isn't even a question.

 

“They are,” Zyra refuted, “and that’s why we need to learn how to fight first before we go out there like idiots and get ourselves injured or worse, killed.” She shook her head at Lucille, “don’t do anything stupid or rash Lucille, monsters aren't something that you can easily fight,”

 

“Good point there,” Yhaine nodded before taking out her school given card and swiping it to the scanner of the vending machine in front of them she proceeded to push out a small carton of milk, Yhaine shrugged at Lucille’s flat stare, “what? It’s good? You should try it.”

 

“You just…” Lucille sighed- it’s not really rash spending of her money if she was a noble to begin with wasn’t she?