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

“- and remember, we will have a tour across the Flora and Fauna territories next week, so be sure to prepare for that, that is all.” Mrs. Edith Decalouge- our very librarian looking teacher, complete with glasses, a wrinkled face, graying hair on the sides of her head, and a checkered coat, - nodded to us one last time before carrying all of her stuff out of the classroom.

 

Once the door behind her slammed shut, I sighed in relief before slumping down and stretching in my seat- “finallyyyyyyyy~" I said with a small grin as I watched the rest of our classmates stand up and walk to their lockers, the entire day felt like it was forever and I couldn't wait- wait to go out of the school and start enjoying myself.

 

As a student, going around the city after class should just be a given, both in this life and my old one.

 

I stood up and followed after my friends to go store my notebook and as we opened our lockers, I went ahead and asked, “so, what do you guys want to do after this?” I said with a small grin directed to the rest of them, "we can hang out by Cream's Edge and start drinking chocolate drinks there,” like chocolate, milk, chocolate milk, chocolate with sprinkles, milk fundou- a lot of sweets really.

 

When my friends stared at me like I had grown a second head, I tilted my head at them in return, why are they staring at me like that? “What?”

 

“We're going somewhere?” Laceresta asked and I nodded, “why?”

 

“To enjoy ourselves after an entire day of class, obviously?” I looked at all of them, my confused expression growing, “what else?”

 

“But why?” Fafnir asked, “can't we just go back to the suite-”

 

Horrified, I slammed the door of my locker a lot harder than I intended, “what?!” I screeched, “we can do whatever we want now that we're free from class and our responsibilities!” I pointed at them accusingly, “We can go around the city for the next-” How much time did we spend on our classes again? Hm… Eh, I’ll figure it out- “- till night!”

 

“You mean for an hour,” Laceresta emphasized, “Neo, we can’t- we need to train, not enjoy ourselves, that’ll just make us lax.”

 

“Oh come on, we have the gravity well on the suites and we can increase it till we can barely move so that we get the exercise we lost from the two hours running around the city and enjoying ourselves!”

 

“Tw- no, one hour, I'm not gonna go with you if you're just gonna waste time enjoying yourself like this, we are. Going. To. Train.” Laceresta growled out each word, “we need to work harder every day now that we’re at the Academy, not the opposite!”

 

“Well if you all want, both you and Fafnir can just spend an hour out there,” I asked, “when an hour passes, you can both fly together back to the suite so you can train, Basilisk Carriages are cheap anyways,”

 

“And what about you?” Fafnir asked.

 

“Zath and I will go back on our own!” I said with a grin.

 

“Actually mistress-” I turned to my maid- who was already bowing in apology, - and frowned, is she really gonna betray me like this? “I want to train as well, I want to catch up to all of you,”

 

“Et tu, Zath?” I made a show of clenching my chest with my hand.

 

“I’m sorry but I really need to do this,” she said.

 

I pouted, “fine,” I said, “fine, you can all go back after an hour, but before that, we go to Cream’s Edge and enjoy ourselves!” I wrapped my arm around Zath’s neck and started dragging her, “and no, you can’t not go to this, I want us to enjoy ourselves after a stressful day of class and you are included in that us, now let’s go!!!”

 

…

 

“What do you think Mrs. Decalouge meant when she said ‘territories are like humans,’ earlier?” I glared at Zath while she bit the nub of her pencil’s eraser in thought.

 

Is she really gonna spend the rest of the way to the cafe studying? Seriously, we’re supposed to forget about classes right now! “No one?” She looked around and so did I, but no one answered her, “okay, maybe she meant that we shouldn’t let it get sick?”

 

“No- that’s not what she meant,” I sighed when my maid raised her eyebrow at me- hey! Just because I don’t do administrative stuff like the rest of my siblings doesn’t mean I don’t know how to do it!

 

I didn’t say any of that though and instead eyed my maid patiently, “Zath, what she meant is that like a human, territories have a heart- the leader, - a head- the people managing it, be them a group of scribes or the congress, or its leader, - and… I think that’s it,” Zath managed to look impressed and I didn’t know how to feel about that particular reaction… “but if you want me to go further, then the arms are the armies/defensive line of the territory and the legs are the economy, because if you want your territory to keep moving forward then you’re gonna have to manage its finance well,”

 

“And that’s it?” Zath asked she had already finished writing down everything I said just now.

 

“There’s also the mouth, which is the leader, because they are the territories’ spokesperson or as another example, they may take too many resources for themselves, even when it’s not needed and become fat, or, they control themselves and make the territory improve and good looking,” I shrugged.

 

“Well, I guess I wouldn’t want someone fat to fight alongside me either,” Laceresta butted into my confusion- what did she mean by that?

 

“Mhmm.” I nodded, “but it is also worth noting that- and I am specifically talking about people here, not territories, - some people can’t control themselves.”

 

“They should,” Laceresta said.

 

I remained silent while wondering what is up with my friends acting so grumpily today, seriously, do they hate us going out this much? I wanted us to enjoy ourselves and they clearly won’t if they’ll just feel bitter about everything so you know what?

 

“Fafnir, you can just drop me off at Cream’s Edge and you can all go back to the suite, I’ll be fine all by myself,” I was trying not to sound bitter. Trying.

 

‘Are you sure about this?’ Am I pissed that she didn’t even try to deny my request? Yep- slightly. ‘Neo…  you know how important training is for the two of them, especially after what happened at the gym,’

 

“Yeah but this is our first day of school, it’s not like we’ll do this every day,” I huffed, well, I’m actually planning on doing it every day- I already made it so that my morning exercise is double the amount I usually do, and that’s not me mentioning the exercise I’ll do during Professor Quoketh’s class too, we can clearly afford to be lax for an hour or two at the end of each school day.

 

I frowned when they all shot me confused gazes, “okay, fine, I’ll be honest, I’ll do this every day but come on! We can enjoy ourselves through this! Imagine if you go to school tomorrow worn and tired? Do you think you’ll be able to listen to the lectures huh?”

 

“Mistress, that’ll only happen when we stay up late into the night, we can always get ample rest so that we’re ready for the next day,” Zath replied easily, and with narrowed eyes, she shook her head at me before fixing her glasses.

 

“Can I ask you something?” Laceresta said and fearing for the worse- she’ll definitely ask me why I’m doing this, and I don’t have a good reason for it so… - I looked over Fafnir’s shoulder to see how close we were to the cafe and okay, it’s still a bit too far for my liking… I turned back to Laceresta and nodded, “why suddenly change?” She asked, “it’s not like you to do this,”

 

I slumped- I don’t actually have a good reason for doing this but come on! Do I need one?! A break is a break!

 

I sighed, “well… I just thought that we needed a break, and besides, we train twice a day thanks to Instructor Quoketh’s class right?”

 

“Yeah, which means that we can get stronger if we train after school,” Laceresta pointed out.

 

“Okay, you know what?” I said, this whole circular logic thing is starting to piss me off, “fine, you can go train but don’t come crawling back to me when you’re all suffering from burnout and you don’t wanna continue going to school anymore.” I crossed my arms and huffed.

 

‘Neo… you know that’s not- you know that we need to train right?’ Fafnir’s voice echoed inside my head.

 

Laceresta nodded, “you clearly hate this, do you hate us?”

 

I couldn’t say no when I hear that kind of tone damnit, “I… don’t,” I replied, “I only hate the fact that you all don’t want to do this, I don’t actually hate any of you,”

 

Laceresta leaned forward and gave me a hug, “and we don’t care if you spend 2 hours in this cafe too, so enjoy yourself, it’s just… we need to train.”

 

I nodded, I know what she said still means that they’re not going!

 

Zath held my hand, grabbing my attention, “we need to catch up to you,”

 

“By what? Working non-stop?” I scoffed.

 

“Well, it is what you did,” Laceresta said with a shrug.

 

‘We're here,' Fafnir said and her words were followed by our ride becoming bumpy as she slowed down and began her descent, when Fafnir gave the confirmation that we’d landed, I looked down on the ground and hopped off of the saddle, the slippery marble almost making me fall, ‘See you, Neophyte,’ 

 

“This feels like you're all permanently saying goodbye to me or something,” I replied while sighing, “but yes, I'll see you all back in the suite,"

 

With that last exchange, my Dragon flew off and for once, I was alone. I've always either had servants or my siblings to go with me and standing here all by myself feels kind of awkward-

 

Is my collar fixed? What if a part of my clothes is wrinkled? - I ran a hand through my forehead and held back a wince when I noticed a stray strand of hair stuck to my cheek-

 

I looked forward and focused; okay, Neophyte, this is normal and would have happened at some point, so it doesn't matter if I'm alone or not, I just need to not look nervous- right, that, if I start shaking like a leaf then the people would look at me and think, “oh god! The princess isn't confident! We're doomed! Humanity is going to end! AHHHHHHHhh-” 

 

And then it'll be the end of the world as I know it.

 

After telling myself to push forward, I nodded and picked up the black and gold credit card from my pocket; unlimited money, that's what the school gave me when they decided to hand me one of these things and genuinely speaking, I was shocked when I saw this card the first time because they don't do this for just anyone.

 

Not even the Player character when I was playing got this card- probably because infinite money is cheating, - but now I'm holding one of the rumored black cards that doesn't have a limit.

 

I am a bit curious if they'll freeze it when I spend too much money and the temptation to just go on a spending spree is there but since I don't want to risk losing something like this, I decided to just casually spend instead of going over the top and like, buying out the entirety of Cream’s Edge or something…

 

Amidst the gazes of other people as well as my fellow students coming off of their carriages, I decided to stop standing around and adopted my usual, carefree self.

 

I mean, yeah I'm fighting my own instincts to get away from this place right now- or maybe find someone to talk to or something so that I don't do this alone, - and doing so is growing a headache at the top of my head but I need to push through this in order to enjoy the chocolates and other sweet drinks!

 

Sugar? Diabetes? What's that? My body is super efficient so I don’t have to worry about anything!

 

…

 

Dialecta Tundra tilted her head when she heard a sudden ‘Hoot! Hoot!’ outside of her office, curious as for what her Bulleater Snow-Owl was calling her for, she opened the window and greeted the 8-foot-tall magical creature by nodding, “You have news?” She asked and cold wind blew in response to her words.

 

Her familiar reached out a talon that held a scroll, “what is this?”

 

“Hoot!”

 

Taking the scroll, the Principal of Pledge Academy unfurled it and her eyes widened at the sight, “how could she have spent over 6,000 in the span of 50 minutes?” She asked calmly, she didn’t know that the princess was this frivolous when it comes to spending… but then again, with the way the princess’ presence encouraged everyone within the school to work hard, 6,000 or more is a meager amount, “where is she?”

 

“Hoot!” Came the answer.

 

“It’s impressive that she can somehow spend that much money in such a short time,” the principal waved her owl off, “it's fine, you know she's worth more than 6,000.”

 

“Hoot!” Bifard nodded before flying off.

 

Even as she said that the princess’ spending is fine though, she couldn't help but wonder what Neophyte is exactly doing in Cream’s Edge at this moment for her to spend so much money in such a short amount of time.

 

…

 

I gulped down the last of the melted milk and slammed the massive crystal bowl down, I grinned at the waitress, “more please!”

 

“B-but you already ate so much-” she stuttered but I shook my head at her and waved the black card around.

 

“Come on, you guys are literally earning money off of this! And I get to enjoy this kind of sweetness after so long!” I pouted which like the last few times, made the waitress give in to my demands and went back to the counter- which had chefs and servers staring at me like I'm insane by the way! Hmpf. Or maybe they're just concerned about how much I ate? Are those two things the same? - and after an exchange of words, one of them went back to the kitchen to make me another Choco-milk Mountain- a very, very expensive meal that's meant to be bought during birthdays but clearly, it can also be eaten like this!

 

I mean, I do it.

 

When another of the mountains arrived, I grabbed the large spoon stuck to the tip and started scooping up the chocolate and milk ice cream and as I continued eating, I pitied Zath and the rest, it's their fault for not going along with me and not experiencing this sweet haven of smooth chocolate and creamy milk, if they were here, I would've bought one for each of them.

 

“Wh-w-huft ai Shwamef,” I shook my head at the thought and continued scooping up the delicious meal, poor fools are only training instead of taking a break!