Blood Curse Academia - Orientation

Chapter XIII (13)- Conjuring a Mangled Monstrosity

The first day of classes completed, Kizu retreated immediately to his bed and slept. But only for about an hour. Mort woke him up by pulling on his earring.

“Stop that,” Kizu complained. “You’ll get it infected.”

Mort didn’t seem very concerned about the idea. Instead he climbed up on Kizu’s head and waited. Finally, Kizu sat up with a sigh and left his dorm once more.

In the common room, a few other third years were gathered by the fire. They seemed to be playing some sort of card game. Whenever one of them set down a card, a different card would burst into green flames. Kizu noticed the boy he had punched and moved to hurry past.

“Kizu!” someone said from the group. He looked back and saw Gregor, the drummer from Music F, amiably waving at him. All eyes turned to look at him. The others looked significantly more hostile. He felt Mort fidget on his head.

“The witch boy,” one of the boys said. “Is it true? Heard you were a slimy creature that came out of a bog and consumed the soul of a boy whose body you now inhabit.”

“Nah, I heard the monkey has his soul trapped in a jar,” another spoke up. “The body’s just a flesh sack he puppets remotely.”

He heard Gregor start to defend him, but Kizu ignored them all and kept walking, leaving their laughter behind him.

The cafeteria was almost empty. By the time he arrived, most people had retired for the night. Only a few stragglers like him were still around, eating desserts and late night snacks. Several of them studied tomes and wrote on parchment, their food sitting forgotten off to the side.

After he and Mort ate, he decided to follow their example. The two of them made their way to the library. This time though, Mort jumped into the satchel before they entered.

“Pardon me,” he said to the librarian. She was the same girl as the day before. He held out the student directory to her. “I wanted to return this.”

She took it and asked if he needed help finding anything else.

“Actually, is there a divination section I can look through?”

“Back left corner. Right next to the cauldron made of books. It’s about seven meters tall, but it doesn't cover anything on the ceiling. Anything specific you’re looking for?”

“No, just browsing. How late is the library open until?”

“Usually, we close up everything around midnight. However, there is an exception during the last week of every semester so students can study all night in preparation for finals. But that’s obviously not any time soon.”

He thanked her and went to where she’d directed him.

There were easily hundreds of books on the topic of divination. Several of the books were written in different languages, so he was able to quickly eliminate them from his search. No point in checking out a book he wouldn’t be able to read. It took him a while before he decided on Detecting and Determining, a Guide to Location Divination. The librarian checked it out to him with no issue. She tried to pull him into small talk about the library’s history, but Kizu deftly excused himself before she drew him in too deep.

Once in his room again, he spent the night working through his new reading while Mort explored and made himself at home in the chamber. While Basil’s clutter made moving around difficult for Kizu, as he often tripped and stumbled over piles of random clothing, it was a paradise for Mort. The monkey grabbed a bundle of random rags and strips of cloth and went about making himself a nice little bed in the corner above Kizu’s.

The book detailed several different methods by which someone might contact or find an individual far off, though even the simplest methods involved complicated summoning circles and chalk made with specific ingredients. The crone never used those sorts of tools. He wished he still had her wooden bowl. She’d taught him a little bit about how to read the near future with it, but he knew it could be used to scry the present just as well. The crone often used it to spy on other witches in the basin. But she’d never taught him any of that. Likely worried about him attempting to contact family, she’d withheld any divination information on how to reach out long distances or watch over someone.

He wondered briefly if there was a shop in town where he could buy the necessary tools, but then realized he didn’t have any money to spend. He was completely at the academy’s mercy for his needs. Still, he resolved to explore the town and at least locate a shop sometime soon.

When morning came, he managed to get another couple hours of sleep before he had to drag himself off to History F. Somehow, he managed to keep his eyes open in the class. He didn’t do the homework, but at least he wasn’t alone. While the majority of the class looked intimidated by Krimpit and hastily brought up packets of work, several others also didn’t go up front to submit anything. As Kizu examined the other slackers, he noted they looked older than the first years. They looked closer to eighteen than fourteen. And each of them looked completely unimpressed by Krimpit’s scare tactic as they lazed about.

Professor Krimpit spoke about an ancient treaty that had shifted the balance of the world powers and deposed a monarch. Kizu did his best to listen, trying everything in his power to keep himself from nodding off. Krimpit had already kicked two of the other bored older students out of the class for tossing a tiny fireball between one another under their desks. The professor hadn’t even looked up from his chalkboard as he ordered them out. And he called them out by name, showing that he was familiar with the pair. Kizu wondered how he had noticed. He must have some level of magical detection. Either that, or he’d heard some noise that Kizu hadn’t.

He scanned the lecture hall, looking for more familiar faces. He stopped and stared. Directly behind him, Sene sat with a piece of parchment on her desk. She appeared to be folding it into a hat.

Krimpit still kept his back to them as he wrote on the chalkboard. Kizu took advantage of that and stood, slipping into the seat beside Sene.

“Sene?” he asked.

“Nope,” she said, not looking up from her folded parchment. “Try again.”

“Ione?”

“Ding, ding. Congratulations.” She handed him the parchment hat. “Here’s your reward. What will you do next?”

“So, you’re not the Sene in my brewing class?”

“I am neither Sene, nor am I in your brewing class. Well done. Have you considered pursuing a career as a detective?”

“Well, at the very least, you’re a lot more talkative than Sene.”

“Low bar.”

“Is she your sister?” he guessed.

“Unfortunately. Twin. A curse cast on me at birth.”

“Ah. Well, I’m Kaga Kizu.”

“I know, I asked your pal about you yesterday after you stormed out of class. Absolutely hilarious by the way. And you’re in my Music F and Elemental F classes. Next semester we’ll have Politics F, Rejuvenation and Restoration F, and Numerology F together, too.”

“Why do you know all of this?”

“Trying to keep track of my competition. Thankfully, I still maintain and defend my position as the academy’s very worst student. But only by a thread.”

“You two,” Professor Krimpit said. Disdain dripped from every word. “Do you believe your classmates to be as deaf as they are dumb? Remove yourselves immediately.”

Ione stood and slung her bag over her shoulder. She walked out of the class without a second glance. Harvey passed him his bag with a grin and a thumbs up. Kizu rolled his eyes, stuffed the paper hat in his bag, and followed Ione out.

He was surprised to find that she was waiting for him in the hallway.

“Aren’t you worried you’ll be kicked out of the academy?” he asked.

She barked a short, humorless laugh. “Nope. That’s not how the academy works. You can be demoted, sure, but there’s nothing under F classes. So long as ma and pop keep forking over the money, I’ll be here. At least, until I hit my fifth year. After that they’ll toss me aside.”

“And after the academy?”

She waved a hand, batting the idea away. “Not my problem right now. I bet we’ll all be dead by then, anyway. My parents taught me not to invest in uncertainties.”

They sat down on a bench in a nearby courtyard.

“So, you just plan to fail every class?”

“Not quite. I’m only failing eleven out of the twelve.” She hesitated as if a thought occurred to her. “Well, out of thirteen, if you include combat.”

“Any chance the one class you're not failing happens to be divination?” he asked with very little hope.

“Wrong sister. You need to ask Sene for divination help. She’s the top student in all but one subject.”

He sighed. Somehow, he doubted Sene would be willing to help him out. “So, what can you do? Fight?”

“I know how to make others fight for me,” she corrected. “Delegation. Life is incredibly easy if you know how to conjure up the right creature to solve your every problem.”

That piqued his interest. “Can you conjure people?”

“Depends,” she said suspiciously. “What do you want and when?”

“My sister,” he said without reservation. “Could you summon her here right now?”

“Dead?”

“What?”

“Most times people ask me to conjure someone up, they’re asking for a corpse.”

“No, she’s just estranged from the family. Not dead.” As far as I know.

“Well, it doesn't matter either way. I can’t conjure a person who actually existed. Most of that sort of stuff involves soul magic. And some divination touches on talking to spirits, but I don’t do anything like that. And humanoids are uniquely difficult to summon as well. I can summon anything non-magical easily enough, though.” She kicked the dirt a few times. A moment later, a small puppy appeared inside a perfect summoning circle. It yipped at them and wagged its tail.

Kizu reached down and picked it up. It squirmed in his arms and attempted to lick his face.

“Amazing,” he breathed. “Where did it come from?”

She shrugged. “Nowhere. She came from what I believe a puppy should be. As far as any researchers have figured out, you conjure up the idea in your mind. She only exists in this moment right here. When I dismiss her, she’ll pop out of existence forever. Or at least, until I summon her again. Summons seem to be linked. So even if I summoned a pig next time, it would be the same entity, just with a new face. Though those theories aren’t completely conclusive.”

“Could I summon her too? Would she be the same dog if I copied what you did exactly?”

“Only in so much as Sene and I are the same.”

Even so, he decided to try it. He set the puppy down and drew his own circle in the dirt, copying Ione’s markings as exactly as he could. He pressed a finger to it and tried to summon forth an exact replica of the dog in front of him. He felt his magic channel into the design on the ground.

A dark brown blob of flesh heaved itself from the dirt. It panted heavily out of the three orifices on its back and dragged itself around by the single limb that jutted out from its stomach area. It moaned, teeth rattling.

“Wow. Very cute.”

“I’ve never done this before,” he said. He staggered to his feet. The conjuring left him feeling lightheaded. “Um, how do I dismiss it?”

“Depends on what you’ve got, and whether you’re strong enough to control it. It’ll probably fade on its own.”

Even as she said the words, the monstrosity started evaporating.

He looked away from it, not wanting to meet its eye as it faded away. His first conjured creation, and it was a mangled nightmare.

“Next time,” Ione advised. “Try starting off conjuring a nonliving thing. Like a rock. Might be a tad more successful.”

The bell rang overhead, saving him from any further conversation. As he left though, he noticed humor glinting in Ione’s eyes.

When he reached the training courtyard for combat, he lined up beside Evie again. He expected to go back into shield work immediately, but Arclight just sent them all off to run laps. He actually enjoyed the exercise. It was menial and pure, just running in circles. Rewarding in its own right. Though he wished the uniforms were designed with more airflow in mind. He was covered in sweat after just a single lap.

The other students panted and flailed their arms around as they ran, looking extremely silly. By the end of class, they were all scattered in the dirt, having collapsed as soon as Arclight gave the word.

Back when Kizu had lived with the crone, she’d had an acquaintance who stopped by every now and then that was some flavor of necromancer. As his classmates lay in the dirt groaning, they reminded him of that old necromancer’s lesser zombies as they moaned in their shallow graves.

Arclight laughed at them all as the bell rang and said she looked forward to seeing everyone again in two days. And mentioned off-hand they could look forward to another day like today. Kizu heard more than one student grumble as they left the courtyard.

This time at lunch he ate alone, reading through the divination book a bit more. He tried sketching out some of the ritual patterns, but they were all uniquely structured. The conjuring he’d attempted earlier in the day had been simple in comparison. That, at least, had been contained within a simple circle. The divination rituals’ patterns sprawled out across the pages, stretching out in seemingly random directions. Eventually, he shoved the book aside and just glared at his sketches.

“What’s up?” Harvey asked, plopping down in the seat next to him. He passed him a piece of parchment. “Here’s the homework assignment you missed again.”

Kizu looked it over and sighed. What a pain.

“Thanks,” he said.

“You definitely work fast,” Harvey said. “How do you do it?”

“Do what? Fail my classes?” Kizu asked.

“I’m talkin’ about girls, not class. Day two and you’re already running out of lecture with one. What’s your strategy?”

Kizu stared at him blankly. “I talk to them?”

“But like, I never even told you that she was the girl that asked me about you yesterday. How did you know when you approached her?”

“I didn’t. I just wanted to ask her about something.”

He scratched his straw-colored hair. “I don’t get it. You didn’t even have your conversation starter. You left the monkey in your dorm again.”

“I have no idea what you want me to tell you,” Kizu said honestly.

“Can you teach me?”

“Harvey. I was raised for the last ten years by an old crone in the woods. My time was spent doing chores and helping brew potions. I don’t have practice talking to people my age at all, let alone girls. I have zero experience with what you’re asking me for.”

Harvey’s brow furrowed. Then his eyes widened. “You used a love potion?! No way! Can you share some with me? Just a tiny bit is all. A few drops. Just enough to help me catch someone’s attention. I’ll buy it off you!”

Kizu rolled his eyes and went back to his book.