Welldark B1 Ch. 05

The playfulness of her gaze drained away, leaving only the stern muster. "Not good enough," she told me, crossing her smooth legs. "Music should be the outlet for your troubles. Art is where tragedy and passion meets to create something transient. I do think your voice has the potential for a wonderful baritone, but if you mope around the first day of class, only molesting that poor guitar, then I have little interest in showing you the way of music."

I wrinkled my forehead, confused by this confrontation. She was more eccentric than I had first thought and I wasn't quite sure what she was trying to say. What she did have a point about was that the guitar in my hands may as well have been a piece of driftwood. "So, are you pushing me out of the class?"

"No," Maria made clear immediately, "I'm telling you to put that guitar down, stop sitting like it will solve your problems, go into one of the practice rooms with..." she reached out to an assortment of music books along the wall and seemingly picked one out at random. "...this and to not stop practicing until you actually feel like you have accomplished something. THEN you can tell me whether you actually want to keep attending my class."

I took the well-used book and flipped through the first few pages. It was clearly for beginners, easy song with easy to hit notes, detailed descriptions of how one should best breathe for which depth of voice and all that sort of stuff newcomers could need. 'Might as well,' I thought and nodded. We both got up and she opened the door for me. "Thanks."

"Don't thank me, I just want more beauty in this world," Maria responded and pulled the door close behind me.

Just like that, I was completely alone. The practice room's isolation was complete in almost every sense. The carpet was thick and the walls covered in echo-eating, red foam. It was large enough to leave room for five people plus their instruments. At the moment it was just me, the book, and a notestand. I opened the book and placed it on top of that notestand.

"Okay then, here goes nothing," I mumbled to myself and drew a deep breath.

What I sang for the next hour was a load of awful nonsense. The notes weren't clear, I messed up my breathing and inhaled in the middle of words on several occasions. It did help, though. By messing with the lyrics and just doing some goofy things in the privacy of the isolated room, I managed to cheer myself up. It didn't let me recover, but I was better off afterwards than I was before. Whenever I started to drift back into bad thoughts, I started the next lesson in the book.

A book that I had thoroughly underestimated. It started nice and friendly, but soon laid out challenges that I could not keep up with. Every now and again, I tried, but in general I stuck to repeating the things I could do and reading the explanations about tone ranges. As Maria had guessed, I found myself most comfortable using the baritone. Both physically, my throat didn't feel violated when I moved in that range, and mentally.

Bass, for me, felt unfitting because deeper sounds had a tendency to dominate the background and I was definitely not one to move behind the curtains. It felt like something best used to support a group and that was just not who I was. Proactivity was something I took pride in and I cared about my individuality more than anything else.

At the same time, tenor felt too light. My reasons for not wanting to be of a higher note were less well formulated. I just preferred higher pitches to be left to women and felt the vibrations deeper in my throat to be more pleasant. While I was unapologetically individualistic, I also didn't want to rise from the crowd so much that it made me a loner.

'I'm reading too much into this,' I told myself and concentrated on just doing the best I could in the lesson. The long and short of it was that bass and tenor singers had their roles, but I felt comfortable in the middle.

I didn't feel quite so comfortable in self-study. The problem with doing something purely by a book was that, the easily spotted mistakes aside, it was easy to get into 'I am definitely doing this right!' mindset about a number of things. Those things could be missteps and those missteps could turn into habits. Since Maria had shoved me in here to have some fun, I pushed those doubts aside and just tried to keep an open mind about being wrong about everything I was doing at the moment.

Sometimes, when I really got into it, I managed to forget entirely about my situation for a minute or two. When I remembered, it stung a little bit, but it always felt better than before. After some time, I decided I had enough and headed outside the practice room.

I found the classroom empty. At first I guessed that everybody occupied the other practice rooms, but my bag was the only one still lying about. It seemed that my fellow students and even Maria had already left. Quickly, I checked my Ashod for the time. It was ten minutes before the lecture was meant to end. Maria had likely called the class early, but I was more impressed by the fact that I actually managed to forget the time.

'Maybe I have a calling,' I thought and put the book back into its place on the wall. 'I can't exactly tell Maria that I want to stay after she left though. I'll have to send her a mail or something.' "Oh, Miss Trostwald, what a gift you have given me today, you muse of art and melancholy," I hummed sophistry to myself and picked up my back. My voice was hoarse, to no surprise, and I decided to seek out the cafeteria. I had two free blocks now and two more lessons in the evening, so this was my prime opportunity to get lunch.

I bought myself a nice warm meal and a cup of tea with added honey. Only halfway through the meal did I realize the cost of both. If there was any more evidence needed that I sucked at handling money, that was it.

Now that I was aware of my personality flaw, my thoughtless actions bothered me fiercely. 'I didn't even think about it until now,' I scolded myself, while I chowed down the meal. I had already paid for it, losing my appetite now would do me no good. 'I hope Esther is beating herself up like this for exploding at me...' I let out a long sigh. 'I'm deflecting again. Focus on your own issues, Karitas.'

The more I thought about it, the more I realized this wouldn't be easy. My spending habits weren't awful because I was addicted to buying things or anything overt like that. I just didn't stop to think and plan ahead. My life had always been a bit tumultuous, so plans for more than a few days or weeks were usually just thrown into the trash by the time they should have been enacted anyway. Getting an allowance from Beelzebub for all these years also had lessened my respect for finances. Something given has no value, and all that.

'That's all the whys but what do I do about it?' I still wondered several hours later, sitting in the Gravity Magic class. I had already sat through the entire Aesthetic Arts class as well. Both then and now, I had listened a little bit, but zoomed out easily whenever things started to get repetitive or boring. Or even when they were interesting. Or at random points. To end the reiterations, I was feeling better, not restored.

The ultimate conclusion was that I wasn't sure what I would do. Seeing Esther again was the only thing I knew I had to get over with. Perhaps I could ask her to slap my wrist whenever I spend unwisely. That wasn't the self-sufficient solution, but it was something in the right direction.

Eventually, that last class, too, ended and I went home. It was little over an hour before midnight, but I still decided to walk home. The hot summer day had cooled into a pleasant night and the clearness of the air got some of the clutter out of my mind. When I arrived at the mansion, the first thing I noticed were Esther's shoes, sitting orderly at the side. That she was still around was all I really wanted to know, as I walked towards the bathroom.

It would have been easy to walk past it and knock at her door, but I resisted that urge and simply took a shower. As much as I wanted to resolve things, I decided that there was no need to force things now when I would see her tomorrow. My pride also insisted that I shouldn't keep crawling up to her door. I was a man, not a dog.

I dried myself off and left the shower with the towel wrapped around my waist. Willt and I were good enough friends that we didn't mind seeing each other naked. Due to swimming classes, it had happened in the past. We wouldn't seek it out, neither of us was swinging in the bisexual direction. It just didn't matter. Arlethia had made her stance clear recently and Esther had already seen me in swimming trunks. It would have taken a very specific angle to make a difference to that article of clothing.

Once in my room, I hung the towel over the heater. The metal thing was off, but it still made for a good drying stand. I dumped my clothes in one of the wooden boxes along the side of the room-sized bed. That one had become my designated laundry basket. Then I simply let myself keel over.

I bounced off the mattress once, then laid on my stomach with my arms sprawled out. The mental stress of the day slowly subsided. It had only been a week, but my subconscious already recognized this bed, this room, as mine. After half a minute of remaining still, I rolled over on my back and stared at the ceiling. One more time, I went through all of the things I wanted to say tomorrow, then I closed my eyes.

Given the amount of things on my mind, I thought it would be difficult for me to fall asleep. No such thing. Perhaps my spirit was simply exhausted or maybe I had underestimated my carefree attitude. Whatever it was, on the repeat of my lines for my reunion with the raven-haired lady, my consciousness faded away.

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I awoke naturally. This should have been cause for jubilation. Being greeted by the sound of silence in the morning was a luxury rich and poor around the worlds all clamoured for. The cursed sound of alarms caressed many an ear first thing in the morning and I hated it more than even the average person.

'Wait... did I even set the alarm?' I thought and shot up. The blanket, which I must have grabbed some time through the night, flew across the room. Frantically, I searched for my Ashod. It wasn't in its socket by the laptop. 'The laundry,' I realized and crawled over to the wooden box. I hadn't taken the Ashod off yesterday, so it was still stuck on yesterday's pants. I grabbed them, pulled the belt off and then separated the Ashod from the clasp holding it.

I pulled the metal halves apart, my Astral Capacity fed into the device and created the screen during the motion. Greeting me on the display was the time: 7:53. I had slept about eight hours, as was normal. Relaxed, I dropped back into a lying position. I probably had missed my opportunity to offer Esther breakfast, but that was fine. Until we had talked about our differences, I didn't want to give her things I had paid for.

"At least it's Tuesday now," I mumbled to myself and heard the hoarseness of my voice. It had only gotten worse overnight. My usually smooth voice was raspy right now and my vocal cords felt scratchy. 'I hate that the Astral Body doesn't fix things like that.'

I inserted the Ashod into the laptop extension. Since my morning was free, I could go after my morning routine without any hurry. I had my first class at eleven, and that would be when I saw Esther again. There was no way she would skip out on a class for the sake of avoiding me. She wasn't that type of person. Before or after that class, I could talk to her again.

Unless Willt and Arlethia were so absolutely wrong and Esther had, in reality, gotten so annoyed with me that she switched her schedule altogether to not meet me. 'Her shoes were there, so that can't be it,' I reminded myself. 'Nobody that goes that far would stay under the same roof.' I clicked on my uppermost bookmark.

My favourite yoga instructor smiled at the camera - smiled at me, the viewer. Today, that failed to make me feel good about the day. Only the smile of a certain, amber-eyed woman could have done so.

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I used some of the high-quality food I had bought for Esther and I for breakfast. It was much better than the cup noodles I would have had otherwise, especially in the protein department. Afterwards, I had a basic but brilliant idea and downloaded a simple planning app for the Ashod. I punched in how much (or little) money I still had and vowed to myself to keep that number updated. Hopefully, seeing my funds dwindle would activate self-preservation. The automatic 'you have this much money for every day of the remaining month' function certainly did.

There was more to the app, like the ability to separate my remaining funds into categories. Food, gifts, favings, and other such things were in the suggested list of subdivisions. All of it just demonstrated further that I had a lot to learn there.

'Really, in hindsight, this HAD to happen,' I scolded myself and sighed, sliding my Ashod back into the corresponding holster on my belt. 'Just didn't think Esther would be bothered by it...' I shook my head and straightened my back as I walked down the road. 'No being down, you have your opportunity to fix it today, Karitas. Positive energy! If I don't fuck this up she might call me 'good Karitas' again.'

Admittedly, that did make me sound like a dog looking for a compliment. Her voice was just that wonderful. Hearing it was like getting my ears wrapped in silk and then softly caressed by the sleepy sighs of a woman in one's arms. There was nothing sweeter and I wasn't just saying that because I was infatuated with her. Her voice was simply like the first kiss of the summer sun breaking through a cloudy sky.

I left the house early. My usual morning occupations post-workout lazing around and watching stupid things, I couldn't really appreciate at the moment. In order to give my mind the time to sort things out, I decided to take the scenic route to Welldark. Once I was past the train station, I realized that my thoughts kept steering away from the things I wanted to say to Esther and from my own inadequacies.

This was, in my opinion, a good sign. My philosophy about thoughts was that those that kept rising to the surface again and again were deemed by the subconscious to not be fully unravelled yet. A metaphor I liked was to imagine the brain to be a bureaucratic complex. The conscious mind was the managerial elite and the subconscious the vast workforce. The workforce was quite able and did most things without warranting constant checks, but it simply had no authority to make all decisions. Whenever there was something it didn't know how to handle, it would be sent back to management for an evaluation. If management sent that back down in an incomplete or otherwise insufficient state, it would be sent back up.

Much like bosses sometimes had to deal with very annoying underlings, some thoughts re-surfaced many more times than the active mind appreciated. Not a pleasant experience. Of course, in the opposite way, there were times the workforce may want to keep certain things from the management to avoid the fallout. Trauma could be understood that way.

The point of the metaphor here was that I took the fact that I could no longer really stay on topic of Esther's anger with me to mean that I had sufficiently mulled over it. Further information down the line may change that, but for now I had peace of mind. Excluding the urge to fix the situation.

'Maybe I should take the train after all?' I considered, no longer needing the long walk to sort my thoughts. I stopped where I was and looked at the gothic building in the distance. Then I looked at the road ahead. It was made from black, grey and silver stones that had been put into an artistic array that reminded distantly of the night sky. Distantly was the key word. Its main purpose was still being a road, one sometimes used by heavy automobiles carrying the luggage of hundreds of students. It was pixel art made with square stones. Quite impressive, despite the low resolution. 'I'll be early anyway,' I thought and set out.

I kept to the right side of the road, where tall trees provided a bit of shade and cool air. In that, I was not completely alone. 1000 people were housed in the first-year apartments, but almost everyone took the train and the hours at which they headed out was dependent on their schedules. As such, meeting someone on the road was a rarity. Having the pleasure of walking behind a woman with such a massive bubble butt was a sign that lady luck was smiling on me.

Even from a distance, I could make out the salivating shape. Every time she took a long stride, her skirt would jump just enough that I could see the crease between her thighs and that round ass. Her skin was pale, immensely so. Milky, despite the intense sun. It only intensified the lustrousness of the shadows her bottom-heavy curves cast. A spanking would make a wonderful red rise from that paleness, I reckoned.

Similarly, I appreciated the visible jiggling of her thighs. They were nice and thick, fitting for that ass and far from the long straws many 'supermodels' had. Whoever had decided that thin legs had to decorate the front of beauty magazines needed to squeeze some meaty thighs. Such a sickness could only be cured through thickness.

Her hair waved in the soft wind. Long, white and straight strands, combed carefully backwards and staying in that orderly arrangement. Ears pointier than that of a human, but not any longer, betrayed her half-elven origin. With diligence, she carried herself, looking straight ahead. I realized I knew this woman.

'Knowing' was a strong word. I had seen and minorly interacted with her before. It was Aclysia, the daughter of the headmaster and the woman who Esther had defeated before I challenged her in turn. She was, as I verified with my own eyes, adequately talented, tremendously sexy, had an ass countries would go to war over, and, right now, alone.

I weighed my options.

There was no way my current infatuation with Esther was over because I looked at a butt that rivalled hers. No, my feelings remained the same as before. However, my mission statement on Welldark, and the only thing about my future I knew with certainty, was that I was here to build a harem. Laying the groundwork for my relationships beyond my hopeful future Queen was a good idea in almost any case.

'Remember, say nothing that's too cheeky,' I warned myself. Derilea had not been appreciative of jokes that had been overly buddy-buddy and judging the daughter by the mother was generally reliable, especially if the two had a close relationship. Given that they looked very similar, both in appearance in body language, that seemed to be a good base to operate from. I could always swerve if I was proven incorrect.

I accelerated my steps, deliberately hitting the pavement a little louder than I had to. Just like I wanted, she noticed me before I was next to her. Her ears twitched in a cute way and she turned around.

Clear eyes of an emerald green, the essence of spring caught in a person, greeted me. Her face had a nice heart-shape to it, the top of it softly outlined by the roots of her white hair. She was absolutely gorgeous. A pale half-elf with light-pink, full lips, standing straight, her petite breasts pronounced as well as her pear-shaped figure allowed. I only now noticed that she was holding a salver in front of her stomach. It was the item state of her Artefact, as the introduction ceremony had shown, capable of turning into a spear at her wish. Although Aclysia was in her school uniform, that salver was a natural part of her maidenly disposition.