Chapter 14: Dining hall
"You lied! It'll start in another thirty minutes, there was no rush!" Scarlett yelled at him.
Theo looked at her with a confused gaze. "You want to eat, don't you?"
"That only takes ten minutes! I could have slept more!" She rebuked.
Their whole team was on their way to the dining hall alongside almost every other team. The corridors were large enough that even with all the traffic, it wasn't cramped.
"Hey, leader." Era spoke to him.
"Hm?" Theo turned his head to look at him.
Each of them was wearing a set of the school's robes. They were the lightest shade of blue he had seen thus far, almost bordering on being turquoise. There were a few white linings here and there, but most of it was uniformly a single color with no patterns.
Theo had thought that he would need to spend his own coin to buy them, but they had already been within their wardrobes, and in their sizes, as well.
"Please refrain from waking me up with such methods in the future." Era said. Lucy, who was following behind them all was frantically nodding her head in agreement.
Theo had actually felt a little bad after seeing how Era had reacted to his actions. "I won't, if you wake up in time."
Era nodded, satisfied with his answer. Scarlett had given up on complaining to him and had gone to vent on Lucy, who was just quietly taking it all in.
The girl looked far more composed today than she had been yesterday, and he had no clue why.
It didn't take them long until they reached the dining hall, which was located on the first floor. Their dormitories were on the second one.
Theo was surprised at the amount of people lining up for breakfast. When he had been taken around the facilities, it had been pretty much empty. Now, it was almost completely full.
They took a place in the long line and had to wait till it was their turn. Theo was glad that he had decided to drag them all out this early, otherwise they would have gone without food.
"That shower was certainly interesting." Era thought out loud. "I've never seen one before. I wonder how they managed to accomplish it."
Theo was also curious about it, but he hadn't the slightest clue how they did it. Scarlett also seemed to be in deep thought.
"Dwarves." A quiet, cute voice said, barely audible.
Each of them turned to look at the one who had just spoken.
Having each of their attention placed on her seemed to be too much for the poor girl as she blushed like crazy and tried to hide her face behind her hands.
"Dwarves?" Era asked, confused.
"That makes sense." Theo nodded. "They have a certain way with materials."
"How did you know about it, though?" Era asked Lucy.
The girl was too embarrassed to answer.
"She's from a proper noble family, so her knowledge on all things luxury must be quite high." Theo answered in her stead.
Scarlett was broken out of her thoughts by his words and glared at him. "Proper? What are you trying to say?"
Theo didn't bother answering and just smiled at her as it was their turn to get food.
The selection was quite large. Everything from bread to things he had never seen before were presented neatly and conveniently for them to take. And it wasn't even cold! They had some system to keep the food warm for a prolonged periods of time, it seemed.
Theo had never been to a place where they offered food like this. Honestly, it seemed quite wasteful. He couldn't imagine that there would be no leftovers.
Well, maybe they repurposed the food that was left over.
Pretending to think deeply on what food he would choose was also a convenient way to annoy Scarlett. The girl seemed to become more incensed every second he ignored her.
A moment later he stood at the end of the line with a tray full of food, trying to find a spot to sit down at. There hardly any tables that were free. Most were already packed full.
'Ah.' He spotted a table for six where a single figure was sitting alone and eating.
"We meet again, Harry." Theo said as he put down his tray of food and sat down opposite of him.
The boy was surprised to see someone appear in his table and was lost for words for a moment. "Uh… you are?"
"Ah, forgive me." Theo said and nodded slightly towards Harry. "My name is Theodore Hall. We met at the plaza yesterday."
Harry's eyes closed for a while, as if though he was trying to remember something. "Ah, I remember now. You were the guy that saw tha…"
His words trailed off as he remembered the exact moment. There was a small blush on his face, but he recovered quickly.
"I don't think I ever told you my name?" He asked.
Theo smiled. "I heard it during the affinity examination."
He picked up a piece of bread and started eating as the rest of his team started to appear on the table. The only one not there by now was Scarlett.
At that moment, Scarlett appeared. She sat down on the seat next to Theo, picked up a small piece of bread and threw it in his face.
It him in his brow and slid down onto his tray. He picked it up and threw it in his mouth before turning to look at her with a smile.
"You're mean." She pouted and glared at him.
"But not wrong." Theo said.
She harrumphed and turned to her own tray before starting to eat. Era was looking at them curiously and even Lucy was trying to stealthily steal glances at them. Suffice to say that it wasn't very stealthy.
"Are they your teammates?" Harry asked curiously.
"Hm?" Theo turned to look at him. "They are."
"You seem to get along." He said. "I'm envious."
Theo wasn't sure he would phrase it like that, but sure. It would be good if everyone thought that way.
"What about you and your team?" Theo asked. "Did they already finish eating?"
"I don't know." Harry responded and poked the bread on his tray. "Two of them were already gone by the time I woke up and the third was still sleeping by the time I left."
"Oh?"
"That girl who thought I was hitting on her is on my team!" Harry placed his head in his hands. "She already despises me and when the two others found out that I'm not a noble from Hubrias, they started to ignore me completely."
"…That's rough." Theo said.
"They argued all night about who should be the leader, and they still couldn't decide!" Harry said and raised his head from his hands to look at him. "My only saving grace is the fact that they didn't enslave me."
"Huh? They could do that?" Era asked, suddenly interested in the conversation. "They can use the Slaving spell?"
"No?" Harry answered, confused. "I just heard that some commoner was placed into a team with three high ranking nobles. He's already become their errand boy. I heard some nobles gossiping about it enviously, telling each other how much they wanted one of their own."
"Is that normal?" Era asked.
"I heard from my father that it does happen, but if the professors hear about it, the participants and their entire families will be implicated somehow." Scarlett answered in Harry's stead. "It was apparently a big problem some centuries ago, but it's much better now."
"Oh." Era nodded. "Good to know."
Ah, that's right. Theo had no idea if Era was a commoner like him, or if he belonged to a noble family. Either way, he was weird.
"I should get going." Harry said and stood up. "I need to go check if they're at the dorms."
Most of the people were already standing up and leaving themselves.
Theo nodded and turned to the others. "Hurry up and eat, we need to go to the class soon."
"Mmmph" Scarlett turned to him and mumbled something with a mouth full of food.
"What?" He asked.
A moment or two passed as she hurriedly chewed down and swallowed the mass of food.
"Junior, show some respect to your elders." She said and pointed at him. "And what's with the rush? We should have plenty of time."
"We have exactly ten minutes left, and the walk there takes around seven minutes." Theo said and closed his eyes, trying to remember the exact time. "If I counted correctly."
He opened his eyes to a scene of carnage. Scarlett and Era were stuffing their faces with food as fast as they physically could. Both he and Lucy looked at the two freaks with wide eyes.
"What the hell…? Did you guys stop eating while listening?" Theo asked incredulously. "Wait, why do you guys have so much food on your plates?!"
He hadn't noticed it before because he had been focused on his conversation with Harry. Since everything he said could be useful information in the future. But their plates were absolutely stacked with food.
"Who am I to disrespect such a large selection of free food by taking only a little?" Era said in between bites of food.
"I haven't seen some of this stuff in ages, I had to get a bit of everything." Scarlett said.
Every single moment he spent with these idiots increased the amount of dread inside him. He was going to have to spend the foreseeable future with them?
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Alphapanda
Alphapanda A little late today, sorry.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone