70 Returning to School (1)

The teleportation gate spit us out to the middle of the river where I first jumped in from the burning sun.

"Are you kidding me!" I yelled from irritation.

Why were we here again? I thought we would be back at school.

Even though I did hate school, I realized that there were many places worse than school such as climbing a mountain under the burning sun while wearing fall clothes.

I was wearing a thick dress with many layers to make the dress have more volume. This was even worse than wearing my physical education uniform meant for fall.

This would be a dress meant to keep someone warm even in the winter! Not wanting to go over the same painful experience again, I started rip some layers of my dress until only one satin layer remained.

"Rika!" Luke yelled at me as Cillian looked the other way.

"You try wearing that heavy dress under the burning sun!" I argued back.

Luke sighed as he handed me a heavy cloak like he had foreseen this would happen as the worse case scenario.

When I was about to hand him the thick cloak back, he showed that the satin layer was see-through to a certain extent.

'At least do it for Cillian,' Luke mouthed.

Knowing that Luke wouldn't back off on this one aspect, I took the cloak.

Luke hated it whenever I deviated way too far from his standards of being the typical 'lady' from the Roselia house. He once scolded me for hours when I wouldn't change into my uniform when going to class because I was lazy to get out of my pyjamas.

To save myself from his constant nagging, I just gave into him and decided to properly wear my uniform to class as it was more trouble not to.

It wasn't like I could avoid Luke to get away from his lectures when we were using the same dorm, in the same classes and were forced into attending the same events.

Surprisingly, Luke used his mana so that when someone wore the cloak, they would feel cool even under the scorching weather.

This must have used alot of his mana. I gratefully wore the cloak as we hiked down from the mountain.

"Why does the school have to choose a place where the whole area is spelled that someone can't teleport to the top or the bottom of the mountain!" I complained due to my aching feet.

I used my marble to check the time. The marble indicated that it has been four hours since we returned from the fifth district.

"It's because the school uses it to train us for situations where we have to use mana sparingly," Cillian answered for the nth time.

I got bored of the same green scenery when I was hiking with Ellen and Allan. It was more bearable that time since I had Ellen, but now I had to walk in absolute silence since we all had trouble spending extra energy speaking when we were so tired from hiking without resting.

I stopped walking as I sat on the ground to mend my throbbing back and legs from the intense exercise.

Both Luke and Cillian stopped walking when they couldn't hear my footsteps anymore and looked behind to see how I was faring.

"I can't anymore," I whined as I wondered where their fierce stamina to withstand this intense hiking session without any complaint came from.

Wait. If they had this much stamina, couldn't they carry me down instead?

"Carry me," I begged Luke.

I clasped my hands together and started to look as pitiful as I could (not that it ever worked from Luke stopping his lectures in the past anyways).

Surprisingly, Luke sighed as he crouched down for me to get on his back.

I silently cheered that I wouldn't have to walk anymore as I got onto his back.

That's how I was able to appreciate the grand scenery of the mountain from its glorious sunlight that dyed the towering trees into sunflower yellow and the cute animals that scurried to find food for winter.

When I got bored of observing the cute animals, I started to fiddle with Luke' soft silver hair. I made small braids with my dexterous fingers just as I used to arrange my younger sister's hair in my past life.

"Stop Rika," Luke complained when he felt ticklish from me stroking his hair too much.

I stopped when I spotted the bottom of the hill only a few metres away from the tall bushes that hid the entry to the entrance to the mountain.

I jumped off of Luke's back as he collapsed onto the ground from the sudden change in weight.

"We're almost there!" I excitedly yelled as Cillian helped Luke stand back up.

I ran to the bottom of the mountain with my regained energy from resting on Luke's back and waited for Cillian and Luke to catch up to me.

Cillian took slow steps as he supported Luke who looked like he would collapse onto the ground again at any moment.

When I looked around for the familiar faulty hover buses, I found a projection that indicated that the next one would come in ten minutes from now.

"The one you're pointing to is the one going to the sixth district," Cillian frowned.

When I looked more carefully at the projection board, I noticed that Cillian was right.

Maybe I pointed to that one in denial because another hover bus that led to the metropolitan school districts were coming in seven hours from now.

"The one going to school is coming in seven hours from now," Luke's face was drenched in sweat as he panted heavily from having to carry me for the majority of the hike back down.