43 The Consequence (2)

"We have all unfortunately heard about the sad incident of Rika and Charles when they returned last Friday. From the request of Rika, the school did investigate the hover buses that went back and forth from our campus." Daniel announced.

Please say that the hover buses were faulty as usual.

"And we did indeed discover a few routes ingrained inside the hover buses were tampered with unfortunate glitches in the system." Daniel continued.

"Yess! I knew those hover buses were useless junk!" I accidentally yelled and stood up from the joy of escaping the blame.

Both Luke and Daniel glared at me to sit down and I quickly sat down onto my chair.

"Thus, both Rika and Charles will be not held accountable for this incident as a rare exception. Although the same flexibility does not apply to your project that was due last week. So both of you will receive zero points for the project as it was not handed in." Daniel finished announcing the result of the investigation.

What project? I didn't care about that stupid project. It wasn't the first time I would get zero points for an assignment in school (more like it was fine as long as it wasn't minus points). After finishing all our classes, everyone in our class rapidly surrounded Charles and I to ask questions.

"Is it true you met people from the sixth district?" Shelly asked with anticipation.

"Yup, although they weren't really friendly as they attacked and drugged Charles and I," I answered while remembering using over half my pool of mana on Charles.

"I had to use [heal] to wake him back up again," I pouted.

"You used [heal]?" Charles asked me in shock.

"Yea. How else did you think you were able to wake up after getting drugged?" I replied back.

Shelly, Ellen, and Allan gasped. Even Luke and Alex looked surprise as they started to pay more attention to the conversation.

"His hair colour changed," Miliana meekly added.

Everyone turned to look at his new hair colour that was more maroon than the original shades of umber.

"How much mana do you have left?" Ellen asked with clear worry in her voice.

After being able to rest with a decent meal during the weekend, my mana was able to recover to about three quarters of its original size. Although, it would take up to the end of the month to have my unlimited amount of mana back again that my body could handle.

"About three quarters?" I replied with a bit of uncertainty.

"But I thought you had only about one eighth of your mana left three days ago," Charles mumbled.

Everyone looked worried as if they knew what would happen when someone was left with a low supply of mana.

"I did but it recovered?" I nonchalantly shrugged like it was no big deal.

"Rika?" Luke asked while suddenly trembling.

"You didn't tell me this in the dean's office." Luke appeared a bit betrayed.

"Well we left a lot of things out. Who knows how severe our punishment would have been if we told them everything," I countered back.

I left the group while Charles continued to answer more questions. At least Luke and Alex was starting to talk to Charles again. Mission accomplished.

It wasn't until tomorrow, which was the start of summer vacation, I was in the café with Shelly and Ellen to share our plans. It was unfortunate summer vacation was only a week long, but it was better than none.

"Where are you guys going during summer vacation?" I picked up my teacup.

"Umm, it's only called summer vacation as a formality," Shelly answered like she was delivering bad news.

"Let me guess, it's a vacation that's not really a vacation." I pouted.

"It's more like giving the opportunity to fulfill our volunteer hours within the first district to move up to the next grade," Ellen sadly replied.

The difference between elementary and middle school was that middle school had some practical exams to apply the use of our knowledge. This meant we had to fulfill 30 hours of making the first district a 'better place' than it already was as part of it.

Almost everything in the first district was automated with tablets and marbles. Well at least it was that way in school. There was no way to know if other people in the first district lived like the people in the other districts. The school never gave us the chance to properly explore the first district with its intense classes and exams that came with it.

When the school did give rare chances to explore the first district on our own, Luke always dragged me to the fanciest places in the first district where everything was automated. His house was like that too the last time I visited.

"Then did you already decide where you're going to volunteer?" I asked.

"Alex already decided we would volunteer at one of his family's newly built libraries" Shelly smiled with a bit of regret.

"Allan and I are going to volunteer at a shelter with newborn puppies!" Ellen excitedly mentioned.

How nice~. I also wanted to volunteer there as well.

"Charles decided that we were going to volunteer at one of his family's mana research centres," Miliana softly replied when we turned to her.

When they all looked at me, I admitted, "I don't think we decided yet."

"I think I'm going to quickly sign up to volunteer at that shelter you talked about." I shared.

I sprinted to sign up at the notice board to volunteer at that shelter before Luke made plans for the both of us.

"Where are you going?" Luke asked when I accidentally bumped into him.

Ever since my accident with Charles, Luke questioned what I was doing more often.

"To sign up at a place to volunteer," I vaguely answered.

"I already signed us up to volunteer at my family's newly created garden." Luke intervened to stop me from signing us up to volunteer at a paradise full of cute fluffiness.

I dejectedly went back to the cafe.

"You're already back?" Ellen questioned.

"Luke already signed us up to volunteer at his family's newly created garden!" I slumped into an empty chair.

I was seeing a clear pattern here from the people in the top five most boring families!