Chapter 11 - Ava Jensen

The director stood next to me, waiting for the first professor to show up. She tapped me on the shoulder and flashed a smile.

"Excited to meet your first colleague?" She looked me up and down.

"I am. I even bought a gift for all of the professors."

"I heard about that from Tweety. He told me you showed up in the middle of the night trying to know more about the other teachers. I must say, I didn't think you would do something like this."

I frowned. "Tweety?"

"My owl."

I nodded in response. "Right."

-Swoosh!-

I didn't even need to look to know that someone had just swung the door of the Royal Academy wide open. Finally, I was going to meet someone else!

'Right, first impression.'

I stopped staring and posed like a mannequin, hoping to leave a lasting impression on the beautiful professor who had just entered. With one quick look, I recognized her from the book I read yesterday.

Ava Jensen, Alchemy Professor. She had been teaching at the Royal Academy for five years and was well-known for her extremely nice personality. Some even said she was too nice.

The gift I had prepared for her was perfect, and I couldn't wait to give it to her. Thinking about her role as a professor made me wonder about mine...I still had no idea what kind of teacher I was supposed to be. According to the Emperor's letter, I would only be teaching one class, covering everything needed for those special students.

At least, that's what I managed to understand with that letter.

Either way, the professor who had just walked in looked even better than in the pictures I had seen. She had long purple hair and violet eyes, and she was already wearing a white lab coat. The only thing that seemed out of place was her messy hair. A leather bag filled with vials hung around her shoulders, making distinct clicking sounds with each step.

"Ava!" Alexandra exclaimed with a warm smile. "How are you?"

"Alex!" She flashed a beautiful smile. "It's been a while. Everything's been good for me, what about you?"

"Oh, pretty well. Just preparing for the semester and getting the Academy ready. In fact, one of the new professors arrived early. He was a little too eager to teach." She smiled. After all, she wasn't stupid. Alexandra obviously knew that I had lied to her back then. No one would believe that I was the type to arrive in advance.

Still, one thing that annoyed me was the fact that Alexandra still hadn't talked to me about my role as an undercover professor for the Emperor.

'Maybe the Emperor changed his mind about her?'

Either way, the professor seemed interested when she heard the word "new," as she started looking around.

"Where is he? Oh, I hope he's nice…and maybe good-looking?" she added with a playful smile.

"Oh, you can be the judge of that." She moved aside, revealing me. "Here he is, Caedrel Stuart."

Instantly, her face turned as red as a tomato. Her eyes darted away from me.

I think the outfit might have been too much for her to handle.

I held out my hand and smiled at her.

"It's nice to meet you."

She looked down, seemingly unable to meet my gaze. I hadn't read anything about her being shy in the short summary, but I guess those summaries were only approximately accurate.

"N-Nice to meet you..."

Her eyes flicked up before quickly dropping again.

'Should I give her the gift I bought for her?'

But I decided against it, now wasn't a good time. It would be better to wait a little; she seemed to be in shock after seeing me, which was strange. It was the first time something like that had happened to me.

"So, you're the alchemy teacher, huh? Well, you certainly look the part!"

She nodded subtly. "T-Thank you...what about you? What kind of class are you going to teach?"

"No clue."

My answer shocked her so much that she raised her head with a huge frown, her previous shyness seemingly vanishing for a moment.

"What do you mean? You don't have a specific subject to teach?" Her frown deepened. "Then...who hired you?"

Alexandra, still beside us, coughed twice, interrupting the conversation.

"Mister Caedrel here is…uh, let's say special. The person who hired him is classified information, and it should stay that way."

The director made sure to look me dead in the eyes while she said those last words. It seemed she had learned a little bit more about me in the past week. It was strange that she hadn't tried to talk to me though.

Nevertheless, I removed those thoughts from my mind as I heard Ava replying to Alexandra.

"Special professor? What does that mean?"

"Ah, uh, it's complicated. His class is special. You'll all learn about it later on, even Mister Caedrel is in the dark about his situation.

I smiled. "That's right. It's a little annoying, but what can I do? Threaten the director?"

They both looked at me with serious expressions.

"Uh...no need to look at me like that, I was only joking."

Silence. No one laughed. Oh well, not all of them can be a hit. Time to change the subject.

"Ava, I got a gift for you!"

The perfect diversion—the gift. Good thing I hadn't given it to her just yet.

The redness returned to her face. "Y-You did?"

"Yeah, just a moment."

I put my hand in the spatial pouch around my waist and rummaged through it for a good minute before finally finding what I was looking for. There were so many things in it that it was hard to find what I wanted. Oh, and surprisingly, Ava was one of the few teachers I didn't need to buy a gift for. After all, with all the demons and monsters I had killed over the years, it was easy to find something that an Alchemist would love.

"There you go!" I handed her a small vial with golden liquid inside it. "I was told that it was quite rare."

Her eyes widened in excitement. "Is that what I think it is?!"

"I think so. It's dragon blood. It cost me a lot of money so make sure to be careful with it!" 

I lied about where I obtained the item since killing dragons wasn't something anyone could do.

She bowed several times.

"Thank you! Thank you very much! I need to go make a potion right away!" She started speaking much faster, excitement taking over her. "It was nice meeting you!"

And she was gone, running as fast as she could.

Alexandra glanced at me and smiled. "Right...I should have told you. Uh, Ava is quite the passionate person when it comes to Alchemy."

'Quite passionate indeed.'