Training as a Slime (48)

Upon their arrival, the duchess conjured an ice cover, shielding Cori and herself from the pouring rain. A charming white cat furry, dressed in the school's raincoat and boots, emerged from the shadows to greet them, "Your Grace and Mr. Cori, thank you for coming, nya. I'm Mya from the student council, and it's truly a privilege to be your guide, nya! Let's go into the mansion, nya."

As they strolled through the puddled compound, Mya happily introduced the place, "While this place is known as Raijin Hall, we usually call it The Villa, nya. Our juniors love to hold garden parties and barbecue when the weather is not rainy, nya." The cat furry fumbled with a ring of keys in a clumsy attempt to open the main door. "Here we are, let me just unlock the door.... and go in," she said and proceeded to opened the two brown walnut doors.

Cori peered, impressed with the airy and spacious setting, jumped from the duchess's embrace to explore the place. "I see you took a liking to this place," the duchess remarked with a gentle smile.

Cori replied, "It does feel like a nice place. It felt a bit like home... but what is that?"

Mya jubilantly pointed to the artefact in the middle of the hall, "Nya? That is the artefact left by Lord Raijin nya. It powers the entire estate and some said the school too nya."

Cori moved closer to inspect the monumental artefact—a lightning cloud stored in a glass pillar, discharging infinite electricity into the ground. "It might hold a little semblance of truth," the duchess quipped in.

Cori charmed by the impossibility of containing everlasting electricity touched the smooth surface with its paw. A whisper from his backpack interrupted his train of thoughts, "Master, master, put your me near the electricity please, thank you." Cori instantly recognised the tiny voice.

"Mya, can I leave my backpack here?" he asked.

"Sure!" Mya said unsuspectingly.

And so, Cori did as Alice wished, leaving his backpack beside it while the rest of them toured the rest of the hall. Small strands of electricity, barely visible to the naked eye, could be seen siphoning into the backpack. Alice happily ate the electricity in its unique form. "Delicious! It's been a while since I have such a good meal!" it thought to itself, "as expected, Raijin's lightnings are the best!"

While Mya introduced the trainees' accommodations and communal kitchen around Hall of Raijin, a stray raiju attempted to bite into the backpack. Luckily, the backpack had a self-defense mechanism, rendering the attack of the tiny creature useless. Infuriated by its inadequacy, the raiju went back to its nest to gather its comrades. Within a few minutes, swarms of raijus appeared from all corners of the mansion. The guide was astounded to see hundreds of raiju rushing from all directions towards the glass pillar. "The guardians nya!" she screamed as the raijus merged to become a single elemental entity. The mythological being turned into a giant raiju biting and directing lightning strikes at the backpack. However, Alice, who was inside the backpack, was enjoying its attack. It felt as if its body was being massaged from head to toe wirelessly. Despite everything, the raiju was not able to shift the backpack away from the energy source. Noticing the issue, Cori rushed in to take his backpack away, only to be whipped by the tail of the raichu. "Hissed!" the mythological guardian warned as its electrical whipped through the empty air.

The duchess successfully teleported Cori to safety. "Cori, you have to remove your bag. It is reacting with their elemental core and damaging the Hall of Raijin and the school!" the duchess commanded after failing to teleport the anti-magic backpack.

"Raichu has never acted this way, it is usually docile and calm," the guide cried helplessly.

"Your Grace, can you teleport the raichu so I can grab my backpack?" Cori requested.

The duchess tried without hesitation, successfully distanced the mythical guardian away from the energy core, "Now, Cori!"

Cori rushed in using Qing Gong and successfully rescued his backpack. "Alice, you will be the death of me!" Cori thought. Alice, unaware of the havoc it had caused, felt completely relaxed and recharged, returning to sleep mode in the magical backpack.

With the threat gone, the raiju returned to its original state and dispersed in several directions. A raichu went up to Cori licking him, as if apologising for being mean to him. "I apologise, Your Grace and Mr. Cori, for the misadventures. Please keep your belongings close to you while we continue the tour," the cat furry apologised with a hint of anger boiling under her breath. "We understand, please continue with Cori. I will stay here to write the incident report," the duchess sighed. "It seems nothing about Cori is ordinary," she thought.

Unlike the other halls, nothing in sight was audaciously luxurious. In fact, Cori noticed everything was pleasantly ordinary and functional—like a modern house. The only thing that stood out was the pillar of dark clouds stored in the glass pillar and the spaciousness of the place. Cori, "Thank you for the tour. Just wondering out of curiosity, is there anything out of ordinary in this villa?"

"Out of the norm nya? I supposed the fact that everything here runs on electricity was rather weird compared to the rest nya. And the ever green garden despite never seeing the sun due to the prepetual rainy season was rather weird too nya. Although we do get a glimpse of nice hot weather once a while." Mya said thinking hard. "Everything is purfectly normal nya" she winked.

"Do every hall has a guardian animals?" Cori prompted.

"Oh, of course! Have you not met the rest of them? My classmates talked about them a lot. In fact we have an online bulletin board too." Mya answered.

"Online bulletin board? How do you access it?" Cori asked.

"You didn't know? You should have received the enrollment handbook, it's all inside nya. Here, you can have mine. I have an extra copy anyway nya," the furry cat grabbed a booked from thin air and handed to him.

"You have a personal inventory in the system?" Cori exclaimed.

"Nya? You have it too. Backpacks are more of an accessories nowadays unless you have big items to store nya. Don't worry, everything is inside the handbook nya," Mya answered patiently.

"Thank you so much!" Cori gratefully accepted the handbook and put it away in his backpack.

After Mya concluded the tour, Cori and the duchess bade her farewell and teleported to the hall of Silvanus.