An air of silence and confusion filled the air. Harrier stared at the young man in front of him, who just said something more than unexpected.

  "I- Uh, I-" he stuttered, staring at Ryan like a deer in headlights. Though, a few seconds later, Harrier managed to regain his composure, "I don't know what you're talking about."

  Ryan glanced over at the trashcan obviously enough for the man across the table to notice, "I've seen those bottles everyday for the past two weeks, dude. I'm sure you've heard about it, but the family head took in a young vampire since you guys are supposed to be properly 'introduced' soon. It was supposed to happen on Saturday, but... some stuff happened that made it a bit hard to follow up on that."

  Even more confused, Harrier quickly turned toward his computer monitor where he most likely pulled up all of Ryan's information, "How did you- I remember it being specifically marked in here that you're unrelated to that family..."

  Ryan smiled awkwardly, "Yeah, things are a little complicated. But don't worry, I am part of the family, though I was only recently introduced to... all of this," Ryan threw both his arms into the air to motion toward 'everything', "But again, I do know enough to tell that you're a vampire. I figured things might be a bit easier for both of us if I make sure we're both filled in."

  With a long, stressed sigh, Harrier pushed back into his seat, "Genuinely... I did not expect this today. I just thought it was going to be like any other meeting with a freshly awakened student. Well, with the exception that you have a unique class, and all."

  Mentally, Ryan quickly noted to himself that the 'Spirit Keeper' was apparently not common knowledge amongst everyone that was 'in the know' about that hidden side of society, "Yes, right. I mean, it basically is, but my intentions should be easier to explain. You know, I want to help people like you, people that have to hide something like their species, or affliction, or... whatever. And you know, for that, I need to learn a bit more about my friends," Ryan held out his hand toward the desk. Red wisps of magic flowed out of his fingertips, quickly coming together to construct Maximus in front of the Awakened Supervisor. Maximus gave a brief nod to Harrier, "Spirits. Frankly, I don't know shit about magic beyond the real basics. So I would love to be able to take classes related to spirits, magic, and the whole shebang."

  After taking in Ryan's explanation, Harrier took a deep breath. He glanced down at Maximus and nodded his head, "I see... In that case, some introductory magic theory, history of magic, and spiritology classes would be best. If your plan is to continue working with your family, then I'm going to take that as you having a specific job that requires your Awakened status," Harrier started typing something on his computer, "We will need a signature on some documents to verify this, but once we have that, you can attend a special track that acts supplementary to your specific class and area of work."

  The printer next to Harrier's desk turned on, and some documents were quickly printed out that were given to Ryan, "You can take your time with this, but I would prefer it if you came back with some signatures sooner rather than later. Within the month, if possible. Hm... otherwise, are there any classes that interest you? I'll guess that you have no interest in taking any more business classes."

  Ryan quickly nodded his head, "Yes, frankly, I... don't really care for any of them. I think I saw some classes on dungeon theory and magical botany... are those available?"

  Harrier stopped for a moment, "Hm... they are, but you would need to take introductory biology for the magical botany class first, and the dungeon theory class requires you to finish the magic theory class first. We can push those back onto the next semester."

  "Then I'll take the introductory biology class. And I have space for two more, right?"

  "Technically, but I would recommend you only take one. If you say you don't have any history with magical theory in particular, then it might be a bit much to completely fill your class load. Unless you want to graduate as early as possible, of course."

  Ryan thought about it for a moment. It really wasn't as though he had any reason to graduate in the shortest amount of time he could. There were plenty of people that stuck around for a couple years longer, even if it was just to stick around a bit longer in that 'university culture', "Hm, alright. Any recommendations for the last class, then?"

  "Well... I see you had pretty good grades in your mathematics class this past semester. In that case, I would recommend taking a 'Mathemagics' class. It should be pretty supplementary to the rest of your classes."

  Ryan let out a slight snort. Mathemagics sounded like such a dumb term to him, but it was the official categorisation for a bunch of mathematical specializations related to the calculation of different magical theories, and even mathematical applications within spellcasting. He thought about it for a moment, and just nodded his head, "Yeah, sure. Is there any 'all purpose' mathemagics class? I don't know if I need to specialize in anything, it's not like I cast spells directly anyway."

  "In that case..." Harrier typed a few things, scanning the computer monitor with his eyes, "I would recommend Algebraic Magic Theory. It's technically an optional class, but so many people in that field take it that it might as well be mandatory at this point. It fills in a lot of other gaps and should act as a good base for other Mathetmagic classes you might want to take."

  "Alright, sign me up, then," Ryan nodded, and Harrier quickly did just that.

  He hit the 'enter' key somewhat too dramatically, and then nodded his head toward Ryan, "Then you should be all set. Since it is a little late, you might not have amazing choices of when your classes are, but I can probably force you into some of them if you have something really important going on."

  Thinking about it, Ryan also didn't have anything specific he had to worry about. Though, "I would like to have my classes end early, if possible... though more importantly, it would be great if they can be bunched together, and aren't spread out all over the place."

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  A bit more typing, some more clicks of the mouse, some glances to the second screen next to him, and Harrier quickly put everything together. Once he was done, he turned one of the monitors around toward Ryan, "This look good?"

  "Yup," Ryan replied quickly. He couldn't think of anything wrong with this, but most importantly, it just felt like it was a good schedule for him. Ryan learned to rely on these types of gut feelings a lot more recently.

  "Great. I'll send you a copy to the email registered with your student account, and I'll print you one version real quick as well," Harrier said, and before he even finished, the printer started up and spat out a colourful piece of paper, where each class had a different colour assigned to it.

  Ryan quickly took another closer look at everything. His first class was introductory biology, starting in around an hour already. After that, he had his introductory spiritology class, and to finish off the day, a history of magic class. Though, mondays were the most packed days. Beside that, he had only two classes each day, and then one class on friday mornings to finish off the week.

  Ryan took a quick picture of his schedule with his phone and then pushed the piece of paper into his bag. He also unsummoned Maximus, who was curiously watching all of this unfold until now.

  "Is there anything else I could help you with?" Harrier asked, looking at Ryan with a smile. And somehow, looking past that smile, Ryan could swear that he wasn't just asking this question the same way that he would ask any other student.

  Harrier almost seemed... desperate to be able to do something else for Ryan, and a deep, uncomfortable gut feeling came over him, "Nothing directly... I'm friends with Yanna. Oh, uh, Yanna Redhorn. She showed me around all of the different facilities for awakened students during the break, so I'm pretty filled in. Even trained in the gym a couple times."

  "Are you sure? There's nothing else you need? I could-"

  "Uhm... Sir... Harry, I didn't mean to make you nervous. I didn't tell you about who I am to get any special treatment. I just wanted us to be on the same page. You're a vampire, and I'm going to try getting into that side of things to help you guys as well as I can."

  Though Harrier seemed a bit hesitant, he nodded his head, "I... I see... I'm sorry, the other members of the Aglecard family that attend this school have usually asked for some more... privileges."

  "... Say what?"

  Confused, Harrier straightened his back, "Well, you know, priority access to classes, special meal passes... more support to help them..." Harrier cleared his throat, "... pass classes."

  Ryan's smile dropped, "Okay, I- First of all, I didn't even know that there were other members of the family here at this school, and the fact that they're doing all that is kind of ridiculous. Sorry, but who are they?"

  "You didn't? Well, they are more 'low-key' publicly, but there are a handful of them here. There's a small group of them, I figured you would have taken up contact with them already. Or the other way around."

  Ryan let out a long sigh, "Sorry, I've been sorta... 'blacklisted' until recently, but my uncle reversed that when I said I want to know about all this."

  "Your uncle?"

  "You know... the family head... patriarch, or whatever everyone calls him."

  Immediately, Harrier widened his eyes, staring at Ryan nervously, "You are... part of the main family? You are Runar Aglecard's nephew? So you are..."

  Ryan figured that people would know about Hayden, his dad. Though, he guessed that this meant that people didn't know exactly what he did, just that he committed some kind of crime to get him completely blacklisted from the family. Ryan nodded, "Yes, I'm Hayden Aglecard's son. Listen, I don't really care about all these family politics, I didn't even know about any of this until a few days after I awakened. So... calm down. And... tell me what those guys are doing, I'll tell my uncle about it and see if we can make sure they stop."

  Clearly breathing out a sigh of relief, Harrier nodded his head. He clearly still had some doubt in his eyes. Maybe it was because of Ryan's raised sociability, though, but he seemed to have sounded as genuine as he really was. It seemed to have helped convince him.

  "Okay. So, there are other 'hidden' students at this school. Some vampires, some ghouls, we also have a couple succubi students, and a couple singular folk. We have other students that attend online, the ones that are harder to hide appearance-wise, but those also aren't really a variable in this case," Harrier explained, "Beyond being the Awakened Supervisor, I act as a go-between for the university and the Aglecard family. They... you provide tuition, housing money, job opportunities, and so on to those 'hidden' students. And... well, that small group of students related to your family are, sort of, taking advantage of that fact."

  Ryan frowned, quickly understanding what Harrier meant, "Are they holding the safety and support of those other students over your head? To get you to do what they want you to do?"

  And even though Harrier neither confirmed nor denied, he didn't need to either. Ryan knew what the answer to that question was. And it made him sick to even think about, "Well, okay then."

  Getting up from his seat, Ryan threw on his backpack and grabbed his helmet, "Give me one of their names, and tell me where I can find one of them. I still have some time until my first class."

  Ryan looked down at his phone, trying to double-check that he was at the right place. He was standing in front of the study room that the 'Aglecard Brats', as Ryan dubbed them in his head, permanently reserved for themselves using Harrier's authority. Apparently just one of them was an Awakened with a class that was fairly rare these days, and that was enough to justify this to the school, somehow.

  Well, that made things easy for Ryan. At least it meant that he could talk to these guys without needing to worry about others overhearing what was going on. And, as a bonus, the fact that one of them was an Awakened meant that if things got a bit out of control and Ryan felt like dusting off his fists for the first time in a while, he wouldn't commit a severe crime. Well, beating up other Awakened was a crime akin to an unawakened beating up another unawakened, which meant that it was up to the 'victim' to pursue it. Though, considering Ryan's position, it was very unlikely that anything would happen here.

  So, Ryan knocked on the door. Not exactly lightly either. There were some footsteps on the other side, and the door quickly opened up, though just enough to show the person that opened it. It was a woman, probably a few years older than him, with a buzzcut and tons of piercings looking up at Ryan, "Yeah?"

  "You guys belong to the Aglecard family, right?" Ryan asked, not beating around the bush. The woman in front of him seemed taken aback, looking into the room behind her. Some more footsteps, and soon, the door was pulled open all the way. The guy standing in front of her practically towered over Ryan. He had blue skin and tusks like an orc, but his facial features seemed a lot more... elvish. His thinner-than-usual build and his long ears seemed to point toward something pretty unusual. A hybrid. Though inter-species births were rare, they did happen sometimes. Since orcs, humans, and elves were not only amongst the most common in Riveria, but also were more closely related than many other species, when you saw a hybrid around here it was usually a combination between two of those three. Though, while surprising, it wasn't worth more than that passing thought to Ryan.

  "And who're you?" he asked, and Ryan smiled lightly. The man in front of him was tall and didn't have an exactly kind expression, but Ryan didn't back down either.

  "I'm Ryan. Ryan Aglecard. And I'm pretty sure there's something we have to talk about," he said, as he pushed his way into the study room.