The next few weeks passed in a similar if slow, fashion. His Host didn't manage to meet up with the Second Prince once, was lectured very viciously by the principal of the institution for her bad manners in the face of royalty, skipping of classes and her general lateness.

She was late to most of her classes.

Ira only barely managed to pass the classes that he held no interest in, such as Politics or Philosophy, mainly because he didn't do the homework for them. But the classes that were actually worth his time was a different story. Granted, he couldn't pass with flying colors, that wouldn't be very average, now would it? But he could pass well above the standard. The classes he was practically failing more than made up for it.

The table in the cafeteria had effectively become his table, as he sat there at every meal. No-one else dared to occupy it.

Well, they didn't now.

In the beginning... that was another story.

The point was, Ira had his own table, his own corner of the school where nobody dared to go. He might not be powerful, but he knew how to use the power that he did have. In his opinion, subtle was always the way to go. Something his Host did not seem to understand the definition of.

His Host had managed to cling onto her scholarship by use of a ridiculous level of cuteness; blatant manipulation if he ever saw it. But when she wasn't in class (or running to them because she was, yet again, late) she was all over the school grounds in search of the Second Prince. And everybody knew it.

She'd ask people where he was, spy on people using her magic, follow after the upperclassmen trying to get into his dorms...

Honestly, she was a stalker.

And that was putting it nicely.

Ira yawned and stared at the teacher at the head of the classroom, writing on the blackboard with chalk. The black-haired male reminded him of somebody, but he just couldn't recall who. It was both frustrating and annoying.

They were heading into the area where the magical theory could be used in practice but had not yet reached it. In the very front of the classroom sat his Host, who had come late and been forced to choose a seat that nobody wanted. She was laying with her head on her hands, undoubtedly asleep.

The teacher didn't wake her up.

This was another reason why he appreciated this teacher over the others. Not only did he have a no-nonsense attitude, but he would also leave his students to hang themselves. If you were late, you had to climb in through the window (if one was open, otherwise you missed the whole class), if you fell asleep, he didn't wake you up, if you didn't finish your homework, you had to finish it for the next week, together with that week's homework.

Ira could appreciate that kind of practicality.

It was the most decent preparation for adulthood that he had ever witnessed.

On the other hand, the man also very visibly didn't give a shit about his students, but details, right? Who cared about that?

He knew what he was teaching, that was already a cut above most teachers he had met.

What more could you need?

Humans. So damn demanding.

The man finished writing on the board and turned to face the students. His eyes reminded Ira of a demon.

"Your homework for this week. Don't forget to include sources and remember to work individually. This will be preparation for the major project we will be undertaking in groups this year. If you don't know the material, your groups will most certainly hate you."

Ira copied down the information about the task and stored it in his files. The teacher continued.

"You will use whatever material is available to you. If you fail this, you will be forced to redo do it until you pass. No matter how many times that takes."

The smile the man gave his students could freeze sunflowers.

It was not a nice thing.

The bell rang very conveniently and the students started packing up their stuff. This was the first class of the day, so the torture was hardly over. For Ira, it was just the beginning.

Why did his Host have to do choose the Tutorial Mode?

Couldn't she have done the stupid thing and spared him from attending boring classes?

When everybody else had vacated the room, Ira stood up with his satchel over his shoulder and walked down the steps leading up into the higher parts of the classroom. He stopped when he reached his teacher's desk and stared dully at the man for a moment.

He was going to say something. What was it?

Luckily, the man rescued him from blurting out the first thing he thought of. "Bran." The man smiled. "Did you need my help with something?"

"How's my H- Eliza doing?"

The man's eyes became colder then glaciers from just hearing her name. He must really not like her. "She's failing almost all of her classes, Bran."

Ira frowned in thought. "Will she lose her scholarship?"

"No." At that, the man just seemed more furious. "She has one of the rarest affinity's, that of the Light. She can fail all of her classes and still not be expelled. Of course, she is not looked fondly upon, but she does have the capacity for great power. If only she'd pay attention to something other than the Second Prince and actually learn something, that is."

He had really been hoping she would lose her scholarship. It would be a nice, harmless reality check. One that she sorely needed.

Ira was fairly sure that the Second Prince was about two words away from murdering his stalker-ish Host.

Obviously, if that came to fruition, Ira wasn't going to be standing in his way, but it'd look better on his report if he tried to prevent the mission from failing. No matter how half-heartedly.

Ira nodded to the teacher. "Then I will be taking my leave before I'm late to my next class."

"Of course, Bran." The teacher smiled, this time a real thing. "Any time you need something, you can always come to me."

What a complete sap.

Turning away from his teacher, Ira left the classroom.

His Host was, according to his internal map, wandering around the boys' dorms — it wasn't hard to guess what she was doing there. Ira, very maturely, decided not to bother her. Instead, he made his way to his next class and put her out of his mind.

The day was peaceful.

So boring.

In fact, every day was peaceful. The sun shone down on the world ceaselessly, as though it was attempting to kill him by way of dehydration, the flowers constantly made him sneeze, poisonous things that they were, and people kept insisting on trying to make conversation with him.

If it didn't involve killing things, he wasn't interested in humans beyond what his mission demanded of him. Why did no-one seem to get that?

Did he need to carry a freaking sign or something?

Ira sighed and turned the page of a book in the library where he was. His Host was sitting just a few tables away from him, thankfully not attempting to get his attention, and was for once studying. She had gotten caught by a teacher earlier when trying to enter the boys' dorms and been thoroughly lectured. Since then, she had fled to the library in an attempt to get the Second Prince's attention a different way.

At least this way was healthier.

She had decided that if she had the best grades in her class, the Second Prince would pay her attention and fall in love with her. This idea was courtesy of her roommate, a girl that actually took her situation seriously and tried to help his Host because they, for whatever senseless reason, were actually friends.

The taste of some people.

The book that Ira was reading had nothing to do with him studying; it was a fiction book meant for teenagers. It was that sappy love at first sight nonsense together with the cliché love triangle. He was reading it solely to make fun of it.

His Host let out a scream, startling the students honestly studying and thumped her head on the table loudly. It wasn't a shock that she was behind, she didn't listen to the lessons at all, convinced that it didn't matter because it wasn't her life. Instead, she spent the time daydreaming and making up ludicrous fantasies about the Second Prince. So now she hardly understood a word. She could read and speak the language because that was an advantage all Hosts were afforded, but that didn't mean that she knew all the terms and understood them.

Ergo, she was trapped in a vicious cycle of her own making. The first classes of the first year were the most important because they covered the basics and fundamentals. If you didn't know them, then no matter how smart, you simply wouldn't understand the later, more difficult material.

This was what his Host was attempting to make sense of — she didn't seem to realize how far behind she had already fallen.

Thus, she was getting frustrated with her repeated failures and letting off steam by screaming in a library where silence was the golden rule. Even as Ira watched, the librarian rose from the checkout desk and approached his Host. Her face was stern and her eyes were glaring at his Host where she laid slumped on a table worth more money then she had ever seen.

Ira wondered vaguely how his Host had thought this would all turn out. She had made no serious attempt at studying, was stalking the supposed love interest (just making him get creeped out) and hadn't even made a single friend aside from her roommate. Ira supposed that he should just be glad she didn't have followers. Those were always a pain to deal with, jealous, irrational beings that they were.

He put down the book in order to have a clear view of his Host. He had the feeling that she was about to make a complete fool of herself.

He couldn't hear what they were saying (he had turned down his hearing in order to not be disturbed when he was reading) but he could see the face of the librarian getting more furious by the second. He only had a view of the back of his Host's head, but he could see as she slumped further down in the chair, trying to hide while arguing back.

That was a faux pas right there. You never argued with a librarian.

He had to smother a delighted giggle.

There went her access to the library.

A particularly vicious jab from the librarian (or so it seemed from where he was sitting) resulted in his Host rushing to her feet in humiliation. It probably had to do with her grades.

Her chair clattered to the floor behind her.

The librarian just looked angrier and pointed at the door.

There was no mistaking that gesture.

His Host had been banned from the school library.

Ira hid his face in his hands and laughed quietly to himself. He just couldn't contain his amusement. To think that his Host would be this ignorant. It was a refreshing change from the usual plain arrogant Hosts and a whole other kind of entertainment. Oh, he was recording everything.

His Host puffed out her cheeks and he could see her profile as she gathered her stuff, still lacking a bag, and stormed out of the library furiously.

She banged the door shut behind her.

Ira had the feeling that she didn't spend a lot of time in libraries in her original world.

Better than a soap opera.

He went back to his book and continued where he left off, making fun of the heroine's inability to decide between two handsome men, one the stereotypical bad boy and the other the kind supportive type. Somehow, they always picked the dangerous one in these books. The kind one always lost, despite being much more loyal, much less homicidal and much more loving.

Just a better person in general.

But he supposed teenage girls only thought about looks and rebellion. They were all about dangerous vibes and adventures. Maybe that was the problem with his Hosts. They were all teenagers. An older Host might work better.

It was worth a try.