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( BONUS CHAPTER )
"Two weeks until the monthly hunt. Time's a little tight. No telling whether I can get those special cards finished before it starts." The next day, once the girls had hauled him around all of Celestial, Luke slipped away ahead of the rest, turning over the days ahead as he walked back.
Kisara's simulated crafting was still moving along on schedule, steady and sure, and the Chaos Ritual, the Loaded Cylinder Drum, and the Metalized Magic Reflection Armor had all started to take shape as well.
"The evolution cards and the ship-girl worldview still have their share of snags, though. Neither is anywhere near as far along as I'd hoped."
The ship-girls especially. This was a wholly new worldview, unlike Yu-Gi-Oh or Digimon, and Luke's grasp of how the cards worked fell well short of his handle on those two. His understanding was still hazy and half-formed, in want of deeper thought before it would firm up, which made the whole thing a tall order.
Part of that, of course, came down to how much of his attention he'd funneled into the special cards. This batch was harder to make than anything he'd attempted before.
"In that case, the special cards come first for now. Kisara's simulation stays on track, and the evolution cards and the ship-girls can wait for me to round them out later." Eat the meal one bite at a time. With the exam and the enrollment trial both behind him, his time was no longer so stretched.
Beep beep!
Mid-thought, his personal terminal chimed with a message, and it pulled him out of his own head.
"Luke. How's life at Celestial been treating you these past few days?" The figure projected across the light-screen was Selene, composed as ever.
"Not bad. I've mostly settled in by now." Luke nodded and answered. "Was there something you needed, senior sister?"
"What, I can't reach out unless I need something?" Selene wrinkled her nose and shot him a beautifully exasperated eye-roll.
"Ah." Luke gave an awkward little laugh and let the pause run, waiting to see where Selene meant to take it. The hour was getting late, and he doubted she'd called him for nothing.
"If you've got the time, come over to my place. Now." Seeing Luke stay quiet, Selene wasted no more words and got straight to the point.
"Over to your place?" Luke blinked, then nodded soon enough. "As it happens, I'm free at the moment."
As for why, Luke didn't press. Learning it a little sooner or later made no real difference.
"I've sent the address to your terminal." As one of Celestial's mentors, Selene naturally had a place of her own, one far more lavish than the student dormitories.
And on the strength of her peak Emperor power, and being the Night Empress's student besides, her home ranked in the first tier among all the mentors', holding its own even against those of the Sovereign-realm ones.
"See you shortly, then, senior sister." Luke cut the connection, glanced at the coordinates Selene had sent, and turned to make for the mountain behind Celestial.
...
"I keep asking, is patrolling really necessary this late at night?" Kellan Frost walked the back-mountain path, boredom written plain across his face. "Zane. Your people hear anything about this?"
Ever since Sinclair Voss had come back from Moira Ashwood's summons the day before, he'd had them stepping up patrols across Celestial, and never once said why.
"Shouldn't your Discipline Committee have the better ear for this sort of thing than we do?" Zane Ferro rolled his eyes. This time it wasn't only the Committee involved but the Student Council too, which was a genuine rarity.
"Voss didn't breathe a word of it either. Who knows what he's after?" Kellan glanced around, bored out of his skull, until a figure snagged his attention. "Huh. That looks a lot like Luke, doesn't it?"
He'd been meaning to track down this brazen underclassman for days now, but the man had yet to show his face.
"That new blood who turned down the Magus Society the other day, then said flat out he wouldn't join even if the Student Council and the Discipline Committee came asking?" Zane considered it. "Ordinary students don't come up here, though. We ought to warn the kid off."
Zane wasn't much bothered by what Luke had said before. A seat on the Student Council was hard to come by, and the Council didn't choose its people on raw strength alone.
"I've taken quite a liking to him. The Magus Society crowd really has gotten above itself lately." Interest kindled in Kellan's eyes. "But you're right. Let's tip him off."
For one thing, it was night, and while Celestial kept no curfew, the timing was delicate just now. For another, both of them knew perfectly well that the Dream Consort, Selene, made her home right here on the back mountain, and while the place was no forbidden ground, it might as well have been. However impressive Luke was, in the pair's eyes, anyone who crossed Selene was in for a rough time of it.
"Let's go." The two traded a look and made to move, only to freeze on the spot the next second. "Now we've done it."
As they watched, a dreamlike figure took shape out of the empty air and settled in front of Luke. It was, plain as day, Selene herself.
The pair had assumed Selene appeared because she disliked visitors up here. What followed instead had them both staring wide-eyed.
Far from driving Luke off, Selene seemed on genuinely good terms with him. The two exchanged a few words, and then she led him straight into the back mountain's grounds.
"Well, I'll be. Now I finally get why Luke couldn't care less about Wesley Brandt and the Magus Society. He's got the Lady Dream Consort herself backing him." A moment later, Kellan was first to come round, smacking his lips.
"Looks like our underclassman's connections go deeper than we thought." Zane came back to himself in the same beat and pushed his softly glowing glasses up his nose. "Seems it's worth having a proper talk with him after all."
"Weren't you just making a show of not caring one bit? Now suddenly it's a proper talk?" Kellan flipped him off without the slightest hesitation. This guy's word really was worth about as much as passing gas.
"Quit putting words in my mouth. I never said any such thing." Zane swatted the finger aside, insisting he'd never once claimed he wasn't interested in Luke.
...
"I knew you had to rank high at Celestial, senior sister, but this place puts you a hair short of the Heads themselves." Following Selene into the grounds, Luke let out a sigh of admiration.
The scene before him was serene past words, green trees throwing deep shade, water and sky blurring into one color, and the design of Selene's home might have been made to melt into it all. For sheer setting, this was what everyone dreamed of.
A ward even sealed the whole area. Without Selene there to bring him through, he couldn't so much as set foot inside.
His own dormitory was fine enough, but next to Selene's place, its charm evaporated in an instant.
Held up against the Eternal Land, though, it still fell a fair way short.
EXTRA CHAPTER FOR EVERY 500 POWERSTONES.