I knew I had the right time and place, but the longer the room remained empty, the more anxious I became. I went out into the hallway again to check if anyone was coming, but as of now, no one. Another ten minutes or so passed as I waited, fidgeting nervously. Then the door I’d been staring at so hard opened with a rattle and I could finally relax a little.
A small person entered, with fluffy ears and a bushy tail that bounced with his every step. He was an adorable little boy, with hair a vibrant green color that matched the fur on his ears and tail. His big, round eyes were a slightly deeper green. On the left side of his belt, he carried a dagger. On the right, for some reason, was a hammer. He seemed to be wearing clothes that had been designed for someone taller, and his overly long sleeves billowed around his arms.
He must be one of those therianthropes. Ralf had mentioned them yesterday. The boy picked his own desk and chair from the back of the room and brought them over next to me, leaving a bit of space between us. In the process, his sleeves had rustled against the desk a few times and made a strange clanking noise. I realized he’d turned all that extra fabric into pockets.
The beast-boy thrust his hand into his sleeve, rummaged around for a bit, pulled out a few eye-catching gemstones, then arranged them on his desk. He proceeded to examine them. He didn’t seem at all bothered by me staring at him, which made me wonder if he was a little eccentric. If anything, though, I was the one who was being rude by watching him so openly. Curiosity was no excuse, so I dropped my gaze back down to my notebook and tried hard not to let myself be distracted by him.
A short time later, I heard a strange clacking coming from the boy’s direction, so I looked back at him. Apparently he’d taken out a chisel at some point, and he was now chipping away at one of the stones on his desk. Huh. Stonework seems a bit too intricate a hobby just to pass time while we wait. It only made me wonder if this really was a lecture hall after all. Maybe it was a workshop. But then I remembered the sign hanging at the entrance of the room, which I had checked numerous times, and crossed out that possibility.
A few more minutes passed in silence except for the sound of the boy’s chisel. Then I heard a commotion from outside and the door burst open. A boy and a girl, both of whom looked slightly older than the beast-boy, walked inside, talking a mile a minute with each other.
“Are you sure this is the right place?”
“I’m sure. Will you relax? Look, desks and chairs in the back of the room just like she said.”
The boy grabbed a desk and the girl picked up two chairs. They set them down on my other side, effectively sandwiching me between them and the therianthrope boy. I’m the only old guy in here. If this were a game of Othello, I could flip myself over and become a young man. The idle thought reminded me I was actually young enough now.
The pair’s chatter brightened up the lecture hall. It always amazed me how much young people could change the atmosphere with nothing more than their lively conversations.
The boy had brown hair and carried a sword at his waist while the girl’s reddish-brown hair was tied up in a bun. She was dressed lightly while he wore some minimal armor. They both looked really energetic and projected a quintessential adventurer aura. I eavesdropped on their conversation and learned they were here for the beginners’ seminar too. So I had the right room, after all. What a relief.
“Honestly, I’m surprised we made it straight here,” the girl said. “That hardly ever happens.”
“Yeah, well, that’s ’cause I don’t get lost all the time like you,” the boy retorted.
“Right, you’re just lightly directionally-challenged.”
“Put a sock in it, Corinne! If we left you in charge, we’d never get anywhere. Which makes me a better navigator than you.”
“Whatever. I guess you can have that. I’m good at other things anyway.”
Even as they snuck glances at me and the beast-boy, the two of them kept talking to each other. It was obvious they were trying to find the right moment to speak to us, but for some reason they were holding back. I couldn’t deny that the beast-boy gave the impression that he was kind of an oddball, so maybe that was why.
After a while, the pair lowered their voices to quiet murmurs, though not because they’d lost interest in us. I still caught snatches of them whispering things like, “You don’t see that every day,” and, “Are they both newbies?”
As for me, well, I’d never been a particularly sociable person, so I didn’t know what to say to break the ice. When you got to be in your mid-forties, it felt weird to strike up a conversation with people so much younger than you. Plus, I knew my feelings would be really hurt if I found out they’d secretly gossiped about me later.
Then I heard the words “dark elf” coming from them. I lifted my gaze just a tad to discover them looking right at me. They looked excited. It seemed like they’d been staring at me the whole time they’d been whispering to each other. When our eyes locked, the girl took it as her chance to finally talk to me and stood up from her chair. But just as I was thinking I would have preferred for the boy to approach me instead, the door opened and a woman who appeared to be the instructor finally entered.
She walked to the front of the room, then faced us with her hands on her hips and her chest puffed out. Age-wise, she was probably just a few years older than the other people in the room.
Hey, I remember seeing her this morning. Well, technically speaking, I remembered her seeing me.
“I see all four of you are here. Excellent. Oh…”
A young lady with blue hair. That “Oh…” told me she remembered me too. She was the same young lady who’d been in the inn’s lobby when I’d gone out that morning…underdressed. And she turned out to be this seminar’s instructor.