DD 301 Ch 7

After the less-than-exciting opening address from the headmistress, I found myself back in a classroom, with familiar faces trickling in one after the other. Harley grabbed the chair in front of me, spun it around, and plopped herself in it backwards. 

"So, tell us, Ken, what new torture methods did Crimson develop this summer?" Harley tilted her head to the side, her face remaining stoic.

I rolled my eyes. "It wasn't that bad. Mostly, we stuck to the gravity chamber. And then, of course, Crimson threw me into packs of monsters a few times." 

Harley produced a pen and pad of paper from her CID. "Alright, some more gravity training torture. Makes sense. Crimson isn't always the most creative. Really she’s just a sadistic brute, crushing us makes sense." 

I rolled my eyes again. "How was your summer, Harley?" 

"Oh, it was wonderful. My harem and I had zero Crimson interaction. As a result, my skin is doing much better." She showed me her arms as if I was supposed to notice some difference.

"Oh yeah, much better," I said, while Felin squinted over my shoulder. 

"I can't see anything." Felin answered.

"Because you don't know what you're looking for," Harley tutted. "And what have you been doing, Ken?" She said with a tone of accusation. "Besides encouraging Crimson's sadistic training?" 

At this point, more of the class had come into the room. Some were subtly, or not-so-subtly, listening in to Harley and my conversation. 

"It really wasn't that torturous. Like I said, a lot more gravity training. The undead are super easy pickings. Even for a solo fight, you can kite them around quite a bit. And then, of course, if you go into the zombies it gets trickier. But then go up two floors, and then down three, there are these skeletal knights they fight much more like people. They have swords and shields," I spoke this time with some conviction though I frowned at the end.

“Why was she making you fight more human opponents? She’s not going to make us kill people is she?” Harley said the last part barely a whisper.

Crimson was atypical, especially in her training, but she wouldn't force the students here to kill other people. That was just ridiculous. And the more I thought about it, the more scared I got. I mean, she wouldn't make them kill people, right?

“No way.” I said.

"You don't seem so sure of that, Ken," Harley looked at me knowingly. 

"Well, I'm fairly certain. But Crimson has, at times, exceeded expectations." 

Harley pursed her lips, the pink-haired bard watching my reaction closely. "That's a kind way of saying, she can be absolutely batshit.”

“I dare you to say that when Crimson's in the room.” Des smirked from the seat next to me.

“You don't antagonize crazy people, Des." Harley rolled her eyes and tossed her hair making the bell in it jingle.

"That must be why everyone leaves you alone." Des shot back with a practiced tongue.

The two of them had been trading barbs since our first year, and it seemed the summer had done absolutely nothing to quell that between them. Secretly, I thought they enjoyed antagonizing each other.

"Besides, I heard there's some even bigger news," Des said, causing Harley to nearly fall out of her chair with how quickly she leaned forward. 

"And what would that be?" Harley asked, pen and paper at the ready.

"I hear Helen has been training with her mother all summer.” Des added.

“Duh," Harley said, rolling her eyes and putting the pen down in disappointment. "Who doesn't want to hang around with a hot mama Harem Queen?" 

I couldn't contain my sigh. Harley had not changed one bit. Wasn’t she satisfied with her healer harem?

"What?" Harley turned to me accusingly. "Even if you and Helen don't get along, objectively speaking, she's hot enough to get a small army of men at the same time. Scientifically speaking, she has the hotness."

"Of course, scientifically speaking," I said, my tone giving away just how exasperated I was with Harley. 

"The evidence is clear, your honor. I rest my case." She mimed slamming a gavel, even though it was supposed to be the judge to used the gavel not the one speaking to them. 

"I mean, in some ways, she isn't wrong," Charlotte joined the conversation, setting Bun Bun down on her table. "The Harem Queen has a massive male following. Objectively speaking people at large clearly find her attractive."

"Charlotte, you're supposed to agree with me and disagree with everything that Harley says," Des informed her.

"Oh, sorry. My bad. But even if she trained with her mother deep in the dungeon all summer, it doesn't mean she's necessarily going to come back that much stronger.” Charlotte said.

“I mean, technically the same could be said for Ken and Crimson." Harley waved negligently in my direction.

I nodded and then turned to Harley. "Then why am I not given such high praise for training with Crimson?"

"Duh, because we all knew you were going to do it. Which means it's not interesting gossip." Harley answered.

"Ah, sorry, that makes perfect sense," I said sarcastically and rolling my hand. "Please continue."

"Thank you. As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted, is that it’s not just about training with the Harem Queen. There are some serious rumors about her personal involvement at that depth of the dungeon. Of course, sources are notoriously hard. But trust me, she's going to surprise us when she comes back." Harley nodded with emphasis.

Harley seemed confident, but I sat back and crossed my arms. "Regardless of who you trained with, what really matters in the end is where your stats ended up."

"Exactly," Harley said, and then greedily reached for my CID. "So cough it up and show us what you're at now."

I smirked and started tapping at my CID, only for the subject of conversation to come into the room and steal Harley's and my attention.

Helen and I did not see eye to eye on most things. In fact, we'd come into conflict more often than agreement. When I first entered Haylon, she had gone as far as to accost me, believing there was no way that a man could have been accepted to the school.

Later she seemed to have something to prove, trying to catch me and Des breaking rules. In fairness, she'd almost succeeded. Des was terrible about keeping her hands to herself. But either way, Helen had it out for me.

The second she entered the room, I felt more pressure than I had training with Crimson all summer, as if one slip-up, and she'd be there to make things harder for me. 

Still, she walked in with a confidence that couldn't be denied. While I doubted she could have had training as effective as my own training with Crimson, it was certainly possible she had progressed further than many in the room. After all, her mother was the second strongest amongst humanity. It would be embarrassing if she didn't improve at all under her tutelage.

Harley grinned at me, then back at Helen. "You can practically feel the rivalry coming to life, can't you?" 

"Shut up, Harley. It's only in your imagination." I told her.

"Sure, whatever you say." She held her hands out in surrender. "I'm just saying, I wonder whose stats are higher, yours or hers?" 

Helen must have overheard the conversation. Her head swiveled to meet my eyes, her usual and nigh-permanent scowl on her face. "Stop staring," she said, her brows pressing down. "I'll never be one of your harem." She said the word as if it was acid in her throat.

“Not like I’m interested anyway. Hello to you too.” I had no interest in the Harem Queen’s daughter, my party was full.

"If you don't want to join his, you're welcome to join mine," Harley offered, twirling her bubblegum pink hair and tossing her head slightly to make the bell attached to her ponytail jingle. "I mean, you are definitely the fiery redhead type. Not normally my cup of tea, but as they say, variety is the spice of life. That and sex." 

Helen closed her eyes like she was suppressing her urge to pummel Harley. Despite her mother being the Harem Queen, Helen seemed to have a grudge against the common practice of polyamorous parties in the dungeon. 

"I will not now or will I ever join your harem, Harley," Helen said after a moment of concentration. "I can assure you it has very little interest to me." 

"Harsh," Harley recoiled. "A simple ‘no’ will suffice, thank you." 

Helen looked at her, unamused. "If a simple no would have sufficed, then this would be the last time we need to have this conversation." Helen glared.

In that, she wasn’t wrong. Harley was fairly pushy. Her healer harem was likely most, if not all, she thought about. 

"Well, regardless, perhaps we should compare stats," I said, both to save Harley and to get answers for my own curiosity. 

"Oh yeah, of course, you two are rivals." Harley perked right back up, never one to be off beat for more than a few breaths. 

"I'm okay to share if you are," I said, feeling confident about how my stats would compare with Helen. But I grew a little more anxious as the red-headed paladin seemed equally confident. 

"Sure, but like I said before, it's not just stats. It's skill and experience, too." Helen stepped up to my desk. "So we can show off our stats all we want. It won't prove anything." 

"Ah, of course it won't. It sounds like you're someone talking like you're ready to lose." The two of us stared at each other and she reached for her CID.

Harley was salivating, ready to burn the image of our stats into her mind.

Just then, the door to the classroom flew open and banged in the kind of way that made everybody wince.

Crimson took a deep breath through her nose. "You can practically smell the youth in the air when you're at Haylon, can't you?" Crimson said confidently, striding into the room. "Or perhaps that's the smell of those of you who didn't do your summer break homework."

A look of horror flashed across Harley's face, a look that must have been mirrored by nearly everyone in the classroom. The bard did a double take at me, pleading for her life.

"Quiet," Crimson turned to Harley and I. "If you didn't do the assignment, don't think you're going to get out of it now." 

Crimson glared at the two of us, and I gave her a look, wondering if she was really going to start the year off this way.

I was fairly certain she had not assigned any homework, and if she had, she knew perfectly well I had not done any given she had spent the summer with me. And I had a feeling that Crimson already had a punishment in mind for this homework she had never assigned us.

She was just looking for an excuse to punish us on the first day, abandon class, and do what it was she wanted. Because if it was punishment for not doing whatever homework, she could make it a great excuse. My bet was she could get around whatever rules the headmistress had placed on her teaching by doing this.

Which in the long run was okay with me. Crimson was just going to do it anyway. 

"Well, by the looks on your face," Crimson stirred across the center of the classroom, staring all of us down. "A large number of you did not do the assignment." Crimson clicked her tongue.

Candice’s hand shot into the air. “Professor Crimson. Can you explain the assignment before we get into sharing them?”

"Really, Candace? Of all of them, I thought you would have surprised me." Crimson dodged the question and shook her head in disappointment.

The blonde perfectionist looked like she was dying on the inside. 

"Crimson," I scolded her aloud before my mouth snapped shut. While we had a relationship outside the classroom, she had been pretty firm on maintaining our student-teacher relationship in front of everyone else. 

"Are you going to volunteer to share yours with the class first?" Crimson asked me.

I hesitated for a second and then just sighed, "Sure, why not? Truth is, Crimson, I didn't do the homework either." 

Crimson gasped and put a hand against her chest. "Ken, how could you?”

“I know, terrible, horrible. I think we probably all need to be punished for that, don't we?" I asked.

Crimson breathed deeply through her nose for a second, strangely excited. "Well when you phrase it like that, I think you're quite right. We'll need to come up with a fitting punishment for all of those who failed to complete their summer homework." Crimson looked like she was barely containing herself. I knew Crimson had needs that I hadn't entirely met, mostly because it wasn't my natural inclination and the idea of punishing me was making her an almost disturbing level of excitement in front of the entire class, too. 

"Alright Crimson, let's get this over with. What's the punishment?" I asked, amusement spreading across my face. 

"You're not supposed to be excited for the punishment," Crimson rolled her eyes. 

"Why not, a punishment from you sounds like a dream come true," I continued to egg her on.

"No, no, Ken's right.” Des understood the assignment. “Ken needs to be punished and who better to do it than you, Crimson? If we don't punish him swiftly now, he'll probably repeat the mistake.

“Yeah, punish Ken.” Harley cheered from the side.

I was fairly certain she didn't understand the goal here and was simply agreeing with arbitrary and completely unnecessary punishment. For that, I sent her a glare of my own.

"What?" Harley held her hands up in defense. "I was only encouraging what you were already asking for."

"Thanks, Harley," I said dryly.

Crimson was at the front of the class, tapping a book she had set down on the podium. "While Ken does deserve swift justice for his actions, if we were to leave the classroom already, it might cause problems. So please, everyone, open your textbooks. The first couple chapters are absolutely worthless. So let's jump to chapter four and get into the good stuff." She ripped out a fistfull of pages and threw them over her shoulder.

I smirked. It was comfortable to be back in Crimson's class with her no nonsense attitude about everything.

Candice stuck her hand high up in the air, like she was begging to be called on.

"Yes, Candice, would you like to read?" Crimson asked.

"I would like to understand what the homework was this summer." Candice stated.

"Well, you've admitted that you haven't done it, so it doesn't matter at this point, does it?" Crimson said, leaning over the podium, daring her to ask more.

"I would still like to understand the assignment, even if I didn't complete it. It's important to do all the coursework so that I'm not caught unprepared. I would like to complete it afterwords just to make sure I understand the material." She wasn’t trying to trap Crimson, Candice just needed to finish the homework that she had missed.

"Well, since everyone has failed to complete it, I will just have to go through the material as part of the class. Don't you worry, Candice." Crimson replied.

The blonde struggled, and I had to hold my lips tight to keep from laughing.

There was definitely no assignment. Crimson couldn't give her a satisfactory answer, no matter what she said, which only perturbed Candice further. The poor woman didn't really stand a chance from the get-go.

"Anything else?" Crimson asked, imperiously, from her podium. "No? Great. Now, Ken, you seem amused over there." Crimson's gaze swept over to me. "Perhaps you'd like to take the lead on reading the assignment."

I started to protest, before wisely closing my mouth. "Sure." I flipped open to chapter four. "Oh, this is the one on conflicts between humans and other races?" I said, reading the title.

"Congratulations. You can read. Now, if only you could have remembered to do your assignment. Please continue." Crimson gestured with an affable smile.

I rolled my eyes, focusing on the page in front of me and beginning to read the long history lesson on humanity’s first explorations into the dungeon and their brief encounters and conflicts with the elves and the dwarves.